Chrome Web Apps Coming Along Quite Well. Some Already Work

One of the big announcements at this year’s Google I/O was that a new Chrome Web Store was being built . Think of it as Apple’s App Store or the Android Market but for web apps. In it, you’ll be able to purchase (or download for free) and install apps that can run in Google’s Chrome web browser. Google would only commit to the store and apps being ready “later this year,” but work on app compatibility for Chrome progressing quite nicely. Builds of Chromium (the open source browser behind Chrome) have actually been able to run early apps for weeks now. The ability is still hidden behind a flag, but if you go here you can figure out how to turn on the

Victoria Advocate | Real estate trends

Lee Swearingen, a Victoria real estate broker, compiles detailed listings about the local real estate market each month. The Swearingen Report will be published in the Advocate four times per month.

Go here to see the original:
Victoria Advocate | Real estate trends

Top 20 Trends of the Day (Jul 2) – From Suggestive Street …

Top 20 Trends of the Day (Jul 2) – For the day of July 2nd, these are the Top 20 trends , which include Suggestive Street Illustrations, Polluted Beach Pin-Ups and Daffodil Dresses. T…

Here is the original post:
Top 20 Trends of the Day (Jul 2) – From Suggestive Street …

TechCrunchTV: No Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Invest

So, we finally got around to taping the first episode of our show for TechCrunchTV. It took us a while to figure out what the show was actually going to be but we knew the name: “Too Long; Didn’t Watch.” If I have to explain that to anyone, you clearly haven’t read either of our work. Originally it was going to be a hilarious romp through the week’s news, but it seems that slot has been taken by the charismatic and slightly better titled “ OMG/JK .” So in a bid to be different, we decided we would cover only tech and entrepreneurship news from outside of Silicon Valley. Of course, the problem is Valley companies tend to drive more traffic. So in a way, this show is an experiment to see if TC readers do indeed care about life outside the echo chamber. Our first episode involves  spies, sex, lies, giggling and of course videotape: We discuss the weird story of alleged Russian spy, Anna Chapman and her odd social media approach to spying. It makes us wonder how many entrepreneurs out there are really just sleepers for foreign powers. Loic LeMeur, we’re watching you. (This post will self-destruct in five seconds.)

Read the original post:
TechCrunchTV: No Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Invest

TechCrunch NOW: Yammer CEO, DoubleTwist Co-Founder On Apple, Google Me

What does Yammer’s David Sacks have to do with Apple’s reception hiccup? And what does DoubleTwist’s Jon Johansen have to do with Google Me? To be honest, not a whole lot. But we had both founders in on Friday morning, for our fifth episode of TechCrunch NOW . For those who are unfamiliar with the program, TechCrunch NOW is a daily show (Monday-Friday, 3 PM PST) where we combine an assortment of entrepreneurs, investors, reporters and other tech personalities to debate the top headlines. This week, our line-up included Cyan Banister , founder of Zivity (and host of Speaking Of ), Brian Singerman of Founder’s Fund , Ryan Sweeney of Accel Partners , Andy McLoughlin , co-founder of Huddle , Michael Seibel , CEO of Justin.tv , Evan Soloman, VP of Marketing for Justin.tv, and our OMG/JK dream team MG Siegler and Jason Kincaid . We don’t expect our guests to be designated experts for each headline— however, as an engaged player in technology, his/her perspective will add an extra layer of context and facilitate intelligent discussion. On today’s episode, we got a chance to delve a little deeper into Apple’s amusing press release, its botched formula for calculating reception, the problems with the Android marketplace, and the upcoming fight between Google and Facebook. Below are a few highlights: On the Android marketplace : During our show, Jon Johansen got a chance to elaborate on his recent post, “Google’s Mismanagement Of the Android Market.” On Sunday, the co-founder of DoubleTwist (a music service often described as the ‘iTunes for Android’), ripped Google for failing to curate the Android marketplace— leaving it vulnerable to clutter, less-than-legal apps and making it difficult for quality apps to surface. Rant aside, Johansen says there is a “middle ground” here, where Google can balance its desire to remain open and the need to control the Android eco-system: “Both Palm and Android have this option where you can actually install apps from outside the market…so even if Google started curating the Android market more and flushing out some of these spam apps for instance, that wouldn’t necessarily make the Android market not open anymore because you can still install apps from anywhere else.” Sacks, also agreed that Google needs to overhaul its system to be more developer-friendly. As a CEO who has an app on the iPhone and the Android platforms, he said it has been a struggle for his team to design apps around the different Android devices and for each iteration of the operating system (although he notes that both Apple and Google still rank higher than RIM). After our interview, Johansen told me he was looking for more editorial control and improved search algorithms for the market. Google, if you’re listening, he actually has a four-pronged plan for the Android: “Here’s a few things Google needs to do: 1. They need to expand the number of countries that have access to paid apps (it doesn’t seem to be a big priority as they’re adding them at an extremely slow rate) 2. Developers need to be able to respond to user comments (perhaps through a proxy email to preserve the anonymity of the user) 3. Illegal apps need to go. They’re unfair competition for legitimate apps. 4. More payment options (subscriptions, in-app payments, etc).” On Google Me vs. Facebook Meanwhile, in the last portion of our round-up, David Sacks delivered a bold prediction for Google Me: Google Me, on its own will not be able to take down Facebook, if they want to tackle the 800-pound gorilla in social they will have to buy Twitter: “I think it’s going to be very difficult to create a new social network that just copies Facebook…Google already tried with Buzz to bootstrap off of Gmail, to create a social network, and I think that failed….If it’s just a clone of Facebook it’s certainly going to fail…The only other sort of social networks that have achieved scale on the consumer side in a big way have been Twitter and I guess you could kind of argue LinkedIn…I basically agree with what Keith Rabois wrote which is that Google’s best shot of getting into social networking would be to acquire Twitter. I definitely don’t think they’ll be able build a product themselves that will be able to get significant traction.” He also ominously warned that in the long term, the market might not be big enough for both a Twitter and Facebook. See the full video above. Any suggestions for our show or guests you want to see? E-mail me at onair@techcrunch.com, subject: TechCrunch NOW. CrunchBase Information Yammer doubleTwist David Sacks Jon Lech Johansen Apple Google Information provided by CrunchBase

View original post here:
TechCrunch NOW: Yammer CEO, DoubleTwist Co-Founder On Apple, Google Me

Exclusive: The Sexy Russian Spy’s Business Plan (And A Video Interview)

The bizarre case of Russian Spy ring arrested by the FBI earlier this week just keeps on getting stranger. In particular, one of the alleged spies, 28-year-old Anna Chapman, is getting a lot of attention because of her “vixen” looks and lingerie shots on Facebook. Now, her former husband in London says her father was a former KGB officer and that she left him to pursue her startup dreams in the United States. Chapman networked her way into the New York City entrepreneurial scene. In fact, during New York Entrepreneur Week earlier this summer, she sat down for a video interview to talk about her apartment rental Website, NYCRentals.com . You can watch the video below, courtesy of And Now Media (it has appeared elsewhere on the Web). Chapman does not come across as a very sophisticated businesswoman, or spy for that matter. Initially, she comes across as something of a red-headed ditz flirting with the camera, but as she begins to talk about her business she starts to sound a little more believable. The Website is up and running, although it is barebones. And she was shopping around a business plan, really more of a two-page executive summary, which we have obtained exclusively (also embedded below). NYCRentals is an apartment search engine which brings together listings for a very limited number of apartments in some neighborhoods of New York City. The executive summary pitches it as a vertical search engine for apartment rentals which aggregates listings from different broker sites. It is not a particularly original idea. The name of the company behind the site is PropertyFinder, which is described as an “affiliate of a holding company in Russia by Anna Chapman who holds the majority shares in that company as well.” It is obvious the document was written by someone without a full mastery of English. It lists “Graigslist” as a competitor and is filled with grammatical errors. One typical sentence reads: By specializing on narrow region it will allow for a system to gather not only information about letting but also create rich with information database with buildings, city infrastructure, other useful and relevant for choosing real estate to live area specifics. Maybe NYCRentals was just a front to give Chapman an excuse to meet high-profile targets. Or maybe she really thought she could crack the New York City rental market. It is still not clear what Chapman’s role in the alleged spy ring was or why she sought publicity. One theory is that these so-called spies were really trying to infiltrate different parts of American society to network and perhaps find valuable contacts who could provide real intelligence to Russia. But all evidence so far is that these spies who could not shoot straight. One contact from New York Entrepreneur Week who met with Chapman on several occasions, Aron Shoenfeld (no relation to me), describes her as a “very aggressive networker.” But she seemed no more aggressive than any ambitious entrepreneur. Maybe entrepreneurs would make good spies. Or maybe she just wasn’t a very good spy. View this document on Scribd

Read the original post:
Exclusive: The Sexy Russian Spy’s Business Plan (And A Video Interview)

Next Of Kin: A Memorial Site Goes Up For The Deceased Microsoft Kin

Perhaps you heard, Microsoft has killed the Kin , its mobile device that was all of six weeks old. Some people were upset by this. Now they have a place to let our their grief, and pay their respects: KinRIP.com . As the site notes, the Kin lived from 2010 to 2010 — it died at the ripe old age of 0. “She” was botn on May 13, 2010 and died on June 30, 2010. “We will remember her forever,” the site notes. Visitors are asked to light a candle in remembrance of the device, and already dozens have. You can also add your favorite photos of the Kin to the page. Some choice statements left on the page: “Damn Kin, you were so fast we can never touch you. RIP.” “Sadly, you saw the Blue Screen of Death up close and personal. R.I.P K.I.N” “i held you for a few minutes only to leave you for the droid x im sorry “ “Most of all, I’ll miss those stellar commercials. RIP Kin.” “How appropriate that there will be no RECEPTION” “Kin, you’re the Betamax of phones but the iPhone of my heart.” The memorial site, created by Shmuel Tennenhaus, has nearly 7,000 visitors so far paying their respects. It’s not clear if it will end up being as big of a memorial as the IE Funeral yet. Of course that product had millions more users, and is actually still not even dead yet. This site was built using ForeverMissed , a online tool that lets users create memorial pages for departed loved ones for free. Obviously, this Kin page is a joke, but the site behind it seems like a nice idea, so hopefully this will drive more usage of that. RIP Kin. CrunchBase Information Microsoft Information provided by CrunchBase

View post:
Next Of Kin: A Memorial Site Goes Up For The Deceased Microsoft Kin

The Tapulous Purchase Price Mystery

One thing we tried – very hard – to nail down yesterday was the price Disney paid for Tapulous . Disney appears to be extra paranoid around the price leaking, and forced key executives and investors to sign specific nondisclosure agreements promising not to disclose that information. All of which of course makes us really, really want to know. The purchase price was somewhere between $22 million and $50 million, we’ve confirmed via multiple sources. Employees, say one source, appear to be getting paid based on that lower number. But there is clearly an escrow and an earnout as well that is bumping the total price, if that money is paid out, to something over $30 million. Our best guess is the total price is somewhere around $35 million. That’s not bad for a company that’s raised just $2.8 million in funding. But Tapulous was profitable almost immediately and didn’t need to raise a lot of money to scale. Revenue comes from multiple sources – ads, song downloads referred to iTunes, song downloads into the game, among others. Last year revenue was around $5 million. This year they are already hitting $1 million/month and will likely have $15 million of so in revenue for all of 2010. The gaming space is very, very hot right now and all startups with any real traction are fielding buy offers left and right. We’ll see a lot more deals like this over the coming months, with Zynga, Disney, Playdom and others buying. CrunchBase Information Tapulous The Walt Disney Company Information provided by CrunchBase

Read more from the original source:
The Tapulous Purchase Price Mystery

Indinero Launches As The Mint.com For Small Businesses

For many small business owners, managing financial health can be an overwhelming process. From credit cards to cash flow to saving, small businesses have many different fiscal elements to consider when monitoring finances. Mint.com helped solved this problem for consumers. And today, Y Combinator -backed startup Indinero is launching its real-time financial dashboard that has a simple ambition: to be the Mint.com for small businesses. Like Mint, Indinero uses Yodlee to allow businesses to transferring bank and credit card account information from financial institutions. But Indinero’s site caters to the financial health and needs of small businesses, breaking out data that addresses cashflow, runway, spending, profits and more. Indinero’s co-founder Jessica Mah tells me that complex accounting software like Intuit’s Quickbooks can often be confusing to navigate. Similar to Mint, Indinero’s interface is simple and easy to use. It makes pretty graphs of a business’ finances to make data trends more understandable. Indinero will soon include a forecasting feature, which will provide businesses an future glimpse into their financial performance based on past data and industry trends. And eventually businesses will be able to compare their performance to other companies of their size and industry focus. The startup doesn’t aim to replace a human bookkeepers, but actually helps business owners collaborate with bookkeepers. Inidinero allows you to import data directly into Quickbooks, saving bookkeepers from the arduous task of inputing data into the program. Indinero of course faces competition from Mint. And there are a number of sites providing simple bookkeeping applications for small businesses including Outright, Freshbooks and others. CrunchBase Information Indinero Information provided by CrunchBase

See the original post:
Indinero Launches As The Mint.com For Small Businesses

Pandora Founder Tells Charlie Rose The iPhone “Almost Doubled” Growth “Overnight”

With more than 50 million users and a recent infusion of cash , music streaming service Pandora is really hitting its stride. Founder Tim Westergren had his Charlie Rose moment last night, and one thing that really cam ethrough was how important the iPhone is to Pandora. “It is impossible to overstate” its impact, saays Westergren. When the iPhone app launched in 2008, it was an i nstant hit , and it “almost doubled” Pandora’s growth rate “overnight,” says Westergren. But more than that, it freed up Pandora users from being chained to their desks. Now with the ability to run in the background , its usage on the iPhone should continue to soar. In the first clip below, Westergren talks about Pandora’s iPhone and the iPad strategies. In the second clip, he explains to Rose, Pandora’s underlying Music Genome project. You can watch the full interview here . CrunchBase Information Pandora Charlie Rose Information provided by CrunchBase

Visit link:
Pandora Founder Tells Charlie Rose The iPhone “Almost Doubled” Growth “Overnight”