By Evan Ackerman Over on BotJunkie this week, we kicked things off in style and watched some video of a cute little DIY CrabFu SwashBot take on an equally cute kitty in a battle of weirdness, got a little misty hearing about how an RP-7 robot was used to introduce a soldier in Iraq to his […]
Google has given us 10 partner codes that TechCrunch readers can use to register for the upcoming Google I/O developer event on May 28-29 in San Francisco. Tickets are usually $400 each; the first 10 readers who leave a comment saying they want one will get in for free. Google I/O will be held at the […]
Google has given us 10 partner codes that TechCrunch readers can use to register for the upcoming Google I/O developer event on May 28-29 in San Francisco.
Tickets are usually $400 each; the first 10 readers who leave a comment saying they want one will get in for free.
Google I/O will be held at the Moscone Center and will cover the following topics: Ajax & JavaScript, APIs and Tools, Social, Mobile, and Maps and Geo. Of course there’s sure to be much buzz OpenSocial, App Engine, and Android, as well as other Google developer projects like Google Web Toolkit and the Google Maps API. Every attendee will get an App Engine account, as well as the chance to see the Flight of the Conchords play at an after party.
We’ll email the registration codes directly to the first 10 commenters, so make sure to use your real email address.
VOIP provider JAJAH has just got a welcome boost via a deal with Yahoo that will see JAJAH power premium voice on Yahoo Messenger. Under the deal, JAJAH will provide its proprietary telephony infrastructure, payment processing, and customer care to Yahoo Messenger users using the platform for receiving calls from the PSTN network, or for making […]
VOIP provider JAJAH has just got a welcome boost via a deal with Yahoo that will see JAJAH power premium voice on Yahoo Messenger.
Under the deal, JAJAH will provide its proprietary telephony infrastructure, payment processing, and customer care to Yahoo Messenger users using the platform for receiving calls from the PSTN network, or for making calls to land lines and mobile phones.
The announcement coincides with JAJAH moving into new territory as an indirect to consumer provider as well as its direct to market service. Yahoo is the first major U.S. technology customer/partner of JAJAH’s Managed Services and JAJAH told TechCrunch that they expect to announce new partners including landline operators, cable companies and mobile carriers in the coming weeks.
JAJAH’s existing VOIP service recently passed the 10 million user mark.
Akoha, a startup working on a “new type of multiplayer online/offline social game”, has raised $1.9 Million in funding from angel investors. The company won’t release details about the exact nature of their game until this Fall, but they have stated that it was inspired by “elements of social entrepreneurship, massively multiplayer and reality-based […]
Akoha, a startup working on a “new type of multiplayer online/offline social game”, has raised $1.9 Million in funding from angel investors. The company won’t release details about the exact nature of their game until this Fall, but they have stated that it was inspired by “elements of social entrepreneurship, massively multiplayer and reality-based games.” As far as we can tell, it will mix user-generated content with casual gaming elements, both online and in the real world (think geo-tagged photos taken on a cell phone). People will play for both fun and charity.
Akoha was founded by Austin Hill and Alex Eberts, who together co-founded Zero-Knowledge Systems (now Rdadialpoint) in 1997. Among the Canadian angel investors are David Chamandy (co-founder, Lavalife), Ron Dembo (founder, Zerofootprint.net), film producer Jake Eberts (Chariots of Fire,Ghandi), and seed fund Montreal Start Up.
By Luke Anderson Most USB hubs you see are pretty standard, as they are a plastic shell (that may or may not look like something cool). They come in two categories; powered and unpowered. The former requires you to run a power cord to a nearby power outlet. At least that’s usually how it works.
By Andrew Liszewski While walking home last night I happened to notice this bizarre truck stopped at a red light. It was your standard cube van, except for the fact that the cube portion featured windows on all sides. And while it’s kind of hard to tell in this photo, inside the truck was someone dressed […]
By Andrew Liszewski
While walking home last night I happened to notice this bizarre truck stopped at a red light. It was your standard cube van, except for the fact that the cube portion featured windows on all sides. And while it’s kind of hard to tell in this photo, inside the truck was someone dressed like an alien on vacation. The rest of the aliens were actually similarly dressed mannequins, but I guess they felt they needed at least one actual person to make it more realistic.
I can’t deny the fact that the truck served its purpose of grabbing people’s attention (I did stop and take a photo after all) but it was really a lame advertising stunt. And I can’t help but feel that other people might decide to arbitrarily boycott this company like I have, because of it. (It doesn’t take much.) If you work in advertising and are reading this post here’s my suggestion on how to improve this idea. You should replace the aliens with a machine that shoots out money, and instead of driving around the city you should just park in front of my apartment building. Then I’ll buy whatever you’re selling.
By Evan Ackerman Pedometers are meant to measure the number of steps you take to give you a sense of how far you’ve gone, and by extension, how much exercise you’re getting. Unfortunately, there are some people out there who don’t walk… normally. The Seiko Slimstick uses dual-axis gyro sensors to to determine not only how […]
By Evan Ackerman
Pedometers are meant to measure the number of steps you take to give you a sense of how far you’ve gone, and by extension, how much exercise you’re getting. Unfortunately, there are some people out there who don’t walk… normally. The Seiko Slimstick uses dual-axis gyro sensors to to determine not only how many steps you take, but also what sorts of steps they are, to better reflect the amount of calories you’re burning and the overall quality of your exercise. It only weighs 15 grams (2cm x 6.4 cm x 0.89 cm) and clips right on to your clothing. It’s currently available from Seiko Japan in a couple different colors for between $55 and $67.
Since it’s Monday, enjoy some very very silly walks after the jump.
Zoho keeps pushing the limits of what online productivity apps can do, It was the first to use Google Gears to create an offline version of Zoho Writer last year, for instance. And now it is adding macros and pivot tables to its online spreadsheet, Zoho Sheet. (Once again, it is way ahead […]
Zoho keeps pushing the limits of what online productivity apps can do, It was the first to use Google Gears to create an offline version of Zoho Writer last year, for instance. And now it is adding macros and pivot tables to its online spreadsheet, Zoho Sheet. (Once again, it is way ahead of Google, which indicated last December it would not add those advanced features any time this year).
The addition of macros and pivot tables should go far in making Zoho’s online spreadsheet a more realistic alternative for power business users. Macros are customized code, written in Visual Basic, that adds features and functionality to a spreadsheet (like highlighting an item above a certain dollar-limit in an expense report, for instance). Pivot tables are complex tables inside a spreadsheet that makes it easier to analyze data. Anyone can create a macro for Zoho Sheets and contribute it to this wiki that Zoho set up. (So users can potentially get the benefit of everyone else’s macros). And since it is understands Visual Basic (and converts it on the backend to Java before executing the code), existing macros for Excel will also work inside Zoho Sheet. Out of the gate, Zoho only supports about half of all spreadsheet functions in its macros, and does not yet support exporting of macros, but in time it will.
Web hosting provider Rackspace filed for an initial public offering with the SEC last night, as we predicted it would. The company will try to raise $400 million, and it intends to set the IPO price through an auction, much like Google did. The underwriters are Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, and […]
Web hosting provider Rackspace filed for an initial public offering with the SEC last night, as we predicted it would. The company will try to raise $400 million, and it intends to set the IPO price through an auction, much like Google did. The underwriters are Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, and WR Hambrecht & Co. (the leading proponent of such IPO pricing). Pricing through an auction is designed to make sure the company raises the most money possible instead of giving up a first-day pop to investors who are allocated shares by the investment banks doing the deal. Shares will still be allocated to such clients, but anyone who bids beforehand in the auction at or above the eventual IPO price will also get shares. All in all, it is a much more efficient way to price an IPO and more companies should do it.
With the filing we also get a clearer picture of Rackspace’s business and financials. Its revenues grew 62 percent last year to $362 million, but it posted net profits of $17.8 million, which were down 10 percent from the year before. Cash flows from operations, though, remained healthy at $105 million last year, up from $61 million in 2006. (Click on the table below for a bigger image and more data):
The decline in profits was because the company spent a lot more staffing up and spending more on sales and marketing. About half of the $53 million increase in its cost of revenues last year was attributable to the fact that it nearly doubled the number of employees to 2,021 (of that, data center employees went from 576 to 994, and sales and marketing headcount went from 224 to 353). Servers, software licensing costs, bandwidth, power and rent made up most of the rest of the increase.
Another interesting tidbit: that truck accident that took down one of its data centers in Texas last November cost the company $3.4 million in credits to customers.
At the end of the year, it had 29,193 customers, compared to 12,677 the year before. But nearly all of that growth was due to its acquisition of Webmail.us (i.e., they are hosted e-mail customers, not hosted Website customers). Rackspace has 36,692 servers across seven data centers, 114,749 square feet of data center space, with a 61 percent utilization rate. The company makes $3,504 a year per square foot, a number that has been growing nicely, illustrating that Web hosting is a scale business with increasing returns the more servers that can be rented out.
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Bootstrapped service MyPlayList, the free music/ Flickr mashup service we wrote about earlier this month, is on the market, but with a twist: a majority stake (51%) is being offered free to a good home. AngentBleu writes: I believe this application has the potential to become a hot destination (applications in the same space have very large […]
Bootstrapped service MyPlayList, the free music/ Flickr mashup service we wrote about earlier this month, is on the market, but with a twist: a majority stake (51%) is being offered free to a good home.
I believe this application has the potential to become a hot destination (applications in the same space have very large teams and sky high valuations) however, I do not believe that I alone can manage this project.
Until now I have been developing my little applications as an ‘independent developer’ in solitude without external funds, bootstrapping them until they support themselves, which is fine as a hobby - but having already been the architect of one very successful disruptive company I am acutely aware of the many challenges that face new emerging technologies.
Thus rather than being plagued with business and political challenges for which I have no ambitions, I instead wish to remain committed to developing and hacking which is my core passion, particularly because I have other projects that I am currently developing which I believe will also be game changers within their own sectors (with verified business models).
Therefore I am looking for a partner to whom I am prepared to give full control (51%) of Myplaylist in exchange for becoming part of a larger dynamic exciting team, where I can continue exploring and developing potential prospects (with support) rather than being burdened with the ‘management’ of yet another disruptive company.
Bootstrapped startups always face a challenge of taking the service to the next level, both from a financial and manpower perspective. This is a calculated risk, but it’s an interesting experiment. I’m not sure how many people would be comfortable handing control to someone else for no upfront cash investment, but in this case AngentBleu is willing to bet that handing control to a team who can take the site to the next level will benefit him as well.
More details here and organizations interested should send a brief outlining their proposal to: support (at) myplaylist (dot) biz.
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