Conduit Reports Big Numbers: 250,000 App Publishers, 170 Million Users

Conduit , the venture-backed company that enables publishers to create and distribute apps on the Web via browser toolbars, is posting some big numbers today. The startup says its network now boasts more than 250,000 web publishers, and that they’re able to reach some 170 million users. Roughly 23 new users install Conduit Engine every single second, the company adds. Those stats led Conduit president Adam Boyden to make some bold claims about its size, relative to that of the mobile apps market: “While most of the buzz in the media is about mobile apps, the reality of the situation is that 118 million more people use Conduit-powered apps than iPhone and Droid apps combined.” Not exactly an apples to apples comparison, but it does indicate that Conduit Network has quietly become a whopper of a distribution channel for a number of big brands, including Amazon, Coke Zero, eBay, Facebook, Fox News, Hulu, Skype, YouTube, and Zynga. According to Conduit, its App Marketplace (think of it as an app store for Web applications delivered via cross-browser toolbars) is seeing notable growth, particularly. The company says 60 million end users consume apps from the marketplace on a daily basis , not only benefiting major brands but also lesser known software developers. Since August 2009, Conduit claims the number of Web publishers that have more than one million users has grown from 1 to more than 40 in May 2010. At this scale, Conduit is able to deliver some interesting trends on Web app usage, and that’s exactly what they’ve provided us with. Full disclosure: note that there’s a TechCrunch App in Conduit’s marketplace somewhere , which the company refers to. Quoting ad verbatim from the press release : Entertainment apps are the largest segment among the hundreds of verticals represented in Conduit App Marketplace; 24.4 percent of the apps were created in this category since the launch of the marketplace. End users are also hungry for news online and app publishers responded; 19.5 percent of apps in the marketplace deliver news from sources such as Fox News, iVillage, and TechCrunch. The number of social media apps followed closely, constituting 18.2 percent of all available apps. Also noteworthy, the social media apps category grew fastest among end users during the last year, with adoption increasing on average by 87% each month. Are you a Conduit user? Why (not)? CrunchBase Information Conduit Information provided by CrunchBase

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Conduit Reports Big Numbers: 250,000 App Publishers, 170 Million Users

Skype Blocks, Threatens To Sue Fring

Late last week, mobile communication services provider fring released an updated iPhone app that enabled iPhone 4 owners to engage in unrestricted 2-way video calling over Wi-Fi or 3G internet with other iPhone, Android or Symbian devices. This garnered a lot of attention , mainly because Apple’s native FaceTime application works only over Wi-Fi and between iPhone users. Hours after its release, the company said it saw a huge spike in video calling that it was forced to “temporarily reduce support” to Skype, a third-party provider it has long supported. Now, they no longer have to worry about that extra network strain, as Skype has apparently outright blocked fring and threatened legal action against the startup. In a press release issued moments ago, fring says that it is thus being forced to stop its 4 years of Skype interconnectivity, referring to the move as an anti-competitive ambush. They go further than that in the complementary blog post , calling them out for being ‘cowards’: They are afraid of open mobile communication. Cowards. Needless to say, we are very disappointed that Skype, who once championed the cause of openness is now trying to muzzle competition, even at the expense of its own users. We’re sorry for the inconvenience Skype has caused you. We’ve contacted Skype and are awaiting an official response from the company. CrunchBase Information fring Skype Information provided by CrunchBase

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Skype Blocks, Threatens To Sue Fring

TV Shack Flouts The Feds By Moving Video Piracy Site To Offshore Domain

Last week, the Feds shut down nine video sites for piracy and copyright violations. The enforcement was a combined effort by the Department of Justice, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center under the Department of Homeland Security. It is the new Intellectual Property Police, and they are fighting to save Hollywood. The press release announcing the online raid included this choice quote from U.S. District Attorney Preet Bharara: “If your business model is movie piracy, your story will not have a happy ending.” The following domains were seized TVshack.net, Movies-Links.tv, FilesPump.com, Now-Movies.com, PlanetMoviez.com, ThePirateCity.org, ZML.com, NinjaVideo.net and NinjaThis.net. Of course, it only took a few days for at least one of the sites to reappear at a different domain. TVshack.net , for instance, is now at TVshack.cc . There you can watch full streams of bootleg versions of The Twilight Saga:Eclipse (filmed in a theater with people standing up and casting shadows on the screen, see below), Toy Story 3, True Blood, and other movies and TV shows. The .cc domain is administered by the Cocos Islands, which is a territory of Australia. The company is based in Stockholm, Sweden. Another one of the shuttered sites has reappeared at www.watch-movies-tv.info , but it no longer offers streaming movies. You get what you pay for with these sites. The video quality is predictably awful, and you have to endure pop-up ads for Russian mail-order brides blocking part of the screen. But some people don’t mind. We’ve been noticing spikes to our Crunchbase directory from people looking for info on TV Shack (our Crunchbase entry is the second result on Google). Who wants to guess how long the .cc domain will stay up? CrunchBase Information TV Shack Information provided by CrunchBase

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TV Shack Flouts The Feds By Moving Video Piracy Site To Offshore Domain

Opera/Chrome Rivalry Gets The Hitler Video Treatment

When Opera Software last week released the final version of its Opera browser ( version 10.60 ), it titled its press release ‘What is faster than the fastest?’. The company touts other features, like built-in geolocation and webM support, as well but not nearly as much as it boasts about its browser’s speed. By doing so, the software maker aims to challenge claims that Google’s Chrome browser is, in fact, speedier than Opera and other popular browsers such as Firefox, Safari and IE. In the midst of the browser wars, an Opera-employed copywriter has now turned to one of the most over-used but still amusing Internet memes, and has come up with some custom subtitles for the famous Hitler outburst scene from the film ‘Der Untergang’ (via Download Squad ). Some choice – fake – quotes: “You idiot! Nobody uses developer builds!” “You call yourself developers because you spent years in university, where you only learned to make Youtube (sic) videos and Pac Man (sic) games!” “We have 20,000 employees and run half the Internet and we’ve made a browser that looks like a Fisher-Price toy!” For the record, Lifehacker ran some speed tests on both the Windows and Mac platforms, and concluded that Chrome and Safari still beat Opera’s latest on the latter OS, while the latest stable version of Chrome also beat Opera 10.60 on Windows. Furthermore, DailyTech tested Opera 10.6 against the upcoming Internet Explorer 9, and while they concluded that the browser outranked it in all 3 benchmarks, the Opera browser only came out on top in one of them, with Chrome beating them in the two other ones. Ah well, as long as they all keep getting faster and we get to have some laughs from time to time, all is well in the world despite all this virtual warfare. CrunchBase Information Opera Google Chrome Information provided by CrunchBase

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Opera/Chrome Rivalry Gets The Hitler Video Treatment

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

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

LVMH Buys E-commerce Site Sack’s To Expand Sephora Into Brazil

Luxury products giant LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton) has reached an agreement to acquire a 70%, controlling stake in Sack’s , a Brazilian online retailer of fragrances, cosmetics and toiletries. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. With the acquisition, LVMH aims to expand its Sephora subsidiary into the Brazilian perfumes and cosmetics market, reportedly one of the largest and fastest-growing beauty markets worldwide. Initially online only, but also in physical stores over time, according to the press release . Founded in 2000, Sack’s carries over 270 brands, which it is able to sell to a client base that spans more than 830,000 customers. Sack’s is one of the top-three most frequently accessed pure-play e-commerce sites in Brazil, with 4 million unique visitors each month. Carlos André Montenegro, co-founder and CEO of Sack’s, and his partners, Albatroz Participações and Marcelo Franco, will continue to hold a 30% stake in Sack’s. The current management team, led by Mr. Montenegro, will remain in place and Sack’s will continue to be based in Rio de Janeiro. CrunchBase Information Sephora USA Information provided by CrunchBase

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LVMH Buys E-commerce Site Sack’s To Expand Sephora Into Brazil

Free Data

The other day a person contacted me about wanting to help me with ad retargeting on one of my sites, but in order to do so they would have had to have tracked my site. That would have given them tons of great information about how they could retarget all my site’s visitors around the web. And they wanted me to give that up for free in an offer which was made to sound compelling, but lacked substance. And so they never got a response. Given that we live in “the information age” it is surprising how little people value data & how little they expect you to value it. But there are still a lot of naive folks online! Google has a patent for finding under-served markets . And they own the leading search engine + the leading online ad network. At any point in time they can change who they are voting for, and why they are voting that way. They acquired YouTube and then universal search was all the rage. Yes they have been pretty good at taking the longterm view, but that is *exactly* why so many businesses are afraid of them . Google throws off so much cash and collects so much data that they can go into just about any information market and practice price dumping to kill external innovation & lock up the market. Once they own the market they have the data. From there a near infinite number of business models & opportunities appear. Google recently became the #1 shopping search engine . How did they respond? More promotion of their shopping search feature. All those star ratings near the ads go to a thin affiliate / Google value add shopping search engine experience. Featured placement for those who are willing to share more data in exchange for promotion, and then over time Google will start collecting data directly and drive the (non-Google) duplication out of the marketplace. You can tell where Google aims to position Google in the long run by what they consider to be spam. Early remote quality rater guidelines have highlighted how spammy the travel vertical is with hotel sites. Since then Google has added hotel prices to their search results, added hotels to some of their maps, and they just acquired ITA software – the company which powers many airline search sites. Amongst this sort of backdrop there was an article in the NYT about small book shops partnering up with Google. The title of the article reads like it is straight out of a press release: Small Stores See Google as Ally in E-Book Market . And it includes the following quote Mr. Sennett acknowledged that Google would also be a competitor, since it would also sell books from its Web site. But he seemed to believe that Google would favor its smaller partners. “I don’t see Google directly working to undermine or outsell their retail partners,” he said. “I doubt they are going to be editorially recommending books and making choices about what people should read, which is what bookstores do.” He added, “I wonder how naïve that is at this point. We’ll have to see.” If they have all the sales data they don’t need to make recommendations. They let you and your customers do that. All they have to do to provide a better service than you can is aggregate the data. The long view is this: if Google can cheaply duplicate your efforts you are unneeded duplication in the marketplace. Look at the list of business models Google publicly stated they were leery on : ebook sites get rich quick comparison shopping sites travel aggregators 3 out of 4 ain’t bad. But they even on the one they missed, they still have an AdSense category for it.

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Free Data

Alcatel-Lucent Acquires Web API Repository ProgrammableWeb

ProgrammableWeb , a well-known repository for Web APIs, has been acquired by Alcatel-Lucent in a surprise move. Terms of the acquisition remain undisclosed, but according to the press release , ProgrammableWeb will continue to operate as a separate entity and the site’s founder John Musser will be making the move to Alcatel-Lucent. The repository , which was launched back in 2005 and now contains some 2,042 APIs (we covered when it hit 1,000 back in November 2008), will be maintained by its new owner. Alcatel-Lucent says it bought ProgrammableWeb to help foster an ecosystem of service providers, enterprises, and developers to drive the creation of applications at present and in the ‘new world of broadband mobile’ through LTE (Long Term Evolution). The company adds that it will provide support and resources to promote the growth of the API, mashup and developer ecosystem, and facilitate service providers’ participation within it. The acquisition also gives Alcatel-Lucent access to general API usage patterns, allowing it to build API Bundles for its own Open API Service . ProgrammableWeb’s API monitoring services, API trial services, and automated API updates will be integrated into Alcatel-Lucent’s Developer Platform . CrunchBase Information Alcatel-Lucent Information provided by CrunchBase

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Alcatel-Lucent Acquires Web API Repository ProgrammableWeb

StatCounter: Chrome Now Bigger Than Safari In The US, Too

According to website analytics company StatCounter, Google Chrome has now overtaken Apple’s Safari in the US browser market for the first time on a weekly basis, claiming third place overall . StatCounter, which says it analyzed some 874 million pages viewed on its network of over 3 million websites in the US alone for the week 21 to 27 June 2010, pegs Chrome’s market share at 8.97%, ahead of Safari with 8.88%. Internet Explorer still dominates the US Internet browser market with 52%, followed by Firefox with 28.5%, still according to StatCounter. Worldwide, both StatCounter and Net Applications put Google’s Chrome solidly in the third spot, although the market share percentages differ between both companies’ findings. Either way, Chrome now overtaking Safari in the US too is an important feat for Google, who introduced the browser less than two years ago. (Via press release ) CrunchBase Information Google Chrome Safari statcounter Information provided by CrunchBase

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StatCounter: Chrome Now Bigger Than Safari In The US, Too

Must-Have SEO Recommendations: Step 7 of the 8-Step SEO Strategy

Posted by laura This post was originally in YOUmoz , and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. You know the client.