TheWatchWorks

"Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have released research detailing how molecules in chips can self-assemble, potentially reducing manufacturing costs. The researchers have developed a technique in which polymers automatically fall into place to create an integrated circuit." Uhm people, have we learned nothing?

"In this article, the authors investigate the impact of DRM restrictions on the demand for music downloads. [A new model] estimates the impact of DRM on consumers' willingness to pay for songs (both favorites and nonfavorites) and on the producer revenues and profits. Based on two studies of more 2000 college students, the results suggest that despite the potential advantages offered by some DRM restrictions, on balance the elimination of DRM has a net positive impact on producer revenue, profit, and consumer welfare."

"By encouraging more people to post videos in Wikipedia articles, we can bring theora video played in html5 to a very large audience. Currently, there are very few wikipedia articles that have videos. We hope that this campaign will bring thousands more to the site and show people how great theora can be. HTML 5 video, which plays without Flash, is a wonderful step towards a more open web - but if it depends on proprietary codecs like h.264, we will still be stuck with a gatekeeper for online video."

Every generation thinks that they are the first. The first to feel this way or that, the first to make this or that revelation, the first to do and make things that we find later have been done and made since before we could record their doing and making. But while these illusory and fleeting firsts are common to every generation, there are true firsts being achieved constantly, though they are often subtle enough that they are not noticed even by those in their midst. My generation has been lucky enough to be part of a very important first.

At no other time in history, and perhaps never in the future, will there be a group of people whose own growth and maturation is so perfectly reflected in the principal technological and cultural advancement of the age.

Continue reading…

Social commerce site Groupon is on fire. Everywhere I go, people are talking about it or trying to copy it. The Chicago-based startup just hired a big gun. Rob Solomon is joining as the company’s president. Solomon is a venture partner at Technology Crossover Ventures, which he joined after selling travel search engine SideStep to Kayak for $200 million. He was the CEO at SideStep, and prior to that was the VP of Yahoo Shopping.

Now will help lead fast-growing Groupon. Founder Andrew Mason will remain CEO. “Social commerce is something I have always been fascinated with,” Solomon tells me. He thinks that the virality that comes with online social connections will take e-commerce to the next level. Groupon offers group buying at the local level which is only triggered once a certain minimum number of participants agree to buy. As local businesses try to figure out what will replace the Yellow Pages and radio advertising, Groupon hopes to fill in that gap.

The company’s “growth is spectacular in revenues and users,” says Solomon, without going into more details (but the numbers are spectacular enough for him to move from sunny Silicon Valley to Chicago). The company operates in 45 markets, has made 2.5 million group purchases on behalf of customers so far, and says it’s saved them $117 million. Groupon recently raised $30 million at a rumored $250 million valuation. And, yes, it is still hiring.

CrunchBase InformationRob SolomonGrouponInformation provided by CrunchBase

Reuters
Poll: Whitman Wins Against Brown Statewide & in LA County
LAist (blog)
Although gubernatorial candidate and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman still has to face Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner in the June primary, all signs point ...
California governor's race tightens: pollReuters
Poll: Whitman, Brown tied in matchup for Calif govThe Associated Press
Poll: Meg Whitman narrowly leads Jerry BrownPolitico
Santa Rosa Press Democrat (blog) -OregonLive.com (blog) -Politics Daily (blog)
all 618 news articles »

The Alex ereader is out and I got to look at it today for a few minutes. The top part is a real epaper screen and the bottom part is essentially a small Android MID. The device has Wi-Fi and is available now for $399, shipping in May. The company had a few interesting points about their sales strategy. Their goal isn't to sell and ship devices, although their ereader will play epub, PDF, HTML, and TXT files out of the box. They are currently partnering with international publishing houses and periodicals and will work with those partners to create an web store as well as a unique UI for each device. In this way a newspaper could offer a branded version of its reader and offer it at a subsidized rate to online subscribers or a publishing house or book store could offer their own branded experience.

WBBM780
EBay Sued for Violating Disabilities Act
Direct
A federal class-action lawsuit filed against eBay claims that the auction website discriminates against hearing impaired because it requires potential ...
Lawsuit Alleges EBay Violates Disabilities LawsWall Street Journal (blog)
eBay Sued For Discriminating Against Deaf SellersMediaPost Publications
Suit: eBay is violating the Americans with Disabilities ActWBBM780
PR NewsChannel (press release)
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MyFox Washington DC
eBay auctions for 3 items used as evidence against Dixon end
Baltimore Sun
AP Auctions for three items used as evidence against ousted Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon have ended on eBay. The state prosecutor's office listed two fur ...
Dixon Furs Go For Thousands On eBayWBAL Baltimore
Corrupt Baltimore Mayor's Xbox 360 Up On eBayChicagoNow (blog)
Ex-Baltimore mayor billed city for hair stylingWashington Post (blog)

all 27 news articles »

Some options for selling unwanted stuff
The Associated Press
To newspaper classified ads, garage sales and flea markets, add Facebook, Craig's List, eBay and other online trading sites. To pawn shops and consignment ...

and more »

Yahoo has just confirmed that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Citizen Sports.

Citizen Sports has a range of products related to fantasy and real-life sports, most of which incorporate social features. Along with web based leagues and applications on Facebook, the company also offers applications for the iPhone and Android. These applications will nicely complement Yahoo Sports, which offers a number of hugely popular fantasy sports leagues.

Citizen Sports raised $10 million from Radar Ventures in 2005, when it was previously called Protrade.

The news confirms AllThingsD’s report earlier this week that Yahoo was considering buying a sports site.

Press release below:

SUNNYVALE, Calif, March 17, 2010 — As part of its ongoing commitment to be the center of people’s online lives, Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Citizen Sports (www.citizensports.com), a company that brings the world of sports to fans’ favorite social networking sites and mobile devices through innovative applications. This acquisition will strengthen Yahoo!’s social strategy of enriching, aggregating and distributing social content from across the entire Web, and offering a highly customizable social experience.

“Yahoo! is in a unique position to combine our deep expertise in content and aggregation technology to offer a highly personalized social experience,” said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president, Consumer Products Group, Yahoo!. “Sports has been among the earliest online categories to experience rapid social proliferation, and the combination of Citizen Sports leading products with our world-class sports experience on Yahoo! Sports is a win-win for sports fans globally.”

Millions of people across the globe use Citizen Sports’ array of social and mobile products to play fantasy sports, fill out brackets, check live scores and read up-to-the minute news on sports including football, hockey, soccer, baseball, racing, rugby, hockey and cricket.  Yahoo! Sports’ content will be integrated into these products, creating a seamless experience for sports fans wherever they are.  On Yahoo! Sports, users will be able to broadcast their allegiances, create or join a conversation with friends and fans and cheer for their teams through Citizen Sports’ applications. This integration will further transform Yahoo! into a more personally relevant experience, drive deeper user engagement and create opportunities for advertisers to interact with audiences in new environments.

As the #1 destination for online Sports with more than 39 million monthly unique users in the U.S.*, Yahoo! Sports provides people with the most timely, relevant and comprehensive sports news, information and programming.  Citizen Sports’ network of popular applications for Facebook, MySpace, hi5, iPhone and Android span professional, college and high school sports.

“Citizen Sports was founded with the intent to enable fans to access news, scores and fantasy games on the platform of their choice,” said Mike Kerns, founder and CEO of Citizen Sports. “We look forward to becoming a part of Yahoo! and bringing our social experiences to their 600 million users around the globe.”

Citizen Sports was founded by Mike Kerns and Jeff Ma in 2004.  Since then the company has brought together millions of sports fans from around the world to enjoy sports and connect with their friends. Citizen Sports is based in San Francisco.

Yahoo! expects to complete this acquisition in the second quarter of 2010. Financial terms were not disclosed.

CrunchBase InformationYahoo!Citizen SportsInformation provided by CrunchBase

As we noted a couple days ago, the so-called “Location War” was essentially an even match throughout the first few days of the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. The services were in a dead-heat when it came to check-ins through Sunday, based on data we’d seen. But when it comes to tweets from the respective services, Foursquare, it seems, is dominating.

I had the service Trendrr send me some data for tweets being sent out with “4sq.com” and “gowal.la,” the short URLs for each service. As you can see in the graph above, while Gowalla has a much more steady stream of tweets sent to Twitter, Foursquare has huge spikes. In total, according to the Trendrr data, Foursquare is averaging about 500 Twitter posts per hour with peaks as high as 1,329 posts per hour. Gowalla is averaging about 100 posts per hour with a peak of 190 posts per hour.

Now, a few caveats: first, Foursquare has several actions that can be set to auto-tweet, which Gowalla doesn’t have. For example, when you unlock a badge or take over a mayorship on Foursquare, many people have their accounts set up to autotweet. Then, of course, there is checking-in. Gowalla tweets out only when you check-in at a place (if you set it to do so).

Second, this data is only for the past two days (Trendrr wasn’t tracking it before I asked), and it’s worldwide. The check-in data I cited for the dead-heat location war was from Austin only.

That said, there’s a reason why others are thinking Foursquare is dominating Gowalla, even here at SXSW: The amount of tweets sent from Foursquare seems way above the Gowalla tweets. I’ve noticed it, as have a dozen or so other people I’ve talked to here. Again, that doesn’t mean Foursquare is dominating in actual usage, just that they have a better system set up for this type of viral messaging (which plenty of people hate).

Trendrr also has more comprehensive data for the terms “Foursquare” vs. “Gowalla” (and they included “Loopt) on Twitter. There, as well, Foursquare dominates averaging about 20,000 posts a day, with Gowalla at just 3,000 a day (find that chart below). But that could also be because when Foursquare autotweets from accounts it includes the “@foursquare” branding on the end of the tweet while Gowalla does not.

Look for more comprehensive data about the Location War over the next few days.

CrunchBase InformationFoursquareGowallaTwitterInformation provided by CrunchBase

IRS to Track Online Sellers' Payment Transactions Beginning Next Year
Prison Planet.com
The new returns are Form 1099-K, Merchant Card and Third-Party Payments. The IRS believes that many online sellers fail to report their transactions. ...

and more »

If you can’t tell your Belt of Orion from your Little Dipper, Microsoft is here to help. Today it added its WorldWide Telescope application to Bing Maps. The application let’s you look up at the sky from a street view level in a map and see the stars and planets conveniently identified by red lines connecting them together.

Microsoft debuted its WorldWide Telescope application two years ago, and it’s existed as a standalone desktop and Silverlight app. But now that it is part of Bing Maps, it should become more popular. (Inside Bing Maps, you first need to click on “Map Apps” and select WorldWide Telescope to enable it).

The app is not just for identifying constellations and planets. The menu on the left allows you to load up all sorts of data from sky surveys, the Hubble Telescope, and other astronomy data sources. The navigation isn’t as fluid as it could be, but at least it gives you a point of orientation to make sense of the night sky. What Microsoft needs to do is bake this into its Bing iPhone app so that you can see the constellations identified through your camera viewfinder.

CrunchBase InformationBingInformation provided by CrunchBase

Boston Globe
PayPal plans to double staff in Asia by year's end
The Associated Press
SINGAPORE — PayPal, the online payments unit of Internet auction site operator eBay Inc., plans to double its staff in Asia to 2000 by the end of the year. ...
DBS ties up with PayPal to spur online paymentsBusiness Times (subscription)
PayPal Taps Chinese ShoppersWall Street Journal
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There’s no question that Google is setting its sights on taking some of Microsoft’s marketshare in the productivity suite space. Last year, Google announced a new plug-in that syncs Google’s enterprise versions of Apps, including Gmail, contacts, and calendar, with Microsoft’s Outlook. And Google just acquired Docverse, an application lets users collaborate directly on Microsoft Office documents. Today Google is taking another swipe at Microsoft with a new tool that makes it significantly easier to make the switch over to Google Apps from Microsoft Exchange.

Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Exchange is a new server-side tool that migrates a company’s email, calendar and contact data from Microsoft Exchange, an email server software product from Microsoft, to Google Apps. Google promises ease with the tool, allowing IT administrators the ability to select the mail, calendar and contact data to move in phases and migrate hundreds of users at the same time. Plus, employees can use Exchange during the migration without any interruption. The tool works with Exchange 2033 and 2007 for both on-premise and hosted applications and is available to the enterprise and education versions of Google Apps.

This is clearly a play at showing businesses how simple it is to move from from Microsoft products, such as Exchange, that may not be hosted in the cloud to the cloud-based Google Apps product. Google product Manager Matt Glotzbach told me that the search giant wants to make it as simple as possible for potential customers to make the switch to Google Apps, and many potential Google Apps’ clients are using Microsoft Exchange to host and power email, calendar, and contacts. Google also launched Google Apps Migrator for Lotus Notes and a Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

Google Apps has steadily been growing; already 25 million people are using the Apps product. And that also includes over 2 million businesses ranging from startups, to small businesses, to Fortune 500 companies. And Google is developing a compelling ecosystem around Google Apps, recently launching the Google Apps Marketplace, which is an an app store for enterprise apps in the cloud.

CrunchBase InformationGoogle AppsInformation provided by CrunchBase

Mobile social network MocoSpace now has a count of 11 million members, with 500,000 members forming new friendships every day on MocoSpace. The startup’s mobile only social network targets users who have non-smartphones that have simpler interfaces.

MocoSpace, which launched in 2006, makes money with its virtual currency and through advertising and mainly reaches the 18 to 34 age demographic. The site claims to generate 3 billion pages per month, with users mobile users accessing the site over 5 times per day on average. The site is also generating interest from musicians using the site to share their music, with over 200 artists submitting music on MocoSpace every day. Though not nearly as popular as Facebook or MySpace. MocoSpace is now one of the largest mobile-only social networks.

The startup prides itself on its users mainly being non-techies who don’t own an iPhone, Android or BlackBerry device. MocoSpace also claims to have a diverse user base; 1/3 of their user base is Hispanic and 1/3 is African-American. We recently published some surprising stats about the breakup habits of MocoSpace users.

CrunchBase InformationmocospaceInformation provided by CrunchBase

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What percent of eBay's stock is PayPal?
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By Company (247) By Industry (240) eBay's (NASDAQ:EBAY) PayPal is an online payment processing platform that charges a small fee for facilitating a payment ...
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What percent of eBay's stock is PayPal?
Trefis
By Company (247) By Industry (240) eBay's (NASDAQ:EBAY) PayPal is an online payment processing platform that charges a small fee for facilitating a payment ...
PayPal to Introduce Cheaper Way to Process Small TransactionsBusinessWeek

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Pinta 0.2 simple paint application for Gtk released
The H
Pinta 0.2 is available to download for Mac OS X, openSUSE and Ubuntu and requires Mono. Windows is also supported and requires Gtk# for Windows and Mono for ...