Last week we reported that MessageMe, one of the latest messaging apps to hit the smartphone market, had picked up a $10 million Series A round of funding, and today, the company is officially confirming the news, along with some more details on how it’s been doing in the 2.5 months since it launched. It now has 5 million users across both iOS and Android — a five-fold increase on the 1 million that downloaded the app in its first 10 days.

MessageMe aims to carve out a name for itself by offering more ways than the rest of the pack — which includes WhatsApp, Line, KakaoTalk, Viber and Facebook (from which MessageMe gained some notoriety when it was restricted from using Facebook’s social graph API to find friends to use the app) — for users to communicate with each other on its messaging platform. In its case, this is done through notifications via text messages, but also pictures, doodles, video, voice, location and music sent from one user to another. Altogether, usage of these has risen three-fold, to 1,500 per second from 500 65 days ago.

From what we understand, although MessageMe is partly founded by people with extensive gaming experience — Arjun Sethi and Justin Rosenthal both worked together at social games company LOLapps (acquired by 6waves in 2011) — it will be messaging, not games, that will be the revenue driver for the company. Also: no plans to add in advertising, nor to charge for the app. Instead, it will build out premium messaging features such as stickers and money transfers.

The latter is shaping up to be a particularly interesting area, with not only Google swaggering into the ring, but as of yesterday Square as well, alongside a number of other companies like Venmo and established names like PayPal and Western Union already dabbling in features like this.

As we reported last week, and as confirmed by the company today, this latest round was led by John Lilly, the former CEO of Mozilla who is now a partner at Greylock; Lilly now joins the board of LittleInc Labs, makers of MessageMe. Other investors in the round include previous backers True Ventures (where MessageMe was first incubated), First Round Capital, Google Ventures, SVAngel, Resolut.vc, Andreessen Horowitz, and Social+Capital Partnership. The company’s angels also include Airbnb’s Brian Pokorny, Hiten Shah, Eric Wu and TinyCo CEO Suleman Ali.

The company is still in an early and small stage: currently there are only 10 people working for TinyInc Labs.

I caught up with co-founder Sethi to speak a little more about the direction of the company:

About those greyed-out tabs on your app. When are you launching stickers and money?
We’ll start rolling out new features in about a month, although we’re already doing some staged rollouts in beta. Stickers will feature our own content, as well as branded content, from companies that we’ll be working with. Money will be done in partnership with someone. A lot of the new features will come first on Android. Although it’s an app that we launched only last week, it’s easier to add and develop new features on Android.

What about Windows Phone and BlackBerry?
We are taking a close look at all the platforms out there, including web, Windwos and BlackBerry. We’ll see where most of the demand is and what users are asking for to decide what the next step will be for MessageMe.

Talk to me a bit about your thoughts on paid messaging services like WhatsApp or those that rely on adds for revenue.
There is no paid version planned. We’re definitely adamant on keeping it free, simple and fast. We’re also not doing any banner ads or third-party data stuff. We want to make sure that everything you do is private and secure. Even with premium services, you will pay or have option to opt out before you see or use it — that will come into play with how we roll out stickers and accessing content.

WhatsApp (200m+ users) has stolen a march on the messaging apps world with its seemingly global appeal, with Facebook Messenger also doing this to a lesser extent. Meanwhile others have a very regional focus. Where do you sit in that spectrum so far?
Outside of the U.S. most of our growth has been in Europe, and the UK specifically. Most of the usage so far is of a younger demographic.

What message apps do you use?
Besides MessageMe, I use WhatsApp because that’s what’s popular in South Africa [where he hails from] and also BBM. Because I worked in Asia, I also use KakaoTalk for friends in Korea and Line for friends in Japan. I think you’ll always have fragmentation, just as you still do in email [that begs the question of interoperability....]. Then again, I’m not your average user, but I use Line as heavily as MessageMe.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

If the last few years have all been about building compelling mobile-first or mobile-only experiences, the latest trend seems to be bringing those experiences back to the web. (Just look at Instagram!) Anyway, with that in mind, social TV startup Dijit became the latest to follow this lead, with the launch of NextGuide Web.

The new web experience is kind of like Dijit’s NextGuide app, in that it helps people search for and discover new shows they’d like to watch, while providing ways to easily get alerts and set notifications for shows and movies when they come on. That includes shows that are on both live and on the web, providing a way to manage both traditional TV and streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.

The site, like the app, is highly personal — when making recommendations, it takes into account shows that you’ve liked, either in NextGuide itself or on Facebook. It also allows you to see what shows and movies your friends have liked or shared, giving you a sense of what’s cool or popular.

But it also includes the necessary search and browse functionalities necessary for “social discovery” apps. And while it hooks into a whole lot of online services — like Amazon Prime, Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Hulu Plus, and, of course, Netflix — it also lets you know when your favorite shows and movies are going to be on TV.

NextGuide Web allows users to create watchlists and queue up shows they will want to watch later. And it will remind users when a show is on live TV, or when a new episode is added to a streaming service. For those who have DirecTV, it’ll even allow those users to record to their DVR with one click. (Dijit CEO Jeremy Toeman says other cable TV providers will be added as time goes on.)

Those who are already users of the NextGuide iPad app can log in with their account credentials or Facebook Connect right now. But for others, the Web experience is being launched in a closed beta, with Dijit sending out new invitations each week.

NextGuide is just one product that Dijit has rolled out over the years, but it’s the one that the company is (obviously) most focused on. It also still supports the Dijit Remote app. Oh, and not too long ago it acquired Miso and all of its products.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

It’s that time of the week for CrunchWeek, the show where a few of us writers chat up the most interesting stories from the past seven days.

Ryan Lawler, Drew Olanoff (clad in his Google Glass), and I discussed all things Google I/O, including Larry Page’s keynote, Google+’s new photo features, and the latest Google Glass apps and more. We also chatted about Square’s new hardware, Stand, which is a $299 card swiper and stand for iPad registers.

Tune in above for more!

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

AirWatch, the startup that helps businesses manage security and more on employees’ mobile devices, is today announcing that it has raised another $25 million, led by Accel with participation also from Insight Venture Partners. The funds come as part of an expanded Series A round, originally for $200 million, which the company announced with a splash in February during Mobile World Congress. This Series A is the first outside money raised by AirWatch, and values the company at just over $1 billion, according to sources.

Both AirWatch’s CEO, John Marshall, and Ryan Sweeney, the partner who led the round at Accel, tell TechCrunch that this latest expansion of the round was made at the same valuation. It comes just weeks after rival Good Technology raised a $50 million round and is preparing for an IPO.

As with the earlier $200 million, this latest injection will be used to help AirWatch build out its business, add more services, and quite possibly make some acquisitions along the way.

Marshall declined to say what areas acquisitions might be in, other than to note that they would be strategic investments to expand product lines and customers. “I think we will look very carefully at adjacent technology or tuck-in acquisitions,” he told TechCrunch. “I would not want to answer [who they are]. The three companies that I am looking at right now are all doing different things, and I don’t want to tip off our competitors.”

One area where AirWatch sees a particularly bright spot is in what Marshall refers to as “containerization of content,” in which services exist not just to manage whole devices but to be able to make more sophisticated services to partition and control particular services, such as a specific suite of enterprise apps or even one particular area of data. “The largest portion of our business is still in the enterprise mobility management space, including devices as well as apps,” he said. “The growing part of the business is around being able to secure the content in a digital locker. We see a lot of growth in extending that out within our customer base. I can’t emphasize how important this is in our strategy.” It will also lead AirWatch further also into desktop services, supporting not just mobile devices and platforms but the services and PCs used to run things when workers are not running around.

The funding, and AirWatch’s moves to grow, are signs of a consolidation afoot in the area of mobile enterprise services, specifically around mobile device management and the larger “BYOD” trend, where workers are following larger consumer trends using smartphones and tablets to do everything online, and are increasingly bringing in their devices to the office to help them work there, too. Up to now, there have been dozens of companies working in this space, both big (like AirWatch and Good) and small.

“We think this market is going to play out quickly,” said Marshall. “There are haves and have-nots, and we want to be the market leader and continue increasing that separation. Consolidation is absolutely on the cards.”

He also says that will play out not just in terms of services and winning business but also in terms of funding. “The VCs are getting pretty smart and are realizing that the winners are shaping up. That will cut off capital for those players who are not in the leading pack. Some will be acquired, and some will disappear.”

Indeed, Sweeney at Accel agrees on the investing front, but adds that the company is also gearing up to look for more mobile enterprise investments going forward.

“We’re actively looking in mobile enterprise,” he told TechCrunch. “This is the largest investment we’ve made in mobile enterprise to date but [the trend of] folks bringing phones and tablets from home to work and leaving with your PC in your pocket are still growing, so we think mobile enterprise will be a growth area for 3-5 years for sure.”

Marshall says AirWatch is currently adding 500 business per month, which would put its current client base at around 7,500, with some of the bigger names including Delta, Lowe’s; United Airlines; Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); Skanska; PepsiCo; Henry Ford Health System; Mount Sinai Medical Center; Best Buy and Abbott Laboratories. The company boasts four of the top five global Fortune companies; the top four global energy companies; six of the top 10 global airlines; six of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies; seven of the top 10 global consumer product companies; five of the top 10 global luxury goods companies; two of the top three global hotel groups; nine of the top 10 U.S. retailers and three of the top five U.S. medical device companies.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

BlackBerry has just announced the BlackBerry Q5 smartphone, the latest BB10 handset to come out of the Waterloo-based firm. Like the Q10, the Q5 has a QWERTY keyboard and comes in a host of colors, including red, black, white and pink.

“I know it’s going to be a big hit,” said Thorsten Heins, as he made the announcement.

According to the CEO, the Q5 will be aimed at emerging markets, as BlackBerry sees an opportunity to infiltrate markets in which most people might not have a computer or laptop, but where they do need a smartphone.

In today’s press event, Heins let slip that the Q5 would launch within BlackBerry’s global carrier network starting in the summer, but he failed to mention pricing.

Not much is known about specs, but we can tell you that it has a 3.1-inch touchscreen to go along with that Qwerty keyboard.

It also comes pre-loaded with the latest version of BB10, which brings with it features like Time Shift and Story Maker, ensuring users get a good photo each time they use their camera. BB10 also has BBM Video, letting users video chat and even share their screen, which comes in handy for enterprise users.

But perhaps most important, BB10 offers the BlackBerry Hub, which lets you get instant access to all your notifications, email, etc. without ever leaving an application window.

Here’s what Thorsten Heins said about it in a prepared statement:

BlackBerry is excited to bring the new BlackBerry Q5 smartphone to our customers in selected markets around world. The BlackBerry Q5 gives you the best of everything with its cutting-edge BlackBerry 10 functionality and a physical QWERTY keyboard. It is for youthful fans that are passionate, confident and bold, and it makes it easy for them to have fun, create, share and stay connected.

Even back when the company went by Research In Motion, BlackBerry has always been focused on developing markets. The company’s 70-80 million subscribers are mostly in regions like the Middle East, India, Europe, and Africa. That said, the Q5 will be available in July in select markets in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Jack Conte is an Internet musician who became an Internet sensation and now, thanks to Patreon, he’s an Internet entrepreneur.

Patreon is a fundraising site that is a bit different than your run of the mill Kickstarters or Trumpstarters. Instead of collecting one lump sum for, say, and album or song, fans can subscribe to the artists and receive “patrons-only” streams of their work.

Conte made his latest song “Pedals” available as the first product on the site. It is available here. He founded the company with Sam Yam, an ecommerce pro and founder of AdWhirl.

The system is similar to the patronages of old where an artist was hired to work for a certain client for a period of time. In Contes’s case, he’s asking for $1 per YouTube video he puts up (we’re assuming, of course, he’s not going to take some shots of his gerbils and stick them up every five minutes) and you can unlock other rewards if you pay a bit more.

“The other players in the crowd funding space aren’t providing regular, consistent income to content creators,” he said. “There are literally tens of thousands of people who create regular content on the web and have millions of followers. Kickstarter is not appropriate for a blogger who writes weekly articles – he doesn’t need a big chunk of money, and he has no big project to use it for. He needs monthly income, and Patreon brings crowd funding away from singular one-off projects and into the realm of regular content creation.”

The pricing differs from project to project and patrons can cancel at any time. Conte has also brought in his amazing songwriting buddy, Nataly Dawn for the launch today.

Conte thought about the hundreds of creators and realized they weren’t getting paid.

“I told my college roommate, Sam Yam, about the idea, and he jumped on it immediately. Two monthly later, we’re launching, and I’m going to be the guinea pig user, releasing my EP for free on the site,” he said. “Patrons who sign up are given benefits in exchange for their generosity, like monthly Google Hangouts with the top patrons, presale concert tickets, access to the artist’s stream (like a Facebook feed where fans and artists can post and share media, comments, etc.), or anything an artist is willing to give back.”

I love this idea – it’s not much money, it lets folks monetize their fan bas in a non-creepy way, and it’s produced by one of the nicest Internet musicians I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. Conte is the opposite of Donald Trump.

Patreon is open now for patrons and artists alike. I intend to use it to fund my gerbil video series there so get your dollars ready. You can see the wild video for his latest song above and a making-of video below.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

It’s been a while since the TechCrunch TV team has taken a tropical vacation, but we were able to take a walk on the wild side (no passports required) while shooting this latest episode of Cribs at open platform-as-a-service startup DotCloud.

DotCloud’s office is smack in the middle of the financial district of San Francisco, but when you step inside it feels like you’re in the middle of a jungle — albeit a very well-connected jungle with desks, computers, and intensely-focused programmers. That’s because DotCloud has decorated its office with dozens of plants in every space possible, on the floor, on desks, and even hanging from the ceilings. The greenery provides a very cool juxtaposition with the cityscape outside DotCloud’s 16th floor windows — a blend of Gordon Gekko’s office and Jurassic Park that somehow works really well.

And it’s not just people who enjoy DotCloud’s leafy oasis. The company’s staff also includes an adorable baby tortoise named Gordon who I may or may not have tried to abduct adopt. What can I say, we bonded.

Check it all out in the video above.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

By most accounts, Windows 8 isn’t all that popular, but according to Microsoft’s latest numbers, the company has now sold more than 100 million copies of the latest version of its desktop operating system. In January, the last time Microsoft provided updated numbers for Windows 8, the company said that it had passed the 60 million mark. Windows 8 users are also getting used to using the Windows Store, it seems, as the total number of downloads for the first six months has now passed 250 million.

The number of apps in the store, Microsoft’s CFO and CMO Tami Reller said in a canned interview with Microsoft communications manager Brandon LeBlanc today, has increased 6x since launch and 90% of the apps are downloaded at least once every month. Given that the Store didn’t have all that many apps in it when Windows 8 launched, a 6x increase doesn’t sound all that big, but Reller argues that this means Windows 8 has “already passed what iOS had in store, in its first year of app development.” Earlier today, Microsoft also said that SkyDrive now has more than 250 million active customers.

Windows Blue: Coming “Later This Year”

While Microsoft has long acknowledged that the next version of Windows has the codename “Windows Blue” and various leaks have already revealed many of its features, the company has never announced a roadmap for Blue. In today’s “interview,” Keller said that Blue will be available “later this year, building on the bold vision set forward with Windows 8 to deliver the next generation of tablets and PCs.” Blue she said, “will deliver the latest new innovations across an increasingly broad array of form factors of all sizes, display, battery life and performance, while creating new opportunities for our ecosystem.” Blue, she also noted, is an opportunity for Microsoft to respond to feedback from its customers (who all seem to be clamoring for the return of the Start menu).

With Microsoft Build at the end of June, chances are we will hear quite a bit more about Blue at that time, so it’s probably a fair guess that “later this year” refers to the late summer.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

In this week’s Ask A VC episode, we sat down with Index Ventures partner Mike Volpi.

Volpi, who makes investments in both enterprise software and consumer internet companies, serves on a number of boards, including Path, Sonos, Lookout, Hortonworks, Soundcloud, Big Switch Networks, Zuora, Foodily, and Storsimple. We asked Volpi what his biggest challenge is as the board member of a startup, and what entrepreneurs should be looking for in a board member.

He also had some interesting perspective on the latest buzz word du jour, big data, and where we’ll see the most innovation taking place in the enterprise data space.

Tune in above for more!

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Microsoft has signed a patent deal with ZTE that covers all Android and Chrome devices manufactured by the Chinese firm. This latest agreement comes a week after Microsoft scored a major coup by striking a similar patent licensing deal with Taiwanese smartphone maker Hon Hai, which owns Foxconn.

Microsoft did not disclose the terms of its deal with ZTE, but said that they are similar to the agreement it made with Hon Hai. Hon Hai, which is now Microsoft’s largest patent licensee, agreed to pay a flat fee for each Android and Chrome-based device that Foxconn manufactures–which will add up to an impressive amount, since the ODM’s Chinese factories make 40 percent of the world’s phones, including Android devices for clients like Acer and Amazon.

While not as large as Foxconn, ZTE is still one of the top five manufacturers of Android smartphones in the world and in the fourth quarter of 2012 shipped 9.5 million units, according to IDC data. Its new deal with Microsoft gives ZTE access to Microsoft’s smartphone and tablet patents, including those for operating systems, browsing, data synchronization, and audio and video transfer.

Microsoft says its deal with ZTE, which marks its first patent licensing deal with a leading Chinese company and is the latest move in its longstanding efforts to get as much licensing revenue out of smartphone manufacturers as possible, was negotiated over two years. The Redwood, Washington-based software giant has been estimated to make more from patent royalties paid by other smartphone makers than its own devices. In addition to ZTE and Foxconn, Microsoft also has similar licensing agreements with Quanta and Pegatron.

“Experience has taught us that respect for intellectual property rights is a two-way street and we have always been prepared to respect the rights of others just as we seek respect for our rights,” said Microsoft general counsel Horacio Gutierrez in a statement.”

Microsoft may hope that its new deals with ZTE and Foxconn will persuade other manufacturers like Huawei and, eventually, Google to step in line, but it seems unlikely Google will listen: in the past it has referred to Microsoft’s cross-licensing agreement with manufacturers like Samsung as “extortion,” a charge Microsoft brushed off.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch