Internet World

Mobile internet service It’s always a good idea to kill your startup in public. Russell Beattie did that last month with Mowser, a service that converts regular Web addresses into mobile-friendly ones, because he said didn’t “believe in the ‘Mobile Web’ anymore.” Luckily for him, some people disagreed with him (and not just [...]

Today sees the launch of Doko, a social networking game aimed at the tween market which claims to be “The World’s First Global Trading Game”. The game revolves around metal discs about the size of poker chips that are emblazoned with unique identifying tags. Friends are encouraged to trade discs with each other, [...]

Sometimes the only way to get new products out the door at a big company like Yahoo is to launch it far away from HQ. That’s what happened with Yahoo Glue, a new way to present search results more visually that Yahoo is experimenting with on its Yahoo India site. Much like Google’s [...]

The tagging and link-sharing market has no shortage of competition, but that doesn’t seem to be deterring many developers. Mento, which has just launched in an invite-only beta, is the latest to arrive on the scene, sporting a very well designed site and a number of options that make sharing links a breeze. Beyond the [...]

Erick appeared on Fox Business last night to talk about the recent $3.2 billion WiMax deal between Sprint Nextel and Clearwire that’s expected to go through. He tries to discuss the questionableness of the deal from a business standpoint despite the promises of WiMax as a technology. However, there’s clearly some frustration that Cavuto would rather [...]

Microsoft is taking one of its options off the table in its on-again, off-again pursuit of Yahoo. It has told members of the alternate board of directors it had lined up for a possible hostile proxy battle over Yahoo that it won’t be needing their services. The news was delivered to each alternate [...]

Shawn Fanning, best known for founding Napster, has a new job. He will be working at Electronic Arts, which is about to buy his social-network-gaming startup Rupture for $30 million, according to sources with knowledge of the deal. His co-founder Jon Baudanza will also join Electronic Arts. We first heard of a possible [...]

We’re fast approaching our super fun CrunchNetwork Prague Meet-up and we’re prepping the pivo and knedliky for the big night. We’re going to have some surprises coming up so watch this space but until then feel free to RSVP by email or on Facebook. Remember the event is on Friday, May 23, 2008 from 7pm until [...]

When early adopters sit at their computers, what applications and websites do they use the most? The answer: Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Office, and MSN Messenger—just like most everyone else. At least according to data from RescueTime, the productivity app that monitors the amount of time a user spends on every application on his [...]

Heroku, the online Ruby on Rails (RoR) development and hosting environment, has raised $3 million from Redpoint Ventures and other angel investors. The Y Combinator startup aims to make software development more accessible for a wider range of people. It does so by providing a browser-based programming environment that cuts out steps traditionally needed to [...]

MySpace is announcing a broad ranging embrace of data portability standards today, along with data sharing partnerships with Yahoo, Ebay, Twitter and their own Photobucket subsidiary. The new project is being called MySpace “Data Availability” and is an example, MySpace says, of their dedication to playing nice with the rest of the Internet. A mockup of [...]

The Attorney General of Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, is about to make an announcement at noon ET that he and the attorneys generals from 48 other states have negotiated a deal with Facebook to implement new safety and privacy rules, according to sources with knowledge of the deal. Facebook will be making its own announcement [...]

Facebook’s webmail platform is so inefficient that even minor changes (like adding the ability to send to outside email addresses last year) can make a big difference in usability. They are now adding basic search functionality to email (see screen shots). Previously there was not way to find emails other than scrolling through the pages one [...]

During yesterday’s News Corp. earnings call, Rupert Murdoch and COO Peter Chernin talked a little bit about the weakness at MySpace. They expect Fox Interactive Media (which includes MySpace, Photobucket, IGN, and other properties) to miss its $1 billion revenue goal by the end of News Corp.’s fiscal year next quarter. Instead, they [...]

We are announcing a new partnership today with WashingtonPost.com - TechCrunch stories will be syndicated to their site and added to the Technology section. The press release is here. I think this is a good experiment for the Washington Post - adding new types of content to the site to retain reader interest, over and above [...]

Giant Realm, the entertainment portal geared towards men, has received $2 million in funding from SoftBank Capital. The funds come in addition to the $3.5 million contributed by Comcast Interactive Capital and Edison Venture Fund last month, bringing the total Series A funding to $5.5 million. Giant Realm is an online media provider that targets [...]

I’m delighted to announce that TechCrunch / CrunchGear are holding a Berlin meetup with our partner and co-organiser twidox. The “TechCrunch / twidox German Web 2.0 Meet-up” will be in Berlin, on the 11th of June. Imedo.de has kindly offered to throw the networking event at their offices here from 7:30 pm onwards (pictured above, [...]

Sometimes the simplest ideas are best. While a number of startups are working to bring the whole process of creating presentations online, SlideShare recognizes that many people are mostly satisfied with PowerPoint or Keynote. They just want an easy way to share their traditional presentation files with others. The company, which launched in 2006 and later [...]

PlugandPlay’s third annual Expo was held today at their Sunnyvale TechCenter, drawing nearly fifty exhibitors from an array of markets that included mobile advertising, massively multiplayer gaming, and medical technology. The venue itself was a little strange - a large meeting space/multipurpose room that seemed better suited for a crowd half the size of the expo’s [...]

Facebook has posted more details about the upcoming redesign of user profiles, which were supposed to launch early April but are apparently now close at hand. Profiles will be broken down into 5 main tabs: Feed, Wall, Info, Photos, and “Boxes”. The feed tab appears to contain the News Feed as we know it, except with [...]