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Gamers' 13-year wait nearly over as Duke Nukem Forever gets a release date

BBC Tech News - 4 hours 31 min ago

Almost 13 years after it was first announced, video game Duke Nukem Forever has finally been given a release date by its new owners.

Buzz lawsuit to cost Google $8.5m

BBC Tech News - 5 hours 25 min ago

Google proposes settling a lawsuit over its Buzz social network, whilst regulators launch a review of the firm's US search practices.

Overblog and Wikio Just Married. Pregnant with a European Google News for Blogs.

Techcrunch - 6 hours 13 min ago

A trusted source has confirmed that French-blogging platform, Overblog, will soon be part of the Wikio family. Rumor has it that the growing Luxembourg-based news portal is apparently trying to develop European Google News for blogs. For anyone who isn't familiar with Wikio, all you really have to know is that it's a news portal founded by Pierre Chappaz in 2005 after his previous company, Kelkoo, was acquired by Yahoo in 2004 for some 475 million euros. For acquisitions à la Française, that's not too shabby.

Brilliant ideas

BBC Tech News - 7 hours 22 min ago

The secrets behind some of the UK’s newest inventions

Facebook, Relationships And “Catfish”: It’s Complicated

Techcrunch - 7 hours 54 min ago

If ever a trailer did not depict what a movie is actually about it’s this trailer for Universal Pictures’ “Catfish”, a movie about Facebook the subject matter of which could not be further from that other movie about Facebook. I’d like to use this sentence to say “Spoiler Alert” about fifteen times because the next couple paragraphs are going to be full of them.

If you hate spoilers do yourself a favor and stop reading now. That said, the following exposition shouldn’t prevent you from seeing the movie, I’ve seen it twice and enjoyed both times.

“Catfish” is a movie about Nev Schulman, a 24-year-old New York photographer and his relationship with eight year old Abby Pierce and her 19-year-old sister Megan Faccio whom he meets on Facebook in 2007. I’m sure all of you can see this coming, but Megan isn’t who she claims to be and neither is Abby. Nev and Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost and the viewer get taken for a wild and well-documented ride, especially for the last 40 minutes of the movie.

In summary Megan and a bunch of other Facebook identities are characters invented by artist Angela Wesselman’s imagination, as Wesselman is trapped in Michigan taking care of two disabled children and has no outlets for creative expression other than her paintings — which she ships to Nev Schulman under the guise of them being her (real) daughter Abby’s — and her elaborate storytelling on Facebook. “Scam is not the word,” say the filmmakers regarding Wesselman’s bait and switch.

Plot twists aside, the film uses social networking and other tropes unique to the Internet age such as Google Maps, “sexting” and Photoshop in order to give a richer view of the emotional narrative, as Nev Schulman and Angela/Megan’s digital courtship drags on for eight months of phone calls, MP3 exchanges and even Facebook wall “infighting” among the various imaginary members of the Pierce family. At some point Schulman sends Megan an IRL post card, and remarks how odd the act of sending snail mail is.

What’s the most interesting about the film is that Wesselman is a totally new kind of artist, creating a entire world for Nev through multiple fabricated online identities. When asked during a screening last week why he, as a self-proclaimed part of the “Google Generation” never bothered to Google search Abby Pierce or Angela Wesselman or Megan Faccio, Nev Schulman said he did and came up with nothing, not pushing it any further because wanted to believe. “There are plenty of people with no Google presence,” says Schulman. Heh

This ambiguity surrounding “Catfish” (including its bloody Catfish logo) has lead it to be the subject of many attacks most notably from Movieline in their post “Does Sundance Sensation Catfish Have A Truth Problem?” which asserts that both the Schulmans and Joost knew that Megan wasn’t who she said she was right from the beginning. As counter to this, filmaker Ariel Schulman revealed that the movie is not being marketed as a documentary because the “D-word” turns off younger viewers to whom he thinks the film would be most beneficial as a cautionary tale.

While some scenes from the movie tend to reinforce the “they knew the entire time” hypothesis (as does Schulman’s shit-eating grin throughout) the “whether or not any of the boys suspected it” issue is complicated and best left to individual viewer discretion.

What should remain with you after seeing “Catfish” is how convincing the Facebook soap opera Wesselman pulled off could be to someone yearning for a human connection, and also as a side note, that model Aimee Gonzales’ boyfriend, whose images Wesselman used to pull off the ruse, chided her shortly after hearing about her inadvertent role in the film, “See I told you you shouldn’t have put all those pictures online.”

Catfish hits theatres September 17th, one month before the more glamorous “The Social Network.” Both Wesselman and Nev Schulman are still friends on Facebook.

As It Moves Away From The Wikis, Wetpaint Launches TV News And Entertainment Site

Techcrunch - 10 hours 50 min ago

Online publishing company Wetpaint has been undergoing a strategic shift in its business model over the past year. Wetpaint began as a simple wiki/social publishing tool but then started to build entertainment sites for big brands, including MSN. And the heavily funded startup succumbed to layoffs last July and December. But today, Wetpaint is taking the company in a new direction: original content. The startup is launching Wetpaint Entertainment; a TV news site that covers news and gossip from over 15 major TV shows, such as Glee, Grey’s Anatomy, and Gossip Girl.

Each show has a dedicated online channel (the site is launching with 15 channels), and will compile the most popular photos, videos, fashion gossip, and headlines to provide one place for all the information about fans’ favorite shows.

Wetpaint’s founder and CEO Ben Elowitz says that each show will have roughly 20 posts of information per day and will include a live updating news feed on the homepage. Roughly 30 percent of the content on the site will be written and curated by Wetpaint editors while the 70 percent of content will be sourced from other sites. However, Elowitz says that editors won’t simply repost another site’s news with a link; Wetpaint will add its own editorial spin to repurposed content.

Wetpaint’s entertainment platform has also created Facebook pages for each show; allowing fans to interact with content and editors via the social network. The company says that 500,000 fans have joined Wetpaint’s Facebook pages over the past few months. In fact, Facebook, says Elowitz, is currently accounting for 40 percent of traffic to the site (which soft launched a few months ago). He believes that the cross platform integration with Facebook will help differentiate the site from its competitors. And with limited exposure during the soft launch, traffic to the site is growing by 50 percent monthly.

Starting today, Wetpaint Entertainment includes channels for “The Vampire Diaries,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “America’s Next Top Model,” “Castle,” “Hellcats,” “Nikita,” “Glee,” “Dancing With The Stars,” “Top Chef,” “Pretty Little Liar,” “Bachelorette,” “The Bachelor,” “Gossip Girl,” “Jersey Shore” and “The Real Housewives of DC.”

The startup plans to launch mobile apps later this year and may eventually move into other verticals in entertainment and arts. At the moment, the site faces competition from many of the entertainment and gossip news sites that cover TV news such as Entertainment Weekly, People.com, and US Magazine.

Rollover Minutes: How Adam Penenberg Has Legitimised New, New, New Journalism. Again.

Techcrunch - 10 hours 54 min ago

Adam Penenberg. If you call yourself an online journalist, and yet that name doesn’t immediately prompt a nod of recognition – a smile, even – then it’s time to close your laptop and bow your head in shame. Or at least head over to Netflix.

It was Adam Penenberg who, back in 1998, first forced traditional journalists to sit up and take online reporting seriously. And he did so with a double whammy: scooping them on a big story – a scandal that went to the heart of one of America’s journalistic institutions – while also exposing a rising star of print journalism as a hack and a liar.

The lying hack was New Republic wunderkind Stephen Glass and the story of how Penenberg – then a reporter for ‘Forbes Digital Tool’ (now sadly swallowed by the execrable Forbes.com) – exposed Glass’ fabricated reporting was subsequently made into a movie. (Penenberg was portrayed in the movie by Steve Zahn while Glass was played by Hayden Christensen. Weirdly, Jonathan Chait was played by Chloë Sevigny.)

Penenberg, then, is one of the founding fathers of digital journalism. His expose – ‘Lies, damn lies and fiction’ – sent a clear message to print journalists: “digital journalism is more than just an underpaid, under-skilled subset of real reporting. We web guys are breaking stories and – FEAR US – we’re fact checking your sorry asses.”

Twelve years later, of course, none of this is news. Digital journalism is a recognised branch of the 5th Estate, particularly when it comes to fact-checking the [sic] mainstream media, and planting the first seeds of reporting, ready to be picked up by print and television. Thanks to the Internet, the traditional news cycle has become a cyclone; a churning, chewing machine that sucks in every fact or rumour that flits past its peripheral vision, before spitting it out – often undigested – in the form of minute-by-minute, second-by-second BREAKING NEWS headlines. Compared to today’s digital news output, 24 hour cable news seems almost narcoleptically relaxed.

The idea, then, that a huge story could go unreported in today’s news environment – where everyone and his cellphone is a ‘citizen journalist’ and where one moment’s tweet is the next moment’s “BLOGGERS CLAIM THAT…” headline on CNN – is slightly ridiculous.

And yet, three days ago that’s exactly what happened.

On Thursday, a Mississippi jury awarded $131 million in compensatory damages to the family of ‘star New York Mets prospect’, Brian Cole, who was killed in 2001 when his Ford Explorer flipped as he drove home from spring training. Although the damages in the Cole case were the largest Ford has paid in relation to the Explorer (they were based on predictions of Cole’s future earnings), it is far from the only such incident: of the Explorers built between 1990 and 2001, a staggering one in 2700 has been involved in a rollover incident where at least one person in the vehicle has died.

Read that again. One in 2700 Explorers made between 1990 and 2001 flipped over and killed at least one person.

And yet, despite the size of the damages, and the inherent newsworthiness of the story – a sports star, a centimillion dollar verdict and one of America’s largest corporations – not one news outlet covered Thursday’s verdict. No wire service, no national newspaper, no cable channel, not even the local Mississippi press.

Fortunately, though, a lone reporter was paying attention: a contributing writer for Fast Company who, back in 2003, wrote a book called ‘Tragic Indifference’ about Ford’s negligence over the safety of their SUVs. The book (since optioned as a movie by Michael Douglas) told the true story of Arkansas Trial Attorney, Tab Turner, whose client Donna Bailey, who was almost killed in a similar accident to the one that killed Cole. In fact Turner is now representing Cole’s family and, moments after the verdict, a source close to his office called the Fast Company reporter to give him a heads up.

No longer involved in day-to-day breaking news, the reporter nevertheless wanted to flag up the verdict to his 2900 Twitter followers. So he went online, and began hitting refresh on all the major wire services, expecting the story to break any moment.

Hours of refreshing later; still nothing.

And that’s when he decided: if no one else was going to break the story, he’d have to do it himself. Firing up Twitter, the reporter started to do his job, in dozens of 140 character bursts – starting with the lede: the sports star and the $131 million damages – before moving on to the background, the implications for Ford and finally a play by play of the Donna Bailey accident and how – incredibly – Ford had apparently decided it was cheaper for them to settle the lawsuits brought against them than it was to retool the Explorer so it didn’t kill any more people.

Sure enough, as the tweets went on, other journalists started to take notice, starting with Felix Salmon at Reuters and then David Folkenflik at NPR and someone at the New York Daily News. Finally the story began to appear; first on the AP wire and then… and then…. By this afternoon Google News was listing 277 stories about the verdict.

The similarities between the Ford story and Adam Penenberg’s Stephen Glass expose are stark. In both cases, the mainstream media was caught napping. In both cases it took a lone reporter, using the oft-maligned tools of digital journalism, to break the story and shame his peers in print. In both cases the result was much wailing and gnashing and playing catch-up by traditional reports – and crowing by online hacks that finally – this time – new media has shown itself to be a legitimate platform for breaking news.

But the biggest similarity of all between the two stories? The $64,000 headfuck? That would be the identity of the latter-day Penenberg 2.0 who broke the Ford / Cole story on Twitter.

Step forward, Adam Penenberg.

WAIT, WHAT?

SERIOUSLY?

AGAIN?

Yep.

Much as it pains me to do independent reporting, I have to ask Penenberg (right) what gives.

“What gives?” I ask when he answers the phone at his home in New York. I mean, what’s wrong with traditional journalism that – twelve years later – he is still the one having to draw attention to its deficiencies?

I’m expecting him to shrug: this was just another example of how lazy the print media has got. How newsroom headcounts have been slashed how no one is searching for stories any more. How this one just slipped under the radar. But no. The story he tells is far more sinister.

“Ford is a scary company.”

He says that like a man who knows. And, turns out, he does know: “A few years back I got into a dustup with a magazine – I’d better not name it – over Tragic Indifference. I won a reader contest and they were going to write about the book. But then just before publication, they pulled the plug.” In fact, an editor called Penenberg to explain that Ford had bought a majority of the ad pages in that month’s issue, and running such an anti-Ford review would be commercial suicide. The review was pulled; the ads remained.

“Jesus,” I say.

“Yeah,” says Pennenberg. Then he pauses. “Ok, I’ll name the magazine – it was Fast Company.” His current some-time employer – although he takes pains to say that the censorship episode occurred under the previous regime. “It wouldn’t happen now.”

Judging by the initial lack of media reaction to the Cole judgment, though, the attitude seems to still prevail in the rest of the media. Once again, in scooping his print rivals, Penenberg has drawn attention to a malignant cancer at the heart of old media. Last time it was a lack of fact-checking, this time it’s the relationship between advertisers and editorial. Ford is one of the world’s biggest advertisers at a time when print advertising is declining and magazines and news publications are bleeding red ink.

But, says Penenberg (only slightly prompted by me) that’s not all that’s wrong with mainstream journalism today. “What’s discouraging,” he says, “is the he-said-she-said… this so-called objective journalism”. He points out that even when the rest of the media finally reported the Cole story, they still felt obliged to give equal prominence to a denial from Ford:

“Brian Cole had been driving over 80 mph when he drifted off road for unknown reasons, suddenly turned his steering wheel 295 degrees, lost control, and caused the vehicle to roll over more than three times… He was not wearing his safety belt and died after being ejected from the vehicle. His passenger, who was properly belted, walked away from the accident.”

Simply not true, says Penenberg. Yes, Cole was thrown from the vehicle “but he was wearing his seatbelt at the time of the accident…. the problem is, it didn’t lock.” Indeed, he adds: “in the Donna Bailey case, it was found that her seatbelt had eight inches of ‘give’”.

“No wonder you’re such a fan of online journalism,” I suggest. No-one would ever accuse bloggers – or Matt Drudge – of balance. Wisely, Penenberg ignores my fatuous point and instead continues his point. Another problem with the state of journalism today – both online and off – he says “is this obsession with being first – wanting to beat your rival to the story by two minutes. Is it really that important to be first?”

This is something that really bugs Penenberg. And it bugs me too. So much so, I forget to take notes for the next few minutes as we rail against how today’s news journalists are expected to churn out half a dozen stories a day, often with little-to-no fact checking, simply to make sure they’re first with every tiny development. Whether they’re right, or whether they’re missing a wider, bigger, more important, story becomes secondary. Fuck it, we can always go back and edit.

Except they never get the chance to go back and edit: not when that have five more stories to file that day. Look at the 277 stories about the Cole case. See how many reporters just rehashed the lede – the size of the damages – and Ford’s response, without asking a single new question, or presenting so much as half a new fact. But then again, how would they? That would have involved a single fucking phone call.

Which brings us to the question of mentorship. “When you started out in journalism, new reporters had editors as mentors,” I said. “Today, reporters are often their own editors. Who is teaching tomorrow’s Adam Penenbergs?”

“Well, we’re trying,” replies Penenberg, referring to his current gig as a journalism professor at NYU.

“Of course,” I say, “but we both know that, after they graduate, your students are going to end up at Associated Content, churning out shit like everyone else.”

Pausing briefly to defend against the slur – pointing out that his students all go on to jobs with respectable media companies (“but then again, there are only, like, 15 students in our class – you’re right generally”) – Penenberg says he has faith that good journalists will come to the fore, even without mentorship. “I really believe quality rises to the top,” he says.

So, has he created a new kind of hybrid journalism with his Ford tweets – somewhere between breaking news and long-form journalism. We’ve become used to seeing stories unfolding in real time through social media – are we now seeing the potential for professional journalists to use Twitter to tell properly researched news stories, in a way that makes the events feel very personal, and even more dramatic? (After getting off the phone, it occurs to me that what I was describing is similar to how Jules Verne first published 80 Days Around The World in daily installments in major newspapers around the world. Even though the story was already completed before the first installment was published, the format meant that readers felt they were watching it happen in real time.)

“I have no idea,” says Penenberg, “I’d be lying if I said I did.. but I’ll definitely use [the format] more from now on.” Certainly if Penenberg has invented a new journalistic form – New New New Journalism? – then he’s one of the few reporters with both the chops and the freedom to practice it. Getting under the skin of a story like the Ford one can take months of research, and involves countless sources. Says Penenberg: “I know a lot about this shit – I wrote the book on it.” And yet, he acknowledges, “If you work for the New York Times you can’t do this.” There’s a process, there are editors, there’s a cycle.

So one last question: are we now at the point where online journalism is on a level playing field with “traditional” journalism?

Pennenberg laughs. “I’m sure certain journalists would prefer to write for the New York Times, [in print, rather than online]. But the truth it doesn’t matter any more. The only question is are you a good journalist or a bad journalist?”

I laugh too. Penenberg was, perhaps inadvertently, quoting himself: the final lines of his Stephen Glass expose back in 1998. Words which served as a rallying cry for a whole new generation of online reporters that followed in his wake. And words that are just as relevant today.

“It is ironic that online journalists have received bad press from the print media for shoddy reporting. But the truth is, bad journalism can be found anywhere. It is not the medium; it is the writer.”

In print, or on Twitter, Penenberg is one of the good guys.

Is Android Only Surging Because Apple Is Letting It?

Techcrunch - 12 hours 40 min ago

This weekend, I’ve been catching up on some reading. One post that was of particular interest to me was David Beach’s article from last week about developing for Android. Beach, who is a product manager at eBay Mobile and a co-founder of 12seconds, basically says that the experience sucks for a number of reasons (all of which Google can fix, but will take quite a bit of work and time). But one quote in particular stuck out to me:

Android has succeeded despite Google. In fact it’s safe to say that Android is successful for one primary reason. The iPhone is only available on AT&T. If the iPhone was on Verizon a year ago. Android would be no where near as popular.

Obviously, Beach isn’t the first person to bring this idea up. But he brings it up in a way that he’s able to back-up his feelings from a developers’ perspective, while at the same time roping in what isn’t ideal from a consumer perspective about Android as well.

This is going to sound like flame bait, and everyone knows that I love the iPhone — but I have to agree with Beach. I’ve used no less than six Android phones for extended periods of time over the past couple of years. I really am trying to like them. But I just can’t.

Now, don’t get me wrong, almost all Android phones are a million times better than the phones we had just a few years ago before the iPhone burst onto the scene. And if the iPhone didn’t exist, there is no question that I would use an Android phone and would probably be very happy with it. But the iPhone does exist. And I simply can’t bring myself to use an Android phone when I know a superior device is out there. That’s my only requirement for me to use a product: it has to be the best.

The only valid argument I can see for the iPhone not being the best is the AT&T requirement. So let’s put that aside for a second.

While I obviously understand that people have different tastes, I can’t see how you can objectively say that the overall experience of using an Android phone isn’t worse than using an iPhone. There are a dozen or more elements that are better about the iPhone. Everything from the big: the App Store versus the Android Market (from the consumer perspective) — to the little: the multi-touch and overall touchscreen responsiveness.

Even the most diehard Android loyalists I know (like Jason and Mike) will readily admit that the iPhone offers a better user experience. So why do they love Android (again, besides the lack of AT&T requirement)? The openness. They hate that you can’t get Google Voice on the iPhone (I hate it too). And in general they hate Apple’s restrictive policies for the App Store (which I don’t like either). But those are problems that most regular consumers don’t think about — or realize exist at all.

Instead, like Beach says, the thing some consumers don’t like about the iPhone is that it’s AT&T only (in the U.S., obviously). Even if you live in an area where AT&T doesn’t absolutely suck, having no choice of carriers is a big restriction. People have work plans, family plans, etc, etc, that they just can’t switch. Or they don’t want to.

If the iPhone was on Verizon (which is a larger network, remember), is there any question that it would be selling at least double the amount of units it is right now in the U.S.? I don’t think so. What if it was available on all the networks? And what would happen to Android sales if that was the case? That is the big question here.

Next year, it’s looking increasingly likely that we’ll get at least a partial answer. If the iPhone is available on Verizon or even just T-Mobile, will the pace of Android sales slow down in the U.S.?

I know a number of people who are Android users simply because of the iPhone/AT&T restriction. If and when the devices comes to Verizon, they will jump ship. The big question is: will millions of others follow? Or, perhaps more importantly, will millions of new users that would have gone with Android now go with iPhone?

I’m seriously curious to know why you like Android over the iPhone if you do. Is it because of the openness ideal? Is it the variety of devices? Is it the variety of carrier choices? Or is it something else?

The Market is a mess, the media situation is arguably worse, and the user experience is still just off when compared to the iPhone. Google is working on improving all of those things, but Apple is rock solid in all of those areas right now. Both sides will keep improving, but Google’s problem is that Apple is ahead and has remained ahead. Can Google surpass them? I’m just not sure I can see how unless Apple regresses — which they’ve shown no signs of doing. What I can see is a Verizon iPhone. And so do plenty of others.

Apple and Google are in the midst of a PR war for who is activating more devices each day. Google is doing 200,000 a day. Apple is doing 230,000 a day. But Apple says Google’s numbers may include upgrades. Google says Apple is wrong. This will go on and on.

It’s great that there is competition in the market right now. But would it be as fierce in the U.S. if it weren’t for the AT&T situation? Would most people just be using an iPhone? Beach states it as a fact, but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable question to consider. And it’s something I’m sure Google is considering as the Verizon iPhone approaches.

[photo: flickr/laihiu]

Guest Post: Could Tiny Somaliland Become the First Cashless Society?

Techcrunch - Sun, 05/09/2010 - 20:46

Bob Dylan once said that ‘money doesn’t talk, it swears’, but in Hargeisa the capital of Africa’s Somaliland it stinks. It literally stinks, reeking of rotten paper, like a leaky library in a monsoon.

That’s because there’s so much of it. For every dollar there are almost 17,000 Somaliland Shillings and the highest-denomination note is 500 Shillings, which is by no means the most common note in circulation. Money-changers sit within self-built stacks of money (picture left, video below) and children take wheelbarrows of it from one place to another, reminiscent of 1930s Weimar Germany when the Deutsch Mark became worthless.

By all criteria, cash doesn’t work here. Could tiny, unknown Somaliland become the first nation to become a cashless society? It is not only possible, it is almost certain. There is already a surprisingly strong base for this to happen. Thanks to a cobbled together-by-necessity system of money-transfer posts from Somaliland’s diaspora and a surging mobile banking industry, the country has to do away with cash. But first some background.

The currency is not formally recognised and neither is the country. Somaliland has no ATMs and credit cards are not only impossible to use, but are regarded as ridiculous items by local people. The country declared itself independent in 1991 after a brutal civil war with Somalia and now has a free press, a free market and a recent election was widely perceived as free and fair.

A significant diaspora send American dollars home by using Dahabshiil, an African version of Western Union that is extraordinarily efficient. Wherever in the world money is paid in, Somalilanders can withdraw American dollars within five minutes of funds being deposited via 24,000 agents and branches in 144 countries. Moreover they receive a SMS before that time telling them their dollars can be picked up.

I was thankful of Dahabshiil after arriving overland from Ethiopia. I had flown in from India after acting in my second Bollywood movie and was used to people escorting me from my trailer carrying umbrellas and catering for my every need. I would have needed a trailer if I had changed all my dollars; an obviously insane and unsustainable system.

Consequently, Selesom, the major mobile carrier has launched a service where cash is completely bypassed. Mobile banking in Africa is nothing new and is far more advanced in the West or Asia, but Somaliland can take this to a further level because the country itself doesn’t officially exist. The state itself runs on a budget of only $40 million dollars so entrepreneurship and innovation is vital to keep the country going as it strives for formal recognition from the rest of the world.

In less than six months more than 80,000 people in Hargesia have signed up with Selesom for its ZAAD mobile money service for money transfers, retail purchases and bill payments, a significant number in an already buoyant mobile sector of five carriers in a ‘country’ the size of England and a population of only 3.5 million.

Calls from Somaliland are the cheapest in Africa and fierce competition between the country’s carriers means calls from Somaliland are five to six times cheaper than other African countries. Mohamed Saed Duale, the founder of Dahabshiill has joined the fray and recently launched Somtel and joins Telesom, Telcom, Africa Online, Nationlink and Soltelco as the country’s sixth carrier.

The implications are clear. Somtel will use the 18-year money-wiring experience of its parent company to take on Selesom in the mobile money sector. The diaspora will continue to wire money home but the recipients will no longer need to go to a bank or visit the money-changers.

They will only need their mobile for all transactions and it means the money-changers will be kicked out of the Somaliland cash temples forever. Where Selesom has led, Somtel will attempt to dominate while the four other carriers will undoubtedly emulate.

So while the world wasn’t watching, a small peaceful country in the Horn of Africa that doesn’t officially exist will set an example that the rest of Africa will inevitably follow. Funny old world. Perhaps Dylan should write a song about it.

…
Monty Munford has more than 15 years’ experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism and returned to the UK in September, 2010 after living in India for two years. In that time he consulted clients such as Paramount Digital Entertainment in LA and Liverpool FC to deliver their content to an Indian mobile audience, spoke at events in London, Dublin and Singapore and landed two speaking parts in two big-budget Bollywood movies that will be released in December 2010.

Tiny solar cells fix themselves

BBC Tech News - Sun, 05/09/2010 - 17:20

A mix of chemicals borrowed from plants with tiny tubes of carbon can spontaneously create tiny, self-repairing solar cells.

Blogging And Mass Psychomanipulation

Techcrunch - Sun, 05/09/2010 - 09:58

If I ever write another book it will probably be about one of three topics. The first is the truth about how the press and journalism really works – the sausage making – to show just how much of a beautiful, subjective and chaotic mess it all is. The second idea is to talk about how perfect blogging is, with its constant feedback loop, as a training ground for mass psychology and manipulation. The third idea I’m keeping to myself for now, but it’s more startup focused.

It’s the second one that’s been on my mind lately. Mostly because it’s become pretty clear to me that any blogger worth her salt could start, say, an extremely successful militant religious cult.

Any blogger will tell you how frustrating the early days are. Getting someone, anyone, to link to you. Your first comment! etc. And as your audience grows you are introduced to the first rule of anonymous human behavior – it’s dark and brutal, and reminds me how thin the veil of civilized behavior really is. If there is something nasty that can be said, someone will say it. Over and over.

A big part of blogging is simply keeping the peace. You set rules on whether or not you’ll allow anonymous commenting, or commenting at all. You decide if/how to moderate comments. You decide if/how to respond to opposing arguments and (more often) personal attacks. And you, involuntarily for the most part, evolve your writing in response to the feedback loop. Those are the days of innocence, simple joys and simple sadnesses.

But then you start to get really good at what you do. You write something and you get trashed. The next time you try it a little differently and it the commenters love you. You don’t even do it consciously – but over the years you just get better at it. To the point where you pretty much know exactly what the reaction will be to any given post, and how to tweak things to get the reaction you want.

Zynga talks about constant A/B testing in its games to maximize revenue, a huge competitive advantage for them. Bloggers go through the same thing every time they write a post.

Old media types don’t have quite the same experience because they generally have an editorial agenda, certain writing rules, and editors to please. There are too many layers between them and the direct feedback loop. so they evolve much more slowly. Bloggers have a direct line to the collective mind.

I imagine priests and rabbis and career politicians have much the same experience. Speaking publicly so frequently they learn exactly how to manipulate the audience, or the camera, to get the reaction they want. It doesn’t work on every individual, but the masses as a group are easy to manipulate. and your audience tends to self reinforce over time, meaning the people who buy what you’re selling tend to come back for more, and others wander away.

In a post last weekend I wrote about women in tech. I feel like I’m on pretty firm ground here, since more than half of our senior staff are women, including our CEO, and we cover female entrepreneurs whenever we find them. I know exactly the post I could have written to get a super big high five from our audience. Talk big about how the problem is so prevalent, talk quietly about what we do directly to help solve it (but note how much more we must do!), and then salute the ringleaders who are making a living out of pretending to care about the issue (without, of course, pointing out that they are frauds). Seriously, I could have had you as a collective group eating out of my hand on that one. I even pointed to a couple of posts by men that did exactly that (also very experienced bloggers who know how to write a crowd pleaser when they need to).

I didn’t do that though. I wrote a different post that I intended to question some of the basic assumptions that are being made about women in technology. And I knew exactly what the comments would be like. More FU than high five, for example.

And that’s ok with me. I’d rather say what I really think than pander to the crowd. This is an issue that’s too important to use for my own popularity.

It would be so much better if we could stop a lot of the bullshit that we see in blogging. To do that we need a smarter audience – one that sees through it because they’ve been trained to, and demands a little more meat on the bone from the sites they frequent. I’m telling you flat out that any decent blogger can manipulate the hell out of their audience. Don’t let yourself be one of the manipulated.

In a follow up post I may explain some of the common tricks to manipulate the crowd so you can see through them more easily in the future. And just for the record, we try to avoid manipulating readers here at TechCrunch. Or at least to abuse that power as little as possible. And most of my favorite blogs also play it straight.

Remember this, though. When you’re reading something here that’s getting you really riled up, stop. It may be that you really should be thinking the exact opposite of what you are. And if you find yourself floating through a post agreeing with all the subtle pandering, wake up! And call us on it immediately.

And yes, I know exactly what you as a group are going to say in the comments below. If I told you it would change the outcome, of course. But I think you know deep down that I’m right.

Stealth Mode Watch: Another Nail In The Coffin Of ‘Stealth’

Techcrunch - Sun, 05/09/2010 - 03:51

Stealth Mode Watch, a searchable data spider of often very revealing SEC form D filings, is the brain child of Denis Papathanasiou, who came up with the idea while researching funding options (a.k.a spying) for his ebooks startup Fifobooks, “I was just using it to keep tabs on specific investors and other competitors in the ebook space, but I mentioned it to a few people, and they were interested enough to want to use it themselves.”

Papathanasiou then added a public API and launched it in beta under its own domain. Right now the site allows a simple search mode which shows results for the past four weeks and then an extended API mode which allows results past that date as well as filtering parameters like “people,”"companies” and “places” (Humans beware: The data is delivered in XML files).

Papathanasiou says he got the idea from First Round Capital Managing Director Josh Kopelman’s “The Death of Stealth Mode,” which warned startups of the perils of filing series D forms.

“If you’re starting a company and want to stay in “stealth mode”, make sure you understand the impact of your Form D filing and factor that into your plans. And if you’re a lawyer for a startup company, please tell your clients about the public disclosures you make on their behalf!”

In the meantime, watch your back McClure.
CrunchBase InformationDave McClureFirst Round CapitalInformation provided by CrunchBase

The Real Social Network: Your Mobile Contacts

Techcrunch - Sun, 05/09/2010 - 01:26

The term “social network” is of course synonymous with online networks like Facebook. But think about what you’re actual social life is like for a second. Are you really closest to the people whose items you “like” the most on Facebook? What about the people you @reply or retweet on Twitter? The people you reblog the most on Tumblr? If you’re anything like me, probably not. Instead, the best indicator of who I actually interact with socially the most in real life are the calls I make and the texts I send — it’s all mobile interaction.

I’ve written before that I think location is the bridge between social networks and actual social life. But why do we even need that bridge? Why are so many startups content to build on top of the Facebook or Twitter social graph, when a lot of them can access your actual social graph in your mobile contact book? We’re seeing more and more apps go “mobile first, web second” these days, and that’s likely to increase going forward. This means that they start as services on mobile devices. So again I ask, why not just get to your actual social graph through your contacts there?

Sure, many do that to some extent already. APIs for Android and the iPhone give you access to contact list information to varying degrees. But most startups are still approaching that idea as a secondary tactic after they’ve hooked in your social graph through Facebook or Twitter. But I think we may start to see some that go right to the heart of your contacts on your mobile device. In fact, I met with one in the making last week, addappt.

While they’re still building out the product, the core idea of Addappt is to connect people through their contact lists (in this case, on the iPhone). Specifically, their app scours your contact list to see which of your friends are signed up to go to various upcoming conferences. But you can easily see this concept transferred to any number of social utilities. “When was the last time the address book saw any innovation?,” is the way co-founder Mrinal Desai puts it. And he’s right.

It seems that companies like Apple and Google are sitting on a treasure trove of actual social data with these contact lists. Calls, texts, emails, it’s all right there. Google obviously has tried (and failed) to build a social graph through your email contacts before — but they went about it wrong, and they did so on the desktop. Mobile is the key to this.

Currently, we’re also seeing Apple also struggle in its first real attempt at social networking, with iTunes Ping. Their network is way too closed to be of much use — but at least they get that mobile should be a component of it.

But imagine if Apple built social tools right into your Contacts app? Maybe it would start with short status updates (maybe this would even pull in tweets), and then it would move to something like instant messaging. Then imagine if they did something with location? All of this would be opt-in, of course, but it could be very powerful.

And think about FaceTime. It’s an amazing product, but it’s far too hard to use because you never know when someone else is available to chat. Apple won’t accept the FacePlant app which solves this, so I have to believe they’re working on their own solution. The Contact app would be perfect for this. You load it up and see who is available to FaceTime.

Obviously, using your mobile contact book isn’t ideal for all types of social applications. But for the ones you want to use with just your closest friends: location, photos, short messages, events — it could be a killer set of data.

Craigslist ends adult service ads

BBC Tech News - Sat, 04/09/2010 - 21:13

Online marketplace Craigslist closes its US adult services listing following pressure from attorneys general and advocacy groups.

Inside Facebook Seattle [Pictures]

Techcrunch - Sat, 04/09/2010 - 18:39

A couple weeks ago, Facebook officially opened their new office in Seattle, WA. At the time, Facebook’s Ari Steinberg (the main engineer in charge up there) wrote a post and shared a few pictures of what it looks like. But those pictures sort of made it look like a dismal, dreary version of Office Space (I know Seattle is cloudy all the time, but come on). So we’ve got a few better ones that show actual signs of life.

Just as when Facebook opened their new Bay Area office, and when Twitter opened their office, I think it’s sort of neat to see pictures inside these offices — to see where the sausage is made. We’ve been thinking about doing something like this for TechCrunch TV as well — think: Cribs for tech startups. We’ll expose ridiculous murals and raid startups’ fridges. Would that interest you?

Behold Facebook Seattle below. I’m not even sure Mike has been inside yet even though Steinberg moved 800 miles to be near him.

Does Apple Value Secrecy More Than The Environment?

Techcrunch - Sat, 04/09/2010 - 17:37

According to new research from Pew Internet, 82% of American adults own a cell phone, Blackberry, iPhone or other similar devices. And 65% of adults who own them say they have slept with their cell phones on or right next to their beds.

Yet consumers don’t know what these devices are made of exactly, and what their environmental and health impact may be. Phone manufacturers aren’t required to share all the details. Some do anyway.

Not Apple, though. The company is keeping secrets as usual, this time from O2 EcoRatings the UK-based initiative to rank the most and least environmentally sustainable mobile phones.

Nokia, HTC, Samsung, LG, Palm and Sony Ericsson participated in the O2 EcoRatings. And RIM committed to participate in the next year of the study. The ratings, released last week, found the Sony Ericsson Elm the most environmentally friendly phone.

Was Apple justified in blowing off the outside, environmental inquiry about the iPhone? After all, new environmental reports, labels and certifications come out every couple of weeks.

Recently, the EPA proposed a new vehicle efficiency rating, and a new partnership called the ULE-880 kicked off ratings of manufacturers.

The sheer volume makes it hard for companies and consumers to know which reports are credible and scientific, or just public relations fluff.

Jennifer Woofter, founder and president of Strategic Sustainability Consulting near Washington D.C. believes the O2 EcoRatings are credible, though. Woofter’s company helps manufacturers get their products, operations and environmental reporting up to the specifications of retailers like Wal-Mart.

By declining to participate in environmental ratings by trustworthy outside agencies, Woofter says “[Apple] isn’t taking a leadership position when it comes to sustainability. And it risks looking like a company that doesn’t take feedback well.” She believes that Apple’s own environmental audits are not yet done in a consistent manner, or with clear enough criteria to appease legitimate concerns.

Environmental researchers still want Apple to answer some questions publicly like: are the materials in its devices obtained from conflict-free mines? What toxins, if any, are still in those iPhones and chargers? With what standards and regularity does Apple review its original equipment manufacturing partners to make sure they are operating in an environmentally and socially responsible way? How will the company curb e-waste?

Continued secrecy should not surprise those familiar with Apple’s corporate ways. Earlier this year, the company shot down two shareholder proposals asking it to do more rigorous reporting.

Apple rarely acquires other companies, preferring to innovate from within, which also happens to minimize its exposure to outsiders like a target company’s attorneys, accountants or advisers.

One of the firms that developed O2 EcoRatings Telefónica O2 UK is not a total stranger to Apple, but a major mobile carrier and retailer that sells the Apple iPhone in Europe. The other, Forum For the Future, is an independent non-profit that promotes “sustainable development” and studies the impact of various industries on people and the planet.

Woofter (who is not affiliated with either) lauded them for: making their ratings criteria clear and non-proprietary; examining metrics like energy use and materials in the phones; and looking at the sources of these materials, and conditions for workers all along the supply chain. “Sustainability is not just about carbon,” she says.

In the past, Apple has allowed a number of its personal computers and laptops to be rated by a US-based environmental reporting non-profit, the Green Electronics Council, which created the highly influential Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, or EPEAT standards. Its products received stellar EPEAT ratings, “Gold” level across the board.

Opening up about its computers helped Apple win some respect from (and quiet down) Greenpeace; the environmental activists launched a massive campaign criticizing Apple in 2007. Allowing the iPhone to be independently rated and compared to peers’ devices could make the company look good and green anew. So why would Apple still decline?

Chris Pinney, the director of research and policy at Boston College’s Center for Corporate Citizenship suggests it’s because they just don’t have to talk. “Apple has a comprehensive supplier code and auditing program. They may feel their [own reporting] is sufficient to deal with ‘green’ issues. They may also feel they have nothing to gain by joining a new, ‘eco-rating’ initiative in a market where they are a dominant player,” he says.

Pinney believes real change and less secrecy will be driven by government standards and by large carriers and retailers like Wal-Mart as they demand more labeling on the products they handle due to consumer pressure.

For now, an Apple spokesperson declined to comment on O2 EcoRatings. She pointed to the “environment” pages of Apple’s website, and emphasized that the company restricts more toxins than the European RoHS Directive, which limits the use of hazardous substances in electronics and is considered progressive today.

Customers can bring most iPhones and iPods (not including the shuffle) to Apple retail stores for recycling, she said. For returned iPods, they get a 10% discount on a new iPod. The company hasn’t created a similarly motivating program for its iPads, iPhones, batteries, chargers or laptops, though.

Apple’s retail employees aren’t required to inform customers about responsible e-waste disposal, or available take-back and recycling programs.

Environmental responsibility is a theme largely absent from Apple’s hype events, too. Nobody from Apple’s top ranks talked about green features or e-waste recycling as they rolled out a new lineup of media devices last week.

Contrarily, Apple has been lauded for being accidentally and overtly green: their iPods and iTunes store have displaced tons of waste from compact discs. They’ve also been designing more energy-efficient products using less toxic material, and minimizing packaging over time. They’ve applied for patents to include solar cells in their portable devices. And a host of iPhone apps are meant to help consumers lead “greener” lives.

Still, if you found out your new iPhone was full of conflict minerals would you keep it? Or if it contained cancer-causing toxins, would you still sleep with it?

Top Secret photo via: Malakh Kelevra
E-waste recycling photo via: U.S. Army Environmental Command

Rise of the Anti-Content Farmers

Techcrunch - Sat, 04/09/2010 - 16:00

Editor’s note: The following guest post is by Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, the CEO of WatchMojo, a producer and distributor of premium video content. Read his other posts here, or follow him on Twitter @ashkan

My cohort at Revision 3, CEO Jim Louderback, recently wrote an article called “Screw Viral Videos.” Why? Because according to Louderback, “viral videos deliver little or no value to anyone.” Which led me to wonder: what about content farms?

The Definition of Content Farms

While no official description exists yet, a content farm is the term given to a website or media organization that

• seeks to maximize content production output
• while minimizing production costs
• to acquire as much organic search traffic as possible
• with the main intent of converting that traffic into revenue, generally from advertising.

Over the past few years, anticipation of “content farm” poster boy Demand Media’s IPO has fueled both a lot of media cynicism and investor curiosity. No doubt, the fact that most of the content farms are seeking to disrupt traditional media organizations, in general, and journalists, in particular, explains some of the cynicism, but it does little to ask the question of whether the strategy itself is wise.

From One Dumb Idea to Another

Just five years ago, the conventional wisdom suggested that ad-supported media organizations should embrace user-generated content as a way to “scale” content offerings on their site, arguing that marketers will chase eyeballs no matter what. Today, that ranks up there as one of the dumber strategies in the history of publishing and advertising as marketers totally rejected UGC and even the biggest proponents of UGC shifted their business models to address that reality.

Back in April, I asked “Will AOL and Demand Media’s Content Farm Strategy Prevail?” and basically concluded that a “machine-gun, carpet-bombing” editorial strategy relying on a freelance model might work with articles but runs the risk of producing wildly inconsistent videos which would scare off advertisers. The important word to consider in all of this is not in fact content, but advertising, since—paywalls and iPad subscription fantasies notwithstanding—content remains largely an ad-supported game.

With Advertising, Value Trumps Cost

As Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt once stated: “advertising remains the last bastion of unaccountable spending in corporate America.”  Profiting from that disequilibrium are the ad agencies who care less about costs than they do about value—getting the most bang for their advertising buck

In economic terms, what matters most to them is balancing quality with cost to provide value; not minimizing cost and maximizing output. The effort to maximize output is based on the objective of maximizing organic traffic, but as we saw with UGC, more traffic does not mean more revenue, it just means a greater supply of inventory which pummels ad rates.

Who Are Your Clients: Financiers or Marketers?

In other words, if you don’t come from a publishing or advertising background—and you’re business is supported by venture capitalists or private equity bankers while you try to woo investment bankers—then, indeed, you need to stress that you can produce more content more cheaply than anyone else.  But that kind of downward spiral rhetoric will ring hollow to marketers who underwrite most of the media world.

Marketers Don’t Like Cheap Dates

Conversely, if your business aims to serve marketers and other media companies, that is not the right tone to strike: after all, should content producers really be conveying the fact that we’re cheap dates?

Being in the content business requires an understanding that you will be perpetually trying to master the art and science of production, distribution and monetization; that is an ongoing process. It is not at all akin to writing code for software that—once built—can create an infinite amount of copies and licenses to sell.

The jury’s out on whether the content farm approach will prove successful, but I am betting that in 2011, you will start to see a regression to the mean, with the very same companies who are rushing to emulate the leading content farm companies revert back towards a more balanced approach to publishing and focus on quality.  Meanwhile, the firms who bet the farm on quality and focus on offering value  in the form of quality content, instead of focusing on costs and output alone, will reap the most come harvest time.

Photo credit: Flickr/ h.koppdelaney

Kanye West Loves Twitter, And We Love Twitter For Kanye West’s Tweets

Techcrunch - Sat, 04/09/2010 - 15:27

You’ll forgive me for sneaking in some pop culture in the mix because it’s Saturday and all, right? Rapper Kanye West is having a bit of a moment on Twitter the past few hours, apologizing for the Taylor Swift incident from last year when he stormed the stage during the artist’s acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards to complain that Beyonce should have won the Best Female Video award instead.

But not just that. He’s also making it crystal clear, as others have before him admittedly, that Twitter has changed the way celebrities interact with their fans and anyone who’s interested in what they have to say really. And slamming mainstream media in the process.

So reading about four pages of tweets by West, there are some interesting gems to be found in there besides his apologies to Swift and his complaints about the massive backlash he’s received since then, receiving death threats and getting booed off stage and so on.

This blog reposted the long rant (easier to read).

Here’s part of his rant against mainstream media, and his love for Twitter:

Man I love Twitter… I’ve always been at the mercy of the press but no more… The media tried to demonize me

She deserves the apology more than anyone. Thank you Biz Stone and Evan Williams for creating a platform where we can communicate directly

and

These aren’t regular tweets… this is stream of consciousness … I want you guys to know and feel where my head is at…

These tweets have no manager, no publicist , no grammar checking… this is raw

True enough, the rapper could have written a thoughtful blog post (or a letter) on the matter and it would have been picked up by followers and celeb watchers just the same, but the beauty of Twitter is that it enables, encourages even, people to be more concise and direct.

You can consider his tweets insane rambling by a celebrity who is up late and possibly drunk, or as some lame way of getting attention (if it is, I’ll take this over most publicity stunts I’ve seen over the past three decades).

Or you can look at it this way: 5 years ago, how were fans able to get this much insight into their idols’ thoughts and feelings? Answer is they didn’t.

Tech Industry Managers: Little Men in Big Shoes?

Techcrunch - Sat, 04/09/2010 - 14:00

When I was ready to transition from computer programmer to project manager, my employer, Xerox Corporation, sent me to its huge training center in Leesburg, Virginia. Over two weeks, the people there taught me some of the skills I needed in order to succeed in my new role: managing projects, motivating people, complying with employment regulations, and preparing status reports and presentations. The company also encouraged me to complete an MBA, on a part-time basis, at New York University. It gave me lots of time off and paid for the tuition.

Tech companies in the internet era offer their employees some great perks. But do you think that Facebook, Groupon, or Zynga provide budding professionals with any serious management training? Not at all. Given the way tech companies grow and the HR challenges they face, management training and career development are more important than ever. But few have the time—they are too busy surviving.

Professors Robert Fulmer and Byron Hanson of Duke University’s Corporate Education group researched the management practices of 23 leading high-tech firms. Corporate executives in an overwhelming majority, 89 percent, believed that leadership development was becoming increasingly important for their companies; 58 percent ranked this as a high corporate priority. Yet less than one-fourth of the managers interviewed had a clear roadmap for how they could develop themselves, and more than half didn’t even know who in their organization was responsible for the development of leaders. The conclusion of the researchers wasn’t surprising: many high-tech companies are young, so their systems and procedures for grooming leaders aren’t well developed or firmly established.

Maybe this is why so many tech companies suffer from morale problems, missed deadlines, customer-support disasters, and high turnover. And this may be one of the reasons why so many tech startups who succeed in selling their vision and raising millions in financing are just a flash in the pan.

One of the interesting findings in the Fulmer and Hanson research was that more than 70 percent of the tech executives interviewed said that leadership development in technology-driven firms is different than in other industries. The researchers believed, just as I do, that these tech executives were dead wrong. The lessons that leading companies like Proctor and Gamble and General Electric have learned about management development and training apply as much, if not more, to tech companies.

This means that if you’re a fresh grad joining a hot new tech startup, you shouldn’t expect your managers to train and groom you, or the company to provide you with time off to complete an MBA. You’re on your own. If you are working at some of the more established companies, such as IBM and HP—which do have excellent management-development practices—take full advantage of them. You need to learn all you can.

Many people are born with an innate sense of vision; they readily learn new technologies and master them. Some are very good at communicating and inspiring others. But you can’t be born with the skills needed to plan projects, adhere to EEOC guidelines, and prepare budgets and manage finances, or to know the intricacies of business and intellectual property law. All this has to be learned. Some skills can be developed on the job, but this is usually through trial and error.

I usually recommend that engineering students who want to become managers and CEOs complete a fifth year of education. There are one-year long engineering management programs which cover such subjects as marketing, finance, intellectual property, business law, and management—similar to the key courses in an MBA program; plus tech-oriented subjects like innovation management, operations management, and entrepreneurship.  One such program (and there are many) is the Duke Masters of Engineering Management program, at which I teach.

For experienced tech workers in Silicon Valley, Berkeley and Stanford both have excellent MBA programs. Berkeley Haas School dean, Rich Lyons told me over dinner, last month, of his plans to make his school the premier training ground for Silicon Valley executives. Boston’s Babson College is also launching a program in San Francisco.

But not everyone needs to spend two years doing an MBA. Berkeley’s college of engineering is creating a much shorter program targeted at Silicon Valley techies with leadership potential. Under the aegis of Fung Institute Chief Scientist and Director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology, Ikhlaq Sidhu, the school is developing a professional program in Engineering Leadership. This will meet one evening a week for six months and teach subjects like product management, entrepreneurial thinking, leadership and finance. It will also teach team building, business management, and motivation.

The new Berkeley program is highly selective however.  It will only accept 25 candidates in 2011, based on recommendations from senior executives in the valley. Sidhu says that he hopes to address the “symptoms of engineering without leadership”—which include organizational indecision about new products and services; unresolved conflict between product management and engineering; and superficial technology strategies.  Berkeley will likely expand this program significantly over time and add many others. After all there is a great need.

Editor’s note: Guest writer Vivek Wadhwa  is an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting Scholar at the School of Information at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University. You can follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwaand find his research at www.wadhwa.com.

Lanyrd – Plancast Meets Upcoming For Conferences

Techcrunch - Sat, 04/09/2010 - 09:04

Look out Plancast and Upcoming, here comes Lanyrd. Ok, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but if it's possible to have a SXSW "tipping point" at an event then Lanyrd just had it at dConstruct, a popular design and developer conference in the UK. So what is it? The guys behind Lanyrd say they are not trying to build a general purpose events site but instead they are just interested in conferences and everything associated with them: speakers, attendees, venues, books, video and audio, twitter conversation, blog coverage - you name it.