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All this talk about the new Kindle reminded me that I still have some questions about Amazon’s e-reader specifically, and ebooks generally. Why do people persist in comparing the Kindle to the iPad (something I first asked months ago); what is the relationship between hardback book sales and ebook sales (ditto); if e-readers keep getting more accessible, is the end of the paper book nigh? Questions like that.
In the hope of finally getting some answers, I hopped on to Skype with CrunchGear‘s Devin Coldewey and interviewed him until he begged for mercy. Video below.

Even if not everyone will admit it, everyone likes taking pictures of themselves. I suspect it’s the not-so-secret reason why users are addicted to DailyBooth — the service which asks you to takes pictures of yourself (or something you care about) to document your life. With that in mind, it’s almost as if the iPhone 4, with its front-facing camera, was built for such a service. And now the two can consummate that match made in heaven.
DailyBooth’s first iPhone app has just been approved by Apple and is now in the App Store. It’s pretty basic — but that’s all it needs to be. You load it up and take a picture of yourself. And the app is smart enough to load the front-facing camera by default (assuming you have the iPhone 4 — but it can work with any iPhone running iOS 4). Yeah, this is going to be huge for DailyBooth.
As you might expect, the app also offers you a stream of the pictures from all the people you follow on the service. From here you can picture comment or text comment with one click. You can also see all your replies.
The one caveat about the app is that you have to already have a DailyBooth account to use it. That’s not a huge deal, but it’s something they hope to fix soon with a future release. For now, simply head to DailyBooth’s website to sign up for an account, then sign-in with the app.
And do it soon, because everyone you know with an iPhone is probably going to be using this app shortly, I imagine. As we noted when we first covered the company a year ago, the DailyBooth community is very impressive. The picture I just published just a few minutes ago already has about 20 comments — and most of these users don’t actually follow me. It’s fun — and I think it’s exactly the type of app Apple had in mind for the iPhone 4′s front-facing camera.
You can find the DailyBooth app, called appropriately, DailyBoothApp, here in the App Store. It’s a free download.

With the debut of Groupon personalization, I have little doubt that the daily deal site will double the number of deals (and double its revenue run rate) in just a few months.
According to CEO Andrew Mason, the service is churning out 75,000 transactions per day. Through personalization, Groupon will be able to offer 20, 30 or more deals per city per day. Assuming the current growth rate in subscribers — in the last four months the site has more than doubled to 12 million registered users— 2x is likely a prudish estimate.
It’s hard to fault a company that is making money hand over fist; however, as a user, I do have one piece of advice: loosen that death grip on the daily deal mantra.
According to Mason, the personalization system will give a user one deal a day based on their preferences, their purchase history and their profile. Although there will be several, simultaneous deals in any given area, a user will only be able to access one main deal from his/her account. However, if the user finds a link to a different deal from a friend, a blog, or a daily deal aggregator, that link can be used by anyone. (In the early stage of the personalization program, Mason says, Groupon users may see multiple deals but eventually Groupon will turn that off.)
Thus, all the local deals are theoretically open to every subscriber but Groupon is playing air traffic controller in order to maximize the number of deals they can offer (aka cha-ching) and to ensure a nice distribution of users for their advertisers.  It’s easy understand Mason’s rationale here, at just one deal a day their hands were somewhat tied, unable to fully absorb the number of interested advertisers. In turn, Groupon’s limited inventory has directly benefited the “army of clones,” who have swooped in and picked up impatient retailers.
“We believe in the deal a day model, but we were running into a problem where the demand for merchants to be featured has been absolutely overwhelming,” Mason says. “We have something like 35,000 businesses lined up that want to be featured, 97% of the businesses that we feature want to be featured again, so the problem is only getting worse. And what it means is for every business we’re featuring, we have to turn away 7.” (See video above.)
Understandably, Groupon is trying to optimize the bottom line and enhance the consumer experience with personalized deals, but this structure also potentially creates a frustrating user experience. Under this system, a user knows that there could be 20, 30 deals floating around but s/he can only automatically access one. Thus, if a user doesn’t want their preselected deal of the day, she will have to scour the web and ping friends in a cyber goose chase. Of course, this search will be eased by the plethora of daily deal aggregators— but that doesn’t seem like an ideal solution for Groupon either. Why encourage users to jump off your website and spend more time on independent aggregators, where their wallets will be exposed to competitors’ deals.
From the launch of Groupon, Mason has adamantly defended the model of one deal a day, a structure that has obviously served his company well (and its army of clones) and catapulted Groupon to a billion-dollar-plus valuation. However, I believe the massive demand in the market indicates that there’s some flexibility in the business model. The data suggests that consumers can stomach several deals a day— maybe not hundreds— but certainly more than one.  From the vantage point of a user, I would like to see Groupon send just one personalized deal a day to my inbox because I think there is real value in that spotlight. However, on Groupon’s website, I also want the option to log-in and access all (or at least several) of my local deals in one simple repository, perhaps ranked according to my tastes and profile.
Groupon, consider this my 700-word comment card. However, regardless of how you tackle the challenge of personalization, I get the feeling you’ll probably do just fine.
Mason dropped by TechCrunch TV on Wednesday and we got a chance to discuss the new personalization campaign (above) and Groupon’s early days. In the second video (below), he discusses the key moment when Groupon kicked into second gear.

CrunchBase InformationAndrew MasonInformation provided by CrunchBase

Despite their clear commitment to the hardware version of the Kindle, Amazon continues to make the Kindle apps that run on the iPad and iPhone better. Today, version 2.2 of the app brings a full dictionary with it. This matches the functionality of Apple’s own iBooks app, but the Kindle implementation is even a little better.
Now in the Kindle app when you highlight a word, a definition will automatically appears at the bottom of the screen. And that’s not all — there you’ll also find links to further investigate the word on Google or Wikipedia. Though this dumps you out of the app and into the iPhone/iPad web browser, it’s a pretty nice feature.
The feature also includes a link for the “Full Definition” of the word. Clicking on this will take you to the new Oxford American Dictionary that is automatically downloaded with this 2.2 version of the app. This dictionary contains some 250,000 entries, Amazon says.
As I said, this dictionary functionality matches that of Apple’s own iBooks app. But those definitions are an extra click away (you highlight a word then select “Dictionary” which bring up the definition in a pop-up).
The latest iPad version of the Kindle app also allows you to search inside a book for the first time. This too matches iBooks functionality. (The in-book search for the iPhone has also been improved with 2.2.)
Other small improvements include better line spacing on the iPad version, and fast-app switching for iOS 4 devices.

At Google I/O in May, the search giant indicated that they were about to take their commitment to location to the next level. Sure, Latitude had been around for a while, but everyone knew that Google could do more in the space. The announcement of some new location APIs seemed to a big part of the solution. And now comes the fun part.
Today on their Geo blog, Google is announcing that they’re beginning to open the Places API for business. The first developers getting access? Those working on check-in services.
Here’s what Google has to say:
We are going to focus initially on check-in applications. These are the applications that we feel the API currently caters to well, and we are excited to work with developers building these applications to understand their requirements, and ensure that we are offering them the best possible experience.
So does this mean the end of Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, and all the rest? Well, no. All this means is that it should be a lot easier for startups to build the next versions of those types of services. Of course, if you listen to Foursquare talk about it, they’ll say they’re already moving on to bigger and better things beyond simply the check-in.
Google is pointing those who wish to get access to this API to fill out this application form found here. Again, the focus at first will be on check-in apps, but they promise to expand the API to other uses once they feel it is up to speed.
Just prior to I/O, Latitude manager Steve Lee hinted that some sort of check-in functionality was likely in the future for the service. At I/O, the Latitude API made it possible for others to build such functionality. But this new Places API will allow for location services built on top of Google’s data but independent of Latitude.
CrunchBase InformationGoogleInformation provided by CrunchBase

We’ve just received word from Google that they are not currently blocked in China and that a server issue was most likely the cause of their dashboard misread. One month ago, Google put up their watered-down engine to avoid being shut down completely in China.
From Google, in an email today:
Because of the way we measure accessibility in China, it’s possible that our machines could overestimate the level of blockage. That seems to be what happened last night when there was a relatively small blockage. It appears now that users in China are accessing our properties normally.
Please also note that the dashboard is not a real time tool.
Their email also confirms that there was a small amount of blockage last night, which is responsible for the false alarm.
Image: Bramus!
CrunchBase InformationGoogleInformation provided by CrunchBase

I honestly laid in bed last night thinking about the Chevy Volt’s $41k price tag. Seriously. When I got the press release shortly before it crossed the wire yesterday, the price seemed about right for a first-gen Voltec vehicle. The $350 lease program looked even better. I was already totally sold on the Volt after driving an early mule over a year ago and the price tag didn’t even bother me one bit. It’s not like I planned on buying one, but I could see where GM was coming from.
Then my post went up at 12:00 pm yesterday and quickly filled with commentors railing against the $41,000 price tag. That was followed by nearly every national news program claiming the Volt’s price invokes a bit of sticker shock. I thought, “Did these people really think the Volt was going to be the same price as a Malibu?” Apparently.
But then Rush Limbaugh opened-up on the Volt today and two things became clear. One, many people including Rush (and previously Letterman) do not fundamentally understand the Volt’s capabilities. I believe most consumers expected the Volt to be a mass-market vehicle and an instant hit in a sort of iPhone way. Yeah, that’s just not how the auto industry works.

Panasonic announced today that it will buy out two of its subsidiaries, Sanyo and Panasonic Electric Works, for $9.4 billion.
Sanyo is the largest lithium-ion rechargeable battery producer and 11th-largest solar cell producer in the world with a quickly-growing solar panel manufacturing arm according to company statements.
Panasonic Electric Works makes a wide range of electrical products including temperature, lighting and motion sensors and controls.
Last year, Panasonic acquired a 50.27% stake in Sanyo for $4.4 billion.
The pair of acquisitions should help the company best known for its Panasonic plasma TV, camera and other consumer electronics expand into energy technology.
Panasonic aims to become the “No. 1 green innovation company in the electronics industry” by 2018.
CrunchBase InformationPanasonicSanyoInformation provided by CrunchBase

According to the Mainland China service availability page it looks like Google Web Search, Google Images and Google News are down in China, again. In fact if you parse the chart it looks like just about the only thing still up is Gmail.
However reports on Twitter say other wise, as many users claim that the service is working fine. We also tested Google.com on Webpulse and received a big thumbs up in terms of availability.
Search was similarly blocked in China last January, when the search giant pulled out of the country reportedly over censorship. The service was reinstated earlier his month and it appeared that relationships between the two had been mended. According to Reuters, a Google spokesperson had no information as to whether the Chinese government or a third party responsible for the block, perhaps because there is isn’t one ?
Chad Catacchio over at The Next Web Posits that there was a server crash. Others in China back up his theory.
We have contacted Google for official comment and will keep you posted if we have updates.

Peixe Urbano means, in Portuguese, “Urban Fish”. That’s a fun fact.
Here are a few more: Peixe Urbano is a Rio-based Groupon clone that’s doing very nicely indeed by tailoring its service precisely to a Brazilian audience. The site offers 30 deals a week, across multiple cities. According to the company’s own numbers, they’re averaging a little over 1000 purchases per deal: 30,000 sales a week. Peixe Urbano takes 50% commission on every sale. The site’s popularity is growing fast amongst traders too: 300 companies a day apply to have their deals sold through Peixe Urbano.
Brazil is one of the more interesting emerging markets: the number of venture capital firms there is growing, as is the number of interesting tech startups emerging. It was for those reasons (and more) that Sarah chose to visit the country as part of the research for her forthcoming book on entrepreneurship in emerging markets. And it was for those reasons that we were keen to invite Peixe Urbano founder Julio Vasconcellos to be this week’s guest on Too Long; Didn’t Watch.
We asked Julio about the startup climate in Brazil and demanded that he respond to those who say the country is little more than an incubator for scammers and copycats.Video below.

CrunchBase InformationPeixe UrbanoInformation provided by CrunchBase

Last night, Amazon unveiled the latest edition of the Kindle, which sports a better screen, slimmer profile, and — most important — a relatively affordable $139 pricetag for a Wifi only version (the 3G version still goes for $189). To mark the occasion, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made an appearance on the Charlie Rose show, where he discussed the future of the E-book, and why there’s plenty of room for the Kindle in a world where tablet PCs like the iPad are on the rise. You can watch the full episode right here, and the show has graciously provided us with the clips and transcripts below.
The overarching theme of the conversation is that Bezos wants the Kindle to remain a device that’s dedicated to reading, especially long-form reading. Bezos explains that with the Kindle, Amazon isn’t looking to “create an experience” —  they want the author to create the experience. This, he believes, makes the Kindle a differentiated device from the iPad and slew of tablets that will be hitting the market by the end of the year. Because unlike other devices, he says, the Kindle’s lack of glare and other design choices help it disappear from the reader’s mind as they get wrapped up in a new book:
“I would say something though like we’re trying to get out of the way.  We’re not trying to create an experience.  We want the author to create the experience.  You know, if you’re going to read Nabokov or Hemmingway or we want us creating the experience for.  That’s not our job.  Our job is to provide the convenience.  That you can get books in 60 seconds, that you can carry your whole library with you so that you don’t get hand strain, so the device doesn’t get hot in your hands, so that it doesn’t cause eye strain, so that the battery life lasts a month, so you never get battery anxiety..
…
Now people say why don’t you add a touch screen?  Well, the reason we don’t want a touch screen is if we’re going down that decision path, we say, okay, a touch screen and the current technology for touch screens — it’s called capacitive touch — it’s a layer that goes on top of that display.
 It adds glare.  The first thing that you do when you add a touch display is that you add a little extra layer of glass or plastic and a little bit of glare.  So it’s very easy from an engineering point of view to add a touch screen but it’s not the right thing if you’re making no compromises and that’s our point of view on this.  We want a device that’s for uncompromised reading and guess what?  Our approach is working.”

Bezos claims that Amazon is excited about the iPad and other tablet computers, because they have robust web browsers and lead people to shop on Amazon.com more (Google’s Eric Schmidt has given similar responses when asked about Apple’s products).  Bezos also gives some insight as to why Amazon is so secretive about how many Kindle devices it’s sold, explaining that it would help competitors:
I’ll tell you why we are.  We are secretive about the number because we think it’s competitively useful.  There are other people who, if they’re going to start planning their manufacturing lines and their supply chains, it’s a helpful data point for them to know how many of these we’re selling.  When we just say millions, that’s not a good data point for them.
At one point in the interview, shown in the clip below, Rose asks Bezos to describe his reaction to the iPhone 4′s so-called Antennagate. Bezos initially attempts to swerve around the question, but Rose finally gets him to admit that he “found it a little surprising…. I think it could have been found in testing.” Bezos goes on to say that he doesn’t  believe it will harm Apple in the long term.

So is Bezos just spouting spin, or is the Kindle really going to be able to hold its own against the iPad and other tablets?  My hunch — and I know this will rub some technophiles the wrong way — is that Bezos is spot on. In my experience, reading on the Kindle beats the iPad hands down. This isn’t to say that reading on the iPad is unenjoyable (I do it on the bus all the time) but I find it harder to really get lost in a book for a few hours at a time when I’m using my iPad. I’ve previously written about the new types of interactive, hybrid media the iPad and its ilk are poised to deliver.  But there’s still plenty of room for good, old-fashioned novels.
CrunchBase InformationJeff BezosCharlie RoseInformation provided by CrunchBase

Just a couple hours ago, news broke of the $99 Copia Wave5 e-reader, or tablet, or whatever you want to call a 5″ LCD-based device focused on reading. That isn’t the extent of the lineup, however: Copia has two more LCD-based tablets coming out soon, as well as two E-ink-based readers with Kindle-esque designs.
As they’ve said since their CES debut, the draw is supposed to be their unique social platform, which allows a community of readers to exchange reviews, recommendations, and so on — and although it will start as an exclusive to Copia-branded devices, they’re trying to go OEM and make the Copia service the premier social layer for e-books.
Continue reading…