Amazon Opens Kindle Up to Developers

Craig Agranoff — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:20:50 +0000

It seems that the recent release of several competitors in the electronic book reader arena has made Amazon a little nervous. Amazon announced, via press release, the availability of the Kindle Development Kit (KDK), which allows software engineers to build interactive book kits for the popular reader.

Brad Stone at the New York Times has high hopes for the KDK. So far, the kit has only been formally released to select developers, but it will enter open beta next month. There will be three types of application: ...

Google Buying Yelp at a Rumored $500 Million

Craig Agranoff — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:55:56 +0000

It’s been known for months that Google was interested in and negotiating with Yelp, the consumer search and rating site, for a buyout. The New York Times confirms the story today, stating that the purchase negotiations are underway and the price may be $500 or more.

Yelp is on more serious footing than ever before, having brought in $31 million in venture capital and reportedly looking at revenue almost matching at $30 this year. Yelp dominates the local business listings and reviews. It was founded by Jeremy ...

3 Totally Useful iPhone Apps for Your Commute

Craig Agranoff — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:56:32 +0000

Are you part of the 9-5 daily mob that hit the streets in the morning and drags yourself home at night, spending as much time on the commute (it seems) as you did at work? Then what happens if you have to deviate from your usual plans to meet someone or because of transit or road changes?

Well, have no fear! The iPhone has a lot of apps geared towards the problems commuters face. The built in maps and compass are just the beginning. Here are three that most will find indispensable.

StuffBuff – Social Auctions Off the Bay

Craig Agranoff — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:48:45 +0000

Startup StuffBuff.com premiered at TechCrunch50 2009 as another eBay alternative, but with a twist. Unlike other online auction sites, StuffBuff is a spoke on your social hub, allowing for viral networking or, as they put it, Viral eCommerce.

That explanation sounds nice, but doesn’t really convey much. It’s hard to explain StuffBuff in a short sentence without sounding too Web 2.0 propagandist. You have to experience it. Lucky for us, StuffBuff just went into private beta on November 11, and we got in ...

Robo.to – Particles’ 1st Massively Small App Surfs the Social Web

Craig Agranoff — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:15:03 +0000

The development shop Particle is funded by Justin Timberlake (yes, that Justin Timberlake) and their CEO Rey Flemings says that the outfit specializes in “massively small” products to provide simple, creative solutions to real problems. An interesting idea, to be sure, but no one was clear on what this would mean or if anything useful would come of it.

Now the group has released their first app, Robo.to. This is, according to Particle, expected to be the “channel surfer of the real-time web.” That’s kind of a high-brow ...

InboxAlarm / Tripwi.re – Email Security and Sleuthing

Craig Agranoff — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:13:46 +0000

How secure do you think your email is? Is your email important enough to you that you worry about its security and threats of hacking? If your email is your lifeline to business, you undoubtedly have some worries about its security.

Tripwi.re, now known as InboxAlarm.com, is a startup that focuses on only one thing: email security. Their specialty is the baiting method known as the “honey pot.”

The method is simple and effective. An email is sent, from your account and through InboxAlarm, which has sensitive-appearing information (usernames/passwords). Since emails ...

LIFEmee – Recording Your Life Cradle-to-Grave

Craig Agranoff — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:43:06 +0000

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to build a timeline, a sort of online diary of your life from beginning to present? To record all of your hopes, dreams, accomplishments, failures, etc. in one place? Many people have their “secret diary,” photo albums, or even memoirs. Others are a little more…digital.

LIFEmee.com aims for that latter group. The ones who want to build an online life history depot for the connected. It includes everything from daily updates and journal entries to a summarized past history and ...

CrowdFlower – Labor as a Service in a New Concept

Craig Agranoff — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:49:33 +0000

Well, you’ve no doubt heard of Software as a Service (SaaS) as a platform for software delivery. Now, a new startup called CrowdFlower.com is offering Labor as a Service (LaaS) on the same model. Rather than purchasing software rights on a by-use or calendar-use model, you can now purchase temporary labor on the same model.

Think of it as a temporary employment agency that’s online.

The initial angel investment round for the startup got some interesting backing from groups like K9 Ventures, Founder’s Fund, and others into the LaaS idea. So ...

Tweet Your Way to a Lawsuit – Twitter Freedom of Speech

Aaron Turpen — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:01:05 +0000

Amanda Bonnen didn’t mean to tweet her way to anything. In fact, she wasn’t even really a Twitter user, compared to many of us who tweet daily and RT hourly. When she sent the tweet that landed her in a cesspool of litigation, in fact, she had only 20 followers, was following 29 herself, and barely tweeted even once a day.

That didn’t matter to Horizon Realty, however. When Bonnen sent her ill-fated ill-fated tweet to her 20 followers on May 12th, she had no idea that each of ...

Tweeting Your Way to a New Job – Jon Kolbe of Boca Raton

Craig Agranoff — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:18:48 +0000

Jon Kolbe of Boca Raton, Florida is a father of two and has been without a job for seven months. He’s applied for hundreds of jobs and the only good lead he found was… from someone on Twitter.

Kolbe (@jonkolbe) is an architectural project manager and was laid off from his job in December. He’s gotten desperate enough to find work that he’s offering a prize: find Jon Kolbe a job and he’ll give you a brand new, high-def camcorder. What Jon has found is that the atmosphere on ...

Rev2.org » All