Kinnetix blog

E-Book Readers: Will Secondary Features Win Consumers’ Hearts Or Leave Them Cold?

Devin Coldewey — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:47:44 +0000

How many e-book readers do you think are out there right now for you to choose from? If you did a little digging, I bet you'd find 50 or so. Maybe 10 really worth checking out. But right now is a bit of a weird period in e-reader history. The Kindle cemented e-readers in the consumer headspace, catapulting them from weirdo alternative technology to mainstream gadget. That's what the iPad threatens to do with tablets — we'll see about that. But the Kindle and the iPad are two important forces in the current e-reader wars; the question, upon the answer of which depends the success of many a device, is whether "bonus" features like second screens and weird form factors in e-readers will be enough to differentiate them from the high-profile devices pressing them on both flanks? See, the vast majority of e-readers were designed as a response to the Kindle, not to tablet computers, which may or may not obsolete e-readers altogether. It's a bad situation: the whole time you're improving your competitor's product, someone else is skipping your entire device class on the grounds that it will be made ridiculous by their awesome gadget. Some of the special features developed to combat the Kindle will stay, and some won't live to see their own first birthday.

MyBrandz: Finally, You Can Find People Who Love Nike, Apple, And Ferrari As Much As You Do

Jason Kincaid — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:50:34 +0000

Ever wanted to tell the world how much you love BMW, Coca-Cola, and any of the other biggest brand names on Earth? Here's your chance: MyBrandz is a new community site that looks to let people talk about their favorite brands with other users, allowing them to share their favorite products, photos, and more. You may remember MyBrandz as the company that convinced a guy to tattoo the YouTube logo to his arm a few months back. My initial reaction to the site was that it was a bit bizarre — is there really an audience of people who want to talk about how much they love these multibillion dollar corporations (many of which couldn't give a hoot about their customers)? And then I remembered the throngs of die-hard Apple fans that police internet forums, and the Ferrari store in downtown San Francisco that sells $200+ leather jackets emblazoned with the classic logo.

South Asian Mobile Social Network Mig33 Sending Twice As Many Messages A Day As Twitter

Leena Rao — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:02:26 +0000

Mobile social networks have tremendous potential to flourish in developing countries where mobile phone usage trumps internet connectivity. SMS based social networks like SMSGupshup have gained considerable traction in Asia because of this. For example, in India, there is currently a 10 to 1 mobile-to-PC ratio. Mig33, a mobile social network that involves VoIP calls, instant messaging, e-mail, text messaging, and picture sharing, has accumulated 35 million registered users of its service and is growing fast in South Asian markets such as Indonesia and India. Assuming 3 to 10 percent are active on a monthly basis, that would be 1 million to 3.5 million active users. Mig33's users are now sending over 1 million virtual gifts a month, and posting approximately 100 million messages a day on its network, or 1,000 messages every second. Twitter, in comparison, just passed 50 million a day.

It’s Hard To Watch The Newsosaurs Turn A Blind Eye To Their Own Extinction

Erick Schonfeld — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:47:56 +0000

Sometimes it is obvious where the world is headed, but some people and industries become frozen in place and time. They are like the duckbilled dinosaurs happily munching on the still-abundant plants around them when the meteor strikes instead of the small furry mammals underfoot who take cover every day by natural habit. In the print newspaper industry, it's the same story. Everyone wants to wall off the Web and keep grazing on declining ad revenues. A week ago, I wrote a post based on a conversation I had with Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen in which he made the case that print media companies would be better off shutting down their print operations now ("Burn the boats") and move forward unencumbered into the digital age, no matter how painful that may be. That suggestion hit a deep nerve, and continues to do so.

Brightkite’s Sneaky Plan To Get Regular Users Into Location: Group Text

MG Siegler — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:41:16 +0000

Brightkite is tricky. Tricky and smart. While larger than most of their location-based rivals with over 2 million users, they know that in the past year they've lost some momentum to the newer check-in services like Foursquare and Gowalla. So they're trying to do something unique to swing momentum back in their favor. Today, at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, Brightkite is unveiling its new Group Text service. It's both a feature on the website and a standalone application in the App Store (it should be available shortly). With it, Brightkite is latching onto one of the most popular and fast growing categories in mobile applications: group texting. Unlike regular text messaging, this type of app allows you to message many people all at once (and go back and forth). And better, in a world where cell providers are still managing to rip-off users with their text message bundles or $0.15 rate per-text, group texting is absolutely free.

CauseWorld’s New App Melds The Check-In With The Check-Out

MG Siegler — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:30:58 +0000

Last night, we wrote about a CauseWorld teaming up with TechCrunch to provide double karma points during the SXSW festival starting today in Austin, Texas. These points, obtained through checking-in at various locations, can be used to donate to charities through big brands that support the app. It's a great feature, and we hope you'll use it in Austin. What we didn't talk too much about is the app itself that enables it, CauseWorld, which just released a new version of its iPhone app in the App Store. We first covered the app back in December, but now it has been significantly upgraded. One of the core ideas behind the app has always been the intersection of the mobile and physical world (something I've thought a lot about as well). A new feature bridges the gap a bit more as you can now scan barcodes on individual items with your iPhone to earn extra karma points. Proctor & Gamble are the ones sponsoring these points on different products they make. It's a good idea, because even if you choose not to buy the item, it forces you to pick it up and look at it a bit.

Crystal Bowersox health, American Idol Lily Scott

Asif Jah — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:17:55 +0000

Crystal Bowersox has made it to the American Idol Top 12 finalists and despite a health scare last week when she had to go to the hospital due to complications with her diabetes, she is doing well and has quickly become a fan favorite. Crystal Bowersox just says that she’s flattered to be considered a front-runner [...]

FunMail’s FunTweet Visualizes Twitter Streams With Pretty Pictures

Leena Rao — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:58:54 +0000

We've written about FunMobility's nifty picture messaging app for the iPhone and Android, called FunMail, that allows users to blasts their text into the application, which then breaks down whatever the user typed for context and places fun graphics with your original text. Now, FunMobility has caught the Twitter bug and is launching FunTweet, a web service which turns any Twitter stream into visual messages that are related to the text. Similar to FunMail, FunTweet will turn text in Tweets into a matching image. On FunTweet's site, you sign in with your Twitter credentials and the service will draw your Tweets from your Twitter homepage feed and display each tweet as a FunMail image on FunTweet. Users can also enter a @UserName, a HashTag or a Subject as well to the images. If you like the image FunTweet picked, you can publish the Tweet to your Twitter account. If you don’t like the image, click “Try Again” and you can choose from other images. For example, if you tweet about writing a story or reading a book, then FunTweet will come up with images that match "story" - a book, a magazine, a typewriter, or a pen.

Brianne Matthews

Asif Jah — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:57:57 +0000

Softball: Many gather to honor former Mater Dei pitcher Brianne Matthews, An estimated 1,500 people gathered Friday at the Huntington Beach Sports Complex for Brianne Matthews’ memorial service. Before the service began, hundreds of people waited in line to hug family members of the star softball pitcher for Santa Ana Mater Dei. And high school softball [...]

Pentagon Partially Blames The Internet For That Christmas Shoe Bomber

Nicholas Deleon — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:41:33 +0000

This is the lede, verbatim, from a story that appeared in The Hill yesterday: "The Internet allowed extremists to contact, recruit, train and equip the suspect responsible for the attempted Flight 253 bombing on Christmas Day 'within weeks,' a top Pentagon official told lawmakers Wednesday." What's the implication, that because someone used the Internet to plan something, something bad, we should get rid of it? Fine by me, believe me.

IPL Live Score, IPL 2010 Live Telecast

Asif Jah — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:36:20 +0000

12 Mar 2010 14:30 GMT Kolkata Knight Riders Vs Deccan Chargers Mumbai 1st Match Live Match in Progress Zimbabwe 141/10 (48.2) West Indies 4/0 (0.5) Live Cricket Score

Sonos Confirms $25 Million Investment From Index Ventures

Michael Arrington — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:31:32 +0000

Sonos has now confirmed the Index Ventures investment we reported two days ago. The company has taken an additional $25 million in capital from Index, raising the total raised by the company to $65 million. And Index Ventures Partner Mike Volpi, a former CIsco executive, has joined their board of directors. The funds will be used for growth equity, says the company, which signals that they are past the proof of product stage (well past, in this case) and will use the funds to speed market penetration. From our original post:

Five explosions rock Iqbal town, Lahore

Asif Jah — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:11:46 +0000

Lahore, Pakistan :- Five explosions have been reported in Iqbal town Lahore, Pakistan. The first blast occurred in a open plot near Moon Market where the explosive was dug in the ground. Rescue teams and police have cordoned the area. The second and third explosion took place in Kashmir Block, one of which was outside Group [...]

TechCrunch Friday GiveAway: An Apple iPad #CRUNCH

Michael Arrington — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:49:54 +0000

It's Apple iPad day, and every early adopter worth their salt is pre-ordering one of the soon to be ubiquitous little devices and counting the days until they get their hands on it on April 3. You've been waiting on this thing since December 2008, after all. We know you've already bought two for yourselves, the limit, because that's how TechCrunch readers roll. We know this because we've told our advertisers that every single one of our 9.2 million monthly readers is a high disposable income influencer in technology and media that just loves to try out new things that they see advertised on TechCrunch. And since those advertisers believe us, we have the means to buy an extra iPad and give it to you. Even though you'll then have three of them. Because you, dear reader, are a high disposable income influencer. Read on for details...

Lunch.com Communities Let You Build Your Own Niche Reviews Site

Jason Kincaid — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:10:34 +0000

Last August, we wrote about Lunch.com, a reviews site that's setting out with the goal to make the world a better place by changing the way people think about each other (as I wrote then, it's a pretty lofty goal). Today, the company is launching a new feature called Communities that lets users build their own review sites around any niche topic. If you'd like to try founding a community, you can do so using the beta code "techcrunch". The new feature can be likened to a 'Ning for review sites'. As a community founder, you select a topic on whatever you'd like, then invite other users to contribute reviews and other content (you can elect to moderate this as it comes in).

Lahore Moon market Blast

Asif Jah — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:53:53 +0000

LAHORE: Another blast near crowded Moon Market of Lahore. The blast took place near Shah Noor Studio located in Iqbal Town at Multan Road.

Update: In Time For SXSW, Twitter Officially Turns On Geolocation

Leena Rao — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:37:09 +0000

A few days ago, we spotted Twitter's initial roll out of a geolocation feature on its Website. It appeared that Twitter was testing the feature because it quickly turned it off. Last night, the feature went back on, and Twitter co-founder and CEO Biz Stone officially announced it. While Twitter’s geolocation feature has been live through its API since last November, this is the first time Twitter has enabled geolocation on its site. To start Tweeting with your location attached, you need to enable the feature in your Twitter Account Settings. Once you've opted-in, you will be able to add your location information to all your Tweets or choose to add them to individual Tweets as you compose them. You can choose to share your exact location (your coordinates) or your neighborhood or town.

Jefferson Cup Soccer Tournament

Gulraiz Akram — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:24:30 +0000

Jefferson Cup Soccer Tournament, Just when it seemed no one was taken this year in the World Cup very seriously, along comes an excellent article Why the United States “football” I hate England fans. It is one of an American writer who has rekindled the admiration paved the way for Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, “Saturday [...]

Irina Krupnik

Gulraiz Akram — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:58:43 +0000

Irina Krupnik, The Manhattan bikini model and make up artist is furious a character in the hit comedy, played by Jon Favreau, used her image in a risque scene that shows her on the cover of a brochure at the fictional resort island for couples, on the island Bora Bora. In the claim, Irina Krupnik had [...]

Sons of Tucson

Gulraiz Akram — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:41:39 +0000

Sons of Tucson is an upcoming comedy television series featuring Natalie Martinez, Matthew Levy, Frank Dolce, Benjamin Stockham, and starring Tyler Labine. As part of the Fox network upfront presentation, Sons of Tucson was announced as a midseason show to air on Sunday nights at 8:30PM Eastern/7:30PM Central in between animated hits, The Simpsons and [...]

AOL’s Big SXSW Bet On Seed and “Bionic Journalism”

Guest Author — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:24:31 +0000

Editor's Note: This guest post was written and reported by Steven Rosenbaum, the CEO of Magnify.net. Today, the world of music, film, and the internet converges on Austin, Texas for what is fast becoming one of the key the places to launch new software products. For the folks at AOL, South By Southwest—know also as SXSW—will be a debutant party for AOL’s new Seed form of journalism.. AOL has it's hopes pinned on that fact that SXSW will be the perfect place to both introduce the new Seed content machine to a large audience and test the concept of mixing freelance and pro-journalists to create a huge amount of original content. Seed has been operational for a few months now, but SXSW will be it coming out party, according to former New York Times writer Saul Hansell who is now the Program Director of Seed.

Seven Alternatives to the Apple iPad

Matt Burns — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:23:54 +0000

Wait! Stop. Before you hand over Apple your credit card and pre-order the iPad, you may want to check out the other touchscreen options available now and in the near future. The iPad isn't the only game in town. Sure, it might have a fancy-pants interface, but each of the follow seven tablets win the hardware fight, which is just as important to a lot of consumers. Of course the hardware only tells part of the story. The iPad has a leg up on all of these options because of the user-friendly iPhone interface, but it's not like you're dropping $600+ on a tablet for your parents, right?

IPL Live on Youtube

Gulraiz Akram — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:18:25 +0000

IPL Live on Youtube, IPL (Indian Premier League), one of the the most watched cricket tournament in India, has tied up Google’s YouTube to broadcast all the matches live on YouTube. This broadcast will cover 60 matches spread over 45 days. These matches will however be broadcast with a five minute delay in India as [...]

Confession: I Pre-ordered My iPad And Breguet Made Me Do It

John Biggs — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:14:28 +0000

I'm a sucker. It's true. As much you guys think we rail against Apple, we're like abused puppies, slinking back to our master's hard ankles, shivering and awaiting praise. Why did I pre-order the iPad? Well, first I'm a gadget blogger. Second there is no certainty that mother Apple will grace us with an early review unit so I want to hedge our bets. Third? I want to see where computing is headed. Bear with me here. Apple is not the bringer of fire to a benighted world. Far from it. In my recent writing I've been struck by a few parallels with Steve Jobs to Abraham Louis Breguet, a French watchmaker who lived in the 18th century. He was a mechanical genius, to be sure, but he was also a salesman. While the rest of the benighted world was sloshing around in an admixture of feces and mud in the streets of Paris and telling the time by whether the pikemen were stabbing them for being out after curfew, Breguet was selling watches that would not be out of place on the wrist (had they had straps) of a whale in Las Vegas. He invented secret anti-counterfeiting measures but made them part of the allure and not part of a DRM scheme. He designed elegant and beautiful watches in an age of rococo designs but wasn't above creating a "subscription" watch for the masses who wanted to own a piece of the good life without paying an exorbitant sum of money. Other watchmakers were making commodities and following Breguet's lead. That's what's happening here.

Formerly Cc:Betty, Threadbox Emerges As A Realtime Collaboration Platform

Leena Rao — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:10:06 +0000

Recently, startup Cc: Betty, a nifty service that organized and managed group email threads, decided to rebrand and relaunch its service. The new product, Threadbox, was going to be streamlined and tweaked to appeal to workspace users. Today, Threadbox is officially launching in private beta, as a more collaborative and user-friendly service. Essentially, the site aims to combine email, IM, and collaboration tools into one platform. Instead of focusing on email like Cc:Betty, Threadbox centers around collaboration in the workplace. The service organizes and logs every type of communications with clients, allows users to share documents and images, and record decisions and feedback. The new service also has the ability to serve as a project management tool, allowing users to share and track requirements and specs, then track and follow team members from start to finish.

NEPRA Approves Raise Of Power Tariff By Rs 0.14

Umar — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:56:01 +0000

National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has given approval to Atlas Power Company for raising electricity tariff by Rs 0.14. According to notification issued by NEPRA, 10 percent increase in tariff has been done in accordance with fuel adjustment formula. The new price of Rs 9 per unit would be effective from February.

Lady Gaga Telephone Video

Gulraiz Akram — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:51:55 +0000

Lady Gaga Telephone Video, Here is the official Lady GaGa Telephone video, with lyrics and photos, featuring Beyonce, in support of the song from her recently released album The Fame Monster. The highly anticipated music video had its world premiere on March 11, only on E!news channel.

PCB Announces World Twenty20 Squad

Umar — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:49:32 +0000

Pakistan has announced a 15-member squad for the upcoming World Twenty20 tournament to be played in the West Indies. // <![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // // Watch Live Cricket Chief selector Mohsin Khan announced the squad at National Stadium Karachi and informed that naming a captain “is the domain of [...]

Scott Macintyre American Ido

Gulraiz Akram — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:32:42 +0000

Scott Macintyre American Ido, Scott MacIntyre is one of the 13 finalists on FOX’s “American Idol 8.” Scott MacIntyre auditioned in Phoenix, Arizona. Scott MacIntyre sang “And So It Goes” by Billy Joel for his audition. All four judges voted yes to send Scott MacIntyre to Hollywood. Scott MacIntyre was in the third group of [...]

American Idol top 12 Season 9

Gulraiz Akram — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:20:53 +0000

American Idol top 12 Season 9, The eighth season of American Idol premiered on January 13, 2009 and concluded on May 20, 2009. Judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson continued to judge the show’s contestants, along with Ryan Seacrest as host. The season introduced Kara DioGuardi as the fourth judge on the Idol [...]