Did Google’s conference succeed? It launched dozens of products and services in its 205-minute keynote, but did the world understand them? I saw some of the smartest journalists in technology struggling to handle the information density. But what’s the alternative? Break it up across multiple days, or even multiple conferences? Google’s breadth presents it with a challenge unique among the tech giants.

Apple? Its launches center around a discrete set of devices. That’s why WWDC works. There might be one radically new product, but then just a set of iterations on what we already know. The screen is bigger, the tablet is thinner, the software gets a new sheen. And since Apple is all about hardware you need to touch to believe, it has to do it all in-person. Journalists and pundits can easily digest the news and offer their insights to the world.

Facebook? It prefers the rolling thunder approach that works because it’s mostly a software company. Releasing things when they’re ready rather than waiting months for an event embodies its “move fast and break things” ideal. It reaches out to journalists almost daily about new updates. When it has something big, it throws a laser-focused, dedicated event like it did this year for content-specific news feeds, Graph Search, and Home. Even when it threw its last f8 developer conference 20 months ago, it kept it tight to just Timeline and Open Graph. The media could wrap its head around the social network’s plans.

Those conferences serve their purposes because they align with the identities of producers. Some see Microsoft’s events as a fragmented mess as they too embody their producer. Microsost has Build for Windows and developers, TechEd for enterprise, a partner conference, a management summit, and a whole event for SharePoint. By splitting them all up, it never feels like there’s one day where Microsoft rules the world.

But Google has its own identity and it’s causing I/O growing pains. The conference certainly captures the spotlight. The problem is that Google’s vast ambitions have left I/O bursting at the seams. This year’s mega-keynote tried to combine search, maps, Google+, YouTube, Google Now, Google Play, music, games, Chrome, Android, and a new phone. And that was just the consumer facing stuff! Then there were a huge set of developer announcements like a native client for C++, location APIs, game services APIs, cloud messaging for notifications, and a suite of mobile app building tools called Android Studio.

Did you watch the keynote? If so, did you remember all these things? Did you have time to read insightful analysis about them? Did journalists even have the bandwidth to write intelligently about it all? It could take a while to unpack everything from I/O. I know I have at least five stories I want to write. And inevitably things will fall through the cracks as a new week will bring new news from elsewhere.

And it’s only going to get more intense. Google employees I’ve talked to say Larry Page is really pushing his 10X innovation mantra and speedier product cycles. They explain that Google could have saved some stuff for another conference later this year, but by then it’ll already have whole slew of new things ready to show off. Plus, developers and futurists might not be willing to come from around the world for two events a year.

The single, 3+ hour keynote with no intermission did symbolized Google’s big theme of unification. Google wants to show it isn’t just a grab bag of different products. They all piggy-back on each other. Android ties mobile together. Google+ ties people together no matter what other Google products they’re using.

But I/O may be too dense and rich. Like a chunk of chocolate fudge, it overwhelms the senses and leaves you struggling to chew up Google’s vision. It was so mind-boggling it put Wired’s Mat Honan into a psychedelic trance.

The three days of developer sessions that followed the keynote were a success, in that they helped developers develop. But perhaps splitting the keynote into two bite-size sessions would make it all easier to swallow. One consumer keynote (Search, Maps, Google+, Hangouts, Music, phone) and one developer keynote (Android, Chrome, APIs, developer tools). They could be split across two days. Alternatively, it could be one keynote with announcements sorted into these two categories with an intermission in the middle. Either would go a long way to making I/O more comprehensible.

But for now, sticking with a single, epic conference may be the best route for Google to create momentum, convey unification, bring its community together, and impress the globe. Google is determined to innovate faster and deliver the future. The duty falls on us to keep up.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Google is prepping… something. An announced Google media streamer was recently found in the FCC’s testing database. Details are nearly nonexistent as most are held under a confidentiality agreement for the next 45 days. However, the documents released to the public call the device several times a “media player” and that it features WiFi connectivity.

The H840, with a model number of H2G2-42 (a clever nod to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), could be a Nexus Q replacement. After all, Google’s new music streaming service does not work with the ill-fated Nexus Q, nor does Google have a mass-market way to get it into living rooms. Google essentially needs its own Apple TV device.

Mass consumption is the only way Google Play Music All Access is going to be successful. Google needs to follow Pandora’s lead and get its service onto as many platforms and screens as possible. A native Google TV app will likely debut shortly. But Google TV is far from successful enough to do this job alone.

It’s rather strange Google didn’t announce this device at I/O last week. This device will launch within the coming weeks. The FCC will release the rest of the details including the device’s user manual in 45 days, giving Google a rather small launch window.

A $99-ish Roku/Apple TV clone is a no-brainer for Google. Call it a Nexus streamer. It would be a media consumption device, able to serve up Google Play and likely several staple streaming apps like Netflix and Hulu. Use an Android device for the remote. Profit.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Google’s major developer conference, Google I/O, went down this week. Was it a bit of a letdown? Probably. Did cool stuff still come out of the event? Eh? Maybe? We discuss these topics and more this week on the TC Gadgets podcast. In fact, we even had Frederic Lardinois join as a guest, along with John Biggs, Matt Burns, Jordan Crook (that’s me!), Romain Dillet, and Darrell Etherington as Bob McKenzie.

Enjoy!

We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3pm Eastern and noon Pacific.

Click here to download an MP3 of this show.
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Intro Music by Rick Barr.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Vevo, popularny serwis muzycznych teledysków, ogłosił oficjalną dostępność w Polsce. Usługa, wcześniej niedostępna w tym regionie geograficznym, będzie zawierać video-clipy najpopularniejszych polskich gwiazd jak Brodka, Pezet, a może i nawet David Hasselhoff.

Usługa jest dostępna na Vevo.com i pojawi się również na urządzeniach mobilnych oraz konsoli Xbox Live.

Vevo jest spółką joint venture pomiędzy Sony Music i Universal Music Group, powołaną do istnienia w 2009 roku. Obecnie zawiera tysiące teledysków, występów koncertowych i wywiadów.

Aby przygotować się do tego nawału treści wideo muzyki, proponujemy zjeść solidny posiłek z marynowanych śledzi, pogonić go wódeczką i umieścić na swojej szyji przystojny szalik Wisły-Kraków.

A tak przy okazji, będę w Krakowie na Bitspiration w czerwcu tego roku, jeśli chcesz porozmawiać o Żubrówce, disco polo lub weselnych hulankach.

[Thanks, Victor, for translation help. Check out Victor's startup, SlashDB.]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Andrew Mason must be some kind of spirit animal of optimism. We assumed he was kidding when today he wrote that he had recorded “a seven song album of motivational business music”. Just three months ago the founder and CEO got booted from Groupon. But we’ve just confirmed with him that his album “Hardly Workin’” is for real. Hold on to your ear holes, startup people.

Mason gave the world an update on what he’s been up to since he cashed in his voucher for an escort to the guillotine from Groupon. He’s been galavanting around the world, losing weight, will become a part-time partner at Y Combinator, and plans to start a company with the best of his bottled-up ideas from the last seven years.

But none of that is nearly important as his initiative to inspire the youth of America. He writes (with two spaces after each period [dude, no!]), that:

“I managed over 12,000 people at Groupon, most under the age of 25.  One thing that surprised me was that many would arrive at orientation with minimal understanding of basic business wisdom.  ”Haven’t you read any business books?  Good to Great? Winning? The One Minute Manager?” I’d ask.  ”Business books? Not really our thing,” was the typical response. I came to realize that there was a real need to present business wisdom in a format that is more accessible to the younger generation.”

So release an ebook series? Go on a campus speaking tour? Nope. He hit the music studio to create what we could only imagine sounds like Bob Dylan meets Tony Robbins meets Metallica. We’ve spoken directly to Mason and he says the album is real, not a stunt like quite a few things past. For instance, Grouspawn, or when he said he was voluntarily leaving Groupon to spend more time with his family. Andrew did major in music at Northwestern, after all.

 ”I spent a week in LA earlier this month recording Hardly Workin’, a seven song album of motivational business music targeted at people newly entering the workforce.  These songs will help young people understand some of the ideas that I’ve found to be a key part of becoming a productive and effective employee.  I’m really happy with the results and look forward to sharing them as soon as I figure out how to load music onto iTunes, hopefully in the next few weeks.”

I’ll be camped outside of iTunes waiting for the release if we can’t get a review copy first. In the meantime I’ve made him some mock-up album covers. Whenever we do get our hands on Hardly Workin’, expect a listening party at the TechCrunch San Francisco office. I’ll even livestream it if Mason will let me.

I’ve said before that inventors are the new rockstars. This is absolutely what I meant.

[Image Credit: Martin Schoeller]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

I remember waking up 6am, going downstairs, and firing up my Atari 800XL. The disk labeled Karateka inserted, the drive would grunt a few dozen times and the screen would flash. Suddenly, with barely any warning, the opening titles would appear and then the music would start – six notes to signal a game that was menacing in its simplicity. The story was simply told. Characters stood in darkened rooms. The Shogun aimed a finger at a door and the princess was forced into bondage. You were the Karateka, the hero, your pixelated motion was as fluid as any humans. I marveled at the realism. The whiffed punches sounded like a fist smacking a ham hock. The fight music, the little fanfare of victory, was all I needed for those few hours before school. Karateka was a marvel in an era of cheap gaming. In a world populated by Pac Men, Karateka foretold the future.

Karateka begat Prince of Persia and the creator of both, Jordan Mechner, went on to become one of the greats in the gaming industry. Luckily, he and his clan of programmers haven’t been resting on their laurels. They have just re-released Karateka in its original glory on iOS or Android, allowing us oldsters a brief moment of nostalgia and ensuring the younger generation understands the magic of a game that sparks the imagination.

They’ve also created an updated version of the game but I suspect most of us will want to experience the pixelated splendor of Mechner’s virtual world instead of the modern, cartoony style so popular with mobile gaming recently. Pro tip: watch out for the freaking eagle.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Social analytics startup Awe.sm has been growing quickly and getting a lot of interest from brands that want to use its platform for measuring the effectiveness of their social media campaigns. With that in mind, the company has hired a new CEO, industry veteran Fred McIntyre.

It’s been a long time since we checked in with Awe.sm. The company, which started out as a link-shortener but quickly transitioned to focus on measuring the influence of various social sharing activities, raised a Series A round of funding about 18 months ago.

Since then, the company has been quietly tweaking its business model, moving from a platform primarily used by developers to track social sharing data, to one used by brands and marketers. That shift came about at the request of various agencies that were looking to get a deeper look at their earned media through social networks.

Awe.sm provides them with a way to track the value of individual tweets, likes, and pins, as well as their effects on traffic, page views, and sales conversions. That gives marketers insights and measurement to determine the effectiveness and ROI of social media campaigns which they never really had before. Clients include companies like Zynga, Playdom, Topspin Media, Maker Studios, and Groupon.

Anyway, with that new direction (or should we say, new opportunity?), Awe.sm was going beyond just being a pure technology company, and it was looking for someone who would help work with brands and advertisers and agencies. And in that search, it found former CBS Interactive and AOL exec Fred McIntyre.

McIntyre was most recently SVP of CBSi’s music group, which includes brands like Last.fm, MP3.com, and Radio.com. Under his leadership, those brands were consolidated into a single unit and the group acquired lyrics database Metrolyrics.com. Prior to that, he had held various executive roles at AOL, including SVP of business development, as well as overseeing the company’s Video and Music divisions at different times.

According to Awe.sm co-founder Jonathan Strauss, the decision to bring in a veteran executive to run things became necessary as the company began scaling up. Taking the Awe.sm platform and packaging it up for social media marketers meant growing the business, growing the team, managing people, and selling to brands and agencies — all of which left him feeling spread a little too thin. While McIntyre takes the reins, Strauss will take over as head of product management.

For his part, McIntyre was interested in the opportunity to start off on the ground floor of an emerging new industry. After being part of streaming music pioneer Spinner, as well as heading up AOL Video in the mid-to-late aughts, he said he’s used to seeing new markets emerge. Being there for the inevitable growth of a social media marketing business was of huge interest.

According to McIntyre, social media marketing makes up about 8 percent of marketing budgets today, and are expected to grow to about 12 percent by the end of the year, representing a huge opportunity for growth. Awe.sm, he believes, will be a part of that growth, as it provides better tracking than competitive products.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Google announced some fresh updates for Google Now today, consisting of six new types of cards that will show up in the automated, intelligent digital assistant feature for Android and iOS. The new cards include a location-based Reminder feature, public transit travel times, and information about books, music, TV shows and video games that might be of timely interest to users.

The new Google Cards Reminder feature is based on time, people and location and can be set with simple voice commands using natural language processing. It’s like the geofenced Reminders that are used by Apple in iOS, but looks to be arguably more useful since it ties into the Google Now knowledge graph. Reminders takes Now further by giving users a way to actively set and retrieve content, which should help prove its worth among users who weren’t getting much out of the automated results previously being generated by the engine.

The other new cards provide good, useful info for getting around town, but all the new media additions should also Google help drive Google Play sales. It’s a clever way for Google to begin using Now, its next-generation predictive search tool, to drive the kinds of revenue that it might be missing out on more and more as traditional desktop search advertising becomes a less lucrative area in the new mobile age.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Google just launched an on-demand subscription music service at I/O called “Google Play Music All Access”. Its web and mobile interfaces feature millions of songs you can play instantly, recommendations, charts and playlists, and instant radio stations. The Spotify competitor launches today in the US for $9.99 a month, comes with a free trial month, and sign-ups before June 30th get it for $7.99.

All Access is just one of dozens of announcements Google launched today at its I/O conference in San Francisco. Follow along with our live blog for all the news and our commentary.

Everything from your Google Music locker is automatically pulled into Google Play Music All Access. Beneath the content you own, everything else an artist has ao All Access is automatically listed and plays at a tap. More countries will get Google Play Music All Access soon.

News that the service was coming was leaked yesterday by The Verge after it discovered Google had completed licensing deals with the major record labels. Google launched its music locker service two years ago, and later started selling music files from Play. Now Google Play users have a choice to stream rather than download.

Google’s Chris Yerga explained that with current music services, you might have a huge catalog to choose from, but getting that music organized and playing quickly is too hard. “Why is it that managing my queue feels like a chore? We set up to build a music services that doesn’t just give you access to great music but also guides you through it” said Google’s Chris Yerga.

Overall the app looks slick, with options for instantly queuing up songs. It’s also designed to get music playing as fast possible if you just want your ears filled.

All Access will have a tough road to traction, considering Spotify’s huge head start with 24 million active users and 6 million paying subscribers. However, the fact that All Access is located within the Android-ubiquitous Google Play store means Google could heavily promote it if it wants growth.

The logic behind launching an on-demand music service seems to be that it’s a critical part of any phone. Android is incomplete without it. Google Play Music All Access might never become a market leader, or even make Google much money directly, but it strengthens its presence on mobile. It could get people buying more Android phones, which lead to plenty of other revenue for Google.

Facebook is hoping to give developers a better way to get discovered and improve Graph Search with its recently tested Sections for Timeline. Today it announced it’s finished rolling out “Sections” that show what apps you use. New today is the ability to add star ratings to movies, TV shows and books that could inform Graph Search results. Also, developers can now track traffic from Sections — to which people add 200 million items each day.

Facebook first started testing the new Sections in mid-March as part of a redesigned Timeline with all user posts in the right column. Now all users have the cleaner looking Timeline with posts and Sections divided rather than mixed up. Down the left column, each content type and app gets its own Section, which you can configure in your profile’s About tab. The Music Section displays what musicians you Like, the Spotify Section shows off what songs you’ve been listening to, and the OpenTable Section features restaurants you’ve favorited or recently ate at.

As I wrote, Sections could be a data goldmine for Facebook’s Graph Search, as they encourage people to forge connections with apps and media they care about. The new ability to rate movies, TV shows, and books could help Graph Search surface the most popular results for queries  like “Books my friends Like.” Right now Facebook is trying to get more of your opinions codified in its graph, and Sections with ratings are a big step in the right direction.

For developers of content consumption apps like Spotify, Hulu, GoodReads and more, Sections will give them another way to grow beyond posts to the news feed. Facebook now has an Insights dashboard specifically for showing developers how much traffic they’re getting from sections. Facebook says “more than 17 billion songs have been added to people’s music sections through Likes and listening activity from apps.” Now Rdio and Spotify can track how those sections are netting them new users.

If Sections catch on and people properly curate them, scrolling through a friend’s sections could be a great way to discover new art and apps. Meanwhile Facebook gets to chow down on the data you volunteer. Give Game Of Thrones a five-star review? Facebook will know to show you more of its Page’s updates in your news feed than a show you Like but only give three or four stars to. Add RunKeeper to your visible app sections and Facebook will probably show you more runs posted by friends.

The fact is that the apps we use and the media we consume are becoming an important way we express ourselves. Facebook wants Timeline to tell you life story, and that story would be incomplete without this data.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch