Facebook is suing Teachbook.com because of the word “book” in its name, reports CNN. Wow, that’s rediculous. Cookbook, Blackbook, and eBook have “book” in the name took.

It is pretty amazing that Facebook is going after a two-person startup. Clearly since teachers are usually banned from Facebook, there’s a huge marketplace to tap into. Teach-blank (whatever the name ends up being) will connect teachers with other educational professionals. Facebook has 500 million members and Teachbook.com has 47, reports CNN.

Wired scooped up the court documents. According to Wired:

“Misappropriating the distinctive book portion of Facebook’s trademark, defendant has created its own competing online networking community in a blatant attempt to become a Facebook for teachers,” (.pdf) according to a filing in San Francisco federal court.

As Wired points out, Facebook isn’t the only corporate giant going after the little guys. Best Buy (you know the Geek Squad) went after priests for using God Squad.

Man, I bet Flipboard is happy it ends with “board” and not “book.”

Facebook makes money off of all of our data, yet it’s worried about teachers tapping into some of that. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in court. Facebook, stop being a bully. The word on the digital streets is that Facebook is trying to secure the name “face” too.

Photo: jurvetson/ flickr

Don’t put “book” in the name of your startup is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer –

Those of you who use Facebook have probably heard about Facebook Places by now. That alone has critics on their hot seat over the fact that your friends can check you into location like they can tag a picture of you.

Since Facebook is diving into the location game to scoop up local advertising dollars, it’s not surprising they have bought check-in service Hot Potato, a startup in Brooklyn. The startup was kind of like a package deal of Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook like, reports The Guardian.

In Hot Potato’s blog post, the company mentions their big move over to Facebook and also provides information for anyone who wants to salvage their data before it is deleted forever:

This wasn’t an easy decision, especially since we’ve built up a base of dedicated users. If Hot Potato was going to sell to anyone, Facebook was the natural choice. Facebook is still small, moves fast, provides a great supportive environment for people to be entrepreneurial, and most importantly, Facebook builds great products. We’re looking forward to joining their team.

Yes, and Facebook is looking for more hot startups to buy. Any takers? I’d  “like” this if I could.

Buy of the week: Facebook has the hots for Hot Potato is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer –

Sunil Nagaraj is sitting in the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. To kill time, he is people watching with his friend. They are guessing what people are like, judging them superficially by looking at how they dress and how they walk.

That’s also the moment Nagaraj had the idea for a data-driven dating site. His company, Triangulate, is now a year old and maturing. As the company grows, more people are hooking up and finding love based on a mathematical formula.

Nagaraj thought if our social networks could be put into an equation that could figure out the best people to date, then it would maximize our chance at finding true love. The love formula is now in use by 40,000 users, who are mostly in California.

“If you give us trusted access to your Facebook account, Twitter, Netflix, Foursquare, iTunes, and Pandora, I could get to know you and do powerful things with the information,” Nagaraj says.

Well, there’s an app for that now. The dating company’s Facebook app, Wings, is designed to play a virtual wingman for the single soul. We already share so much information about ourselves online, why not tap into that to find better mates.

There’s a difference between saying you like a movie and actually renting it on Netflix. The algorithm suggests 5 people every day based on the user’s social information. At first, the service is free. But the more you use it, you’ll either have to purchase more Facebook credits or fill out more of your profile for more virtual currency.

“We spent a significant amount of time modeling compatibility based on studying happy couples,” he says. If guys like Gladiator and girls like Dirty Dancing, a pattern will emerge. So when the next single guy likes Gladiator, he will probably like a single girl who likes Dirty Dancing. If you take that concept and hash out, you get the company’s patent pending algorithm.

Location can also reveal a lot about someone. “It can tell me if you are a mall person,” Nagaraj says.

In theory, your behavior speaks louder than words. On Facebook, what percentage of your friends are international? Are you tagged in large groups or small groups in your photos? “Each data point tells us more about who you are,” he says.

Backed by Trinity Ventures and Rick Thompson, Chairman of Playdom, the company received $750,000 in funding.

Online-dating is becoming more mainstream. It’s about a 15-year-old industry. We haven’t innovated much since Match.com and eHarmony.com. There are more and more commercials adverting success stories, Nagaraj says. With Wings, you can use social media data to improve the online dating world.

“I’m a very active user on this site. I’ve been a little busy running the company, but I’ve been messaging lots of girls and I’m excited to take them out,” he says.

Want more love in your life? Try data-driven dating is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer – Boonsri Dickinson (@boonspoon)

It didn’t take long for rumors to surface, charging that Google is creating a social networking aimed to rival Facebook, after Google invested more than $100,000 into Zynga.

It plans to dip its toes into the social gaming word. It’s anyone’s guess what this will mean for Zynga’s games such as Farmville on Facebook when Google Games launches later this year.

Yammer’s David Sacks tells TechCrunch Now that if Google Me (the rumored social network) wants to compete with Facebook, Google will have to buy Twitter:

Ron Hirson of Boku talks to TechCrunch Now about Zynga:

Here’s the trailer for the Facebook movie:

A movie about Facebook could be interesting.

Everyone Googles their name. I do. There’s a documentary about 7 guys named Jim Killeen.

“It all started when I Googled my name,” the original Killeen says. In the film, Google Me:

Google versus Facebook: Watch the trailers about our social lives is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer – Boonsri Dickinson (@boonspoon)

Mark Coatney did such a good job with Newsweek Tumblr, he is now leaving the magazine for the startup blogging website, Tumblr.

In Coatney’s Tumblr blog, he wrote:

One of the reasons I’ve long been interested in online journalism is in the ways it can be, in a way no other medium can, a two-way communication between writer and reader; Tumblr is one of the best ways I’ve seen to accomplish that.

My new job, basically, will be to take the lessons I’ve learned at Newsweek and bring them to other media outlets. The mission is to show how this platform can be key to connecting journalists and readers, making the process more engaging and conversational. The approach will be the same that I’ve taken in creating the Newsweek Tumblr: That the most important thing for any publisher is to first be a full, participating member of the community, and that the main focus should be on meeting the needs of that community, not self-promotion.

The site has followers like Facebook and Twitter, but the quality of the content is the focus not the eyeballs. Other media sites use Tumblr too:

• The New Yorker
• The New York Times
• The Huffington Post
• The Atlantic
• Rolling Stone
• Mediaite

Coatney told Mediaite in an email interview:

So the value for other media platforms is that, yes, Tumblr is a way to tie into an audience that is super engaged, and has the tools to interact with your content in an easy, fun way.

Tumblr allows journalists and media organizations to engage their readers. I have to admit, the Newsweek Tumblr is quite sexy and its numbers show it. With 112,000 followers, the magazine was reeling in 100,000 to 200,000 readers a day.

Tumblr is close to 1.5 billion page views per month. So now at Tumblr headquarters, Coatney can give the Newsweek Tumblr treatment to other media organizations.

I already had a personal Tumblr page, but now I just set up another one to keep track of my writing and to connect with my readers.

Newsweek Tumblr journalist takes job at Tumblr is a post from: TechStartups.com

Every wonder who Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is dating? And who Mashable’s Pete Cashmore is seeing?

Sure, after Facebook mucked up their privacy settings, the world got a glimpse of Zuckerberg with his girlfriend, Priscilla Chan.

The Harvard Crimson had long ago revealed how they met:

“Hey Priscilla, do you want a job at the facebook?” Zuckerberg asked a passing friend.

“I’d love a job at facebook,” Priscilla Chan ’07 responded, offering him a Twizzler.

That’s cute. Cashmore’s girlfriend, photographer and media star Lisa Bettany filmed “Two days in the life of Mashable CEO, Pete Cashmore.”

Everything Famous has more pictures of the two.

Details magazine’s story on The Playboys of Tech was published a few years ago and paints the picture of the dating scene:

Technology’s emerging stars aren’t code-crunching wallflowers. They’re serial daters and socialites as hungry for fame—and women—as they are for fortune.

Sometimes there can be conflicts with love interests and money. Leave it to Gawker to update us on tech leaders like Kevin Rose:

The 33 year-old Digg founder is a notorious tech playboy. (One friend says he’s “basically plowed through everybody“—including Julia Allison and TV personality Shira Lazar) But it appears he’s settled down with Darya Pino, a slender brunette who runs the food blog Summertomato.

The dating lives of the tech and famous is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer – Boonsri Dickinson (@boonspoon)

So many print publications have died as advertising dollars have dried up. While more of our time is spent online, the advertising online budgets have been sluggish to catch up and the CPM numbers are way below other traditional forms of media.

Bambi of Vator.TV writes about how online advertising will explode. Cecilia Kang agrees, saying in her blog Post Tech that “even as users spend 28 percent of total entertainment time on the Internet, advertisers only spend 13 percent of their budgets on the Internet. That represents a $50 billion opportunity, she said, that advertisers are starting to seize.”

Internet research analyst Mary Meeker talked about online marketing in a presentation at the Conversation marketing Summit in New York. In her talk, she mentioned the big companies that have incredible innovation: Apple, Google, Amazon.com, Tencent, Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft, PayPal, Netflix, and Salesforce.com. The startups that came from nothing include: Facebook, Skype, Zynga, Twitter, OpenTable/Yelp, Hulu, Gilt/One Kinegs Lane/ Rue La La, Groupon, Tapulous/ Digital Chocolate/Ngmoco. It’s interesting to note that the startups have a social platform to exchange ideas, watch content, video calling, play location games, and buy virtual goods.

As much as online media confused advertising models, mobile ads are supposed to cause an even bigger disruption. The Wall Street Journal reports that advertising will be Apple’s next shakeup. As people use apps and search from their phones for information, the need make traditional searches will be less necessary.

via Vator TV

Photo: Plinkk/ Flickr

Is online advertising ever going to take off? is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer – Boonsri Dickinson (@boonspoon)

I am happy now — I survived my first story telling experience.

People told me I was “good,” but I won’t believe them until I see the video footage. Plus, is “good” the same as “nice” in the dating lingo?

I was impressed with the silly, smart co-host scientists. But this is how the night began.

I got to the story telling show right on time. It was at the Pacific Standard in Brooklyn and the owner of the bar was in the line up behind me.

Tonight’s show was based on the theme — “Friction.” The show began with Ben Lillie and Brian Wecht introducing themselves and telling a little story themselves. Check out the Facebook page for their bio.

The crowd laughed a lot — which ALWAYS helps. I told a story about taking a creationist on a dino digging trip with me.

After the 1.5 hour show, I thought the two physicist hosts did a wonderful job making all five acts intertwine. Discussion centered about science, religion, dinosaurs, dreams not working out, and feeling alienated in your childhood home, getting scooped on research — and how it totally sucks and by making a list of topics, I’m naturally leaving a lot of interesting ones out.

The video of the show will be posted on the show’s main site, The Story Collider, soon. Stay tuned.

The hosts ended by telling people to think about what image reminds them of science. Period Table does it for some. And Hubble was Ben’s personal favorite — you’d think he was talking about Star Wars or something. Here’s my answer:

My image of science is a magazine, in fact, it is that single memory that made me apply for a job at the magazine that occupied much of my childhood. It was everywhere around the house. I looked forward to getting the new issue of Discover magazine in the mail because it explained science to me in a way my text books failed to. So obviously, when it came time to apply for a science journalism job,  I applied to Discover. I’m glad I experienced it, but I am glad to be free.

Speaking of freedom, I think that it’s time to catch up on some sleep.

Why science story telling was funnier than stand up comedy is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer – Boonsri Dickinson (@boonspoon)

Yesterday, I wrote about Facebook’s privacy woes and shopping apps. These are the companies that are doing well because they collect data and turn it into something meaningful.

Facebook, Google, Amazon, and LinkedIn all use your data to either suggest your likes or your friendship connections.

Enter data-driven apps. Google knows how to play the data game — look at their use of PageRank, spell checking, speech recognition, and search results.

Google’s chief economist Hal Varian said in the McKinsey Quarterly:

I keep saying the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians. People think I’m joking, but who would’ve guessed that computer engineers would’ve been the sexy job of the 1990s? The ability to take data—to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it—that’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades.

Image: flickr/ WarzauWynn

Why data science is sexy is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer – Boonsri Dickinson (@boonspoon)

Frustrated Facebook users have thrown a digital hissy fit over the latest brouhaha brewing over privacy. Tens of thousands of people pledged to Quit Facebook on Monday, but many got cold feet (or forgot to follow through).

But Facebook isn’t the only company under heat. The Congress is looking in to the privacy practices of Facebook and Google. And the security of iTunes is so weak that anyone who downloads their favorite jingle is at risk for cyber crime — where hackers can easily steal money from their bank account or credit card.

“This type of fraud is becoming more common,” Ben Smyth of Birmingham University told the Daily Mail. Many times, fraudsters pose as customers who forgot their password and can find the answers to the security questions by looking at the person’s Twitter or Facebook.

While Facebook’s practices seem to be invading privacy, many startup companies want to tap into the trend of sharing information.

As long as people see a benefit to dishing out their personal details, they will. A startup company called WeShop keeps track of how much a customer spends and what they buy — in exchange they can distribute their email addresses to interested parties.

Startups like Bluefly would tap into WeShop’s database.

Bluefly wants to target customers’ shopping tastes. For instance, when someone buys something that they need for prom, Bluefly would send email messages directly to the customers alerting them of a sale on formal dresses. The New York Times reports:

“Everyone’s kind of working on different angles of how we give the consumer more ways to target what they want, to ask for what they want, and get it,” said Bradford Matson, chief marketing officer of Bluefly.com. “This notion of how people shop is changing very quickly.”

Awesome. Not. This reminds me of those people who stand on the street asking me if I want to buy this or save on that. Only now, I will get notifications through email. Good thing, I can choose to opt out.

Image: flickr

Congress looking into privacy practices at Facebook and Google, startups eye opportunity is a post from: TechStartups.com

Snac is a startup that wants you to digest information in snack sized amounts.

Want access to the web in 2 seconds to check sports scores, stock, or the latest tweets, but only have an old school phone?

Well Snac might be able to help with that: It plans on letting non-smart phone users have access to the web and all its goodness.

While iPhone and Android apps are popular, Snac’s CEO Mark Caron expects widgets for regular cell phones will take off this year.

A widget is sort of like an app, in that it will allow you to access your Twitter or Facebook account, but it can run on a regular phone and does not require as much energy to run.

Caron thinks widgets development will catch on this year because it is easy to code for. “Next year, you will see millions of widgets out there,” says Caron. “It’s an open standard. Anyone can create the widgets,” he adds. Once the standard is set, by the whole sale applications community, engines like Snac can execute the widgets.

“An iPhone app is a 5 megabyte file and is resource intensive. Widgets are a different experience. It’s about quick access, not about the wow factor,” says Caron. Widgets are constantly updated and only require 200 kilobytes. “We are focused on efficiency. Widgets run without too much memory and don’t drain the battery quickly,” he says.

Watch the demo, although I must warn you it’s very infomercial-like.

He believes the widgets will help advertisers reach their customers. Caron points out that typically iPhone app loses 90 percent of their customers. And mobile websites only get 2 unique visitors a month.

“The trouble is with discovery. In the app store, Apple decides what they want to feature. It’s very hard for service companies to get preferential treatment in that environment,” Caron says.

Establishing the standard is key. Caron has worked in the mobile space for 20 years and helped pave the way for text messages! He was leading a company introduce the idea of inter carrier text messages. So if Caron’s instincts are correct, we will see an explosion of widgets soon!

Snac makes regular phones smarter with quicker access to the web is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer –

We can like stuff all we want, but does that really reveal what we truly desire?

Scientists are finding that Internet marketers might be deceived by what they interpret as our personal tastes.

Companies like Amazon, TiVo, and Delta might be too quick to recommend what you should like. Human behavior is rather unpredictable.

In a study of 200 college students, the researchers discovered that the test subjects had a “natural aversion” to being totally predictable. According to University of Michigan researchers:

“Our findings say something about how potential consumers may react when a business feeds back their mathematical, magic eight-ball prediction of what we should buy based on what we watch, listen and buy,” [Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, associate professor of management and organizations at U-M's Ross School of Business said]. “Marketers be warned. Unless you are absolutely certain that your target audience sees you as a benevolent partner along their path to shopping nirvana, you might think twice about showing off your ability to predict consumer’s behavior.”

So even if Facebook reveals all our likes and shared links and friends list, only we know what want. Although in my experience, having a list of most popular items certainly does tempt me to at least consider purchasing the item too.

Image: flickr/ Vanillatwilight

So Internet marketers try, but it’s hard to predictable human behavior is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer –

Booyah raised $20 million for Accel. You might know about Booyah by their popular app called MyTown, which is a location based game app for the iPhone. Since January, the user base has grown from 450,000 users to 1.8 million users. Impressive!

It’s clear why Facebook and Walmart backer Jim Breyer at Accel has chosen to fund Booyah over the competing location based services (like Foursquare and Gowalla). While MyTown has similar check-in features as the other two location based apps do, it has more game play and exchange of virtual goods.

Venturebeat calls it the digital monopoly, and reports:

Accel’s investment is especially significant given rumors of talks between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, as well as clear indications that Facebook plans to build location-based features into its social network. Since venture capitalists try to avoid conflicts in their portfolios, especially when agreeing to board seats, it seems significant that Breyer would choose to back Booyah even as Facebook’s location strategy takes shape.

It sure does look like 2010 is going to be the great location land rush after all.

MyTown gets $20 million in funding from Jim Breyer of Accel is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer –

Facebook isn’t the only company that is under some heat over invasion of privacy. Google apparently has snatched personal info off of Wi-Fi networks.

This translates to 600 gigabytes of data from Wi-Fi networks in 30 some countries. And yes, that includes the U.S.

Google is apparently surprised by this, after German regulators brought it to their attention. Google officials have since issued an apology. PhysOrg.com reports:

“Maintaining people’s trust is crucial to everything we do, and in this case we fell short,” Alan Eustace, Google’s top engineering executive, wrote in a blog post.

Not everyone is convinced that Google accidentily snooped up private data through Wi-Fi networks. According to the watchdogs:

“Once again, Google has demonstrated a lack of concern for privacy,” said Consumer Watchdog’s John Simpson. “Its computer engineers run amok, push the envelope and gather whatever data they can until their fingers are caught in the cookie jar.”

All of these privacy issues make one thing clear. Our friend lists, preferences, likes and dislikes, and what we search for is gold to advertisers. Once commenter said it best:

People running unsecured Wi-Fi networks are idiots just like that drunk guy lying in the street, but that doesn’t give [others] a free pass to steal their stuff.

As Pete Cashmore put it, privacy is dead. Our attention is the new currency and we are as rich as our social network. Obviously, sharing your information comes with a price.

Image: flickr/ Stephen Poff

Related Post:

Here’s evidence Google Store View has begun

Opps. Google took personal info from public Wi-Fi networks is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer –

Facebook has been having some trust issues lately. Once you spend a few minutes on FacebookSearch, you might feel slightly violated.

For instance, type in “playing hooky” and you will get:

planning on playing hooky today – going to Iron Man at IMAX and then supper with my sweetie.

and

Totally playing hooky tomorrow to spend time with my girl. Ah, sometimes being a mom is just the best thing ever!

This could be potentially damaging and embarrassing.

Facebook has been raising a lot of eyebrows about privacy lately. Business Insiders’ story claimed Facebook CEO called his Harvard users “dumb fucks” for trusting him with their email addresses and phone numbers.

In response to that post, Facebook issued a statement saying that privacy and security of user data are important to them, including:

Everyone within the company understands our success is inextricably linked with people’s trust in the company and the service we provide. We are grateful people continue to place their trust in us. We strive to earn that trust by trying to be open and direct about the evolution of the service and sharing information on how the 400 million people on the service can use the available settings to control where their information appears.

Worried? Facebook updates are now searchable with FacebookSearch is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer –

I use Skype for conference calls and for casual chatting. It owns a large chunk of the international calling market.

Now the Internet calling service is rolling out with a “beta” program that will let up to five people video chat with each other at the same time.

While the service will be free at first, Skype will begin charging for it as well as other features. Mac users will have to wait, as the initial product will be available for PC users.

In other unrelated news in case you missed it yesterday: Facebook’s friendship flaw. If you were quick to act after seeing TechCrunch’s coverage of the fact that you could see your friend’s live chats, then you would be very worried about your privacy. At least, Facebook disabled chat as soon as it was aware of the glitch.

Skype gets 5 way video chat is a post from: TechStartups.com

Ning launched in October 2005, as the brainchild of Netscape founder Marc Andreessen. For so long, Ning users could set up a social network for free, but the startup has just announced its plan to start charging.

The time is right to make customers pay because the demand is there. Social networks have matured and have become a legit place for advertising and have become full fledged digital marketplace. 43 million users are in one or more of the 2 million Ning Networks — so if you do the math, the investors should be happy.

My first experience with Ning was obsessively checking into Tontine Nation. I Googled the words “Tontine Nation” today and I was suddenly transported back to the summer of 2006. While Tontine Nation is a digital ghost town today, there’s no denying that it was once a flourishing place where contestants trying out for a reality show flocked everyday to encourage, discuss, and occasionally bash each other.

The idea of traveling around the world as part of a game show — half Survivor, half The Amazing Race — hooked hundreds of contestants trying out for Tontine. We made audition videos, posted them on YouTube, and then discussed and voted for the best audition videos on Ning. There was a catch (there always is a catch): The contestants would put their life savings in the pot. There would only be one winner, who would get $10 million.

The show never happened.

But Tontine Nation took on a life of its own. The contestants who lived in New York even had a few nights out together — bonding over this shared online experience.

And while the memory of the reality show will live on, the future of Tontine Nation on Ning will depend on if the administrator pays the bill! So sad.

Build your own social network through Ning, but it will cost you is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer –

As expected, the much anticipated people versions of Yelp just launched. Enter Unvarnished, a startup that wants people to rate others, just as they do places. Who in their right mind would want to be part of that? Who wants co-worker drama written down on Internet history for the world to see. After all, we have the TV show, The Office, for that.

Gigaom reports:

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Unvarnished is that the reviews are anonymous (Kazanjy prefers to say that the reviewer’s identity has been “obscured”) so that you never know, for example, who exactly provided that two-star rating. Although it seems like the kind of thing that no one in their right mind would want, Kazanjy says such anonymity is a crucial part of what makes Unvarnished different from LinkedIn. Human nature, he says, means that the reviews on a LinkedIn profile are almost always positive, and are often so banal and vague that they convey virtually no real information whatsoever.

Anonymity is a funny thing though. It can be dangerous. People leave cruel blog comments all the time. And if that’s telling of human nature, then be prepared for the worst. People leave pretty harsh comments, especially when they don’t have to leave a trail of their identity behind. I’m curious to know who jumped on board to the beta testing of Unvarnished.

I don’t see how this company will escape lawsuits and lots of angry people.

Be scared: Unvarnished wants you to rate other people’s reputations is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer –

On March 18th, the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York put a group of comedians against random Chatroulette players in front of a live studio audience. One man who thought he was “exposing” himself to a girl was in for a surprise when the camera lights went on and the spotlight was shown on a packed room of people, watching and laughing at him.

That is our version of Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter “A.” Except it’s totally anonymous.

These days, everyone talks about building a brand on the Internet, but TechCrunch raises the red flags of what happens when a person’s online reputation goes sour:

Sure, we’ve evolved a legal infrastructure to deal with libel, slander and defamation. Those laws worked well in an era of the printing press, and sort of stretched to cover radio and television. But they are as ineffective against the Internet as copyright laws are in battling music piracy.

Other services like Reputation Defender have launched to try to help people manage their online reputations.

But now startups are coming out and letting people rate people. TechCrunch called this the Yelp for people. I find this disturbing. That said, Yelp has been under some legal heat lately.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

“It appears there is a pattern of repetitive, systematic wrongful conduct targeting small businesses in an effort to sell Yelp’s advertising package[s] and/or services,” [attorney Ronald] Marron said in an email.

Yelp Chief Executive Jeremy Stoppelman, who had previously rejected claims made in the first lawsuit, responded to the second claim in blog post on Thursday, saying the allegations are false, easily refuted and are “borne from a lack of understanding of how Yelp works.”

There have been of course other startups that have tried this before (but failed).

As anonymity becomes more popular than defining your identity online, the information we find could potentially be more negative. Part of the reason why Chatroulette took off was because there was no consequence to your actions. You can just act as you please, until you get bored or grossed out, and hit next. According to a recent poll, Chatroulette is beating the grandfather site, Hot or Not, at its game.

Soon, we will need people scores as often as we request credit scores. If you want to protect your reputation, Forbes suggests that you check your reputation on a regular basis. Make sure your positive Google search results push any negative reviews back. And that you take proactive steps by buying your domain name, so somebody else doesn’t have the chance to.

Image: UCB

The Internet version of the scarlet letter is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer –

The problem with Web 2.0 is not information. Managing and storing the data is the issue. Every time you upload a photo to Facebook or operate your business on the cloud, server farms are struggling to keep up.

WSJ reports:

“We’ve basically reached breaking point,” says Drue Reeves, director of datacenter research at Burton Group, a research firm in Midvale, Utah. Companies don’t have the money to buy still more servers, hire the people to manage them, or build giant facilities to house, power and cool them.

Helping datacenters deal with these problems is the focus of a number of the technology companies on The Next Big Thing list. Each is coming at it a different way, but all aim to help datacenters work better, faster, cheaper.

To deal with data issues, Primal Fusion, Metaweb Technologies, Radar Networks, and Siri work on organizing your thoughts for you on the web. For example, Metaweb is developing Freebase to build a brain for the Internet. And ViewChange.org relies on Freebase to sort the data across social networks, taking search beyond keyword.

Other startups are trying to improve networks and improve server power. The WSJ mentions the following companies:

• Akorri Networks
• Azul Systems
• Fusion-io Inc.
• Schooner Information Technology
• MySQL
• Memcached
• GroundWork Open Source Inc.
• ParAccel Inc.
• Metaweb Technologies

All of the companies are trying to make sense of the mounds of data and make the information more useful.

Image: Primal Fusion

Information overload, startup companies to the rescue is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer –

I’m rising early to be a guest on Danny Boome’s new show! I’ll be talking about all things DNA: ancestry, diet, and dating. Stay tuned!

Rise and shine with Danny Boome’s new live interactive web based morning show!  At 8:00am on Thursday, March 18^, 2010 Crash Bang Boome Productions will launch its newest show“ Danny Boome’s Morning Glory”

For the next 4 weeks, Danny will be hosting Morning Glory’s 8-episode pilot season.  Every Thursday and Friday between 8am-8:30am, get your day started with Danny and his special guests.  With advice and ideas from lifestyle and professional specialists, you’ll be prepared to handle every wine pairing, gardening and financial challenge that comes your way.

Subscribe to the show on Ustream.tv for exclusive access to Danny Boome’s Morning Glory:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/danny-boome-s-morning-glory

To follow Danny and the Morning Glory Show on social networks:

Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/DannyBoome

Twitter HashTag: #dbmorningglory

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New Morning Show: Danny Boome’s Morning Glory is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer –

The secret to success is to “play dirty.” And apparently, New Yorkers don’t know how to play rough enough.

Dan Porter reports in the Business Insider:

There are secrets out there. There are secrets about how to win at SEO. There are secrets about what hides in your analytics reports. There are secrets about what happens when someone looks for friends on your site by entering their address book. If I have to be more clear about that, well then you’ve proven my point. In the Bay Area, there are a wealth of folks who know these secrets. Folks who could take a health content site and have it suddenly appear on top in every search. Sites with millions of members that leave you scratching your head about why they joined.

None of this is wrong per se, nor in any blatant violation of common internet rules. But it’s that stuff in the trenches that those who know guard carefully and often are employed by those companies who we would never suspect employ them.

Silicon Valley folks aren’t sharing their tricks with the East coast people either. Porter says New Yorkers can wine and dine all we like, but warns that without the West Coast mentality, it will be hard for start-ups to gain global traction like Facebook.

Of course, playing dirty has its consequences — especially if every IM and email can later be used against you and later show up in an exclusive. Just ask Facebook’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, about that. Business Insider broke a story on Zuckerberg’s hacking tendencies in 2004 and the birth of the social networking website.

Zuckerberg’s IMs reveal his thought process before he created the multi-billion dollar empire:

Zuck: So you know how I’m making that dating site

Zuck: I wonder how similar that is to the Facebook thing

Zuck: Because they’re probably going to be released around the same time

Zuck: Unless I fuck the dating site people over and quit on them right before I told them I’d have it done.

For the full scoop, read here.

Image: flickr/ Vasjen Katro

Facebook secrets revealed is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer – Boonsri Dickinson (@boonspoon)

Happy, snowy Friday. Do you feel like having some self help ideas for your business? Here are some things that happened this week.

10 entrepreneurs who created companies valued at $50 million talk about their biggest mistake.

Scientists turn body movement into electricity.

Start-ups get $3.5 billion in an attempt to boost innovation in the states.

Bits blogger Nick Bilton talks about the three Fs: Facebook, Farmville, and Foursquare.

Why New York isn’t the best place for a start-up.

100 things entrepreneurs should know.

Anyone building an app? How to deal with Apple.

Online video is hot in China: Chinese search engine Baidu raises $50 million for Oiyi, its online video site.

Approved. Facebook patents The News Feed. What does this mean for Twitter and other social networks?

Apple pulls sexy iPhone porn apps from its store. Prude and unfair?

Unhappy? You’ll have to wait until you’re 74 to be content, scientists say.

Cybercriminals are after Twitter users again. Don’t click on shady links people!

Image: flickr/ veesees

Roundup of Start-up News is a post from: TechStartups.com

Who are they?

They are the ones that are lurking, listening in that don’t have a vested interest in being a publisher. They have no concern over writing the missives that get re-tweeted and linked to.

The most important Twitter users are those that have an ear to the ground and use the information provided by vocal users for business.

This use could be as simple as metrics for marketing or product sales or as complex product development or predictive modeling. These users aren’t on the grid as having the most followers or even caring about about new features.

These users are in the news rooms of mainstream media, college labs and the kitchens of internet connected families. They find terms that matter to them based on their interests and follow them – not people.

At CNN last year on a ‘behind the glass’ to the left of the main news desk there in the open with an operator (a well dressed woman) sat in front of an Apple Cinema display. On that display was the standard black, grey and white install of Tweetdeck set to full-screen mode with over nine columns open. This was before the Rick Sanchez got hip.

That is how listening gets done by Twitter users all day long. Twitter power publishers that are tweeting all day long have columns for their interests as well. I know I do and I’m not a power publisher.

There is so much data flowing in this manner that Tweetdeck developed a syncing system for columns between computers and mobile devices. Users needed it because they great complex groups to listen in on divergent streams based on interest.

When the metrics begin coming to light from Twitter or third parties that are monitoring the consumption of data through Twitter it will drastically change the way that we view the internet and engagement. The same goes for Facebook, though it is much more participatory and Google Buzz much the same. But these two suffer from a lack of outside development and validation of any numbers that they may produce.

Twitter is the harbinger of many things to come for online communication, but if it is anything in this current iteration of spreading information to the masses, it is the greatest information filtering system ever designed for public consumption.

Why?

Because it is left in the hands of people to filter. It’s not prescribed by a developer or an algorithm that sorts it. The users are in control of what they receive as long as it is in the system. I will admit the that the publishers matter . . . but the most important Twitter users are on the sidelines taking it all in, their way.

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The Most Important Twitter Users is a post from: TechStartups.com

By Staff Writer – Boonsri Dickinson (@boonspoon)

Foursquare is making deals. The location-based mobile app just partnered with Zagat, the restaurant guide. The New York Times partnered with Foursquare for the Olympic games. And got Lucky magazine in on the deal, just in time for New York Fashion Week. This way, party-goers can find out where the nearest (best) places to grab a drink or discover other venues that were exclusively picked by the magazine’s editors.

If the predictions are true, there really will be a location land rush this year. Buzz buzz buzz buzz. That’s right, Google Buzz is in on the location game too.

Initially, Buzz initiated a knee jerking reaction from people. And understandably, many people have complained that we already have too many social networks — why do we need another one?

Fortunately for many of us, gmail is already a big part of our life and so is Google search — and Google maps. Buzz is just another way of sharing things with people we already connect with through email, so the infrastructure is already there.

Salon reports:

Gmail, Google Maps and, of course, the Google search engine are already second nature to millions of people. We should be paying less attention to how Buzz matches up to Facebook and Twitter in isolation, and much more to how Buzz might leverage all the other pieces of Google that we already use.

Nice. Google buzz integrates the similar features of Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and email all in one spot. Google not only wants to take on social networks, but be every smart phone user’s guide to the world.

This will make sharing at work much easier, especially if your work place blocks Facebook access. Curious about how Buzz would work on your phone? Check it out:

I guess I should probably send out my first Buzz now.

Image: flickr/ dpstyles™

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The Location Land Rush Is Here, Thanks To Foursquare and Google Buzz is a post from: TechStartups.com