The makers of Tweetbot, one of the most popular third-party Twitter clients, have debuted Netbot, an app built for Dalton Caldwell’s App.net platform. The addition of Netbot serves as validation that Caldwell’s model could take off in challenging the business model of ad-supported platforms like Twitter. Read more »
1000memories, the YCombinator-launched photo company, will be acquired by Ancestry.com, the two companies will announce Wednesday. The startup will allow Ancestry.com members to digitize old family photos and upload them to family trees or ancestor profiles, complimenting the family history website. Read more »
Wiresurfer has partnered with a variety of telecom companies to create a simple database for business owners to search internet and phone options available to them. The database presents different plans by price and carrier, making searching for telecom like searching for a flight. Read more »
MoveEye aims to revolutionize the tv remote control process, getting rid of items like keyboards and mice by using Google-esque glasses and software to let consumers direct their television or computer screens with remote hand gestures. The company has patents pending but isn’t commercially available. Read more »
Webshots, one of the original photo-sharing companies founded in the 1990′s, is re-launching this fall after coming under new ownership again, attracting top Silicon Valley investors as the group works to achieve the difficult task of promoting older photo-sharing sites in the age of Facebook. Read more »
Dalton Caldwell’s App.net announced a growth in membership Monday that will correspond with a lowering of the membership price that many people initially complained was too high. Users will now be able to join App.net for $36 per year, instead of $50 per year. Read more »
Plenty of travel startups have worked to make travel discovery or flight searches easier for the frugal adventurer. But how many sites focus on transportation to and from the airport? Mozio, a travel startup from San Francisco, is looking to solve the ground transportation dilemma. Read more »
Foursquare and Open Table’s new partnership is just the latest in the location-based app’s moves into the local search arena, challenging popular resources like Yelp by aggregating user check-ins to provide personalized recommendations. Booking tables seems like the next step in these moves. Read more »
Bridal Brokerage, a startup out of the University of Virginia’s business school, is looking to disrupt the wedding industry by buying and re-selling canceled weddings, a huge financial opportunity in the United States where most couples write wedding checks far in advance of the big day. Read more »
Color, the photo-sharing app that raised $41 million before its launch in March 2011, might have yet another bump in the road with CEO troubles and a product pivot on the horizon. The app has largely failed to gain user traction despite a buzz-worthy launch last year. Read more »
A strategic partnership announced between Klout and Bing could provide a needed social boost for Microsoft’s search platform and bring Klout scores into greater profile as the two work to put Klout scores further across the web. Read more »
Dalton Caldwell has been shaking things up with his App.net platform, capitalizing on developer frustration with Twitter’s API platform to build an open developer ecosystem. But under a new system for paying developers, Caldwell shows he’s also taking chances on the business model itself. Read more »
Facebook users will now be able to more easily share files within Facebook groups by linking to their Dropbox accounts. The integration between the two companies marks a big win for Dropbox, will will now have access to millions of potential new users. Read more »
Thirst Labs is working on a new version of its iPhone and iPad apps that removes the Twitter timeline and mentions from options available, but the app’s news reader still has nice features to offer, assuming it can bring in more news sources outside of Twitter. Read more »
RIM CEO Thorsten Heins begged developers and consumers not to give up on Blackberry Tuesday morning at RIM’s “Blackberry Jam” conference, but it’s hard to see how the much-delayed devices will keep consumers from jumping ship to other more modern devices. Read more »
The future is bright for mobile payment company Square, which as COO Keith Rabois noted Friday is not only taking off with a Starbucks partnership that will bring its technology to stores across America, but with a popular product that sells itself through in-store presence. Read more »
Making money off mobile advertising isn’t an easy job, but Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff said Friday at GigaOM’s Mobilize conference that being a real estate company gave them a leg up on this challenge, since most users can actually benefit from the ads they see. Read more »
GigaOM’s Launchpad contest at Mobilize brought nine companies on stage to compete for the distinction of the greatest disruption and innovation in mobile technology. The companies pitched Thursday at the conference in San Francisco. Read more »
For the co-founders of mobile web darling Instagram, they might never have anticipated the kind of success they see now, with over 5 billion photos uploaded to the service. At GigaOM’s Mobilize conference Thursday, co-founder Mike Krieger advised startups to focus on doing one thing well. Read more »
Jon Jenkins will join Pinterest as head of the company’s engineering, leaving a successful tenure at Amazon leading the Silk browser efforts. At Pinterest he will be in charge of the team responsible for scaling the infrastructure and building Pinterest as a discovery tool. Read more »
Corporate venture capital participated in $2.1 billion in financing in Q2, with one of the best quarters in the past five and an uptick in early-stage and standalone investments. Read more »
Investors in Silicon Valley jumped in at at the last minute to keep Hacker Dojo, a co-working and hangout space in Mountain View, open for business after the city told the group’s organizers that they would need to comply with basic regulations to stay open. Read more »
Gnip, the company that partnered with the Library of Congress to archive the tweets of America, is announcing Wednesday that it’s now archived all tweets ever sent Read more »
Is Instagram the next best place for advertising? VenueSeen, a startup based in Columbus, OH, is aiming to crack the nut on marketing brands via Instagram, by taking advantage of the platform’s exclusive, organic nature and integrating brand engagement with user content. Read more »
Ten startups that won the exclusive honor of hacking in the Founders Den space in San Francisco pitched to investors and the media Tuesday night in San Francisco. Here were three of the ten companies that caught my eye based on their pitches Tuesday evening. Read more »
Looking for the next big thing in wearable computing? HD video cameras you can take on your next skydiving or snowboarding expedition are popular items right now, and the new video camera from Contour is headed to an Apple retail store near you. Read more »
As some of Silicon Valley’s investors move toward Latin American to find the next hot startups, international founders still look to the United States for models of entrepreneurship and innovation that can be applied back to their home countries — with or without VC dollars. Read more »
Looking to join the 500 Startups fall accelerator batch? The group has now opened its application process, allowing founders to apply through AngelList, making the process for joining up easier than ever. The applications will be open through Sept. 23. Read more »
Mark Zuckeberg declared Tuesday that Facebook’s biggest mistake was focusing too intensively on HTML5 over native apps, but developers said Thursday that the technology isn’t even close to being over at the company, and allows them to scale and reach an increasingly large user base. Read more »
Tacking a new startup and parenting at the same time? Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone talked about their experiences raising young families while working on their post-Twitter project, picking up the calendar and staying away from bars. Could this work for everyone? Read more »
Quora co-founder Charlie Cheever will have a reduced role at the company going forward, CEO and co-founder Adam D’Angelo wrote on the site Tuesday, marking a departure for the young company that was met with skepticism from regular Quora readers. Read more »
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance Tuesday at Techcrunch Disrupt was hotly anticipated. What did he have to say? Facebook’s stock plunge is “disappointing” and it bet too much too fast on HTML5, but is still positioned to make “big bets.” Read more »
The tension between scrappy young startups and legacy companies in the enterprise world was on display Tuesday, with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff noting his company’s challenges to some enterprise products from Box.net, Asana, and Read more »
Looking to try out a new solutions for saving and clipping photos, images and URLs across the web? Consider checking out Clipboard, an app that combines elements of popular web products like Evernote, Instapaper, and Pinterest to create an effective site for saving and sharing. Read more »
What are some of the most popular features of niche social network Path? CEO Dave Morin says the company has seen impressive user demand for the running feature on the app, wanting to share information on their runs with friends and family members. Read more »
For two-time founder of both Twitter and Square, Jack Dorsey advises the tech world that anyone can be a founder or have a “founding moment,” even if that moment comes later in that company’s history than its creation. Read more »
Google held a “Develop for Good” hackathon for developers surrounding the company’s June I/O conference, allowing developer groups using Google products to tackle a variety of projects related to human rights, the environment, and politics. Read more »
Facebook and Instagram finally closed the deal on their acquisition today, as Instagram noted the popular photo sharing app hit 5 billion photos uploaded so far, a huge number and testament to growth as it prepares to merge with the social media giant. Read more »
Quora will finally release a much-requested Android app for the popular crowdsourced question and answer site on Wednesday, increasing its options on mobile, where the site sees more than 25 percent of its traffic and a good deal of growth. Read more »
Fingerprint, the company that makes educational games for kids that allow constant feedback for parents, has raised a new funding round with Corus Entertainment, bringing the total so far to $7.7 million for the San Francisco-based company. Read more »
