A couple of days ago Techcrunch was the first to partner with Tweetdeck (the Adobe Air Twitter application) and launch their own version of the very popular twitter application. However, now they arent the only ones to do so in the technolgy news space, Mashable has entered into a new Tweetdeck partnership.
Techcrunch Tweetdeck
Mashable Tweetdeck
So which technology based Tweetdeck will you be using? More importantly im wondering why we dont have a Crenk tweetdeck version available yet! Well maybe one day.
Last week Techcrunch reported about how images of their new Tablet had leaked. This makes a big difference because it is normally Techcrunch who is the first to report on a leak. However in this case the team over at Techcrunch have been working on a new Tablet in which in essence is a giant iPhone.
The Tablet has been in development for the last six months or so, and it has really changed dramatically in design since the first prototype. This Tablet moves Techcrunch a little away from just being a technology blog and more towards a tech company with two arms, journalism and actual technology.
In the words of John Cougar Mellencamp, both the commerical for Microsoft Songsmith and the number of parody tunes that have been released “hurt so good.”
The Songsmith commercial caused a ripple of laughter when the painful commercial made its rounds on the internet. Viewers lamented on the lack of acting as well as the blatent use of an Apple laptop throughout the entire promotion. You can vew the entire promotion here.
Recently, several Songsmith parodies of popular songs have been released using the Songsmith application.Both TechCrunch and This Week in Tech (TWiT) covered these interesting adaptions that almost appear to come from a bizarro world.
Here is “Roxanne” by The Police via Songsmith.
If you’d like to see other tunes mutilated by this Microsoft inception, visit the the article posted over on TechCrunch. Prepare to laugh, cry, or a mixture of both!
Techcrunch has changed their theme yet again. A few months ago the theme was changed for the 3rd time in a year and I thought it was really moving in the right direction. The navigation was clean, there were a lot more options to find the articles you are looking for, and the theme had some colour and character.
Techcrunch today have launched a new theme which keeps the same navigation principles but totally gets rid of all the character and colour on the page.
It was reported yesterday that Lycos will not be shutting down their Mail and Tripod services as reported by Techcrunch and others.
In an article appearing this morning, TechCrunch erroneously reported that Lycos will be closing its Tripod and Lycos Mail services on Feb. 15. The information contained in the blog posting pertains to Lycos Europe products and services and affects Lycos Europe users only.
The closing of these two products by Lycos Europe does not impact Lycos users in the U.S. Lycos, Inc. and Lycos Europe are two completely separate entities and business units. Lycos, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Daum Communications, Corp., while Lycos Europe is owned by Telefonica. Late last year, Lycos Europe” onclick=”javascript:TrackClick(”,’..%2Flycos-europe-to-close-its-doors-is-this-first-step-to-tech-company-closures%2F’)”s parent company announced it would be shutting down its operations and seeking a sale of its remaining assetts.
Lycos Inc. (www.lycos.com) continues to operate social media, publishing and search services including both Tripod and Lycos Mail. Currently, Tripod is the #17 social networking site worldwide (comScore MM Dec. 2008), with millions of member pages hosted, published and visited each month.
I have also noticed today that Techcrunch has changed their theme again. It hasn’t really been too long since they last changed their theme, probably about a quarter off the top of my head. Last time the Techcrunch theme was changed they seems to have nothing in their sidebar except advertising (i know Crenk also has a little bit of advertising), however that being said this new theme really addresses the key issues of the older theme.
The site itself is a lot more compact in the header and key change is that the 728×90 advertisement is no longer above the site, but fitting in with the header itself. The key green is not really as predominant, but it makes it easy to distinguish between Techcrunch and the other network sites. In the old theme they just had excepts on the home page, but now they have an additional three slots in which they can feature certain articles. Navigation has really improved within this new theme and now it is a lot easier to find new content. As well as feature articles in the header on the home page they have also added eleven featured articles in the sidebar sitewide. If I didnt have an RSS reader or use it everyday, with the previous theme it would have been impossible to keep up with the new content, however with this new theme it provides me with a better idea on what is happening in the tech space.
This new theme is far from perfect but it is a huge improvement from all the previous themes they had on the site. I would really still like to see a lot more integration between the Techcrunch home page and the other network sites, but im sure that will come within the year.
Never before have we as a global community ever felt so connected as we have in the past ten years. We have grown from gatherings, town hall meetings, forums and message boards, internet chat rooms, to social networks. I host a podcast over at Tech in Twenty, and we’ve discussed the growth in popularity for social networks and how niche interests have played a huge part of that growth.
We have all heard of the popular social networks like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Ning, etc. But there are a lot of networks out there that cater to a more specific market, no matter if you’re into music, television, knitting, dating, marbles, or candles, there is a group for you. BookSprouts is the newly developed social site for book clubs. The site is a amongst a few competitors that claim to be a space for readers, but BookSprout is different in that the actual design is easy to navigate at the layout is welcoming to new users with little confusion. Every step for you is laid out so that users can get started immediately without getting lost in the site.
I had time to explore the site and came across the same problem the write of the TechCruncharticle did. Only two of the books I listed had actual groups connected to them. This was rather limiting since those books were not considered favorites of mine, so it left me little desire to join that discussion. While I won’t blame this entirely on BookSprout, this is a user generated community, unless someone starts a group for the book, I have little time to manage one on my own.
I like how the site is free of ads. Though one might question the ability of the site to sustain itself, other social sites like Ning are free of advertisements and function perfectly well without all the advertising. The ability to purchase what other users are reading straight from the site is nice with an easily accessible Amazon link, but might be too limiting considering that there might be other places offering the book cheaper. For that you might want to check out my post on Booksprice.
Here is a video that details what Booksprice offers and what they’ve done for their users. Pick a couple of books, sign-up, and enjoy!
Zemanta has long been a favorite addition to my blogging processes. This interesting little addition to the browser builds in the ability include photos, links, and tags for all of your media inserts. By installing Zemanta, I have reduced the time it takes to track down information to include, and by setting up some personal settings I’m sure to find what I need when I need it.
The New
Zemanta has always offered what it thinks you will need in terms of photos and links, but today Zemanta is launching their public API which will now allow users to build a “user suggestion engine.”
Funding for the company has come from Union Square Ventures, Eden Ventures and The Accelerator Group, along with its win at the fist SeedCamp, this announcement has come out of LeWeb in Paris, France. This announcement is sure to increase not only the number of users, but also the dependency that online writers will have on this dynamic tool.
The Future
Zemanta has now opened itself to a huge reception in the world of online content creators. By opening their API, they can approach content creators to leverage their unorganized with the system, and the users are able to access the content for various needs.
In an article by TechCrunch, they state that “usage of the API is free for up to 10.000 API calls per month, and for a subscription fee above that.” So not only has Zemanta found a way to integrate user input, but they also find a way to monetize their efforts for content creators to get organized.
Zemanta has a bright future ahead of it. I have just recently connected with one of the Founders for Zemanta on Twitter @andraz. He’s easily approachable and seems to be keen on connecting with users around the world.
For those of you not following TechCrunch’s Layoff Tracker, the tech industry is taking a major hit. So far a total of 44,283 (to include HP’s release) people are gone from their respective companies. Is this another Dot Com Bust?
How bad is this? Well, pretty bad considering that most tech startups are staffed minimally to keep costs down. Some companies have been forced to cut as many has 1/3 of their staff, some up to 50%.
I were Chicken Little, the sky would definitely be falling right now!
Here on Crenk there’s already been at least two posts on how the social media world has been hit by the economic downturn, here and here. Just about every industry has been effected, and as such we’ve seen companies begin to layoff whole portions of their employed team. If employees were not let go, there were changes in management, as seen in Twitter’s case.
That being said, TechCrunch has created a Layoff Tracker for all the layoffs that have and will be occuring in the coming months ahead. Already last week alone we saw companies like Zillow, Pandora, Adbrite, Hi5, etc, all get listed as companies doing some trimming to their employed staff.
Keep up with the latest as it happens and see if your favorite company gets listed.
TechCrunch is a self proclaimed “obsessive” site for everything technology, especially start-ups. Michael Arrington, co-founder of TechCrunch, has a well established career in doing what he loves best and, in my opinion, being damn good at it. But don’t take my word for, they have just recently hit a huge milestone for any site, over 1 million subscribers follow them via RSS Feeds. In less than 39 months they have achieved this goal and by the looks of it, will continue this trend.
Arrington reports that like any other site, their numbers fluctuate. Weekends are slow, but mid-week is their best time period. Still, even with the fluctuations, fans stay for the news and are even offered various ways to stay in touch with what is happening in the world of technology; Twitter, RSS Feed, FriendFeed, are just as few examples of how TechCrunch stays in touch with their readers.
Recentlly TechCrunch held their TechCrunch50 event which has been covered on Crenk here and here. Because of Arrington’s love for start-ups, he offers some of the best in the world a stage for them to highlight their products, network with VC’s and other interested high profile people, and in turn gives a little back with the success he’s achieved.
I highly recommend businesses to take a look at TechCrunch because as investors, you could be a part of the next big thing in the tech world!
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