Team Coco Launches "Judgmental Animals" on Google+



Does Google+ have a team doing celebrity development? These launches seem so coordinated and professional that we have to think that someone is reaching out to Adam Sandler, Will.I.Am and Snoop Dogg, and getting them engaged in the platform.

In Team Coco's first week on Google+, they will feature judgmental animals, which is similar to a segment on Conan O' Brien's video blog.

"Animals with judgmental expressions," Conan says in a video post on Google+. "This is my way of proving that the Internet is not a huge waste of time."

Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported how Google seems to be approaching celebrities for Google+ promotions and endorsements...
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Microsoft Uses Klout to Give Influencers Free Phones



Microsoft has tapped Klout to help promote the Windows Phone 7.5 by offering a free phone as a perk to users influential about Microsoft and technology.

Microsoft has recently ramped up its marketing efforts to promote Windows Phone 7.5, also known as Mango. Two recent campaigns included placing a six-story high Windows phone in Midtown Manhattan that featured "live" Live tiles and its Cafe Mango truck, which Microsoft drives to AT&T stores serving mango-inspired street food to get people excited for the software.
 
In addition to a Windows phone, the perk offers...
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Kazakh Hacks Twitter's 140-Character Limit with Post Mocking That Limit


Twitter really wants you to stick to its 140-character limit, having removed the long-tweet Deck.ly feature from TweetDeck in September. No wonder developers scratched their heads when they saw this 930-character tweet from Anatoly [ @LeeA_09 ] in Almaty, Kazakhstan, dated Nov. 8.

Granted, the tweet itself is unreadable: sets of three numbers separated by backslashes. But the Russian-language message in the middle is a nice dig at Twitter: "Twitty and do not limit lyudiii !!!!!! 140 no limit" according to Google Translate.

LAUNCH has not found
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ThinkUp 1.0 Liberates and Analyzes Your Social Media Data

[ The White House on ThinkUp. ]

ThinkUp, the self-hosted web application that archives and analyzes your social media life, just launched out of beta today with version 1.0.

Designed to meet the needs of those with more than 1K followers, ThinkUp lets users store social media conversations at a permalink on their site, visualize social media activity, put conversations on a map using Google Maps API to geo-encode posts, search and export data, and sort people by activity and popularity.

Current users include the White House, The New York Times and celebrities like Steve Martin.

"The conversations you have online are worth capturing, keeping, and referring back to over time," ThinkUp founder Gina Trapani writes on her Smarterware blog. "In fact, the things you share and the conversations you have about them gain weight, perspective, and importance over time, not just the moment you post them. Think about the time you announced you were getting married, or posted a photo of your newborn, or launched a project that changed your life on a social network and the conversations that ensued. That's content you want to keep."

[ See screen shots after the jump. ]
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Google+ Too Slow to Release Full API, So Developer Hacks and Shares One for Circles, Followers and Profiles


Developers excited about Google+ have been waiting patiently for the full API since the social network launched in late June, but so far Google has only released chunks. The first was
for retrieving public posts (Sept. 15), quickly followed by the Hangouts API (Sept. 20)  and most recently search and the ability to track engagement with public posts (e.g., reshares, comments and +1s -- Oct. 4).

Google Qualified Developer Mohamed Mansour, who's already made numerous Chrome extensions for Google+ and is part of the Hangout Academy team, got tired of waiting for Google to release the APIs he wanted for his already highly rated Circle Management extension (in beta). So he hacked his own "unofficial" version  for Circles, Followers and Profiles and posted to Google+ saying the code was on GitHub.

Mohamed tells LAUNCH he has not received an official response from Google, only that
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Look Out Yelp: Foursquare Brings Discovery Tools and Recommendations to the Web


Foursquare just revamped its website, which now offers list discovery to help you find things you might be interested in doing, and features a map on the home page that lets users see nearby friends, trending places and more.

The addition of new discovery features is yet another direct challenge to Yelp. In August, Foursquare added lists, which is similar to Yelp's to-do list feature on its website. On the other hand, Yelp added check-ins in January 2010 to put the company in the same playing field as Foursquare and Gowalla. 

"As foursquare has evolved, the focus has turned from simply ‘checking in’ to sharing our experiences and expertise, unlocking rewards and deals, and exploring the world around us," the Foursquare blog states. "And, though we spend a lot of time improving the app for your phone, we know that sometimes the best place to do those things is when you’re visiting the website from your computer."

Foursquare now also offers recommendations given the time of day. For example...
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Google Verbatim Shows Why Search Used to Suck

Google is rolling out a Verbatim search tool that gives users a more deliberate way of telling Google what to search for by taking its algorithm out of the equation.

Using the Verbatim tool, Google won't make normal improvements such as automatic spelling corrections, personalization of search by using information from sites previously visited, including synonyms of your search terms in the results, making some terms optional and more.

For instance, normal search automatically corrects "Mu'ammar al-Qadaffi" to "Muammar al-Qaddafi," matches "pictures" to "photos," makes certain words optional and more. In the case of "Mu'ammar al-Qadaffi," placing quotes around the search term don't make a difference in the search results.

[ See screen shots after the jump. ]
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Facebook Loses Nym War Against Author Salman Rushdie


In the latest nym war, Facebook changed award-winning novelist Salman Rushdie's name to his birth name -- which he has never used -- prompting him to express himself in the Twitterverse to make Facebook respond. And it worked.

"Have been trying to get somebody at Facebook to respond," Salman tweeted yesterday. "No luck. Am now hoping that ridicule by the Twitterverse will achieve what I can't."

Rushdie explained that Facebook initially deactivated his account because they didn't believe that was his true identity. Rushdie then had to send Facebook a photo of his passport page to which Facebook then insisted he use his first name, Ahmed.

"They have reactivated my FB page as 'Ahmed Rushdie,' in spite of the world knowing me as Salman," Salman tweeted. "Morons. @MarkZuckerbergF? Are you listening?"
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Watch Dan Martell of Flowtown on TWiST Today at 1pm PT


Dan Martell of social media marketing platform Flowtown will be on This Week in Startups today at 1pm PT.

Dan founded Flowtown in November 2009 with Ethan Bloch. Before Flowtown, Dan founded bootstrapped company Spheric Technologies in 2004.

In October 2011, DemandForce acquired the Flowtown team, along with its gift marketing app, which sold for $500 per campaign, and Timely tweet scheduling service.

Flowtown started as a landing page app to help small businesses acquire leads, but the company later pivoted to create...
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What's the Optimal Price for Apps -- or Is There One?


With more than 500K+ apps in Apple's App Store, many developers are out to find the right price for bringing in the most revenue.

Oliver Reichenstein, founder of iA Writer app-maker iA, recently posted to Google+ that his team has noticed a funny effect with pricing apps.

"No matter what price we choose, we always make the same revenue," Oliver writes on Google+.

iA lowered the cost of its iA Writer for iPad from $5 to $1, saw sales initially spike but then return to previous sales levels. By cutting the cost down to one fifth of the original price, the company sold five times more apps.

Oliver writes that iA did a similar experiment with iA Writer for Mac, in which they dropped the price from $10 to $5, and...
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Apple iTunes Match "Streaming" Music Service is Misleading


Apple's new iTunes Match, which just launched today as a streaming service, does not actually let users stream music to their phones, but instead requires users to download songs in order to listen to them.

When most people think of streaming, they envision a process that does not entail downloading a file that takes up space on a hard drive, mobile device or other type of storage unit. 

"Once your music is in iCloud, you can stream and store it to any of your devices," the Apple website states. While it does say that you can store it to your devices, it doesn't clarify that in order to listen to the song, you must first download it. 

What iTunes Match does give its users is peace of mind if one device goes missing or breaks. With all of your music saved on iCloud, you will always be able to retrieve those files. 

Other music services, such as Spotify, Amazon's Cloud Drive and Google's soon-to-launch Music Store, are truly streaming services. Back in August, digerati debated whether or not it's acceptable to call iTunes Match a streaming service, which prompted...

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Google Groups Redesign Adds Tons of White Space, Could Become as Hated as Reader

 

If you hated the Google Reader redesign launched two weeks ago and the Gmail redesign the day after that, get ready for the Google Groups redesign that appears to be rolling out to select groups (like this one) although there's no official announcement yet.

While you'll now be able to navigate between all your groups from the left-hand nav [ "My Groups" ], the redesign places a considerable amount of space around a prominent search bar across the top and large buttons for marking all messages as read, refreshing the page, reporting the group and viewing messages in the compact or standard view.

Those design changes push Group content down, especially on small screens. If you do most of your work on a...

[ Screen shots after the jump. ]

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Klout CEO Apologizes for Creating Profiles of Minors, Says "We Messed up"


Klout CEO Joe Fernandez recently issued an apology for creating Klout profiles for minors.

"Recently, we erred in creating profiles for registered users’ Facebook friends who had recently interacted with them and did not have private accounts." Joe writes on the Klout blog. "...and when we realized that accounts for minors had been created we rolled the changes back."

Klout has received criticism in the past for its opt-out policy and in response, started letting users delete their profiles in November.
 
[ See full text of apology after the jump. ]
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About Time: Google Apps Customers Get 24x7 Phone Support for Core Services


Four years after launching Apps for business, Google has gotten a clue from Zappos and added 24/7 phone support for its millions of Apps customers to "improve the experience" for them, according to a post this morning on the Google Enterprise blog. Previously, phone support was only for "critical issues," and Google handled most service issues through web forms/email.

The post notes that Apps phone support is for core services, meaning Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Groups for business, Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Video for Business. If you've got problems with your Google+ page through your Apps account, it looks like you're stuck with web and email.

Google says in the post, "All support cases are handled directly by trained Google Apps experts," but it's not clear if
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iTunes Match Blocking New Registrations Due to "Overwhelming Demand"

 

iTunes Match, which just launched to the public today, is temporarily blocking new registrations due to excessive demand [h/t Gizmodo].

After postponing its launch for months, Apple finally released its $24.99 per year music service with the release of iTunes 10.5.1.
 
LAUNCH editors were able to subscribe before iTunes Match started blocking new registrations. Considering how long it takes to match your library with songs in the iTunes Store...
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iTunes Match Finally Arrives with iTunes 10.5.1


iTunes Match has officially launched with the recent release of iTunes 10.5.1, available as an update or via software download from Apple.

iTunes Match, which costs $24.99 per year to receive cloud-based matching, intended to launch by mid-October. In the last couple of days, developers tested iTunes 10.5.1 in preparation.

iTunes Match stores your music in the cloud -- up to 25K songs -- and lets you access it from your iPhone, iPad, iPod, computer or Apple TV. 

[ See screen shots after the jump. ]
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Leaked Google Music Store Screenshots Show Free Song of the Day and Recommended Artists


Google's cloud-based Music Store will offer a free song of the day, recommended artists and more, according to leaked screen shots [ h/t TecnoDroidVe. ]

Many have speculated that Google's November 16th event, "These Go to Eleven," will be at least somewhat in regards to the launch of the Google Music Store.

Google's Music Store, which launched a beta version in May, directly challenges Apple's cloud-based iTunes Match and Amazon's Cloud Drive, which launched in March. iTunes Match is expected to launch soon with its recent release of iTunes 10.5.1 Beta 3 to developers.

[ See screen shots after the jump. ]
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Tadpoles Day Care App Gives Parents Peace of Mind with Real-time Updates, Photos and Videos



Parents with children in day care can easily envision nightmare scenarios: exposure to deadly allergens, forgotten or incorrect medication, choking or broken limbs, all because the providers weren't paying attention. The iPad app Tadpoles is designed to give childcare providers a way to keep track of kids' needs -- and parents peace of mind while keeping them informed throughout the day.

"Having a child and needing to go back to work was the original inspiration for Tadpoles," co-founder Andy Monroe tells LAUNCH. "I felt like I was missing out on so much by not being there. By simplifying the process of taking a photo and sharing it I thought I would be able to see more updates about my child.  That problem is magnified inside of a childcare center where you may have 100 children and hundreds of parents."

Tadpoles, which Andy Monroe founded with business development expert Bill McHugh in 2011, is available as a web-based service and iOS apps. The day care and preschool versions of the apps give parents real-time notes and reminders, photos and videos of their children at day care, and school notifications and alerts.

Improving efficiency was important as well: "For the most part childcare is...
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Why Is Popular Siri-for-Android App Speaktoit Not Raising More Money on Kickstarter?


[Speaktoit demo video on its Kickstarter project page. ]

We've seen plenty of cool hardware projects on Kickstarter, which has become a great place for tech entrepreneurs to test the market as well as raise money.

That's why we were surprised to see that Speaktoit -- a free talking-assistant app for Android phones whose Android user numbers have soared past 300K since Apple's Siri debuted last month -- has raised just over $4.5K of its $80K goal from 137 backers. The company needs to raise the remaining $75K by Sunday morning.

Speaktoit's app, most recently updated Nov. 2, gets 4.5 stars from over 4K reviews in the Android Market. Although Alan Henry of Lifehacker recently wrote that Vlingo is the best talking-assistant app for Android right now, he said that Speaktoit "has a lot of potential and it gives you a very personable and customizable caricature to interact with."

So why haven't Speaktoit's fans stepped up? Has the company simply not marketed its Kickstarter campaign very well? We found...

[ Screen shots after the jump. ]

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Fail: iOS 5 Update Doesn't Fix Battery Life, Screws Up Contacts


Some iPhone 4S owners are still having issues with battery life and some are reporting issues with contacts, despite the recent iOS 5.0.1 update.
 
"The recent iOS software update addressed many of the battery issues that some customers experienced on their iOS 5 devices,” Apple said in a statement to AllThingsD. “We continue to investigate a few remaining issues.”

Apple released the update yesterday, after testing it with end users and developers in the past couple of weeks. Apparently, they didn't test it enough because now the company is headed back to the drawing board.

"It seems like the major issue where people's batteries were draining at about 10% an hour on standby have largely disappeared," user robhoward88 writes in the Apple Support forum. "However, my issue has not been solved! Since I've had my iPhone 4S the battery has been a problem. It...
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