Tuesday, 14 May 2013
Nikon unveils 1 Nikkor 32mm lens with extra-fast f/1.2 aperture, manual focus
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Living with Glass, Week Three: Apps, Updates and Apiarists
Loop Makes It Easy To Conduct Real-Time Surveys Via iPad
Loop co-founder and CEO Rajit Marwah argued that “surveys and reviews are everywhere” — but they’re often ignored or delayed. With his new startup, on the other hand, Marwah said he’s giving businesses a way to create and conduct those surveys easily and quickly.
When a business downloads the Loop iOS app, they can use one of the app’s survey templates (the templates are based on business type, such as restaurant or hotel) or create a survey from scratch, then share the it via email, Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else where you can post a link.
The most interesting use case, however, is the ability to open a survey from an iPad. So So instead of hoping a customer will fill out a survey in a day or two, businesses can just hand them an iPad, and they can give their answers in just a few seconds. That means you get a much higher feedback rate, and that feedback is immediate, unlike “receipts surveys, 1-800 numbers, and clumsy email surveys,” Marwah said.
“After visiting a business, most customers move on and don’t bother to give feedback after the fact,” he added. “Feedback in the moment is something consumers actually respond to.”
Marwah also said that the Loop app was just built by two people — himself and his co-founder/CTO Mike Liu. He painted that as a plus, because it shows that Loop is a lean company. (It has raised seed funding from Archimedes Labs, an incubator whose chief product officer Keith Teare also co-founded TechCrunch.) He added that Loop is taking a mobile-first approach — it’s not just that the surveys are conducted on iPad, but businesses can also create and share surveys, as well as view results, directly from the mobile app.
I don’t conduct many surveys myself, but at Marwah’s urging, I tried out the app. With the templates, it took only a few taps to launch a new survey from my iPhone, which I could then open on an iPad. Once I turned on Guided View, I could lock the iPad onto the survey screen, you can imagine giving it to a customer to fill out without any distractions. And after I completed the survey, the results were immediately live in the iPhone app.
Loop was previously available as a limited beta test — during that period, Marwah said it saw response rates that were up to 30 times higher than traditional surveys. Today it’s launching globally, and it’s available in 34 languages and 155 countries.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/lAwQq5STwzQ/
Rovio launches Stars publishing program, names initial third-party games (video)
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Rushmore.fm Wants To Fix The Music Industry, Ex-Virgin Group Online Boss Named As CEO
Rushmore.fm, a new London-based startup founded by Fictive Kin and Betaworks, is de-cloaking somewhat today with what sounds like the rather lofty but noble mission to fix the music industry. Described as a “music ecosystem”, the (currently) invite-only site initially consists of a Wikipedia-like music resource where you’re encouraged to contribute and follow content, although the site’s broader aim is to connect music fans “directly and effortlessly with the artists and labels they love”, and in doing so make it easier to make a living from music.
In fact, it’s what Rushmore sees as a disconnect between fans and artists that it’s trying to solve. Bring these two groups closer together and the company thinks there’s money to be made, which in turn can be reinvested in music. Of course, if it’s successful, that’s also how the startup plans to generate revenue via related services. “We need to get these folks connected with the fans that love them, and subsequently enable some sweet, sweet commerce,” reads the site’s mission statement.
With that in mind, along with its public (partial) unveiling, Rushmore is announcing the appointment of Alex Hunter, the former Global Head of Online for Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, as its CEO. While it may seem odd to hire an “outside” CEO so early, it’s a reflection of the incubation model that New York-based Betaworks, Rushmore’s backer, is employing. It’s teamed up with neighbouring design collective Fictive Kin who are charged with researching and coming up with a startup’s concept, before handing it over to take forward and scale — a methodology we’ve compared to the studio model employed by Hollywood.
Once Rushmore.fm was green-lighted at the end of 2012, Hunter was approached and after agreeing to come onboard it was decided the company should operate out of London, which has a decent track record for music-oriented startups. Last.fm, for example, famously exited to CBS, while more recently the likes of Songkick are making decent headway.
(As aside, for those familiar with the London tech scene, Alex Hunter is the brother of Andrew Hunter, co-founder and CEO of jobs search engine Adzuna.)
As Rushmore stands today, the site uses a “follow” model to provide a way for music fans to stay up to date with news, live events, and new releases from their favourite artists. The clincher is that, collectively, they’re also the ones doing most of the work in the sense that content is at least partially based on user contributions (pages have a Wiki-esque “edit” button, though I’m told that contributors will always be invite-only), while Rushmore is rewarding fans who add content via virtual and unspecified real world rewards. There’s a sprinkling of gamification, too. Each week fans compete for the top spots on “The 300″, described as a “highly competitive chart of Rushmore’s top users”.
To that end, Rushmore says that its private beta users have made 200,000 music news, live event, and discography contributions already, which isn’t bad going, though we won’t deem the music industry fixed just yet.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/4ZVEsRcAXlY/
Mashable Launches Google Glass Viral Prediction App
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Everyme Co-Founder Oliver Cameron Launches Limelight, A Social App For Finding What To Watch Next
With a new iPhone app called Limelight, Oliver Cameron (best-known as the co-founder of private social network Everyme) aims to answer the question, “What am I going to watch tonight?”
The app’s basic functionality is pretty straightforward. You can create lists of movies that you’ve watched (rating them between 0 and 5 stars) and that you want to watch. You can also browse lists of highly-rated or popular movies in the app, as well as lists created by other users. (You can follow those users, too.) The ultimate goal, Cameron said, is to help users “organize your movie library” (library might not exactly be the right word for it, since it’s not necessarily a list of movies that you own — but I think it conveys the basic idea) and find new titles to watch.
A lot of this functionality is already available in other services. Netflix is famous for its algorithmically-driven movie recommendations, and another one of my mainstays, IMDb, also has user ratings and a “watchlist” feature. But in those cases, those features are mixed in with a larger service, whereas Limelight has pared things down and is all about ratings and recommendations.
Plus, there’s a nice social component — something that Netflix, for one, is still struggling with. Similar to Amazon-acquired social reading service Goodreads, seeing your friends’ history in Limelight can be useful for finding new movies, and can also just be amusing. For example, I was appalled to discover that Verge writer Ellis Hamburger gave a five-star rating to Armageddon.
The app was built by 9:42AM, which is basically the team of Cameron and designer Marcelo Marfil. Cameron said the company’s goal is to “build simple products that work beautifully and have a defined need.” He described 9:42 (which is named after the exact time when Steve Jobs announced the iPhone) as a side project until he starts his next company. But he said doesn’t mean he isn’t serious about these apps: “Making apps is a huge passion for me, so it’s a good way to keep creative before I start the next thing.”
As for Everyme, the startup doesn’t seem to have gotten much buzz since its big launch last year, and it launched a new service called Origami in the fall. (Everyme co-founder Vibhu Norby recently published a blog post recommending that startups avoid the big launch and instead focus on building a community, which is what he said he’s doing with Origami.) Cameron told me that he left because he was looking for a new challenge.
“I had been working on practically the same product for nearly 3 years, so it was time for a change up,” he said.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/O6rHh0E_jlI/
Firefox 21 officially released for desktop, Android version also gets a boost
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BlackBerry Q5 hands-on: an affordable BB10 device in a QWERTY shell
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Wednesday Night's Human Matchmakers And Coaches Take Some Of The Work Out Of Online Dating
If existing dating websites aren’t working for you (or you’re too busy to try them out), you can get help from paid matchmakers and dating coaches on the just-launched service Wednesday Night.
According to the startup, users connect their Facebook accounts and are then given three recommendations. (You can see a mock-up of a recommendation email below.) If they’re interested in dating one of them, they then pay $50 and are set up with a date on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. (or occasionally Thursday). They’re also connected with a dating coach who can provide advice via email or text.
The website comes from the team of Jared Tame and Teng Siong Ong who are already working on two other dating services — Flock and CupidWithFriends. (They sold their previous startup, Y Combiantor-backed GraffitiGEO, to Loopt.) When Tame emailed me to tell me about Wednesday Night, I asked why the pair decided to launch yet another dating site, and he said:
Wednesday Night is something that really excites us and it appeals to a lot of people we’ve spoken to who are too busy for online dating. Women want to be matchmakers and give guys advice on how to talk to girls, dress, behave, etc; many guys need help and don’t want to do all the back-and-forth messaging and setting up a profile.
Tame’s response touches on one of the issues facing any dating website — managing the balance between guys and girls. That seems like a particular danger given Wednesday Night’s concept, which might attract a lot of socially awkward guys but not as many women. The Wednesday Night website tries to address this, arguing that the service isn’t just for men: “We understand the pain exists for women on dating sites where they’re approached by lots of guys and receive too many messages.” Tame added that matchmakers can also look for dates outside the Wednesday Night network, and if they agree, they automatically become part of the database.
Still, I’m guessing that it will be mostly guys who are actually paying for the service. Does that create a weird dynamic? Well, I’d argue that most dating sites have a slightly skewed dating dynamic, and Tame argued that by paying for the drinks upfront, you avoid “awkward ‘who pays’ or ‘let’s wait while I close my tab’ situations.” (Of course, part of the fee is also going towards Wednesday Night and its matchmakers/coaches.)
As for why the dates take place on Wednesday and Thursday night, Tame said it means they won’t compete with weekend plans. Plus, if it’s a good date you can schedule a follow-up for the weekend, and if it isn’t, the mid-week timing means there’s an easy excuse to end the date fairly quickly.
I also asked whether this is really a scalable tech business, and Tame replied that Wednesday Night has built software that “helps matchmakers quickly profile a user based on their Facebook account, schedule dates, as well as search for potential matches.” He also said that there’s a dashboard that helps matchmakers track their performance — the ones that get more positive reviews get paid a higher commission.
If you’re interested in trying out the site, TechCrunch readers can get a $10 credit by signing up here.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/XDNgpGa1QXA/
P2P Currency Exchange TransferWise Raises $6M Led By Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures, With Participation From SV Angel, Others
Here’s some encouraging news for the European startup scene, and London in particular. TransferWise, the online currency exchange that uses the crowd to undercut traditional money transfer services, has announced that it’s closed a $6 million series A round led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures — the first investment in Europe by the PayPal co-founder and early Facebook investor’s international fund.
We also understand that Ron Conway’s SV Angel has joined this round, along with a small number of angels, and TransferWise’s existing backers IA Ventures, Index, Seedcamp, and TAG. This brings the total raised by the company to $7.35 million since its launch just two years ago.
Originally billing itself as the “Skype of money transfer“, TransferWise enables individuals and businesses to send money between countries for a fraction of the price that banks and others charge, using a peer-to-peer, “crowdsourced” model — where money destined for transfer doesn’t unnecessarily actually leave each country. It passes on these saving by charging a small flat fee per transfer.
(It’s the P2P element that playfully draws the Skype simile, as well as the fact that TransferWise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus was the Internet calling giant’s first employee, while other members of his team also worked at the company.)
The company also pitches itself as the preferred method of money transfer for European startups, recently garnering some decent PR with an offer to waive the fees for a total of $100 million worth of international money transfers for qualifying startups using the TransferWise platform. Interestingly, Thiel was one of a host of names publicly endorsing the campaign, so we probably should have known something was going down.
Hinrikus tell me that the new funding will enable TransferWise to continue expanding, both in terms of the number of currencies it plans to support, and in raw head-count. It started out offering British Pound and Euro transfers, and has since added support for the U.S. Dollar, Swiss Franc, Polish Zloty, and Danish, Swedish and Norwegian Krone. In total, the company claims to have transferred over £125m worth of customers’ money, saving £5 million-plus in banking fees (though it isn’t without competition). Meanwhile, the team has grown to 33 members of staff.
“There’s another dozen currencies to be launched this year and 20 more people needed in the team,” says Hinrikus. “Also we need to launch locally in key European markets – Germany, France and Spain.” Hinrikus says TransferWise continues to grow between 20-30 percent a month, which to date equals roughly 10x year-on-year growth. “Doing what’s in the pipeline puts us on track to do another 5-10x this year,” he says.
Staying on message, London-based TransferWise (with an office also in Tallinn, Estonia) is now calling itself a Tech City startup. Tech City, headed up by Joanna Shields, ex-Google, AOL/Bebo, and most recently Facebook’s head of EMEA operations, is the UK government’s re-branding of the London tech scene and, specifically, East London’s “Silicon Roundabout” area.
Cue the now prerequisite statement from Shields: “Transferwise is a shining example of the successful businesses that make Tech City a thriving ecosystem. London has a real strength in financial services and technology, with many companies like Transferwise transforming financial services for consumers, for the better.”
That said, TransferWise’s HQ is on Shoreditch High Street, which doesn’t get any more Silicon Roundabout than that. And certainly, a $6 million series A is no mean feat for a European startup, and nor is attracting a top tier Silicon Valley investor like Peter Thiel.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/r3aBpokHefE/