Taboola had a banner year in 2012, serving nearly 1.5 billion video recommendations per day by year’s end. With all of its growth in video recommendations, the company also grew revenue by more than 750 percent in 2012. The startup now sees a huge opportunity to move on from recommending videos to tackling content of all types.

The new product might seem a little counter-intuitive, considering recommendations for text articles have been around for decades, and there are no shortage of companies trying to tackle that problem. The difference, according to Taboola CEO Adam Singolda, is that it’s gone beyond just providing contextual recommendations to now also bringing in technology that it used to improve its video product and applying it to text articles.

Video recommendations can be a tough nut to crack, especially compared to text. That’s due mainly to the lack of good metadata around video. Without it, Taboola was forced to use other information, like viewer demographics, social sharing, and user behavior, to determine which videos users are most likely to watch.

Now Taboola is applying those algorithms to article text and getting impressive results. Singolda estimates that the company’s technology can yield three times the clickthrough rates and higher CPMs than other article recommendation offerings out there, depending on the type of content that it’s looking at.

Taboola already has some clients using full-text recommendations, including Bloomberg, Businessweek, Meredith and Jerusalem Post. It signed up some as a result of already doing business with them on the video side, but it is also offering full-content recommendations as a standalone service. Like its video recommendations, it allows publishers to connect users with other content on their own sites, while also enabling them to have their content highlighted on related articles on other sites.

In addition to the launch of its new article recommendations, Taboola has also hired a new COO, as it doubled headcount in 2012, and is on pace to double again in 2013. Eldad Maniv, former SVP at Zend and board member at Kaltura, just joined the company to handle operations.

That’ll be necessary, especially as growth continues internationally. Taboola recently added an office in London, which is being run by former Groupon country manager Nadav Rosenberg. That office, which opened in the fall, already accounts for about 10-15 percent of all revenues.

Taboola has raised $25 million since being founded in 2007, including a $10 million Series C round last summer. The company currently has about 70 employees, but expects that to grow to about 150 by the end of the year.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Disney executives are on-stage right now at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles, where they just announced Disney Infinity, a game platform that is set to launch in June.

The details of the platform are still emerging, but Co-President of Disney Interactive John Pleasants has already shared the big ideas. Infinity will “bring together the best of Disney IP, past, present, and future.” It won’t just be a single game, but also but rather a “new, interactive gaming platform” — more like a toybox allowing consumers to create the environments and stories that they want. It will be cross-platform, available on consoles, mobile devices, and online, and it will also incorporate physical figurines.

Pleasants said the “playsets” launching in June will incorporate three different Disney franchises: Monsters University, The Incredibles, and Pirates of the Caribbean. The launch will including other, yet-to-be-announced characters, he added.

Disney Chief Creative Officer John lasseter took the stage after Pleasants, where he emphasized the idea of of Infinity as a toy box. He said he initially resisted the idea of throwing all of Disney’s characters into in one game, but he warmed up to it when he thought of it as kids playing with different toys together.

John Blackburn (yes, there were a lot of John’s on-stage today), CEO of Disney’s game studio Avalanche, offered more details about how it will work. There are two big components to the platform, he said. There are the physical figurines, which you can place on the pad to determine which characters get “teleported” into the game. Then there’s the software, which includes “play sets” — gaming experiences based on specific franchises. Each of play set includes game mechanics specifically designed for that universe — the Pirates of the Caribbean set, for example, focuses on sailing between different islands. The environments and characters are still customizable, but they’re meant to be “true to property”, so you won’t see Mr. Incredible showing up in the Pirates set.

Then there’s the “toy box”, an environment for “mashing up” different franchises. In demonstrating the toy box, Blackburn showed off an adventure mode, which introduces players to the basic mechanics, plus a simple logic editor that allows them to modify how the game works using a point-and-click interface.

Naturally, both the play sets and the toy box will support multiplayer mode.

Updating

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

There are already a number of big YouTube networks, but the number of videos they’re producing and the number of views they’re racking up continues to increase at a rapid pace. But what if you’re Machinima or BigFrame or Awesomeness TV and want to get even bigger? Now there’s a new analytics and audience development platform that will help YouTube content creators and networks to better understand the people who are viewing their content and to better market to them.

Enter Saas-based analytics and audience management startup Tubular Labs. The company just closed a $2.5 million round of funding from FirstMark Capital, High Line Venture Partners, SVAngel, Lerer Ventures, and Bedrocket Media Ventures. That comes on top of $650,000 in seed financing from investors such as Machinima’s Allen DeBevoise and Philip DeBevoise, LowerMyBills founder Matt Coffin, former Badoo COO Ben Ling, MerchantCircle founder Ben Smith, 77 Ventures general partner Corbin Day, former YouTube exec Dean Gilbert, former Yahoo exec Hilary Schneider, Inadco founder James Walker, Brand In Hand founder John Hadl, Amplify.la managing partner Paul Bricault, and former YouTube and AdMob exec Tony Nethercutt.

Tubular provides a dashboard for understanding audience demographics, based on information that viewers share publicly throughout YouTube. That includes audience demographics, preferences, viewing habits, and consumer behavior, but also the ability to figure out who the biggest fans are, as well as key influencers.

The dashboard provides a platform for responding to comments so community managers can easily find inquiries from superfans and write to them. It also provides a way to determine which topics users talk most about, and which other creators or networks users subscribe to. That will allow creators to better target content for their audience. It could also help highlight some interesting cross-network collaborations between creators, which could help boost viewership for both.

Tubular is currently in private beta, so there’s no pricing for its platform yet, but it’s already being trialled by networks such as Awesomeness TV, Bedrocket, BigFrame, Cartoon Hangover, DanceOn, DECA, Machinima, and StyleHaul. Some famous YouTubers — like Taryn Southern and Chester See — are also using its product. The company plans to launch the product in Spring 2013.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

After raising $500,000 to create an ad-free social platform for developers six weeks ago, Dalton Caldwell’s App.net has silently been courting developers to build apps that rely on its APIs. Now it’s giving them another reason to build on its platform by offering a financial incentive. In a blog post today, Caldwell announced that the company will begin rewarding developers with at least $20,000 a month, distributing funds based on user feedback about which apps are providing the most value to its users.

As part of the App.net Developer Incentive Program, the startup will send an email to users, asking them for information on whichever apps they used during the month. Using some basic algorithms, it will then use that feedback to determine which apps have been most useful, providing a score to app developers who are participating in the program. Beginning October 1, App.net has promised to distribute a minimum of $20,000 per month to app developers based on their scores in relation to the total score among those participating.

Not all App.net developers will be automatically eligible. Those interested in participating in the Incentive Program will have to apply and be accepted — and, of course, App.net will need stuff like payment and tax information to get folks signed up. That said, developers don’t have to participate if they don’t wish to. And if they want to try to make money through other means — like advertising or app sales — they’re welcome to do so.

As with all things App.net, the incentive program is an experiment, and Caldwell is remarkably frank about the fact that they’ll probably make mistakes as they go along. But while developers on other platforms are forced to find ways to monetize on their own, App.net is providing real incentives to build applications for its platform — especially early on, as there’s not a ton of competition.

The incentive program could attract the very same type of application that Twitter is trying to get rid of — that is, client apps that potentially compete with its native experience. In an email, Caldwell noted that there are already eight compatible App.net iOS apps, with at least twice as many in development. There are also three App.net apps on the Google Play store.

But App.net is also hoping that developers are more imaginative than that: Caldwell notes in his blog post that a great app “will be inventive, simple to use, focused, opinionated, and, above all, built with the needs of users in mind.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Social TV app maker GetGlue is already successful, with 3 million users and more than 500 million interactions with its mobile apps. That includes check-ins, likes, and reviews of TV shows and movies, showing pretty good engagement for its existing user base. But now it’s coming out with an iPad app that it believes will go above and beyond what it’s users have been able to do on the smaller screen.

GetGlue HD focuses on content discovery, providing a more personalized experience for its users, allowing them to get information and personalized recommendations for TV shows. It takes advantage of a user’s previous check-in data, as well as likes and ratings, to determine which shows at any given time a user might like. The whole idea is to re-imagine the electronic program guide — you know, that crappy interface on your cable set-top box you can never find anything on.

Users get recommendations not just for that night or even that week, but also get updates and can receive notifications about upcoming television shows and premieres well in advance. It also gives advanced information about certain types of events — for example, the score of the local baseball game or reviews for new movies coming out over the weekend. Users can also find new shows on streaming services like iTunes, Netflix, and Amazon.

We get a demo of the new app from GetGlue CEO Alex Iskold. Check the video above to see what the new app looks like.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Developers can now determine which devices a user has and customize their app or game experience accordingly, Facebook announced today in a blog post.

Using the Graph API, developers can retrieve a list of devices that a user has connected to Facebook.

Not only will developers be able to gain insights about their audience, but an app can use this information to tailor in-app content to users of different devices. For example, a canvas game looking to prompt users to download the mobile version can easily determine whether a user should be given an App Store link or a Google Play link.

Developers can also now restrict user-to-user requests based on device by using the “multi-friend selector.” For instance, an iPad app might want to present users with a list of only friends who also use Facebook for iPad.

These options could help developers create more relevant experiences that better retain users. Documentation details are available here and here.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

WordPress – both in its hosted and self-hosted forms – has long been among the most popular platforms for personal and professional blogs (and it’s what we use here at TechCrunch, too). Looking at the top 100 blogs in Technorati’s index, a new study by website monitoring firm Pingdom found that 49% of the top 100 blogs now use WordPress. That’s up from 32% in 2009. No other platform even comes close.

Typepad was still the second most popular platform in 2009, but now it has virtually disappeared from the rankings. Movable Type, which was still being used by 12 of top 100 blogs in 2009, is now down to 7.

Trend: Secrecy and Custom Platforms

Interestingly, this has also given rise to a new degree of secrecy. Pingdom, for example, was unable to determine which platforms some of the top 100 sites use and was even told by one site administrator that he “was under non-disclosure agreement to not reveal anything about the site.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Yelp built its ad business by attracting users that know what they want, just not who to buy it from — exactly when ads are most effective. That’s why I find today’s VentureBeat piece by Rocky Agrawal titled “Yelp advertising is a rip-off for small advertisers” to be ridiculous. His sources say Yelp charges a $600 CPM, or 1,000-times the standard online CPM rate.

Yes, these ads are expensive, especially for low-end restaurants. But for lawyers, dentists, jewelers, and mechanics with a high lifetime average revenue per customer, turning someone searching for their services on Yelp into a loyal customer is no rip-off, it can drive big ROI.

Yelp sits at the end of the purchase funnel in the demand fulfillment stage. Users often already have a need for a business’ services and are prepared to spend. They go to Yelp to determine which service provider will get their money. When a user searches for “dentists in San Francisco”, Yelp local ads let advertisers put their own search result with a link to their Yelp profile at the top of the results.

For restaurants, a conversion could bring in $20 to $50 in revenue, and that customer will eat somewhere else tomorrow where they could get hooked. For a high CPM to provide ROI, restaurants need lots of customers to be swayed by their ads and turn into regulars.

However, for more expensive financial, medical, automotive, real estate, travel, home, and professional services, these stakes are much higher. A single visit from a customer could earn an advertisers hundreds of dollars, their long-term business could be worth thousands, and they’re unlikely to switch if satisfied. If their local ads on Yelp net them just a few or even 1 new customer, they could earn significant long-term ROI.

Agrawal compares Yelp ads to Facebook ads, which doesn’t make sense because Facebook users aren’t actively looking for the service the advertiser is selling. He also says Yelp is overcharging advertisers. It’s only overcharging if the ads don’t produce results, not just because they’re priced much higher than less-targeted display ads.

If you want proof that Yelp provides value to advertisers, just look at Yelp’s S-1 filing to go public. It notes the massive growth and return-customer rate for its local ads business:

from the quarter ended December 31, 2010 to the quarter ended December 31, 2011, the number of active local business accounts increased by 109% from approximately 11,300 to 23,700. Of the approximately 23,700 total active local business accounts for the quarter ended December 31, 2011, approximately 15,800, or approximately 67%, were existing advertisers from which we recognized local advertising revenue in the immediately preceding 12-month period. (Page 56)

Yelp had a 67% return advertiser rate, and that would have been much higher if it hadn’t DOUBLED its local advertiser count in that year. If Yelp ads are such a rip-off, why are advertisers coming back for more? Yelp can’t say because it’s in its pre-IPO quiet period. It shouldn’t need to, though. It charges justifiably high CPMs, and is going to IPO, because its ads appear at the perfect time. And they work.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Palo Alto-based TrustedID has acquired Santa Monica-based Unsubscribe.com and its Social Monitor application this week. With the acquisition, TrustedID hopes to expand its identity protection product offerings on social networks like Facebook.

The goal of Unsubscribe’s Social Monitor is to track and rate the security risk of personal information social applications are collecting from an individual. Unsubscribe’s Social Monitor uses several factors to determine an application’s risk, and therefore, rating. Its analysis is based on the amount of information accessed by the app, the reputation of the app’s developer and community feedback.

It then provides the option to uninstall applications in a single click through a browser plugin. To date, TrustedID says Social Monitor has rated more than 100,000 social apps across Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Facebook currently allows users to edit their Privacy Settings for Posts (past and present), Tags, and Apps and Websites. The Apps and Websites Privacy Controls allow Facebook users to determine which categories of information apps have access to. Most apps have access to a user’s friends list and all information marked as Public by default. A user’s name, profile picture, gender, networks, username and user id (account number) are always Public. Before installing any app, a Permissions screen shows users the pieces of data to which the app is requesting access.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

For any retailer that is selling goods online, it is incredibly important to be able to retain customers and identify when purchasers are about to leave a site. While many online retailers and companies develop these analytics in house, there is a need for a simple application that smaller shops can use to determine behavior of visitors. Today, Y Combinator-backed Custora is launching a SaaS that tells online retailers and web apps which of their customers are most valuable, and suggests actions to keep them.

The startup is best described by its tagline: “Google brings you customers. We keep them around.” For retailers, the software can analyze order logs and distinguish between customers that simply haven’t ordered anything for a while, and customers who have left the site. The application also manages and optimizes email campaigns to keep customers engaged.

For example, Custora will automate the process of sending emails to customers who are in danger of leaving a retailer’s site, or will send emails to customers who are repeat purchasers. Custora determines where the repeat customers are coming from and will also recommend specific incentives the retailer can use to reclaim lost customers.

In addition to retailers, Custora is being used for SaaS providers with freemium offerings as well. These clients are using the software to determine which users are most likely to convert to paid options and what kind of incentive would make them convert to a premium level. For example, Salesforce.com, Foodzie and GetSatisfaction are using Custora in-house.

For now, Custora’s platform optimizes customer retention with email campaigns but the company plans to add new technologies in the future. It seems like for any retailer or SaaS company, using Custora to prevent customer churn is a no-brainer.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch