The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Andrew Keen, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — convened for yet another G+ conversation. This one, however, was noted for its evenhandedness as @ajkeen and @scobleizer traded social blows over the new Google service. As someone in the Friendfeed chat on the livecast noted, @stevegillmor seems surprisingly positive about the new service. As Keen observed, that’s because I think the new service is Friendfeed revisited.

Of course, it is. But it’s also Twitter without the 140 character limit, Facebook without the unseen authority algorithm, and the Gillmor Gang without a human director (Hangouts). @kevinmarks says it a little differently, seeing G+ growth gaining on Club Penguin. And that’s the fundamental reason Google has a winner, by underlining the best parts of each of these services and floating all boats on a rising tide.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

New technologies usually allow for more. In the move from print media to the Web the “more” was comments, slideshows and of course rapid-fire content. In the move from VHS to DVDs the “more” was all sorts of behind the scenes footage and director commentaries. In the move from Blackberries to iPhones, the “more” was a wonderland of new apps and a browser experience that didn’t make your eyes bleed.

In a world of eBook readers, more is starting to creep in, but it’s unclear whether this is a more that will actually sell books, or a more that only a handful of superfans care about. A lot people still attach a high-art aesthetic to books, and decry anything that makes its content more accessible for readers. Case in point: A gorgeous version of Alice in Wonderland came out on the iPad and some parents were furious that the animated images took away from kids having to imagine, say, Alice growing and shrinking on their own.

Novelist Kitty Pilgrim is betting that more is more with her new book The Explorer’s Code. A long time broadcast journalist she’s included several highly-produced videos to show the real places that inspired her fictional thriller. But does that take something away from the magic of fiction? We caught up with Pilgrim over Skype to discuss.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Last week we broke the news of the impressive-but-not-jawdropping $200 million acquisition of Cloud.com by Citrix and the stellar year of returns that Redpoint Ventures is having. What makes Redpoint’s record so unique is that the firm is having a good year despite the fact that they’re not in one of the big five: Zynga, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, 0r Groupon. Hell, let’s make it a big six and throw in Pandora since the IPO made so much noise.

The venture world has never been more polarized between have and have-not firms. There’s talk that Accel is sitting on a fund that will have the highest returns the industry has ever seen, thanks mostly to Facebook. Meanwhile, Greylock must be sitting on one of– if not the– best fund in its history between early stakes in LinkedIn, nicely priced stakes in Facebook and Pandora and a late stage investment in Groupon. Of course no single individual in the venture business may be in a better position to enjoy 2011 than Reid Hoffman: He’s the founder and largest shareholder in LinkedIn, the first money into Zynga, a partner at Greylock, and an angel investor in Facebook.

Meanwhile, there are dozens of venture firms on the other side of this divide who are going out of business. Like the kid stuck practicing the violin while he watches his neighbors play football in the yard, these firms can only look on as we endlessly debate whether it’s a bubble or not. It certainly doesn’t feel like 1999 to them. 1999 was a time that anyone with a plausible reason to call themselves a venture capitalist could raise money. These firms– and there are a lot of them– are struggling to raise another dime.

My best guess is there are dozens of them, but there could be more. Dying venture firms are like the walking dead. They can have years of staggering around with stakes in still active portfolio companies, hoping they’re still holding a lottery ticket that could put them back in the game. If not, they just slowly wind down.

Part of the reason for such an industry disconnect is the polarity of returns. The consumer Web companies that are this cycle’s winners are some of biggest the world has ever seen, thanks to the spread and maturity of the Web, and the fact that most of them have waited so long to seek an exit. But the other big trend has been the feature/app company flip for less than $100 million. It’s been well documented that small and mid-cap companies can no longer go public, and those several-hundred-million-dollar acquisition singles and doubles– like Cloud.com and fellow Redpoint exit Clearwell– have been hard to come by.

All of that is what makes Redpoint’s winning 2011 such a hopeful sign that there’s still something in between the two extremes. The firm has found multiple exits affording them returns of 10x or more without stakes in the big Web 2.0 names. They’ve done it through less sexy Internet companies like Home Away, international exits like Qihoo, and some solid doubles and triples in the enterprise business. Redpoint hasn’t counted on lucking into the big score, the firm has made well-reasoned investments at reasonable prices and dug out its own luck.

I caught up with Redpoint’s newest partner Satish Dharmaraj on video last week to talk a bit more about the firm’s run. He joined the firm two years ago after a stellar record as an entrepreneur, and Cloud.com was his first deal. We talked about how Redpoint is making money, and we also talked about what it was like for Dharmaraj to be on the other side of the table.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, John Borthwick, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — joined the Circle Game as channelled by Joni Mitchell and Tom Rush. Google + seems to be a hit, which means it is soon to reach the critical mass where all social software must graduate from high school to beyond. For now, the service appears like a broader reimplementation of Friendfeed, which some of us felt was truncated not by the users but by the Facebook acquisition. In other words, for some that reinvention is a good thing.

For @borthwick, the project is a substantial undertaking for a company we’ve been trivializing in recent months along with its stock price. For @scobleizer, it means the battle between reach and rich, this time in social circles as Google defines graphs. For @kevinmarks, plenty of work ahead but a strong effort. For @stevegillmor, well, you’ll have to watch the show. But a hint: +1s to Twitter, FaceTime, and whoever makes new mistakes fast.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

I need to start with a warning. Depending on your work environment, this may not be safe for work. Especially if you don’t want to hear some a lot of four letter words. It may not be safe around small children either. But for everyone else, you might enjoy watching this video over and over again.

One of our popular TCTV shows is TC Cribs, where Jason Kincaid goes behind the scenes of a tech company to see what it’s like to work and play there. Of course, we edit it and don’t use all the material we shoot. Our editor John Murillo decided to edit together some of the outtakes.

We posted the video on our internal Yammer and it was quite a hit. Jason says “wow that was painful for me to watch.” Michael Arrington’s favorite part comes around 1:55 and he said this needs to be posted. So, check it out. You might not look at Jason the same way again.

For the regular Cribs episodes, check out TC Cribs at techcrunch.tv/show/tc-cribs

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

We’re trying something new this week by bringing you some of the top tech stories in video format. Time is short, and so is this video. We realize it is a bit rough around the edges but hopefully the quick dose of news can get you caught up while on the run. Check it out and tell us what you think. In the meantime we’ll be iterating on TechCrunched. Below are the links to the stories mentioned in the video:

Good First Sign: I Have A Strong Desire To Keep Using Google+

Square Closes That $100 Million Round, Mary Meeker Joins Board

Myspace Acquired, CEO Out: Email From Mike Jones To Employees

He’s Bringing Myspace Back: Justin Timberlake Takes A Stake

Microsoft Office 365 Rolls Out Its Online Productivity Suite

Zynga To Provide Customized Mobile Games And Content To AT&T Customers

He’s Bringing Myspace Back: Justin Timberlake Takes A Stake

With Ten Million Videos Played, TechCrunch TV Turns One

Let The Games Begin, TechCrunch Disrupt SF Startup Battlefield Applications Are Now Open!

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

TechCrunch TV celebrates its one year birthday today. Since we launched, we’ve had 10 million live and on demand video plays. We have more than 2,300 videos archived in our library. In addition to breaking news interviews and live special event coverage, we now produce 9 shows in San Francisco and New York.

Last year in late June, TechCrunch had just moved into its new San Francisco office. Studio lights were quickly installed in a former conference room that became the studio. A rather wobbly desk was built for the set and rehearsals were conducted. One week later, TechCrunch TV launched with a very Max Headroom looking set.

In addition to the programs we launched (interview shows Keen On with Andrew Keen and Speaking Of with Cyan Banister, and our tech news roundup and sometimes fiery debate on OMG/JK with MG Siegler and Jason Kincaid,) we have added 6 new shows:

• TC Cribs: Jason Kincaid goes behind-the-scenes at tech firm offices
• Ask A VC: Sarah Lacy asks top Silicon Valley VC’s questions submitted by our readers
• Fly or Die: Erick Schonfeld and John Biggs give a ‘fly’ or ‘die’ to new products
• Founder Stories: Chris Dixon has deep conversations with other entrepreneurs about building startups
• Why Is This News?: Sarah Lacy and Paul Carr discuss stories from outside of Silicon Valley
• Gillmor Gang: Steve Gillmor produces and hosts a weekly show with industry experts and thought leaders

Our most popular “non-show” videos include Jason Kincaid trying out the largest Android phone ever and an iPhone controllable robotic ball called the Sphero that we saw at CES. Speaking of robots, another favorite was a visit to our office by the Anybots robot, controlled remotely by Michael Arrington. On the more serious side, Office Hours with Paul Graham from our last Disrupt conference was a hit. In addition to all the entrepreneurs, VC’s, founders and CEOs from startups and established tech companies too numerous to list, at Disrupt NYC we interviewed Ashton Kutcher, Senator Al Franken, and T-Pain.

We’ve upgraded our San Francisco production to HD. We now use HD robotic cameras (not remotely controlled by Arrington) and an HD Tricaster switcher. In our early days, if a guest moved out of the shot, there wasn’t much our director in the control room could do about it, as we usually have one TCTV staffer running the entire show. Now, with the robotic cameras, it’s a quick and easy adjustment to put the guest properly back in frame. We’ve also upgraded the microphones, set and desk.

Thanks to our acquisition by AOL, we now have access to the HD AOL Studios in New York, where we produce Founder Stories, Fly or Die and other NY-based interviews.

The most popular place to watch TCTV is within blog posts on Techcrunch. But we have a directory page at techcrunch.tv where we put the most recent episodes of our shows. We also list all the episodes for each show. We’ve recently made some speed performance improvements to the page, so it’s a good way to find past videos.

Looking ahead, we are planning to launch more shows and news segments. We also have some video production and website improvements on the way. Thanks for watching our first year and hope you keep watching.

Image: Will Clayton / flickr

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Ever since Color launched its photo sharing app, the $41 million startup has been having a rough time. John Biggs and I reviewed it on Fly or Die back in March, when CEO Bill Nguyen joined us to defend the app ( you can watch that episode below, we both gave it a “die”). The company continues to struggle, so we decided to revisit our assessment in the new episode above.

Things don’t seem to be getting much better for the company. Nobody is using the app. Co-founder Peter Pham left, or was fired, according to CEO Bill Nguyen, who also told the New York Times that the company is going back to the drawing board. It might scrap its photo app altogether in favor of, well, something big and vague. According to the NYT article:

Mr. Nguyen outlined an ambitious plan to compete with Apple, Google and Facebook by tying together group messaging, recommendations and local search, all while making money through advertising.

Okay. Good luck with that.

Their first idea didn’t work. It happens. At least they still have a lot of money left to try something else. We’ve analyzed this from every angle by now. But how many do-overs do they get? Can they overcome such a spectacularly bad launch? Or is Color doomed to become the Ishtar of iPhone apps?

Watch more episodes of Fly or Die here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Phil Windley, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — celebrated the news that apps are moving past web sites as the default architecture of the planet. I say celebrate because I think the trend is one that will continue, and even accelerate, as iOS notifications make interoperation between apps more useful. In the process, as @windley notes, notifications and the processes that are triggered, become the focal point of what used to be known as the operating system.

What that means for Windows is cloudy at the moment, pun intended. Though many analysts suggest Windows Phone 7 will gain significant penetration alongside iOS and Android, it will only be possible should important apps drive that adoption. @scobleizer is dubious, and @kevinmarks suggests the locus of power in notification has moved away from OS to Facebook and Twitter. @stevegillmor has his money on @mentions, where social and Web meet in a native wrapper too tasty to ignore.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

For all the talk of cord-cutting, the cable/satellite/fiber optic TV companies are not going anywhere anytime soon. I put Verizon FIOS in that camp. With 3.7 million subscribers, it is already one of the largest video service providers in the country. But it is pushing hard to get on all screens and keep Netflix, Hulu, and Apple TV at bay.

Or is it? Verizon FIOS also provides broadband Internet and home phone services. (I am a Verizon FIOS subscriber myself and get all three—Internet, TV, and phone). Last time I checked, Netflix streams over the Internet. I recently got a chance to ask Eric Bruno, the senior VP in charge of Verizon FIOS, about its relationship with the Internet video alternatives, his mobile product plans, and Verizon’s new home automation product in these two video segments.

In the video above, Bruno gives me some stats on how many people use Verizon FIOS, its rollout strategy (it is focusing on penetrating the homes it’s already passed for right now), and how many customers buy the triple play like me (90 percent—yup, bundling works). He also talks (below) about the new Home Control product Verizon FIOS customers will be able to add to control thermostats, lighting and even set up Web cams over a wireless network.

I give Bruno a little grief about the UI of FIOS Mobile Remote app (which we reviewed on Fly or Die), and he tells me that app (which is a program guide along with a WiFi linked software remote) will eventually be combined with Verizon’s Flex View app (which allows for on-demand rentals or purchases of movies). You can also expect more TV shows in Flex View, and eventually TV channels participating in the TV Everywhere project will be viewable right on your iPad (which is already the case with Comcast’s Xfinity app).

All of this sort of suggests that Verizon FIOS will compete directly with Netflix for streaming shows and digital downloads to any screen. But I want my Netflix on my big-screen TV and Verizon could make that easy by simply letting Netflix create a widget for FIOS viewers. Then I wouldn’t need to pull out the HDMI cable and string it to my laptop every time I want to stream on the big screen.

Would Verizon ever allow Netflix prime real estate on its service? “The answer is definitely not no,” Bruno hedges in the video below. “People are going there anyway. If they are going there anyway I would rather have them go to Verizon.”

Hear that Reed Hastings? Give Bruno a call. “If Reed picked up the phone, we’d definitely talk about it. Same offer to Google.” A Youtube widget or channel would be sweet. Leanback, baby.

You can watch the entire unedited interview here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch