Memo to Flipboard, as well as Pulse, CNN’s Zite and AOL’s Editions: You might want to make some room in the already-crowded news and social reader space, because you’re about to get some bigfoot company.

Next Wednesday, according to sources close to the situation, Yahoo will finally officially unveil its offering, called Livestand.

And perhaps as early as next week or in the weeks soon after, Google will also weigh in with its version of the genre — code-named Propeller — which also might be the product’s name. Another moniker under strong consideration: Currents.

As I have previously reported, Google Propeller is an HTML5 reader for the Apple iPad and Android — essentially a souped-up version of similar apps such as Flipboard, AOL’s Editions, Zite (which was just bought by Time Warner’s CNN) and Pulse.

All these apps are part of the drastically changing habits of media consumers, helping users better navigate numerous social and media feeds — such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as news sites and more — using handsome interfaces and touch technologies on tablet devices.

Flipboard, the most prominent and elegant of these offerings, is now available only on the Apple iPad.

Flipboard’s traction among elite users, along with its high-level design ethos and strong reviews, is why Google tried to buy the well-funded company last year, sources said.

But Flipboard — which is backed by some of tech’s biggest venture players, who have invested more than $60 million at a $200 million valuation — declined the kind offer.

At the time, sources said, Google told Flipboard execs that if it did not buy the start-up, it planned to do a version of its own.

Hence, after I heard about the product earlier this year, I dubbed it the Flipinator.

According to sources, Propeller will launch with a plethora of media partners, as well as integration into the Google+ social network. The aim of the search giant is to offer media companies easy tools for publishing content on these devices, as well as a better path to monetization.

That is essentially the same plan at Yahoo, which has been working on Livestand with hopes of it being a product that will woo publishers into tight collaboration with the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Livestand was announced by Yahoo’s now-fired CEO Carol Bartz in February, at a speech at the World Mobile Congress in Spain.

At the time, Bartz demoed a magazinelike platform that would allow publishers to put up content easily and give users the ability to personalize their selections based on search history and interests.

Bartz called it “content in context.” (You can see the demo video below.)

But while Bartz promised the product within three months, development has been slowed by its complex technologies, bugs and the need to sign on publishers.

Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer Blake Irving is pushing the product hard as a way for the company to reinvigorate its media products.

It’s not clear how many publishers Yahoo will have at launch, and neither are the distribution plans, beyond flacking it from the Web site and being present in app stores.

Google, on the other hand, has its Android platform to push out Propeller, although it all must work as well on Apple’s iPad, which is the dominant tablet on the market.

But just because both Yahoo and Google are big companies is by no means a guarantee of success — think Yahoo 360 or Google Wave or Buzz — and their lateness might be a hindrance.

And, in fact, other news reader apps are much further along. The leader, Flipboard, has already had four million downloads and 50 partnerships with leading publishers.

It also has started to introduce rich advertising products and, perhaps most importantly, has tight social integration with Twitter and Facebook.

There will be social elements on both Yahoo’s Livestand and Google’s Propeller. But news reading will be stressed more, making them more like Pulse, a tiny but highly innovative start-up.

Each of the existing apps will presumably compete by adding on more features. Pulse recently added cross-platform, cross-device syncing, while Flipboard is close to unveiling an iPhone version it has said it was working on.

Yahoo and Google PR declined comment.

Here is the Livestand demo video from February:

Some things you cannot even make up. Take, for instance, this achingly awkward demo video for Microsoft’s Songsmith software.

[Update: The video has now been removed from YouTube. Can't imagine why ...]

Released several years ago, Songsmith is a product of Microsoft Research.

It has kind of been hawked in a goofy way over the years, but this just-posted video is simply the goofiest.

Using Songsmith, you can “make up your own hit sooooong,” growls the cheery Microsoft Store lady in the video.

Then she does and, somehow, the doomed Zune digital player is involved.

Oh, just watch it:

Korea Telecom demoed the Kibot at AsiaD, showing how the monkey can read books and sing nursery songs (in Korean) to your kid.

Kibot plays language learning games on its touchscreen belly, and if your children don’t interact with it for a few minutes, it will get bored and roam the house looking for a playmate.

Kibot’s aim is to keep kids interacting and learning — which hopefully abates any creepiness about having a child-seeking robot in the home.

Though Kibot primarily serves children ages three through seven, some features are definitely aimed at parents. Not only can they call their children to video chat, they can control the Kibot and use it to watch their children remotely.

How does it work?

After it’s switched on, the Kibot’s monkey body becomes a control panel. Holding the left ear views the next story, song or game. Holding the right ear goes back to the content you just left — an interface that makes sense if you’re used to reading Korean rather than English.

Kibot’s nose doubles as an RFID reader for special Kibot books. Swipe one and it will start reading the book aloud. There are also word cards, to teach vocabulary, and telephone cards, which allow the child to call only numbers that parents have pre-registered.

The Kibot is currently available only in South Korea. Korea Telecom hopes its smartphone-like revenue model will be a hit with parents. Kibot requires an ongoing service plan, and the add-on games, songs and stories are all for purchase.

With AsiaD just a little over a month away, Walt Mossberg and I are adding even more speakers to the list, for what we hope will be an awesome event in Hong Kong.

Taking place from Oct. 19 to 21, the conference lineup is already impressive, with a mix of speakers from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, as well as Silicon Valley and more.

The previously announced speakers include: Alibaba’s Jack Ma; Google Android head Andy Rubin; Twitter inventor and product guru, as well as Square co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey; Nvidia founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang; Asus Chairman Jonney Shih; Sony president and second-in-command Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai; Google+ guru Bradley Horowitz; Hollywood big shot Peter Chernin; Huawei’s North American R&D head John Roese; Microsoft’s Windows Phone head Andy Lees; and a panel of start-up stars — Joyus’ Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, SurveyMonkey’s Dave Goldberg and Airbnb’s Brian Chesky.

Now, to add to the kitty:

Yahoo co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang, who will appear with the Internet giant’s Asia head Rose Tsou. For all of the noise around the company these days, Yahoo has a huge footprint in the region, maintains a big e-commerce business there and holds massive stakes in key firms, such as Yahoo Japan and China’s Alibaba. One of Yahoo’s first big investments came from Asian investor Masa Son, in fact, way back when.

Also on deck is LivingSocial’s CEO and co-founder Tim O’Shaughnessy, who will appear with Daniel Shin, the CEO and co-founder of South Korea’s Ticket Monster, which the daily deals site just bought as part of its aggressive move into Asia. Competing there with its U.S. rival Groupon, as well as a myriad of local social buying services, the market is a tough one.

Because of Samsung’s increasing importance as a global player in smartphones and tablets, we thought it was important to have Dr. Won-Pyo Hong. He heads global product strategy for Samsung’s mobile business, which has surged in the past year to make the Korean tech giant a leader in Android-based phones and tablets, and a significant challenger to Apple.

Also key in the mobile arena is Cher Wang, the chairwoman of three Taiwan companies, including HTC, the important and innovative handset and tablet maker which has been a key player in Android’s success story. But just this week she talked about the possibility of HTC buying an operating system, which would further strengthen its hand in the competitive market.

That’s it for now, but we will have more big names to come, as well as some pretty cool demos we will be putting onstage at AsiaD. So stay tuned.

Well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur Blake Krikorian has joined the board of Amazon, according to several sources close to the situation.

Krikorian — who is considered one of tech’s most savvy execs with regard to video and media distribution — co-founded Sling Media, the maker of the innovative video device Slingbox, in 2004.

(He demoed it at the second D: All Things Digital conference in 2004.)

It was sold in 2007 to EchoStar Communications for $380 million. After a short stint there, Krikorian left and has since been working on a variety of projects and making various investments.

Those include some promising start-ups, such as Lytro, Kno, Clipboard, Chirply and Tasty Labs. Another company he invested in, Clicker, was sold to CBS earlier this year.

He has also been a sought-after exec — sources said he had offers over the last year from Google and also Zynga.

Amazon certainly could use a director such as Krikorian as it seeks to enter the media distribution space more aggressively. It is about to launch a Kindle tablet, for example, and also is a major bidder for the Hulu premium video service.

It has been rumored that Amazon will soon offer an interactive television device, too.

Krikorian certainly has much experience in the arena. One of his first jobs was at the fabled General Magic, which pioneered the creation of one of the first interactive mobile products before the Internet.

He also started a mobile computing unit for Philips Electronics, as well as working in adjacent arenas at other firms.

The University of California at Los Angeles graduate has a degree in mechanical engineering.

Other directors on Amazon’s eight-person board, besides CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, include Kleiner Perkins’s Bing Gordon and Hewlett-Packard’s Jon Rubinstein.

Krikorian, who declined to comment, will be its ninth member.

I also have an email in to Amazon PR, and will update if I get a response.

UPDATE: No need, as here is the 8-K regulatory filing by Amazon announcing the appointment:

AMZN-20110908-8K-20110908

Google+ kingpin Bradley Horowitz has joined the board of Wordnik, which has also just raised another round of funding of $8 million.

It’s the first board seat ever for Horowitz, who has been a bit busy of late launching the search giant’s first successful social networking product.

Wordnik, which claims to have the word’s most complete map of the language you are currently reading, was founded by Erin McKean, the former editor in chief of the New Oxford American Dictionary.

On its Web site, Wordnik notes it has “billions of words, 965,125,300 example sentences, 6,690,770 unique words, 223,693 comments, 168,573 tags, 121,180 pronunciations, 61,144 favorites and 936,294 words in 30,038 lists created by 70,054 Wordniks.”

Its grand aim is to be the company that powers definitions and context for publishers of all kinds around the Web — from blogs to articles to even tweets — much as a mapping company might render navigational information.

The aim of owning the world’s largest word graph is ambitious and innovative, although the effort to create a viable business out of it all will be its next job. Wordnik now has 18 employees at its San Mateo, Calif., HQ.

McKean gave a demo of its Smartwords feature at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in 2010, after it had earlier raised $4.8 million from a number of venture firms and other angel investors.

Here’s an interview I did with McKean, Horowitz and Wordnik CEO Joe Hyrkin, who came on board in March, this weekend outside Buck’s in Woodside, as well as the video of the D8 demo of Wordnik:

And here is the official press release about the new funding and Horowitz appointment:

BRADLEY HOROWITZ NAMED TO WORDNIK BOARD;
WORDNIK RAISES $8 MILLION IN SERIES C FUNDING

Horowitz Accepts First Board Appointment; New and Existing Investors Support Wordnik as it Takes Innovative Word/Context Discovery Capability to the Marketplace

SAN MATEO, Calif. – July 25, 2011 – Wordnik, maker of the most innovative word navigation system, today announced that Bradley Horowitz, Vice President of Product Management for Google and longtime Silicon Valley executive, would join its board of directors. This is Horowitz’s first board appointment.

In addition, Wordnik has raised $8 million in its third round of venture capital funding, led by new investor Lucas Venture Group. Mohr Davidow Ventures, FLOODGATE, Baseline Ventures, Roger McNamee and additional private investors also participated in this round, which is earmarked to fund strategic growth as Wordnik builds out a range of new product and service offerings. This Series C investment brings Wordnik’s total funding to $12.8 million.

One of the most highly respected executives in the high-tech industry, Bradley Horowitz oversees product design for Google’s social and communications efforts including Gmail, Blogger, Picasa, and the recently launched Google+ Project. Before joining Google, Horowitz led Yahoo’s advanced development division, which developed new products such as Yahoo! Pipes, and drove the acquisition of products such as Flickr and MyBlogLog. Previously, he was Co-Founder and CTO of Virage, where he oversaw the technical direction of the company from its founding through its IPO and eventual acquisition by Autonomy.

“I’ve devoted my career to finding and working on innovative technologies,” said Horowitz. “In accepting my first Board appointment, I now have the opportunity to help guide Wordnik, a company that started with an incredibly innovative word navigation system, as it continues to offer deeper access to discovery and meaning across digital text. I know it will be a very rewarding experience.”

“Wordnik has changed the way consumers discover and interact with words by providing the most relevant context and meaning available anywhere,” said Joe Hyrkin, CEO of Wordnik. “With this investment from our longtime VC partners and strengthened by the addition of Bradley Horowitz to our board, we enter an exciting new phase for the company, building out our core technology and creating new leveraged offerings for a wide variety of content and commerce partners. Bradley brings us both great product insight and industry expertise, and will work with our founders, Erin McKean and Tony Tam, on future innovation.”

Wordnik was launched in 2008 with the mission to help people unlock the value of words and phrases and to discover what information is most personally meaningful. Wordnik’s technology provides additional access to content and context from a wide range of sources including the world’s most respected dictionaries, Wordnik users, and from unexpected places like Twitter and Flickr.

“Wordnik.com has offered consumers an easy way to gain more meaning and deeper context around words – kind of like a ‘GPS for words,’” said Jon Feiber of Mohr Davidow Ventures. “The next frontier for Wordnik is to bring the power of Wordnik to a wide range of publishers and other content providers by providing the most relevant discovery experience for their users. We think Wordnik will quickly establish itself as a valuable asset to its business partners, in addition to its continuing as an exceptional consumer site.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110725/googles-horowitz-joins-board-of-wordnik-as-online-dictionary-site-garners-8m-more-in-funding-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110702/qotd-that-said-damning-google-with-old-demo-praise/ http://allthingsd.com/20110702/qotd-that-said-damning-google-with-old-demo-praise/#comments Sat, 02 Jul 2011 19:06:54 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=94033

Google+ fills a void between public and private, it serves what is likely to be an older demo less interested in hooking up or hipstering out and more interested in the social utility it provides.

A VC Fred Wilson, in a later part of the same post on social networking companies.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110702/qotd-that-said-damning-google-with-old-demo-praise/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110702/fanhattan-the-ipad-navigator-the-full-d9-demo/ http://allthingsd.com/20110702/fanhattan-the-ipad-navigator-the-full-d9-demo/#comments Sat, 02 Jul 2011 17:06:10 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=94019

With the piles of entertainment content available on the Apple iPad, it makes sense that someone was going to try to make sense of it.

That would be Fanhattan, which is aiming to be an overall navigator for the popular tablet device, browsing across site such as Netflix, Hulu Plus and iTunes.

Here’s its demo at the ninth D: All Things Digital conference, in which we put it through its paces:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110702/fanhattan-the-ipad-navigator-the-full-d9-demo/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110618/how-to-charge-your-iphone-over-the-air-ubeams-d9-demo-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20110618/how-to-charge-your-iphone-over-the-air-ubeams-d9-demo-video/#comments Sat, 18 Jun 2011 21:09:32 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=88150 Technology gives us miraculous smartphones, tablets and other wondergadgets, but none of them will do a thing if they don’t have an electric charge to power them.

uBeam wants to tackle that problem in a novel way: It says it will let gadget owners power up their devices over the air, without ever plugging into an electric charger or any kind of docking station.

Co-founders Meredith Perry and Nora Dweck showed off the technology at the D9 conference earlier this month, and managed to impress Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.

Also impressive: The two women just got their undergraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110618/how-to-charge-your-iphone-over-the-air-ubeams-d9-demo-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110608/full-d9-videos-coming-soon-to-a-tech-web-site-near-you/ http://allthingsd.com/20110608/full-d9-videos-coming-soon-to-a-tech-web-site-near-you/#comments Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:06:12 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=84342

AllThingsD has gotten a lot of requests for the full interviews from the ninth D: All Things Digital conference, which took place last week.

It was indeed a crackerjack series of tech and media top players on stage, as well as a handful of amazing demos (more grilled cheese please!).

And, as promised, we’ll start posting them in their entirety, starting some time next week. We already posted one I did with Alibaba Group CEO and co-founder Jack Ma over the weekend, to get those interested in our upcoming AsiaD conference in October in Hong Kong familiar with our style.

Until we start posting the interviews — including the comedy stylings of Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, sayings from Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, Disney CEO Bob Iger trying to get me to go to his theme parks again and more — you can read some of the transcripts here in this special Wall Street Journal section from earlier this week.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110608/full-d9-videos-coming-soon-to-a-tech-web-site-near-you/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110601/tobii-maker-of-all-things-eye-tracking-demos-at-d9/ http://allthingsd.com/20110601/tobii-maker-of-all-things-eye-tracking-demos-at-d9/#comments Wed, 01 Jun 2011 19:13:57 +0000 Erik Silk http://allthingsd.com/?p=80324 As digital interfaces continue to evolve, so does the way that we interact with and control technology.

Tobii Technology already makes the eye-tracking tools used by device and software manufacturers to learn about how consumers use their products, and today they take the main stage at D9 to show off something new.

12:16 pm: Walt and Kara are checking out Tobii’s eye-tracking laptop. The technology is being used in many fields, from defense to education.

12:17 pm: Tobii General Manager Barbara Barclay is pointing out that not very much has actually changed in laptop interfaces recently, but eye-tracking will make things more efficient.

12:18 pm: Barclay is demonstrating the interface. She’s using her eyes to flip through menus, and her hands to do the actual selection.

12:18 pm: Previous eye-tracking technology required much longer gazes to get anything done, according to Barclay.

12:19 pm: “The whole idea is that it takes 20-40 milliseconds to look across the screen– why waste time with a mouse?”

12:20 pm: Eye-tracking is a useful supplement to what you’re doing, says Barclay. She’s now using the interface to interact with a map, zooming in on specific locations. “This is a very simple application here.”

12:21 pm: “You can take a Google map, and literally just drill down into the center with this.”

12:21 pm: Barclay’s next example is navigating an image gallery. She’s looking at a picture of Katy Perry, though she’s “not very trendy” anymore, so she switched to a photo of Miles Davis.

12:22 pm: This technology is useful to aspiring developers, because there will come a time when eye-tracking is cheap enough to go in any technology, according to Barclay.

12:23 pm: Walt wants a projection on when we’ll see this technology more widespread. It’s “a few years out,” says Barclay.

12:24 pm: Drowsiness detection for drivers, among other things, is one of many other applications for eye-tracking, according to Barclay. And now it’s time for lunch.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110601/tobii-maker-of-all-things-eye-tracking-demos-at-d9/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110601/the-melt-demo-at-d9-grilled-cheese-what-if-there-were-an-app-for-that/ http://allthingsd.com/20110601/the-melt-demo-at-d9-grilled-cheese-what-if-there-were-an-app-for-that/#comments Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:54:25 +0000 Drake Martinet http://allthingsd.com/?p=80329

What do you do when Cisco buys your consumer product company and abruptly closes it down?

If you are Jonathan Kaplan, creator of the popular (discontinued) Flip camera line, you make a lot of grilled cheese.

Kaplan has been building a secretive start-up called The Melt, which, near as we can tell, brings together smartphones, automation and comfort food.

We’ll let him explain further.

9:57 am: Jon Kaplan takes the stage and Kara starts right off—what happened to Flip?

9:57 am: Kaplan says that Flip was not a very big part of Cisco, and sometimes the baby goes out with the bathwater.

10:00 am: Kaplan says that even as they grew Flip in technology, the business of Cisco writ large was being eroded.

10:01 am: Kaplan answers the question–he did have a pretty good idea that Cisco was going to kill the Flip when he left, months prior.

10:02 am: Kaplan: “Flip was only contributing a billion dollars to Cisco’s top-line revenue.”

10:03 am: Kara asks again—why wasn’t Flip sold to anyone? Kara says she got calls, after the news broke of Flip’s cancellation, from people who would have wanted to buy.

10:04 am: Kaplan moves on, and is now talking up his new company–The Melt. It’s about grilled cheese. Really.

10:05 am: Kaplan: “We created a set of applications and mobile technology to allow you to order your Melt anywhere.”

10:06 am: Kaplan explains that you can order your Melt anywhere, any time, and then, when you are ready to eat, you walk into a Melt store, and get your order within a minute.

10:07 am: Kaplan says the whole D9 audience is going to get grilled cheese and be happy.

Now he moves on to the how.

10:08 am: Kaplan says the real innovation is a machine that makes the Melt. The real idea is to make the next generation of fast, casual restaurants.

10:09 am: Kaplan says restaurauteur Michael Mina is on the board of The Melt.

10:09 am: Kaplan picks his sandwich–The Walt, complete with “experienced” gruyere cheese–and scans his iPhone at the onstage laptop. He also orders The Kara.

10:11 am: About 30 seconds later, a waiter walks out on stage with the sandwiches and soup.

10:12 am: Kaplan says Sequoia Capital led investment, and that they raised enough to open 20 stores, at half a million to a million dollars each.

10:13 am: Kaplan on why Sequoia wants into the restaurant biz: Look at the market cap of Chipotle.

10:13 am: Kaplan says Melts will be $5 and combos will be $8.

10:13 am: Kaplan walks off–Walt and Kara invite the audience to grab a grilled cheese during the break.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110601/the-melt-demo-at-d9-grilled-cheese-what-if-there-were-an-app-for-that/feed/ 9 http://allthingsd.com/20110325/chris-shipley-opens-a-community-center-for-silicon-valley-geeks/ http://allthingsd.com/20110325/chris-shipley-opens-a-community-center-for-silicon-valley-geeks/#comments Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:00:52 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=42029

Last night in Redwood City, Chris Shipley–who used to run the famed Demo conference–had a ribbon-cutting for Studio G, a new office for her Guidewire Group aimed at the start-up community.

According to Guidewire: “Studio G is destined to become the high-energy hub of a global network of entrepreneurs and their mentors and partners working together to build the next great wave of high-value technology companies.”

At the opening party for Studio G, Shipley described the business accelerator as a drop-in and co-working space, a community center with a program series for early-stage companies.

There are lots of these kinds of places in Silicon Valley, but All Things Digital wishes Shipley well at this one.

Here’s a short video tour of the place and an interview with Shipley there:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110325/chris-shipley-opens-a-community-center-for-silicon-valley-geeks/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110323/liveblog-is-yahoo-still-in-search-apparently-its-answers-not-links/ http://allthingsd.com/20110323/liveblog-is-yahoo-still-in-search-apparently-its-answers-not-links/#comments Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:20:14 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=41913

At least once a day, BoomTown gets a call from investors, analysts or other troublemaking types–you know who you are!–wondering why Yahoo is still plugging away in search.

With a declining market share in the arena and a search technology outsourcing deal with Microsoft, it’s not a bad question to ask.

But Yahoo begs to differ, introducing a new feature called Yahoo Search Direct at a press event in San Francisco today.

I liveblogged it, natch.

10:14 am: I was late, as per usual, but walked in just as the session was getting started.

Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer Blake Irving–looking fetching in a purple cashmere sweater–was talking about search.

He immediately turned it over to Shashi Seth, Yahoo’s head search dude, who immediately said: “Answers not links.”

Huh?

Actually, the product is pretty nifty, showing a lightning-speed box that shows more robust search results, although not unlike offerings from both Microsoft’s Bing and, of course, Google Instant.

While both have different takes, it is essentially a direction in which search brings in maps, photos, and–of course–advertising.

You can see a movie times example here (click to make the image larger):

10:23 am: Wait, it was over before it started! Whoa. No more bells and whistles?

And I still was enjoying Irving’s sweater and I wanted to touch it, but that would have been wrong.*

Seth then took questions from the reporters.

“We believe the next generation of search…people are looking for answers,” he said.

Very true, but perhaps not so much from Yahoo anymore.

Still, Yahoo Search Direct is a laudable try and it’s also nice to see some innovation from the long-troubled company.

“We are the premier digital media company,” said Seth, parroting a new description of Yahoo that the Silicon Valley company is now using since its recent sales meeting in San Antonio.

I asked a question about whether there is a dedicated app for the tablet of Yahoo Direct Search, which sources had also told me was shown to the troops in Texas.

Yep! It will be ready later this year.

I also asked about how much all this search innovation was costing compared to return on the investment.

No answers from either Irving or Seth.

Someone then asked if there would be a lift in market share from the feature.

That’s the plan, Stan!

10:41 am: More questions about the comparisons to Google Instant. Of course, it’s the same type of thing, in the contest to win the King of Relevancy crown among consumers.

Google Instant. Yahoo Search Direct. Quora. My dentist, who seems to know everything. In case you didn’t know, dentists are very erudite.

Seth noted that even though Yahoo has only 15 categories covered in Yahoo Search Direct, there will be hundreds to come, as well as more features on top of this feature.

Personally, I want my search delivered to me on a silver tray by a man in a purple cashmere sweater.

Speaking of purple, the demo dude kept putting Elizabeth Taylor into the query box, which depressed me. Violet eyes now closed forever.

That was the real story today.

As if to round out the event, someone asked whether critics are right about whether Yahoo should still be in search.

“We’re in this for good,” said Irving firmly.

“Look, we are not focused on the past,” added Seth, who was not here in this very room at a similar Yahoo search event years ago, when similar promises were made about search going away from a page of blue links. “I don’t even know if you’d call it search in three years.”

What would you call it then?

“Find,” joked Irving. And later, “It’s actually ‘found.’”

Apparently, Yahoo was lost and now is found via Yahoo Search Direct.

*By the way, I touched the sweater, which was–in fact, Blake–periwinkle, which is a twee version of purple.

(You can see a video interview I did with Seth after the demo here.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110323/liveblog-is-yahoo-still-in-search-apparently-its-answers-not-links/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110322/meet-y-combinators-latest-class/ http://allthingsd.com/20110322/meet-y-combinators-latest-class/#comments Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:25:47 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=4563 Y Combinator on Tuesday showed off its latest class of start-ups at its Mountain View, CA, headquarters, offering an extra-large sampler pack of developer tools; social apps; lots of services for markets like real estate, doctors and parents; and, of course, a few of its trademark productivity apps.

With able assistance from my colleague Drake Martinet, here are the official bios and snapshots of the 43 presenting companies at Demo Day Winter 2011. But–frowny face–19 of the two-minute presentations were deemed “off the record,” so they’re not included.

Y Combinator had 80 percent more applications for this class than the one six months prior, said leader Paul Graham. In January, all the participating start-ups were offered $150,000 in convertible debt from the new Start Fund. Graham said one start-up did not present because it already had a Series A term sheet with a “no-shop” clause.

Be sure to check out the gallery at the bottom. And now, the newest companies of Y Combinator:

Comprehend Systems
http://www comprehendsystems.com
Enterprise cross-database reporting and visualization.

Convore
https://convore.com/
Real-time group conversations. Chat with public and private groups on the Web, or the iPhone app IRC for everyone.

HelloFax
http://www.hellofax.com
A Web-based replacement for your fax machine.

Tutorspree
http://www.tutorspree.com
Airbnb for tutoring.

Memorable quote: “[Tutorspree Co-founder] Josh [Abrams], in his spare time, is the largest wholesaler of diamonds on Amazon.”

Earbits Radio
http://www.earbits.com
Internet radio that serves as a marketing platform for music-related products. Labels, artists and live music promoters bid for airtime.

Shortcut description: “The Google AdWords for the music industry.”

TellFi
https://www.tellfi.com
The easiest way to set up a phone system for your business.

Beetailer
http://www.beetailer.com
Beetailer helps online retailers bring their businesses onto Facebook, importing their existing Web store, providing tools for promoting it and detailed performance statistics.

FitFu
http://www.fitfu.com/s/buy/yc
Motivating mobile fitness game to keep you active throughout the day.

You Got Listings
http://www.yougotlistings.com/
The real estate platform for all properties, brokers and transactions.

drchrono
https://drchrono.com
IPad EMR for doctors.

Custora
http://www.custora.com
Google brings customers in, we keep them coming back.

Taskforce
http://taskforceapp.com
Makes your inbox work as the to-do list you’re using it for.

Lanyrd
http://lanyrd.com
IMDB of conferences.

SwipeGood
https://swipegood.com
Round up credit or debit card transactions for charity.

GiftRocket
http://www.giftrocket.com
Gift cards to anywhere.

Noteleaf
http://noteleaf.com
Mobile meeting profiles pushed to your phone.

Grubwithus
http://www.grubwith.us
Meet new people at a family-style meal. For users it has the appeal of a dating site; for restaurants, the appeal of Groupon.

AppHarbor
http://appharbor.com
“Heroku for .NET”–a platform as a service for .NET developers and businesses.

MinoMonsters
http://minomonsters.com/
MinoMonsters is a social game where you collect and battle pet monsters on Facebook, the Web and the iPhone. We are Pokemon for 2011.

Curebit
http://www.cureblt.com
We productize the world’s most effective marketing–word of mouth. We take the incentivized referral model from Dropbox and make it easily available to everyone.

Moki.tv
http://moki.tv/
Personalized TV guide for streaming video online. Aggregates Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc., and adds algorithmic recommendations. The first stop for anyone who wants to watch something online.

Like.fm
http://like.fm
Like.fm takes all of your music and makes it social. We track everything you listen to and make it extremely easy to share with and discover from people.

Sendoid
http://sendoid.com
Private, massive file transfer via direct peer-to-peer, in-browser and on the desktop.

Five Stars
http://www.fivestarscard.com
A universal loyalty card for retail businesses. The card is the first link between cash registers, customers’ email and Facebook accounts.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110322/meet-y-combinators-latest-class/feed/ 12 http://allthingsd.com/20110307/asiad-set-for-october-in-hong-kong-heres-the-mossberg-swisher-guided-video-tour/ http://allthingsd.com/20110307/asiad-set-for-october-in-hong-kong-heres-the-mossberg-swisher-guided-video-tour/#comments Mon, 07 Mar 2011 17:59:21 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=41343

As BoomTown noted in January, the D: All Things Digital conference–after an initial foray into smaller, niche Dive events–has been mulling going global next.

So, my longtime partner in digital crimes, Walt Mossberg, and I–along with D biz honcho Lia Lorenzano–headed to China in January to visit some possible locations for our first AsiaD.

And now it’s official: We’ll be doing an event October 19 to 21 in Hong Kong.

While we are still working out all the location logistics, Walt and I are already hard at work with our Dow Jones partners there to bring the magical mystery tech tour that D has been here to the audience there.

It will be a pan-Asian event, bringing in speakers and demos from all over the region, as well as inviting some key U.S. digital players to be interviewed in what is clearly one of the most important markets going forward.

We’d welcome any feedback, of course, as well as suggestions.

And we’ll keep you updated to our progress too. As with big D, which is set to take place May 31 to June 2 (and has been long sold out), we’ll be posting reports and videos of AsiaD.

Until we can say more, here is a video of moments from the visit Walt and I had there, including a helicopter tour of the vertical city, delicious dumplings and, of course, a whole lot of tech:

And here is a funny doctored image Hong Kong’s tech blog, NeonPunch.com did in our honor:

Register for AsiaD »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110307/asiad-set-for-october-in-hong-kong-heres-the-mossberg-swisher-guided-video-tour/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20110228/apps-to-improve-personal-safety-device-security-among-mobile-launches-at-demo/ http://allthingsd.com/20110228/apps-to-improve-personal-safety-device-security-among-mobile-launches-at-demo/#comments Mon, 28 Feb 2011 18:19:41 +0000 Ina Fried http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/?p=4420 Not surprisingly, mobile technology is taking center stage today as the Demo conference kicks off in Palm Springs, Calif.

One of the more intriguing launches is a product called Divide from Enterproid that aims to separate Android devices into two segments–one filled with information and business apps managed by an employer and the other half free to house a customer’s personal information. Initially Divide will run only on Android models, though Enterproid also wants to bring the product to Apple iOS and Windows Phone 7 devices.

“We’ve witnessed a sea change in mobile technology in recent years, and yet enterprise mobility has lagged behind, as companies have been forced to make difficult choices between the security and control of older mobile platforms and the power and functionality of newer platforms like Android and iOS,” Enterproid CEO Andrew Toy said in a statement.

The business side of a Divide device has IT-friendly features like security, access control and enterprise email, messaging and browsing, while the personal side is open, allowing full access to apps and browsing. Although users can switch between the two profiles with the touch of a button, no data is allowed to move from one side to the other, ensuring the business side can’t be compromised, Enterproid said.

Research In Motion said earlier this year that it plans to offer BlackBerry Balance, a similar feature, on upcoming BlackBerry devices.

Another company presenting at Demo, Guardly, is also looking at how mobile can help with security. However, in its case, the security in question is the physical safety of its owner. The app allows people to simultaneously contact both emergency services and neighbors or relatives at the touch of a button.

Toronto-based Guardly said it hopes to have an iOS version available in Apple’s App Store by next month, with BlackBerry and Android versions planned later.

“Guardly is the first mobile personal safety service to give subscribers access to two safety networks at the same time,” said Guardly CEO Josh Sookman said in a statement “Our vision is to complement the existing 9-1-1 infrastructure and ensure that Guardly users are reached as soon as possible by their personal safety network and authorities in the event of an emergency.”

Both a free and premium service will be offered, Guardly said.

Other mobile launches include an updated version of the News360 app with iPad support, more news sources and greater integration with social networks as well as Orange’s On VoiceFeed, an improved iPhone voice mail app that Mobilized wrote about on Sunday.

EcoATM took the stage earlier today to talk about its kiosk for buying back used electronics, such as cell phones. The company noted that 500 million electronic devices are sold in the U.S., with only a small percentage being recycled, resulting in three million tons of e-waste going to landfills each month.

The company’s kiosk (see photo above) can identify a device, check how well it is working, value the device and offer the cash to consumers. A working iPhone 4, for example, could generate as much as $300. Regardless of how much is paid, EcoATM also promises to wipe customer information from the device. CoinStar is among the company’s backers.

Update, 10:50 a.m. PT: Just moments ago on the Demo stage, Enterproid was awarded the $150,000 Qprize from Qualcomm, as evidenced by the very non-mobile payment below.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110228/apps-to-improve-personal-safety-device-security-among-mobile-launches-at-demo/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110221/exclusive-kno-student-tablet-start-up-in-talks-to-sell-off-tablet-part-of-business/ http://allthingsd.com/20110221/exclusive-kno-student-tablet-start-up-in-talks-to-sell-off-tablet-part-of-business/#comments Mon, 21 Feb 2011 08:16:00 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=40897

Kno–the much-funded and high-profile Silicon Valley start-up aimed at making tablet computers focused at students–is considering selling off the entire hardware part of the business and is in talks with two major consumer electronics manufacturers to do so, according to sources close to the situation.

Sources said Kno execs have recently decided that the quicker-than-expected uptake in tablet production by a multitude of powerful device makers had made its efforts to package a seamless offering less critical.

Instead, the company will focus on its robust software and services to offer students on the Apple iPad, as well as upcoming tablets based on Google’s Android mobile operating system and others.

BoomTown could not determine which two companies Kno was in serious discussions with about unloading its hardware business, but the company has signed an NDA with one of them.

But, if a deal is struck, the move would be a dramatic shift for the company, which has yet to ship significant numbers of the student-focused touchscreen device as it has long touted.

In fact, Kno said in November that it would ship a $599 and $899 version of the tablet by the end of the year.

The lower price was for its single-screen device, while the clamshell double-screen version was more expensive.

And, although it has been reported no pre-orders were fulfilled, Kno did indeed ship several hundred of them, built by China’s Foxconn, before stopping doing so recently.

Many have been dubious about Kno’s ambitious hardware efforts.

That’s because marketing a new and complex product like the Kno takes a lot of effort and cash, especially since it is an increasingly competitive market for mobile and portable computing products that includes Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Amazon, Dell and many others.

Kno recently raised another $46 million in funding to add to a $10 million round, and sources said that the Santa Clara, Calif., company was considering going back out to raise even more.

Its current backers include prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

A Kno spokeswoman declined comment.

But sources said the shift to deliver textbook and other student-related delivery system would be a better path for all that investment money, since Kno has established a wide range of partnerships with colleges and universities.

In addition, Kno Co-founder Osman Rashid has a lot of experience in digital education market. He was also the co-founder of Chegg, the textbook rental business that is reportedly aiming for an IPO soon.

You can see Rashid here, along with the Kno tablet prototype in the full demo video that the company did last year at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference:

(Want to see it bigger? Click here.)

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