Editor’s note: Jon Gottfried is a Developer Evangelist at Twilio, Co-Founder of the Hacker Union, and a StartupBus Conductor. Follow him on Twitter @jonmarkgo.

Being one of the first cyborgs in the world, I have been privy to a unique set of bizarre experiences that have led to some early observations and theories about the future of Google Glass and wearable technology.

At Glass Foundry SF, among the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, the New York Times and Hearst, was a rag-tag group of independent developers building Ice Breaker: myself, Song Zheng, and Rajiv Makhijani. When I pitched the idea of creating a Google Glass version of the dorm-room game Assassins, I thought it would be an interesting tongue-in-cheek jab at the Terminator-esque form of this new piece of technology. I could not have imagined it would turn into a six-month secret project slated to launch at one of the largest tech conferences of the year. We were building the first (and only) game for Google Glass. We had a six-month head start, early access to the Google Glass Mirror API and Glass devices as early as they were available.

Developing applications for Glass is actually more similar to building a website than it is to building an Android application.

Let’s start off by talking about the reality of what it is like to develop applications for Google Glass. Like many of you, I expected it to be very similar to building mobile applications for Android. In fact, I began learning to build Android applications in preparation. My efforts were for naught, because the Mirror API is a RESTful web service. This means that developing applications for Glass is actually more similar to building a website than it is to building an Android application.

Once a user logs in to your application, they grant you permission to push “cards” to their Glass devices and to receive responses from it. It is purely asynchronous, and is not designed for real-time applications, such as an augmented-reality game or a Call of Duty-style, heads-up display. This will likely change with the upcoming release of the GDK, but for the moment you are restricted to building asynchronous applications. No problem for Twitter or Tumblr, where there is no need for instantaneous interactions. However, it certainly puts a damper on many of the science-fiction-esque predictions for Glass.

But there are still many reasons why I am excited about Glass and will continue to develop applications for it:

1. It gives us all a nerd boner.

Developers love technology for the sake of technology. People flock to line up for product launches with the same excitement that a tween feels when they spot Bieber for the first time. Glass is exclusive, mysterious and futuristic. As the first wearable-computing platform to have even a hint of mass availability, it makes us feel as if we are truly living in the future. You could meet a thousand Valley founders all creating the “next big social network,” but no amount of SoLoMo innovation can match the excitement or fear that we will all soon be addicted to The Game, only to be saved by a young Wil Wheaton.

We have the opportunity to create the canonical user experience for wearable computers.

2. We are defining the future.

As developers, we have the unique opportunity to quite literally define the experiences that consumers have with technology. The first third-party applications for the iPhone set the stage for all mobile apps to follow. The same rings true for Glass. Whether or not the product itself is successful, we have the opportunity to create the canonical user experience for wearable computers. In the future, when there are both iGlass and Microsoft Senior Professional Heads-Up™ Displays for Business, they will all be modeled off of these initial applications for Glass – consciously or not.

3. There is money to be made.

While it is unclear whether there will be mass consumer adoption of Glass, it is obvious that this will be a valuable platform. Imagine being a real estate agent walking down the block and seeing information on all of the homes for sale without having to shuffle around with folders and papers. Imagine being a doctor who can immediately see the medical history for an unconscious ER patient without having to manually look it up on a computer and waste precious life-saving seconds. We are not yet comfortable interacting with these new cyborgs in social situations, but I have no doubt that there are an immense number of professional uses that will prove to be more valuable than the potentially awkward social stigmas surrounding them.

4. It is exclusive and attractive.

We are nerds. We have traditionally been at the bottom of the social pyramid. Sure, nerds might be the new rock stars in some circles. But the only thing cooler than a rock star nerd is a rock star nerd wearing a $1,500 pair of glasses that very few people in the world have even heard of, let alone seen in person. A friend of mine described it as the Air Jordans of the 21st century. Whether you are trying to network or get a date, Google Glass is truly one of the best conversation starters I have ever seen. And I promise you, the Glass Explorers are doing both.

This is a new frontier and we are still defining the social norms involved with wearing a computer on your face.

5. There is hype.

The press loves Glass. For now at least, every application is the first X for Glass. My app GlassTweet was the first Twitter client for Glass. Ice Breaker was the first game for Glass. And what reporter doesn’t want to be first? It is a perfect opportunity for a developer to build a reputation as a Glass expert, and I have already met many developers attempting to do exactly this.

There are always skeptics. And they would be right to be skeptical – this is a new frontier and we are still defining the social norms involved with wearing a computer on your face. Some have even proposed that providing developers with Glass before the general public will make it seem too nerdy or awkward – what average person concerned about their appearance wants to be associated with a naked geek in the shower?

I would argue that Google took the only option available to them. The only truly scalable products of the future will be developer platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Twilio, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Arduino – all of these products have been successful in large part by embracing and empowering their developer communities. No company is omniscient enough to imagine every potential use of their products.

This gives developers an immense amount of power to define the success or failure of an entire product line. If they innovate and create amazing experiences, it can pave the way for mass consumer adoption of a product, and if they fail or are mistreated by their platform providers, they can create a product wasteland. It is a symbiotic relationship, and ultimately these developers in the Explorer program will define the consumer success of Glass. People will forget about Showergate if the applications on Glass are useful or fun enough to outweigh the initial awkwardness associated with any new product.

All concerns aside, the hard truth that skeptics must face is that this is an inevitable evolution of computing. We will continue to debate the pros and cons of wearable technology for decades to come, but one thing is crystal clear: wearable technology is coming, it is inevitable, and Google is steamrolling a path to this unavoidable future.

Will you join me in defining this future or will you be defined by it?

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Digital dating is nothing to scoff at; it’s a big business, and it’s changed a lot of lives — mostly for the better. Yet, while dating has seen enormous progress during the Digital Era, there’s still a lot garbage out there, and the space is still mostly dominated by a handful of old names. A gaggle of dating sites and apps have appeared over the past five years, but few have had real staying power, and many have gone the way of the dinosaur.

While it’s still too early to make any pronouncements, it’s looking more and more like Tinder could buck the trend. Created by Hatch Labs — an LA-based startup backed by IAC, the same Barry Diller-led digital media giant that owns Match.com and OKCupid — Tinder has grown like a weed since it launched in October. A crazy, dating weed.

In part, that’s due to timing, and in part because Tinder is based on a familiar, throwback model, drawing on the same addictive formula behind Hot or Not. Essentially, it’s Hot or Not made mobile, casual and connected to Facebook, but rather than promising to introduce people to their one true soul partner/life mate, Tinder just wants to make it easier to flirt — and get you off your ass to meet people. In the real world.

By focusing on reducing the “creepiness” factor (always a relative term in dating, mind you), reducing spam and by targeting young people, Tinder has been able to find that elusive, exponential growth curve. (Unsurprisingly, it’s initial growth spike came from college campuses, and the average age of its users is still 23.)

It’s also fairly easy to use: It’s free, it doesn’t focus on building traditional profiles, instead pulling basic info from Facebook, is location-enabled, and matches users to other people nearby based on similar behavior, interests and so on. If you’re not interested, you can pass. If you are, it connects you with the other person, allowing you to chat and arrange a meeting offline.

Thanks to the above, the app has been seeing the same kind of growth that Facebook, Instagram and Twitter saw in the early days, Tinder co-founder and CEO Sean Rad tells us. But what does that mean, exactly? When we wrote about Tinder in early January, it had served one million matches and users had made 35 million profile ratings. Today, Rad says, Tinder has served 50 million matches and users have made 4.5 billion ratings.

So, while the team is keeping a tight lid on the number of downloads and users it’s attracted to date, from what we do know (and what we’ve been hearing from other sources), it’s safe to assume that both number well into the millions. And keep in mind: The app was released in late October.

Tinder also seems to be avoiding a common trend among popular mobile apps: High number of downloads, but comparatively low engagement. In Tinder’s case, Rad tells us that around 50 percent of users open the app once a day, while approximately 75 percent open the app once a week and around 85 percent use the app every month.

Based on this growth, rumors have been circulating for months now that claim Tinder is in the proces of raising a big round of outside funding, or is in the process of being acquired. At this point, the founder says, neither of those are true. While the company isn’t sharing how much it’s raised to date, we do know that IAC is it’s primary investor, and owns a minority stake in the business, having been the sole investor in its seed and series A rounds (which we hear total in the millions). And the startup was incubated within IAC.

IAC would likely love to own Tinder outright, as would others, but at this point the startup is resolved to stay independent, and go public rather than sell. Of course, there’s a long road ahead, and these things have a habit of changing. Furthermore, while Tinder has opted not to raise outside capital, our sources tell us that this hasn’t stopped venture capitalists from courting Tinder in every way possible.

With plenty of runway ahead and initial growth and scalability snags behind, Tinder has begun to focus more on product development as well as an area that will be key to its future: International markets. To date, 15 percent of Tinder users hail from outside the U.S., the CEO tells us, with the highest adoption coming from Canada, Australia, Brazil and Ireland. (In recent weeks, Rad says, Tinder was seeing 2,000 downloads/day in Brazil.)

Going forward, the team of 13 will begin its international growth efforts in the UK, Australia, Latin America, Germany, France and China, in particular. To do that, the company is working on additional language support, targeted marketing and hiring local reps in each of these countries. Rad also sees big opportunity for growth in Asia, thanks to the explosion of mobile adoption, and is currently working on partnerships that will help it move into Asian markets and localize the Tinder experience to native languages, networks and so on. (Like how to leverage the biggest Chinese and Asian social networks for authentication, as opposed to relying on Facebook, for example.)

Tinder has also been busy building tools that will help it follow through with its mission to solve social, discovery and networking problems outside the confines of dating. Today, for example, the startup is releasing a new feature called “Matchmaker,” which allows users to create matches between any two Facebook friends — for any purpose.

Once users establish that connection, the two friends can chat within Tinder without sharing their contact information. The idea is to create a casual, simple way to make an introduction, whether you want to set two friends up on a date or make professional connections. Rad tells us that Matchmaker is anonymous and solves the awkward problem of introducing people and then being included on the resulting thread — an annoyance often experienced in email and Facebook intros.

With Matchmaker, the introducer doesn’t have to be removed from the thread, they can send the message to the two people they want to connect, and that’s it. If the recipient isn’t on Tinder, they’ll see that they get a message on Facebook, and they can then quickly create a Tinder login if they want to see the post.

Another cool feature of Matchmaker is that the person who makes the introduction can see if the match is active and they can get a sense of their success rate. Rad assures me that this feature is intended to be high level so that it’s not creepy, allowing users to get just enough of a sense of the activity level of the intros they curate so that they can check back in (or send a reminder) if the conversation goes silent.

Again, the idea is that, while there are plenty of media through which people can make digital introductions, those connections tend to carry more weight if they’re friend-approved. If that intro comes from a close friend, you’re more likely to follow through on it than if not. Of course, there’s the question of whether or not people will want to make introductions in a professional context through a networking that’s primarily associated with dating. For this reason, the startup is launching the feature in beta to test it out and to see if it catches on.

As part of this new release, Tinder is also making some improvements in the areas where its user experience has been less-than-impressive. In particular, many users have complained that the app’s sorting algorithm has matched them with teenage or underage users. (Not cool, Tinder, not cool.) So, in this release, Tinder now includes age filtering, so that users can select their preferred age range, along with making some general improvements to the accuracy of its matching algorithm and improving the speed of chat within the app.

As of now, Tinder remains exclusively an iPhone app, but the CEO tells us that the team is working on an Android version, which will be ready “within the next few months.” The team also has plans to develop tablet apps, but don’t expect Tinder to show up on the Web anytime soon. Tinder is going to remain mobile-centric for the foreseeable future.

In a crowded space, Tinder has, so far, managed to buck the trend and find that elusive, exponential growth curve. Of course, the next year will be critical. As growth inevitably levels out a bit, Tinder will have to keep evolving if it wants to avoid being another flash in the pan. International could hold the key to sustaining that growth, but it remains to be seen whether users will be willing to think of Tinder as more than a casual flirting and dating tool. That could be a tough sell, but if they get there, expect Tinder to stick around for awhile — and be on the receiving end of calls from every VC on the block.

For more, Find Tinder here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The ROI of social media is something of a black box for many e-commerce companies, but New York-based startup Olapic is beginning to change that. The company, which allows brands to collect user-generated photos from services like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to display on their websites, is now offering an analytics suite to help retailers and brands understand what content works and how it’s affecting conversions.

Olapic was founded by Pau Sabria, Luis Sanz and Jose de Cabo; they met while attending Columbia University, and this past summer the company closed on $1 million in seed funding from Bonobos and Warby Parker backer Great Oaks Venture Capital, plus Brad Harrison Ventures, Columbia University’s Lang Fund, and other angels. It’s now cash-flow positive.

At the time of the initial funding, the team said the plan was to expand the software-as-a-service platform beyond the publishers and brands it had previously worked with (which included Condé Nast, Pepsi, NY Daily News, The Baltimore Sun, and various sports teams) to reach those in the e-commerce sector.

Today, Olapic has worked with about 100 companies, a good many of which represent the young, trendier e-commerce companies where something like an on-site Instagram gallery has a better chance to work. To date, Olapic has worked with more than 40 top e-commerce brands, including Lululemon, Baublebar, Nasty Gal, Coach, New Balance, Teva, Guess, Reef, Steve Madden, Threadless and many more.

Retailers are using the service to engage their community via contests and other campaigns, asking fans to hashtag themselves modeling the clothes, shoes or other accessories, for example, or just sharing photos of their favorite products. For one campaign Luluemon ran this past fall (#TheSweatLife), 26,000 consumers responded by posting photos on Instagram with the appropriate hashtag.

Olapic offers the e-commerce companies backend technology to manage the submissions, in order to vet the images before they appear on the site or quickly sort through a selection in order to determine a contest winner, for example. Now, it’s helping the retailers make better sense of the data surrounding those images, too.

With the new analytics suite, retailers can track which photos are getting clicked, what those click-through rates are, what products are trending, what consumers are interested in, conversions, and more.

During its beta, clients saw an increase between 5 and 7 percent in their conversion rates when they displayed user-generated photos on their site, and click-throughs on the most engaging photos was between 15 and 20 percent. The majority (82 percent) of the latter came from Instagram.

Also, the company has found that, on average, the shoppers who interact with a real person’s photo on the site convert at 2 to 3 times higher than the average shopper. This increase can be attributed to the fact that people can finally see what the clothes look like on normal people, instead of the models typically used to showcase the fashions on shopping sites, explains de Cabo, but it’s also related to the fact that those who are browsing the images are probably doing more product research, which indicates an increased intention to purchase.

But there’s something more to it, too. Olapic has also arrived at a time when there’s a shift underway in e-commerce and shopping trends. Brands and retailers want to more directly engage with their audience, and in turn, the audience expects the company to be engaged and responsive.

In addition, younger users – which especially speaks to the 18-30 demographic that favors shopping at many of Olapic’s clients’ sites – have grown up with smartphones and social media, and are now transitioning to communicating through photos, instead of static posts containing just text.

You can see this trend playing out on the larger stage, as well. It’s why Facebook acquired rapidly growing photo-sharing app Instagram, and became fearful enough of private photo-messaging startup Snapchat to ship a clone called Poke. It’s why Pinterest caught many by surprise with its quick ascension, and why Twitter has been moving toward complementing its 140-character text-based posts with richer media like photos and video, even acquiring the video-sharing service Vine along the way. Most recently, it’s why image-heavy (well, GIF-heavy) site Tumblr was snatched up by Yahoo, a company seeking its return to “cool.”

For the youngest demographic in particular, they don’t want the brand marketing to them, they want it to provide a platform that enables participation. Case in point: although Olapic offers a button that allows users to request their photo be taken down, the company says that of the more than 100,000+ photos that have been publicly shared by brands, only one user ever requested a photo be pulled.

Fans are generally excited when a photo is posted, explains de Cabo. “Our partners are telling us they’re receiving a lot of comments and emails that [consumers are] super pysched to be a part of the brand,” he says.

More details about Olapic’s platform are available here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

A Russian startup called Unface.me has created a new social network inspired by the Gossip Girl TV series which lets users create an alter ego to — let’s face it — troll their friends, or even post even worst types of gossip entirely anonymously. The site connects with Facebook and Russian social network VKontakte so it can pull in users’ genuine friend networks, then furnishes them with a series of tools to poke fun, dish salacious gossip or vote on who of their friends is coolest and therefore who is not. Y’know, teen stuff.

Teens powered the rise of social networking giant Facebook. But today’s teens are arguably starting to be less enamoured with the platform their siblings spent  all their time on, what with so many other, more flexible ways to ping and poke each other. Facebook’s insistence on real names, and its standard comms toolset of public posts, private messages and IM isn’t helping here. Looked at through the hyper layered and stratified teenage lens, it’s pretty limting. Which is giving startups the opportunity to crowd in.

Zuck and co were also not as quick to respond to the growth in mobile messaging as they should have been. The long and short of it is that today’s teens are spoiled for choice; they don’t need Facebook to stay in touch — they have a whole arsenal of creative digital tools to get around being grounded.

Facebook’s difficulty, of course, is that it can’t keep up with the kids without risking alienating its massive user base of oldies. With such a whoppingly huge user base  that spans multiple age-groups comes a big responsibility not to put segments of users off. Keeping things fairly simple is the compromise path, but that too risks boring the kids — so they go looking to get their kicks elsewhere, whether it’s Snapchat or Unface.me.

Now it must be said that Unface.me is pretty rough round the edges — and focused pretty squarely on the Russia market for now. It isn’t necessarily anything more than a curiosity. It’s just come out of a closed beta, so its user base is small, with a test group of around 20,000 that it’s now looking to grow — having just opened up to the public. It says it’s also starting to advertise to get the word out. But as an experiment in extending social networking by adding an element of privacy it’s interesting to watch — also bringing to mind secret-sharing app Whisper.

Unface.me’s founders are three computer science graduates from Moscow State University, with respective specialisms in marketing, business development and web development. The startup is currently bootstrapped with funds from founders, friends and family.

“The inital idea came from the Gossip Girl series, but we decided to go further and develop a place where people can share their feelings freely and get honest opinions from their friends, but sharing secrets and gossips can be done too. We strongly believe that anonymity loosens up and helps discovering new facts about friends and yourself,” Unface.me’s Dmitrii Ponomarev tells TechCrunch.

The site has been in development for around a year and a half, with the closed beta kicking off six months ago.  The “mission” is to “let every person discuss freely anything or anyone”. And, judging by some of the public posts, there’s certainly plenty of that going on already. Indeed, it’s pushing into some pretty unpleasant territory, which is generally  what happens when you mix teens and gossip, regardless of the medium they’re using.

The key twist here is the mixture of unknown and known, says Ponomarev. Since the users are interacting with their real friends, pulled in from third party social networks, not random online strangers. From there they can choose to chat and post anonymously or under a fixed alterego. Or indeed using the real name they use on the linked social network.

“A user can anonymously write a story about his friends on yesterday’s party, share it anonymously via sms and watch the discussion,” explains Ponomarev. “Or he or she can post a photo of his new look and get really honest responses from friends because the are anonymous. Or he can start an anonymous chat with his friends and discuss something that matters with his friends but no one will know each others’ names… We’ve gone much further than just posting anonymous text messages.”

Teens are famously creative in their communications. Even within the Facebook straitjacket they find subtle and not so subtle ways to hack the limits — by ‘being in a relationship’ with all their BFFs, say, or asking each other to like a post for feedback on what they look like and so on. Unface.me looks like it’s picking up on that preference for teens to gamify their communications — and giving them even more layers to interact with each other.

Facebook can still be part of the mix, of course — as one of the foundation networks that Unface.me is using as its jumping off point. However, if more teenage chatter ends up going on anonymously outside Facebook’s walls that’s not an outcome that will end up pouring coin into Zuckerberg’s coffers as it restricts the flow of data. Addressing the innovation challenge posed by upstart startups that are offering cooler, more teen-friendly ways to do stuff is the sort of war that is  looking impossible for a single, central dominant service like Facebook to win. When it comes to the social networking/social messaging space, it’s definitely time to get the popcorn in.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Paul Adams, who was previously Facebook’s global head of brand design, has joined a startup called Intercom, where he will be serving as head of product design.

Adams told me earlier that he wasn’t looking to leave Facebook, but he had also been advising Intercom and became excited about the opportunity. The startup, which is backed by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, 500 Startups and others, offers tools for online businesses to track every interaction with a customer and to use that data to deliver personalized messages and offers.

When I suggested that this sounds like a shift from Adams’ previous work in advertising, he didn’t entirely disagree, but he also said Intercom’s work ties into the themes he’s been exploring at Facebook, which have also been expressed in his talks and his book Grouped. (In addition, Adams is known for his work at Google, particularly a presentation that seemed to outline many of the ideas that eventually shaped Google+.)

Adams argues that in the future, businesses’ interactions with potential customers are going to be much more personal and relationship-based, rather than following the one-to-many broadcast model of traditional advertising. Intercom facilitates those company-to-customer interactions, and he added that it’s not just a way to deliver slightly-more-targeted marketing emails.

“In the past … companies tried to minimize customer interaction,” Adams said. “They didn’t want customers to talk back to them — that was overhead. Minimizing customer interaction is a very outdated model from a pre-social web world. Intercom is very much about intimacy, very much about being personable.”

Adams will be working out of Intercom’s Dublin office — he said he had already made the move from Silicon Valley to Dublin for personal reasons.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Facebook added 31 new positions to its careers page this week, including a number of openings on the research, recruiting, business operations, global marketing and sales teams.

Instagram seems to be looking for its first international employee: a communications manager based in London.

Facebook has an interesting opening for an ethnographer, which includes the following in the job description:

Facebook aims to connect the world in a big way, across all cultures and creeds, cities and countrysides. And to do that successfully, we need to understand the unique character of all those communities: what Facebook means or could mean to each of them, what themes are common across them, what themes are unique to each, and how best to make our products and technology work for all of them.

New listings added to Facebook’s careers page:

• International Communications Manager – Instagram (London)
• Business Operations Associate – SMB/MM (Menlo Park)
• Finance Revenue Operations Lead (APAC) (Singapore)
• Executive Assistant, Global Marketing Solutions (New York)
• Global Data Center Security Manager (Menlo Park)
• Law Enforcement Response Team Analyst (Austin)
• Recruiter, APAC (Contract) (Seoul)
• Recruiting Assistant (contractor) (São Paulo)
• Recruitment Coordinator (Contract) (Dublin)
• Ethnographer (Menlo Park)
• Research Manager, Growth and Analytics (Menlo Park)
• UX Researcher (Contractor) (Palo Alto)
• Critical Facility Technician (Forest City)
• Operations Engineering Manager (Menlo Park)
• Global Creative Solutions: Creative Strategist (Hamburg)
• Vertical Manager, Marketing Communications (Menlo Park)
• Analyst, User Operations (Dublin)
• Account Manager, ANZ (Sydney) (Sydney)
• Merchant Partner Manager, Facebook Gifts/Commerce (Menlo Park)
• Growth Manager Latin America – Brasil (São Paulo)
• Associate, Ad Operations (Tokyo) (Tokyo)
• Analyst, SMB Growth, Global Marketing Solutions (Austin)
• Small Business Associate (Singapore)
• Executive Assistant (London)
• Client Partner Australia (Sydney)
• Intern, Global Marketing Solutions (Tokyo)
• Client Partner, Mobile (Chicago)
• Client Partner, E-Commerce (Austin)
• Client Partner, Financial Services (Menlo Park)
• Client Partner, Retail (Austin)
• Quantitative Analyst, Monetization (Menlo Park)

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

There are a number of password management solutions on the market today, but CommonKey, a new browser extension out this week, has a different take. Instead of focusing only on the needs of the individual user or offering a complex solution for the enterprise, it provides a password management system which allows small businesses the ability to share passwords securely across a team.

The bootstrapped, Baltimore-based startup was co-founded this October by Andrew Stroup, a civilian engineer who currently works at the Department of Defense, and Michael Cohen, whose programming background is in the medical sector. Obviously, both of these industries involve a deep awareness and understanding of security and privacy.

Stroup today works in the realm of countering weapons of mass destruction, and no, he can’t talk much about his work there.

But he can talk about the fact that he’s also now appearing on the Discovery Channel’s “The Big Brain Theory” show (get it? brain not bang?), which he had signed up for prior to having the idea for CommonKey. Filming has since wrapped, but the show ate into a couple of months’ time back in the early days of the company. He explains interest in being on the program was personal, describing it as “nerd heaven,” and equating it to a “Top Chef for engineers.”

During the competition, Stroup got to build robots, basic missile defense systems, and designed a system to protect the payload on the back of the truck, among other things.

“It was tough for me to step away,” he says of the experience. “But it was one of those things where I left college being told that I would never be able to design, build and deliver a system from cradle to grave again, and the show was an opportunity to do that eight times. And part of the reason why CommonKey attracted me, too, is that I was able to start that process over again – starting an entire idea from two guys, and then seeing that all the way through.”

CommonKey has launched as an extension for the Chrome web browser, but the plan is to soon bring it to Firefox, Safari then to iOS and Android as a mobile app. It works a lot like any other password manager available today, except that in its case, a business owner can create an organization and groups within that organization (e.g., PR, marketing, development, sales, etc.) in order to securely share common passwords among the team.

Users establish their own CommonKey accounts, which they can also use for one-click logins to personal services like Facebook, Twitter, email or anything else that’s not work-related. In fact, the service works just fine if you wanted to use it as an individual, and will also soon include a feature that automatically generates strong passwords for you, too.

However, when added to a team, users then gain access to company accounts, all of which are available in the same drop-down box.

Stroup says he got the idea after spending time engaging with tech startups, and seeing how they shared their accounts among the team.

During its beta period, CommonKey’s service is free, but the plan is to eventually charge companies based on number of employees with access to shared accounts. Pricing has not yet been set, though.

The CommonKey extension is available for download here.

Facebook removed 38 positions from its careers page this week, likely after making hires in the areas of sales, HR, finance and user operations, among others.

The company appears to have filled a number of key sales roles in Sydney: Head of Financial Services & Travel; Head of Technology, Telecommunications & Entertainment; and Head of Sales Mid-Market, Australia & New Zealand. That team seems to be growing quickly over the past few months as Facebook looks to build deeper relationships with advertisers all over the world.

Prior listings removed from Facebook’s careers page:

• Hardware Test Engineer, Intern (Menlo Park)
• Solutions Engineer (London)
• Manager, Software Engineering (Menlo Park)
• Business Operations Manager (Menlo Park)
• Finance Manager, FP&A – IT (Menlo Park)
• International General Ledger Accountant (Contract) (Hyderabad)
• Administrative Assistant, Platform Partnerships (Menlo Park)
• Regional Product Marketing Partner (Dublin)
• Data Tools Engineer (Menlo Park)
• Technical Systems Principal, APAC (Hyderabad)
• IT Operations Lead (Menlo Park)
• HR Generalist – Contract (Hyderabad) (Hyderabad)
• Lead, People Services, L&D Benefits Ops (Menlo Park)
• Manager, Global Compensation (Menlo Park)
• People Operations Manager (Menlo Park)
• Technical Sourcer, Diversity – Contract (Menlo Park)
• Technical Sourcer, Diversity (Menlo Park)
• Training and Development Program Manager (Menlo Park)
• Content Strategist (Menlo Park)
• Data Center Facility Operations Engineering Manager (Altoona)
• Ads Policy Enforcement Associate (Austin)
• Data Analyst, Latin America (São Paulo)
• Analyst, User Operations, Vietnamese (Dublin)
• Media Solutions (Mexico City)
• Media Solutions (Buenos Aires)
• Account Manager (Paris)
• Account Manager Brazil (São Paulo)
• Client Partner Miami (Miami)
• Client Partner (Buenos Aires)
• Head of Financial Services & Travel (Sydney)
• Head of Sales Mid-Market, Australia & New Zealand (Sydney)
• Head of Technology, Telecommunications & Entertainment (Sydney)
• Manager, Global Sales Outsourcing (São Paulo)
• Account Manager (London)
• Agency Manager (London)
• Client Partner, National Sales (Menlo Park)
• Client Partner, QSR (Chicago)
• Client Partner (Austin)

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Facebook has created a new way for businesses and developers to target ads to users who have taken an action on Facebook or in an app within a more specific time range.

Using the “action spec” targeting capability, which allows advertisers to reach users by the actions they take in Open Graph apps and on Facebook directly, an advertiser could designate a time range shorter than 14 days. The default is still 14 days, but previously there was no option to set a shorter window.

This change gives advertisers more accuracy in reaching the most relevant users for a particular message. For instance, a local business might want to reach users who checked into their store within the past week. A developer might want to target users who installed their app in the past three days. A page owner might want to retarget users who viewed one of their page tabs the day before.

Action spec targeting is still a beta feature limited to advertisers working with Preferred Marketing Developers with the Ads API, so it isn’t widely known or understood. However, the feature offers developers unique opportunities to reach users who have taken specific in-app actions, including in their competitor’s apps. It also gives brands ways to segment and target their fans by the actions they take on their page or a competitor’s page.

Action spec targeting is also interesting in that advertisers can define a “negative action spec,” meaning users who have not taken a particular action. For example, a developer could reach users who have played a game, but not made an in-app purchase in the last 10 days. Advertisers can also reach friends of users who have taken a particular action.

More technical information about action spec targeting, including targeting by app activity in a time range is available here. A list of Facebook actions that advertisers can target against using action specs is available here. Businesses that are interested in this type of targeting should seek out an ads-qualified PMD.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

A recent update to Pages Manager for iOS has returned detailed post insights to the product after a version earlier this month was released without them.

Facebook released version 2.0 of its Pages Manager app for iOS in early May to make the app faster and include new features like photo filters. However, it did not include the same level of per-post analytics as previous versions. Page owners could see how many people they reached but when they tapped the area that used to lead to more information, they were instead directed to a screen where they could buy Promoted Posts. Now, the additional metrics have been brought back.

Users can tap the “reach” metric to be taken to a new screen with an additional breakdown of how much of that reach was organic, paid or viral. They can swipe left to see details about engaged users, post clicks, link clicks and stories created. Another swipe will present People Talking About This, likes, comments and shares for the given post.

Page owners can still promote their posts from the app by tapping the “promote” button. Another feature that Facebook removed from Pages Manager a few weeks ago, but hasn’t brought back yet is the option to create an Offer post. Admins have to create those from Facebook.com.

Facebook also made some bug fixes and performance updates in the latest version of Pages Manager released this week.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook