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Central To The Facebook-Zynga Deal: Credits

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by Leena Rao on May 18, 2010

This morning brought news of Zynga and Facebook’s five year commitment to keeping social gaming on the network. As we wrote earlier today, the deal was surprising considering Zynga’s recent frustrations with Facebook. Some of these frustrations stemmed from last year’s limitations on messaging users. But the more significant concern was Facebook’s push of Facebook Credits as the only payment platform that Zynga and others can use. And clearly, the Credits angle of the deal was a definitely part of the negotiations for this partnership.

The issue that Zynga has is that Facebook takes a massive fee – 30% – for Credits (that is standard for all publishers). For Zynga, which is a cash cow for virtual currency and goods, this cut can amount to some serious dough. Last year, Zynga founder Mark Pincus told The New York Times that direct purchases of virtual currency and goods would account for most of its more than $100 million in revenue in 2009. Last week. Cake Financial founder and CEO Stephen Carpenter estimated that Zynga is bringing in $15 million in profit per month, and would stand to take a significant loss from the 30 percent cut. Now, with the new deal, Zynga will expand the use of Facebook Credits, the social network’s virtual currency, to more games in the developers’ family.

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Google To Launch Amazon S3 Competitor ‘Google Storage’ At I/O

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by Jason Kincaid on May 18, 2010

Amazon’s cloud storage services are going to be getting another major competitor this week: Google. We hear that this week during its I/O conference, Google will be announcing a new service that is a direct competitor with Amazon’s S3 cloud storage. Google’s service will be called Google Storage for Developers, or ‘GS’. We believe it will be available in a private beta initially. We also hear that the service will be positioned to make it very easy for existing S3 customers to make the switch to Google Storage.

Features will include a REST API, the ability to use Google accounts to offer authenticated downloads, and data redundancy. Developers will be able to use a command line tool to manage their data, and there will be a web interface as well.

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Micromobs Launches A Yammer For Friends And Families

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by Leena Rao on May 18, 2010

There are a number of group messaging applications that are catered towards business users, such as Yammer or Socialtext. Today, Micromobs is launching a web-based group messaging app aimed towards communication within social groups among friends and family.

On the site users can create and join groups or “mobs” and create a stream of messages uniquely relevant to each user. Users are able to post messages, photos and files and respond in stream to threads, keeping their conversations organized in an ongoing discussion. Users can also push their messages to Twitter and Facebook and make groups private.

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Facebook And Zynga Enter Into Five Year Partnership, Expand Use Of Facebook Credits

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by Leena Rao on May 18, 2010

Facebook and Zynga have just announced a five year partnership and the expansion of use of Facebook Credits in Zynga games.

After months of discord, Zynga and Facebook have made peace— at least for now. Despite Zynga’s earlier frustrations and reports that it was ready to abandon Facebook, the two companies were able to agree to a “five-year strategic relationship.” “Facebook was a pioneer in opening their platform in 2007 and in just three years tens of millions of Facebook users play our games every day, from FarmVille and Café World to Treasure Isle and Mafia Wars,” Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said in the press release. “We are excited about Facebook’s long-term commitment to social gaming and Zynga, and look forward to working with them and other platform providers to bring the best social gaming experience to users worldwide.”

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John Doerr Is Coming To Disrupt. Are You? Here’s The Full Agenda.

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by Erick Schonfeld on May 18, 2010

We are now less than a week away from TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City, May 24-26. The speaker lineup is complete, the Disrupt Agenda is now posted (see below), and the Battlefield Startups have been selected and are at this very moment preparing for battle. There are still a few tickets left (get them now because the discount rate expires tomorrow).

Kicking off the program, Charlie Rose will interview John Doerr, the fabled Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist who backed Amazon, Netscape, and Google. Now he thinks the iPad is the next big thing (he’s a big believer in clean tech too, but that’s another story). Doerr has made billions of dollars by spotting disruption early on. It’s what all venture capitalists try to do, and part of the culture of Silicon Valley. But what happens when the dynamics of the technology industry begin to pervade the media industry? Whether it’s print, music, TV, games, or advertising, the media industry is taking on the characteristics of the technology industry with its accelerated rate of creative destruction (Full agenda after the jump)

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SoundCloud Hits A Million Users, Clearly Scaling Globally

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by Mike Butcher on May 18, 2010

SoundCloud has just announced they have hit a million users. It followers their deal earlier this year with The Hype Machine, but it’s clear this is a startup that is scaling globally now from its base in Berlin.

The audio sharing site that’s geared towards those who work in the music industry is an online audio platform which lets musicians collaborate, promote and distribute their music via widgets and apps. It’s been variously described as a “Flickr for audio” or a “Vimeo for audio”, but whatever it is, it’s clearly got the kinds of tools and distribution platform which is winning both the hearts and business of artists.

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Quantcast Pulls In Yahoo! Exec To Ramp Up UK Operation

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by Steve O'Hear on May 18, 2010

The web measurement firm Quantcast has appointed ex-Yahoo! MD Philip Macauley to lead the company’s operations and expansion into the UK market.

Macauley spent ten years at Yahoo!, where he was most recently Director of Business Development and Commercial Relations.

His tenor at the Internet giant saw him take on various “senior roles” including “driving media agency relationships as Agency Sales Director and leading the company’s publisher efforts as Head of Publisher Partnerships.” All of which would appear to make Macauley a very good fit for Quantcast.

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Zendesk Raises Prices, Pisses Off Customers

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by Robin Wauters on May 18, 2010

We’re all for startups trying to make money, but we also recognize a good old ‘bait and switch’ tactic when we see one. Case in point: on-demand help desk software maker Zendesk, which has just emailed its customers to let them know they’re raising their prices – resulting in a 300+ percent increase in monthly fees for some.

The announcement, which was also posted on the company’s forums, comes in the form of an introduction of new product features, with the new pricing scheme mentioned underneath (never a good sign).

The startup claims the new pricing plans are being offered in response to “customer requests for different packaging and features”. But judging from the commentary on the forum entry and on Twitter, we’re not so sure that’s really the case.

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SimpleGeo Digs Up Another $8 Million And A Group Of Former Digg Employees

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by MG Siegler on May 18, 2010

Almost exactly one year ago, we first wrote about former Digg lead architect, Joe Stump, and former Social Thing founder, Matt Galligan, teaming up to form Crash Corp., an “alternate reality mobile gaming” startup. A lot can change in a year.

Today, Stump and Galligan are well into building out SimpleGeo, the location platform company that Crash Corp. turned into. That transformation started only a little over 6 months ago — and it may turn out to be one of the smartest pivots for a startup in years. SimpleGeo has just closed a new $8.14 million round of funding. And they’re announcing five new hires to go along with it.

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Merchant Focus And Inner Fence Acquire iPhone Credit Card Processer AppNinjas

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by Leena Rao on May 18, 2010

E-commerce company Merchant Focus Processing and Inner Fence have acquired AppNinjas, creator of Swipe Credit Card Terminal for iPhone (formerly iSwipe). Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Inner Fence, which is actually a competitor of AppNinjas, develops a credit card processor for the iPhone and Mac computer. Both Inner Fence and AppNinjas will be rolling out integrated retail hardware to allow for retail-based swiped transactions for processing on both iPhone and iPod touch. The plan is to offer the hardware free of charge to new merchants that enroll with either Inner Fence or AppNinjas.

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Twitter To Become Bigger In Japan: SoftBank Outs 13 Cell Phones With Twitter Pre-Installed

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by Serkan Toto on May 18, 2010

We’ve shown you the summer cell phone lineup from KDDI (Japan’s No. 2 carrier) yesterday. Today, Japan’s third largest carrier, SoftBank Mobile, showed its own summer lineup during a special press conference, and all of their 13 new models have one thing in common: they all come with Twitter pre-installed.

The buyers of these cell phones will be able to access Twitter either via a pre-installed app or through a pre-installed widget on the homescreen. The background is that SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son himself is a huge Twitter fan (he has almost 300,000 followers) and believes Japan is set to become Twitter country. And in fact, by some measures it’s already No. 2.

Photo gallery of all the 13 new Twitter-powered cell phones over at MobileCrunch.

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LinkedIn Adds Netflix Marketing Chief Leslie Kilgore To Board

• 1814174 Commentshttp://techcrunch.com/2010/05/18/linkedin-adds-netflix-marketing-chief-leslie-kilgore-to-board/LinkedIn+Adds+Netflix+Marketing+Chief+Leslie+Kilgore+To+Board2010-05-18+13%3A41%3A09Leena+Rao
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by Leena Rao on May 18, 2010

Professional social network LinkedIn is adding another member to its board, Netflix Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Kilgore. LinkedIn, which has 65 million members, recently named former Ask.com CEO Skip Battle to its board, joining founder and chairman Reid Hoffman, current CEO Jeff Weiner, Greylock’s David Sze, and Sequoia’s Marc Kvamme.

Kilgore joined Netflix in 2000 and has helped the company grow its subscriber base from fewer than 100,000 to more than 13 million subscribers. Prior to joining Netflix, Kilgore was director of marketing for Amazon.com, and also held positions at Procter & Gamble and Booz, Allen and Hamilton.

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Tim Ferriss Joins Startup Evernote As Strategic Advisor

• 18140319 Commentshttp://techcrunch.com/2010/05/18/evernote-tim-ferriss/Tim+Ferriss+Joins+Startup+Evernote+As+Strategic+Advisor2010-05-18+13%3A41%3A05Robin+Wauters
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by Robin Wauters on May 18, 2010

Multi-platform memory enhancing service provider Evernote (granted, you have to use it to know what that means) has added author, speaker and angel investor Timothy Ferriss to its already quite impressive circle of company advisors.

In case you’re not familiar with Evernote: its self-stated goal is to give its users near-perfect memory by allowing them to save and find their ideas and experiences whenever and wherever they like. The company must be doing something right: they’ve attracted over $25 million in funding from VCs and prominent angel investors and recently surpassed 3 million users.

PayPal co-founder and Slide CEO Max Levchin sits on the company’s board, along with Esther Dyson and others.

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Building Silicon Cape: How Much of a Difference Can One Guy Make?

• 18135219 Commentshttp://techcrunch.com/2010/05/18/building-silicon-cape-how-much-of-a-difference-can-one-guy-make/Building+Silicon+Cape%3A+How+Much+of+a+Difference+Can+One+Guy+Make%3F2010-05-18+12%3A30%3A59Sarah+Lacy
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by Sarah Lacy on May 18, 2010

Some people, ahem, are predicting a big resurgence in business software. Given how outdated most tools are, that’s probably a safe bet – whether it happens now or in the next few years. While software as a service and open source have plugged many holes, most large companies still run themselves on one of two companies: Oracle or SAP. That can’t last forever.

But the amazing thing is, when it comes to small business software, the market is still pretty wide open, with most businesses still running themselves on pen-and-paper or Excel spreadsheets. There is a reason that Intuit has managed to keep a stranglehold on small business software—because it is hard to build and even harder to market to such a huge, fragmented market with so many different needs. Especially when the revenues per customer are necessarily puny.

So, it’s a huge market but, let’s face it, it’s not a sexy one. And that’s one reason a company like Yola doesn’t get more press. I hung out with Yola’s founder Vinny Lingham while I was in Cape Town last week and came away impressed for a few reasons.

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ShopSocially Taps Into Your Social Graph For Product Recommendations

• 18139914 Commentshttp://techcrunch.com/2010/05/18/shopsocially-taps-into-your-social-graph-for-product-recommendations/ShopSocially+Taps+Into+Your+Social+Graph+For+Product+Recommendations2010-05-18+12%3A30%3A52Leena+Rao
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by Leena Rao on May 18, 2010

As e-commerce and social networking continue to intersect, consumers are increasingly turning towards Facebook or Twitter for product recommendations. ShopSocially is a product recommendation portal launching to the public today that aims to allow users to socialize shopping decisions with their “circle of trust.”

The idea behind ShopSocially is that it brings your Facebook friends into its system, and you can choose which friends you’d like to “shout” your potential purchase to get feedback on the site. You can also publish your purchase to the site, a la Blippy. In order to publish your desired product, you simply publish the link to the item and ShopSocially will include a picture and link in the update. Users can post comments on friends items and you can push your posts to Facebook.

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Go To Barnes & Noble, Get A Free E-book

• 181393http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/18/go-to-barnes-noble-get-a-free-e-book/Go+To+Barnes+%26amp%3B+Noble%2C+Get+A+Free+E-book++2010-05-18+12%3A25%3A11Nicholas+Deleon
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by Nicholas Deleon on May 18, 2010

Do you have a nook or the less elegantly named iRex DR800SG? If so, get thee to a Barnes & Noble store to participate in the new Fun and Free e-books promotion. It’s a pretty simple concept: you waltz into a Barnes & Noble store, get an access code, then download a free e-book. Done and done.

The promotion runs for the next five weeks, and is also compatible with the B&N e-reader software that runs on your laptop, BlackBerry, or iPhone (or whatever).

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Shazam Has Identified 1 Billion Songs To Date, Surpasses 75 Million Users Milestone

• 181376http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/18/shazam-has-identified-1-billion-songs-to-date-surpasses-75-million-users-milestone/Shazam+Has+Identified+1+Billion+Songs+To+Date%2C+Surpasses+75+Million+Users+Milestone2010-05-18+12%3A04%3A04Robin+Wauters
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by Robin Wauters on May 18, 2010

Mobile music recognition and discovery startup Shazam this afternoon revealed that it has grown its user base from 50 million to 75 million members in the last six months.

Stunningly, the company also says it has identified more than one billion songs to date.

Shazam has now become a global phenomenon with a footprint in over 200 countries across six continents through partnerships with leading carriers and handset manufacturers. The company has every right to claim that its brand has now become one of the biggest in mobile.

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This Young Man Willingly Gets An Apple Tattoo. And You Call Us Fanboys?

• 1813731 Commenthttp://techcrunch.com/2010/05/18/this-young-man-willingly-gets-an-apple-tattoo-and-you-call-us-fanboys/This+Young+Man+Willingly+Gets+An+Apple+Tattoo.+And+You+Call+Us+Fanboys%3F++2010-05-18+11%3A56%3A22John+Biggs
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by John Biggs on May 18, 2010

Look, I love my iPad as much as the next guy and, just like the next guy, if I had to make the choice between food and water and the iWork suite, I’d probably go for the iWork suite. However, I would not tattoo the Apple logo onto my shoulder.

Billy Hime, a self-professed “iPhone Owner,” “shameless flirt,” and “Youtube Video Blogger” filmed himself getting his tattoo with his mom. He also wrote on Twitter that “Lotion=burning my Apple,” a comment on what we can only assume to be the effects of the antiseptic on his tattoo and not a euphemism for something else.

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Travelport Acquires Hotel And Travel Search Engine Sprice.com

• 1813592 Commentshttp://techcrunch.com/2010/05/18/travelport-sprice/Travelport+Acquires+Hotel+And+Travel+Search+Engine+Sprice.com2010-05-18+11%3A34%3A37Robin+Wauters
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by Robin Wauters on May 18, 2010

Travelport, one of the world’s largest global distribution system (GDS) providers, this morning announced that it has acquired Singapore-based Sprice, owner and operator of hotel and travel search engine Sprice.com, for an undisclosed sum.

This provides Travelport with a way to expand its hospitality offering by providing Galileo and Worldspan-connected agents with access to Sprice’s portfolio of over 240,000 international hotel properties, as well as hotel reviews, merchandising options and comparison tools.

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Titan Gaming Raises $1M From Prominent Angels For Skill-Based Games Platform

• 18108713 Commentshttp://techcrunch.com/2010/05/18/titan-gaming-platform/Titan+Gaming+Raises+%241M+From+Prominent+Angels+For+Skill-Based+Games+Platform2010-05-18+10%3A58%3A18Robin+Wauters
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by Robin Wauters on May 18, 2010

Titan Gaming this morning announced it has received $1 million in funding from a slew of prominent angel investors. You can find the full list of investors below or on the startup’s CrunchBase profile, but it includes people like Clearstone Venture Partners principals William Quigley and Jim Armstrong, PriceGrabber co-founder Kamran Pourzanjani and MP3.com founder Michael Robertson.

The company has also attracted games industry vet John Maffei to become its new CEO, as well as Lisa Serwin, who was appointed COO. The original Titan founders, Francisco Diaz–Mitoma and Mark Donovan, will stay on to lead Titan’s technical and game developer evangelism efforts.

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