iconTechCrunch

StudiVZ Won’t Comment On Facebook Lawsuit, But Will Talk Smack In General
StudiVZ, the Facebook clone (and by clone, we mean exact duplicate) in Germany, says in an email that they still havn’t received the lawsuit complaint filed by Facebook on Friday. The lawsuit claims intellectual property infringement and accuses StudiVZ of
Japan’s Mixi: A Social Network As A Purely Local Phenomenon
Japan’s biggest social network is called Mixi, launched in February 2004 by the company of the same name. Drawing in one in five web users in the country, Mixi now boasts over 15 million members. The site ranks sixth on
Startup Job Site Gets Backing From Y Combinator, Relauches As Startuply
New Y Combinator startup Startuply launches today. It’s a free job listing service aimed squarely at small startups, which have a lot of trouble getting the attention of new engineering graduates over the noise of the brand recognition and recruiting
Tesla Motors Unveils Jaw-Dropping Menlo Park Showroom
Tesla Motors, the automobile startup with backers that include Sergey Brin and Larry Page, held a party tonight to mark the launch of its Menlo Park storefront. The store, which is the company’s second, will be open to the general
Finalist In McDonalds/MySpace Jingle Contest Is Former McDonalds Armed Robber
Well, here’s something that’s so ridiculous it couldn’t be made up. McDonald’s teamed up with MySpace to create a new jingle for the 40th anniversary of the Big Mac. The original song (two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce…) was
Pressflip Is A Belly Flop
Pressflip is a new blog search engine (it’s actually a relaunch of a site called Persai, which launched earlier this year). The idea is you do a search, train the engine by telling it which results aren’t interesting to you,
Edopter Attempts “Social Trendcasting” Through Crowdsourcing And Internet Buzz
Edopter is a unique concept that attempts to combine crowd-sourcing with internet buzz to predict new trends. It’s called “social trendcasting.”The way it works, is by allowing users to generate “trends” according to what they think will catch on. Some
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iconMashable

NYT Pushing Back at WSJ With Boost to Business Coverage
This week’s edition of Advertising Age has a somewhat revealing piece concerning movements in Web media space by some old media titans. In particular, The New York Times versus The Wall Street Journal. We’ve heard the WSJ talk adventurous talk
studiVZ Claims Facebook Suit is Meritless
As has been widely reported by tech media outlets for a few days now, Facebook filed a lawsuit against studiVZ Ltd. in California federal court on Friday claiming the German network had copied its “look, feel, features and services.” Today
studiVZ Claims Facebook Suit is Meritless
As has been widely reported by tech media outlets for a few days now, Facebook filed a lawsuit against studiVZ Ltd. in California federal court on Friday claiming the German network had copied its “look, feel, features and services.” Today
MixTurtle Music Search Is Fast. Real Fast.
Combine the element of Web search with music playback and a mohawk-sporting, ciggie-smoking dinosaur, and you get MixTurtle, a new service that works as you might expect it to. Just click and play.Ajax is responsible making it behave as it
Some Startups Just Don’t Need Starting
I’ve been scrolling slowly down the list of items mentioned by Paul Graham, a partner at the startup micro-financier outfit Y Combinator, in a piece titled “Startup Ideas We’d Like to Fund.” It’s an interesting write-up, and I think a
Facebook Sets Second Redesign Launch Attempt for Tonight
Alright, so Facebook kind of failed to accurately estimate when it would be taking long-talked-about profile redesign. The number last tossed around was July 16. The day came, the day went, and nothing. No changes made. That may have made
Why Does The Industry Standard Think Podcasting is Failing?
The short answer is that they want it to fail. There seems to be an underpinning of glee to get to deadpool it, and no one has told them it’s no longer trendy to call podcasting a failure anymore.The long
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iconRead/WriteWeb

More Amazon S3 Downtime: How Much is Too Much?
Todays big news is that Amazons S3 online storage service has experienced significant downtime. Allen Stern, who hosts his blogs images on S3, reported that the downtime lasted 3.5 hours. Startups that use S3 for their storage,
Facebook Redesign To Go Live Tomorrow
Five months later and it looks like Facebook is ready to release their new profile redesign. Initially Facebook announced they were working on a redesign earlier this year. In May, a glimpse of the
Relay For Life of Second Life Raises Over $150k in First Hour!
Relay for Life of Second Life is a charity event that celebrates the victories and remembers those that have been lost in the fight against cancer. Th 4th annual RFLofSL relay takes place today
Cartoon: Favicon Dead Pool
Here is a new cartoon from Rob Cottingham of Social Signal. Rob runs a regular cartoon blog called Noise to Signal, in which he puts in graphical form some of the big questions of the social web.
Google Integrates Services Into the New iGoogle
Users love it when products and services from one company are nicely integrated with one another. It helps to keep users from bouncing around services. Companies love it because its a way to lock
Weekly Wrapup, 14-18 July 2008
Its time to review the week that was on ReadWriteWeb. On the product side we continued our ongoing analysis of the iPhone 3G and its accompanying App Store, we looked closely at a Gmail update to its
BlogHer: Who Are Your Favorite Women Bloggers?
The Blogher conference for and about women bloggers kicks off today in San Francisco and in honor of this important event, we decided to share some links to some of our favorite women bloggers here
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iconGigaOM

F|R: How to Avoid the Curse of Vision Overload
My Chicago-based startup, The Point, helps people start campaigns for collective actions of all kinds, from organizing a poker game to boycotting a multinational corporation. We’ve been fortunate so far, enjoying steady growth, happy users, and money in the bank.
Inside the Cloud: 9 Sectors to Watch
There’s already a ton of activity taking place in the cloud computing space, so much so that it can be hard to know who to watch. In many cases, it’s too early to pick winners. But there are distinct sectors
Inside the Cloud: 9 Sectors to Watch
There’s already a ton of activity taking place in the cloud computing space, so much so that it can be hard to know who to watch. In many cases, it’s too early to pick winners. But there are distinct sectors
F|R Crib Sheet: 15 Sites to Cut Your Startup Operating Costs
Clever founders always eke the most out of every buck. But economic conditions being what they are, even the best bootstrappers could use a little extra help. By now you’ve probably heard of web sites like GasPriceWatch.com, GasBuddy and MSNAutos,
Will Mark Kingdon’s Reign Boost Second Life?
Second Life, the user-created world backed by Linden Lab, has found itself in an increasingly competitive market lately; Googles Lively is just the latest entrant into the virtual world space. So I sat down with Lindens recently appointed CEO, Mark
With Exits Barred, VCs Keep Investments Flat
If you believe the venture capitalists on Friday’s conference call about the latest MoneyTree Survey results, which covers venture investing in the second quarter, now is the best time to contact them with your ideas. Just because the exit environment
Nails on a Chalkboard: The Google Chat Notification Sound
There’s a scene in the movie “Dumb and Dumber” in which Jim Carrey asks, “Do you want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?” And then he screeches at the top of his lungs. If that movie was
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icon37signals

Upcoming 37signals speaking engagements
Jason FriedJuly 31, Denver: New Denver Ad Club Keynote (register online)September 2-5, Boston: Business of Software ConferenceSeptember 16-19, NYC: Web 2.0 ExpoOctober 7-8, Chicago: IDEA ConferenceOctober 14-17, Providence RI: BIF-4David Heinemeier HanssonJuly 21-23, Half Moon Bay California: Fortune Brainstorm TechSeptember
Advice for entrepreneurs: Throw out that five-year plan, build something now, and don't take an(...)
A couple of Getting Realish ideas spotted in Best Life magazine:Greg Gianforte is the author of “Bootstrapping Your Business: Start and Grow a Successful Company With Almost No Money.” In Follow Your Dream, he advises throwing out your five-year plan
New in Basecamp: Updated People and Permission screens
Today we released some improvements to the People and Permission screens in Basecamp. We’ve improved the process for adding new people to a company within a project and we redesigned the Permissions screen with a number of subtle usability improvements.
Soundcloud expands the audio player
Most embedded audio players offer a tiny player with the basics: play/pause and a progress bar.While this design works great for the casual listener, Soundcloud has another audience in mind. Musicians, producers and sound engineers want
Watch out for everyone or no one
I was in a three-hour meeting yesterday. I’m meeting averse, you know that. But one of the things I liked about this meeting was when the guy in charge stopped someone mid-sentence and said “Don’t say everyone or no one.
Western Spaghetti
When I see stuff like this I’m 1. filled with envy, 2. filled with envy, 3. hungry. More wonderfulness can be found at eatPES.
Me so sorry
Apple apologizes and compensates for MobileMe downtime and their loose definition of “push.”
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iconO'Reilly Radar

Nick Carr discovers Software Above the Level of a Single Device
By Nat Torkington Software above the level of a single device is Tims phrase for software that you interact with across multiple devices. The iTunes Music Store was the classic instance of that: a store on the servers, an organization
Brain Challenge For iPods
By Brady Forrest Brain Challenge is a new game thats been released for iPods. In the spirit of Nintendos Brain Age, it has 20 mini-games in 5
Live Maps Buys MultiMap; Launches in China
By Brady Forrest Today is a big day for the international side of Microsoft has bought UK mapping portal MultiMap, a partner of Mappoint/Virtual Earth for five years. They are also announcing the launch of Live Maps in China.
Dopplr Launches
By Marc Hedlund Earlier this year, I posted about Dopplr, saying it was the coolest app I saw at ETech, by far. This morning at LeWeb in Paris, Dopplr launched, so anyone can sign up for it now. Check it
The Seattle Start-Up Index
By Brady Forrest The Seattle Start-up index tracks the traffic ups and of local startups and sites. There are 231 companies in the Index. To belong the
Amazon Launches SimpleDB: Your Database in the Cloud
By Brady Forrest Amazon has finally announced SImpleDB, a database in the cloud. As they say on the product description page Amazon SimpleDB is a web service for running queries on structured data in real time. The service is now
Technology in Wartime Conference at Stanford
By Brady Forrest The state of defense and enforcement technology has become something that the public should pay attention to. So I felt that it was worth sharing this announcement about the Technology in Wartime conference. Ill be there if
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iconMicro Persuasion

The iPhone is a Pandora's Box for Radio
Radio is Dead by super-structure The following is also my column in Advertising Age next week.All the talk about one medium replacing another, to date, has largely been just that - talk. Over time new formats tend to
Measure Traffic with the Google Web Site Trends Bookmarklet
Google yesterday added a significant feature to Google Trends. You can now enter in URLs and get back rather rich site traffic data. Barry Schwartz has a great rundown. I will have more to say about this shortly as I
links for 2008-06-23
Study: Having 6,141 friends you dont know may be beneficialStudents using social networking sites are actually practicing the kinds of 21st-century skills we want them to develop to be successful today,(tags: SocialNetworking culture teens research Stats)Were connecting - and wasting
links for 2008-06-22
DipityDipity is the easiest way to make and share interactive timelines about the people and things you care about.(tags: timeline tools)The Microfame Game and the New Rules of Internet Celebrity -- New York MagazineThere???s a new class of celebrity powered
Three Little Tips for Capturing Info Bits Quickly
I consume a lot of information - all of it, digitally. In fact, I recently completed the transition a 100% media green state. I continue to use Gmail as a nerve center - my primary capture system. But sometimes, I
Get Productive with Social Media (and Stay Sane)
Lifehacker is one of my favorite blogs. So when editor Gina Trapani invited me to guest blog about how to be productive with social media, I jumped at the opportunity. Heres the intro and summary. The full essay
Are We Living in a Perfect Storm for Print Media?
I have been giving a lot of thought lately to what impact rising inflation might have on digital media. One strong possibility is that print will get crimped.Consider this a rather simplistic theory for a Saturday morning. However, its my
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iconCenterNetworks

Amazon S3 Down
Amazons S3 storage service appears to be down. CenterNetworks images are broken because of it and I had to move the style sheet back so the site at least renders correctly. Sites like
Video Blogging: Where's the Disclosure (video)
Over the past 24 hours, a story has blown up regarding video blogging and the lack of disclosure. We first wrote about the issues of video blogger disclosure with regards to Morgan
NYC Tech Events - Week of July 20th
Here are the Web tech events in NYC for the week of July 20th. Please submit other events to add to the list below. Check out Alley Reporter and NYTechEvents for more events as well.SundayHacker News Meetup - 7:30pmMondayNYC Web
DataPortability Announces Initial Steering Group Members
The DataPortability group held an open nomination period to elect the first DataPortability steering group. Twelve people stepped forward and since the group was set to hold 12, no election was necessary.
Evite Attempts To Move Their Platform Forward; Partners With JS-Kit, Flickr, Vimeo and YouTube
Yesterday I spent some time with the Evite and JS-Kit teams to discuss the updated Evite beta platform launch. From a Web perspective the most impactful update is the addition of JS-Kits
TechCrunch Zurich Recap: We Really Do Have Startups Here!
Are there actually startups outside of Sillicon Valley and the USA? For us Europeans this is quite an akward question. Of course there are startups here. And thanks to
Poken is Touch and Connect Social Networking
Poken is a new Swiss startup that aims to simplify the way we go from real world interaction to online social networking friends. This week we reviewed DropCard which offers a way to
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iconWebware

Exclusive: Twhirl gets pushy with Identi.ca
The next update of Twhirl will get support for yet another nanoblogging service, Identi.ca, and on that platform Twhirl will feature a communication method that Twitter users have been asking for: Push updates.
Trillian adds Facebook, IRC support to Astra
My favorite IM application Trillian has just put out a brand new build of its upcoming Astra product for alpha testers. New are Facebook notifications and quick shortcuts to jump straight to things
Facebook platform 2.0: Is mobile the key?
Only a year ago there was a huge buzz around Facebooks new application platform. Big money was made by some, while others simply threw together whatever they could and released it to the masses in the hopes of being the
Evite gets more social interface (but still no API)
Evite is getting a much-needed overhaul on Friday. Saying the invitation service has become cluttered, messy, and confusing, new Evite general manager Rosanna McCollough has had the service re-engineered from the ground up.
Save and share stories with friends using Yokway
In a time of aggregators Yokway is very pretty sharing service. Much like Delicious or Friendfeed the idea is to discover new content based on what other people are sharing. Yokways appeal is
Wikimedia Foundation edits its board of trustees
As part of its annual Wikimania conference in Alexandria, Egypt, the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation--parent company of Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and a number of others--announced two new members to its board of trustees. The announcement
Once-hyped PodTech sold at a bargain
PodTech, a video podcast network that had taken over $7 million in venture funding, has been sold--and the price may have been a downright embarrassing $500,000.The news was reported this week by Eric
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iconeHub

LiquidID
This is an OpenID provider that distributes aliased information (such as email) to OpenID enabled sites instead of your actual information. You still receive all email (but not spam) as LiquidID provides an automatic redirection service.
Startups Send Bat Signal to San Francisco
Xoopit, Zivity, and Powerset host private screening of new Batman movie day before opening and after party at the DNA Lounge for developers and web creative professionals
Posterous
A simple blog - just signup and start emailing anything you want to your blog.
Wisdomap
Wisdomap is like mind mapping on really healthy organic vitamins. In addition to creating traditional bubble or mind maps, Wisdomap lets you bring in photos, text, videos, and even links to downloadable files to support the content of your mind
Busuu
An online community for learning languages where our user can improve their language skills by directly having access to native speakers from around the world using our video-chat application and peer-to-peer learning features (e.g. writing reviews etc.). Users can also
Come2Play
An open source application program interface that allows developers to create, enrich, distribute and monetize multiplayer network games, without requiring them to apply any complicated programming techniques.
Trazzler
A travel site that helps you answer the question, Where should I go? The site starts by recommending weekend trips close to you. All of the trips are crafted by experts - they dont include poor-quality writing and they dont
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iconMuseum of Modern Betas

EasyTweets
EasyTweetsThe Multi Account Microblogging Platform
BidaBing
BidaBingBidaBing.com was designed to bring buyers, sellers, asset managers, and real estate agents togetherBidaBing.com – Real Estate Auction Site
Flexigrid
FlexigridLightweight but rich data grid with resizable columns and a scrolling data to match the headers, plus an ability to connect to an xml based data source using Ajax to load the content.
BigString
BigString Instant messaging and email with privacyBigString – Edición de correos enviados y mensajería instantánea
SnagFilms
SnagFilmsAt SnagFilms.com, you can watch full-length documentary films for free, but we also make it easy for you to take our films with you and put them anywhere on the web.SnagFilms brings documentaries to widgets
Yahoo People Map
Yahoo People Mapa simple way to add people to a map. But the People Map is more than just a way to map member locations. By enabling group owners and moderators to customize the questions members are
Windows Vista Compatibility Center
Windows Vista Compatibility CenterWondering if your favorite stuff works with Windows Vista? Here’s where you can find out if it already does or if you just need a new driver.Windows Vista Compatibility Center, para saber si lo
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iconProgrammableWeb

BroadSoft’s Telephony Mashup Contest and REST API
BroadSofts recent announcement of their new RESTful API and the supporting mashup contest is another sign that larger telephone operators will soon support Web as a Platform application development.
TechCrunch Launches CrunchBase API
This week TechCrunch announced an open API for its CrunchBase database of tech organizations and related information. The quickly growing repository contains structured information on technology companies (almost 7,000 of them), people (over 13,000), and financial information like acquisitions and
National Public Radio to Launch NPR API
Some exciting media API news this week as National Public Radio (NPR) has announced that it will release a public API in the coming days. NPR, an internationally acclaimed media production and distribution
Last.fm Shifts Its Music API into Overdrive
Last.fm has announced a major upgrade to their API.
Test?!
Hi everybody, just testing.Share This
New Mapping API via ESRI ArcGIS
ESRI, a leading GIS software provider, has released a public version of its ArcGIS JavaScript API that allows developers to integrate GIS functionality with web applications.
5 Winners in Yahoo’s SearchMonkey Contest
Today Yahoo announced the contest winners for the best uses of its SearchMonkey platform. SearchMonkey is a cornerstone of the Y!OS (Yahoo! Open Strategy) that we previously reported on when it was announced in April.
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iconSolution Watch

Forget Paper and Sign Contracts Online With Tractis
Tractis, which recently came out of private beta, allows you to negotiate and execute worldwide legally binding contracts online. Tractis’ focus is making e-commerce more safe by providing not only digital signing of contracts, but conflict resolution and micro-insurance services.
Jump Start Websites With Jumpchart
Diagrams play a very important role in planning and communicating a site’s architecture. They help you visualize a project before developing and piecing things together, leading to smarter design decisions. Unfortunately, for a client, Information Architecture and diagrams can be
Taking MyMileMarker For A Spin
Still tracking your car mileage with spreadsheets and scrambling to gather old gas receipts? Try MyMileMarker, a new service by Sidebar Creative that allows you to track and analyze your car mileage online through a browser or mobile phone. It’s
Intuitive Organization And Sharing With SnapPages
Released awhile ago, SnapPages is a flash powered interface that allows you to share your hobbies/interests, organize schedules, and socialize with friends. They have three applications currently, including: Friend’s Manager, Calendar Manager, and Photo Manager. Each one of these applications
Pownce on Your Friends
Kevin Rose’s new company, Megatechtronium, launched Pownce yesterday. It was rumored to be a new instant messaging client, but I’m not too sure if that’s a good term for it. I see it more as a combination of Twitter and
L8r is Future Mail with a Business Model
L8r is a new service that lets users create an email and have it delivered at a specific time in the future. It’s similar to the popular site FutureMe where anyone can write a simple letter to themselves or a
Reinventing the Wiki with OpenTeams
&OpenTeams offers an interesting service that wants to reinvent the wiki. It’s designed to strengthen team collaboration and innovation while working on group projects, or as OpenTeams puts it, “initiatives”. Its interface is organized much like an email client so
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iconWeb2.0 List

Sazze: 10+ Sites for Product Reviews from Experts and Consumers
Because they’re typically steeped in subjectivity, product reviews tend to be more effective when grouped together. This is generally why you, the consumer, often w