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Time's iPad app to launch at $4.99 an issue

by Matt Bowman, April 2, 2010 | Comments

Expect exclusive iPad photo essays of Steve Jobs, Sarah Palin. Functionality still under-utilized.

The iPad is all about charging for content, over and over. Unlike most of the iPhone apps, many of the third-party offerings already on the iPad will not simply charge a one-time fee; they'll either draw in recurring subscription fees, or mirror the newsstand model and hit users up for each new edition. The latter is the case with Time ...

WSJ iPad app weighs in at $3.99/ week

by Matt Bowman, April 2, 2010 | Comments

Hefty price tag probably won't deter business readers, despite ho-hum additional features

The Wall Street Journal just unveiled details of its iPad app. The price is a hefty $17.29/ month, or $3.99 per week. Compare that to $2.69 for both the online and print editions together, and $1.99 for online access only. So, what do you get, over and above the obvious? You get an easier way to save articles for later ...

Google grabs Zombo for $12M

by Matt Bowman, April 1, 2010 | Comments (1)

Search giant bets big on Web wellness. CEO to join Android team.

Google has decided it’s time to make “anything possible.” The search giant announced Wednesday morning that it had acquired online wellness pioneer Zombo.com for $12 million. Zombo's executive team will join Android’s App Market division. Zombo is a service that seeks to boost visitors’ productivity through visual and auditory stimulation. The company has created a library of psychological techniques commonly ...

Yelp CEO funds Eventbrite

by Matt Bowman, March 31, 2010 | Comments (1)

Another PayPal mafia member jumps on board to ensure event management site's success.

Update: Stoppelman responded to a few questions. His answers are inline below. Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman is joining the board of advisors and investing an undisclosed amount in Eventbrite, the event management site (we use the service for our Vator events). Stoppelman founded Yelp in 2004 after his stint as a VP at PayPal. He met Eventbrite CEO Kevin Hartz ...

Unvarnished: your reputation is up for debate

by Matt Bowman, March 30, 2010 | Comments (1)

Controversial site lets professionals review each other... and there is no delete button.

Privacy is dead. Most of the millennial generation knows that everything you type, every picture of you, and every digital interaction may well be made public someday. Unvarnished wants to make sure that happens. The company, which launched in private beta Tuesday, is a place to review other people. It’s easy to write alarmist pieces about Unvarnished (imagine all the ...

Webs brings Facebook Connect to DIY sites

by Matt Bowman, March 30, 2010 | Comments

Veteran site-building tool erases registration process, beats Yola, Weebly, Ning to the punch

The younger your startup, the more innovative, usually. But sometimes the veterans surprise you. Webste builder Webs (formerly FreeWebs, founded way back in 2001), has enabled site builders to integrate Facebook Connect for site registration. That means if you create a website using Webs.com, visitors will be able to register for your site simply by using their Facebook username and ...

Quora raises rumored $11M for elite Q&A site

by Matt Bowman, March 29, 2010 | Comments (2)

Former Facebook execs and managers team up to get the rest of what's in your head & put it online

Question and Answer sites are not new (think Yahoo Answers), but it’s as though Silicon Valley just rediscovered them. Formspring.me took off last November with the “citizen” version, ChaCha launched the celebrity-centric iteration, and now former Facebook employees have raised big money for the elite edition.Quora, which currently operates in closed beta, just landed a first round of funding from ...

Bing beating Google all over the maps

by Matt Bowman, March 26, 2010 | Comments (1)

It can't hold a candle to Google's streetview penetration, but Bing's winning the feature war.

In return for a hefty ticket price, the annual TED conference in Palm Springs and Long Beach, CA, inebriates its audience with inspiration, wonder, and warm fuzzies. By the time the attendees sit through a morning's worth of sessions, each gasp of fascination becomes harder to elicit. Drawing one is good; getting several is a feat. This year, the gasp ...

What Uncle Sam, the VC, wants to fund

by Matt Bowman, March 26, 2010 | Comments

America's CTO Aneesh Chopra mentions 3 kinds of startups the government is interested in

Last year, the appointment of America’s First CTO gave the notoriously free-market, fiscally conservative investors of Silicon Valley a single liaison with the federal government: Aneesh Chopra. Chopra took the stage this morning at the Global Technology Symposium for a fireside chat, with Hummer Winblad Managing Director Mark Gorenberg representing the Valley. Chopra mentioned a few areas where Uncle Sam ...

The changing face of Hollywood

by Matt Bowman, March 26, 2010 | Comments

Tinseltown is rearranging itself to produce bigger but fewer blockbusters.

Hollywood is coming out of hibernation. After two years of almost no deals, Warner Brothers is thinking of buying MGM for up to $1.5 billion, Liberty is looking to sell Overture for $100 million, Disney wants to sell Miramax for $700 million, and Media Rights Capital wants to buy Focus Features.So why all the activity? For one, big studios like Disney ...

Android eats away at Apple's lead

by Matt Bowman, March 25, 2010 | Comments (1)

Metrics from AdMob show that the dominant smartphone OS is slowly ceding ground to Google.

AdMob just released its monthly mobile metrics report. The company uses views of advertisements in the AdMob network (the biggest mobile network, stretching across all major handsets and operating systems) to gauge mobile usage trends. Some interesting results from the report on mobile usage in February: iPhone OS increased its share of smartphone requests from 33 percent in February 2009 ...

Digg iPhone app foreshadows site changes

by Matt Bowman, March 24, 2010 | Comments

CEO Jay Adelson says the mobile application was built with upcoming new-and-improved site in mind

After months of anticipation, Digg’s mobile app has hit the iPhone. CEO Jay Adelson gave us a rundown on the app’s history and future. Given Digg’s techy demographic it took the company a lot longer than many expected to develop the app. Adelson said part of the complication came from the company’s upcoming site relaunch. Digg has been rebuilt from ...

Facebook expands happiness index

by Matt Bowman, March 24, 2010 | Comments (1)

World’s most popular site uses status updates to gauge how nations are feeling.

In October, Facebook’s data scientists began using status updates to create a rough measure of the happiness expressed by English Speakers in the United States. Now, the company is expanding its index to three other English-speaking nations: U.K., Australia, and Canada. “Measuring how well-off, happy or satisfied with life the citizens of a nation are is part of the Gross ...

Digg (finally) launching its iPhone app

by Matt Bowman, March 23, 2010 | Comments

It's been a long time coming, but the functionality looks pretty comprehensive.

Digg is finally coming to the iPhone, and if the screen shots Mashable got their hands on late Tuesday are accurate, the app will be robust. Digg founder Kevin Rose first hinted that an app was in the works last year when he was caught playing with an early version last October before an interview with podcasters Arnt Eriksen and ...

Mobile movies hit the mSpot

by Matt Bowman, March 23, 2010 | Comments

Viewers can now switch between phone and PC as they pick up and leave off watching a movie.

In September, mobile entertainment startup mSpot launched an application that lets users stream movie rentals on-demand to their phones for $4.99 a piece. On Tuesday, the company is integrating its mobile streaming service with the PC, making it possible for movie watchers to switch between both devices as they pick up and leave off throughout a movie. A company rep ...

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