Archives: 2008May

Lately Twitter has been cleaning house, raising money, doing interviews and actually talking to users. In a blog post last week they did a Q&A session, directly answering questions about Twitter’s architecture.
So I have a couple of questions, too, based on a couple of discussions I’ve had with people who say they’ve seen Twitter’s architecture. […]

Our sister publication Techcrunch UK noticed that a Location services API had been added to Google Gears. The developers behind Gears have been plotting out future API additions for a while, and those plans have included having Geo data available to mobile app developers. We found out today that Google are backing up their […]

The Google Checkout/Ebay Paypal wars continue.
Ebay Australia currently allows merchants to accept credit cards, direct debit, money orders and checks for purchases, but from June 17 they want to allow only PayPal or cash on delivery. When the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) asked for public comments on the proposal a lot of of […]

Meet LaterLoop, a new bookmarking tool that was recently featured at Google’s I/O conference.
LaterLoop’s core functionality is very similar to Instapaper, which we reviewed last January. After adding either a Firefox extension or a Bookmarket to their browser, users can click “Save For Later” whenever they come across an interesting site that they don’t […]

Katalyst Media founders Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg were in Silicon Valley today. They stopped by TechCrunch HQ (aka my house) before heading off to more important meetings with Dan Rosensweig at Quadrangle Group (and the former COO of Yahoo) and YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley.
The reason for the visit? They are preparing to launch […]

Microsoft wants to return to a simpler time where we just asked for someone by name

* Microsoft wants to make phone numbers disappear. Details are a little sketchy, but Mary-Jo Foley, who writes a Microsoft blog for ZDNet, says Microsoft is developing technology that will allow telecom companies to combine phone numbers with someone’s instant-messenger […]

Robert Scoble just finished a half hour interview with Twitter Founders Evan Willams and Biz Stone. The two are surprisingly candid about the scaling problems the service has had since, oh, it launched two years ago.
“The fact that people are frustrated is a sign that we built something people care about,” says Williams a few […]

Can video games save the music industry? Probably not. But video games are emerging as a powerful distribution channel for digital music downloads. Players of Grand Theft Auto IV can buy the songs they hear in the game from Amazon by making their characters dial a number on their cell phones.
Now the […]

Nearly a year after it was bought by Google for $100 million, FeedBurner is finally going to roll out Google’s AdSense as an advertising option for blogs and Websites that use its service to publish their feeds. FeedBurner will start with a few select publishers next week, and then expand the option to all […]

Yesterday we wrote that a recent attack on Comcast’s Web site was a throwback to a more innocent time when computer hackers were mostly vandals out for notoriety, not identity-stealing criminals looking for a quick profit. Not surprisingly, the alleged culprits are a pair of teenagers who are convinced that they’ll soon be arrested and […]