Daniel Brusilovsky is a writer for TechCrunch, while also working on events, conferences and business development. In February 2008, he also founded, and now serves as the CEO of Teens in Tech Networks, a network of sites helping teens publish and collaborate with their content online. You can find him on Twitter or his personal site.
by Daniel Brusilovsky on November 25, 2009

SupportSpace, a company that provides on-demand remote tech support solutions, announced today that it has raised $10 million in funding. The round was led by Emergence Capital Partners and also included previous investors BRM Group and Gemini Israel. SupportSpace has raised $24.25M in total funding so far. Kevin Spain of Emergence Capital Partners has also taken a board seat as part of the funding.

SupportSpace, founded in 2006, aims to help expand their remote tech service by offering a SaaS (software as a service) platform for the management, marketing and delivery of remote services and a network of virtual experts.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on November 17, 2009

If you’re on the hunt for a new job, check out our CrunchBoard. We’ve added nearly 50 new jobs from leading internet businesses in the last two weeks, including two jobs here at TechCrunch. Here’s a quick sample:

by Daniel Brusilovsky on November 12, 2009

Wordpress is one of the web’s most popular blogging platforms, with over 8.5 million downloads and 7,200 plugins. But with all those plugins, finding the high quality ones can be a challenge. That’s where WP Plugins comes in. Launching today, WP Plugins hopes to be the App Store for WordPress plugins.

WordPress plugin developers can upload their premium plugins to WP Plugins and sell them to users. Developers have the choice to sell their plugins at whatever price they choose, and can two choose from two pricing models: they can offer their plugin as-is (buyers will have a 7 day window to download it) or they can offer it as a subscription, which includes upgrades and personal support from the plugin’s developer for as long as you continue the subscription. Of course, the subscription will cost more in most cases. WP Plugins then takes 10% of each plugin sale.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on November 11, 2009

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone other than my grandparents who use use print calendars any more. Launching today, Personera, hopes to bring print calendars into the Web Age by combining the old with the new. The company is offering the world’s first print calendar that is personalized with the birthdays of your Facebook friends, upcoming events, and photos.

Personera’s service allows people to use their Facebook accounts to log in through Facebook Connect, and make all of their social network content instantly available for product personalization. Users are able to choose a theme, automatically add their friends birthdays and events each day, and drag and drop their favorite photos into the monthly layouts.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on November 6, 2009

textPlus, a text messaging app that’s powered by GOGII, has just hit the App Store. textPlus lets any iPhone or iPod Touch send free text messages to any cell number by using in-app advertising to cover its costs. There is no limit on how many text messages you can send per month, it’s just a matter of getting WiFi, 3G or an Edge connection. GOGII was one of the first companies that was funded by iFund, the partnership between venture capital firm KPCB and Apple, which was announced at the Apple SDK roadmap event.

With version 2.0 of textPlus, GOGII is announcing the availability of textPlus usernames, which can effectively serve as a stand-in for a phone number, which is great for iPod Touch users. Your friends can send standard text messages to you from any phone, simply by sending a text to the shortcode 60611 that leads off with your username followed the rest of their message (so a text to me would look like “DanielBru Hi are you coming to the movie tonight?”).

by Daniel Brusilovsky on November 5, 2009

Tonight at a Ning’s developer event in Palo Alto, newly appointed COO Jason Rosenthal announced that Ning has reached 37 million registered users, as well as 1.6 million Ning networks created. The company also says that it grows another million users every couple weeks. Out of the 1.6 million Ning networks, 20% of the active networks are running at least one Ning application — reaching more then 9 million people.

According to Ning, on average, each network installs more then two Ning applications. Since the Ning application directory launched, there have been over 100 applications created and submitted.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on November 2, 2009

If you’re on the hunt for a new job, check out our CrunchBoard. We’ve added nearly 50 new jobs from leading internet businesses in the last two weeks, including two jobs here at TechCrunch. Here’s a quick sample:

by Daniel Brusilovsky on November 2, 2009

User generated content has been the rage for quite some time now, but there have been few sites that nail the process of getting users to create quality content on the web. Launching today is TechnoBuffalo, a new site that is aiming to bring user generated content to a new level of sophistication. TechnoBuffalo features original tech content, a social network, and tools to build and monetize your own tech blog.

TechnoBuffalo is built on a customized version of WordPress Multi-User. TechnoBuffalo gives users the option to create their own blog with a custom URL (TechnoBuffalo.com/username) complete with full WordPress content management. Users can add writers, and customize the layout of their tech blogs. Users then have the option to manage their own advertising, or have TechnoBuffalo supply advertising on the site.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on November 1, 2009

The OWLE team is back at it again, and they never fail to impress. Just a week ago, they announced the availability of the OWLE Bubo, their first product, which turns the iPhone into formidable video camera. Now, Harold Smith and Graham Mcbain have gone a step further. They’ve figured out how to access the 30 pin connector, the connector on the bottom of your iPhone that you use to charge it with, for more then just charging. What Harold and Graham have come up with today, could make video on the iPhone near broadcast-quality.

The idea of the OWLE Bubo is to take your camcorder accessories and let you use them with your iPhone to optimize the iPhone’s video experience. OWLE today posted a video to its YouTube channel (embedded above), explaining what they have achieved. They show a hack of the iPhone that allows it to use audio and video equipment that professionals use for movies.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on November 1, 2009

If you are a comics fan, you are going to like this (unless you’re a print purist). Panelfly is partnering with Marvel Comics, one of the largest comic book companies in the world, to bring all your comic book fantasies to the iPhone. Marvel’s line up of comics is quite amazing — the original Spider-Man series, X-Men, X23, Age Apocalypse, and Iron Man. These titles are now being offered in the Panelfly iPhone application, going back to the very first issues. [iTunes Link]

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 31, 2009

Startups like Bump Technologies, which recently got some funding, and My Name is E are trying to kill the paper business card, but even in 2009, many of us, including myself, still use business cards. The biggest hassle with business cards is getting the contact information into your address book as fast as possible — that’s where Business Card Reader [iTunes link] for the iPhone and iPod touch comes in.

Business Card Reader scans and “reads” the picture using ABBYY’s text recognition technology and enters the data into the iPhone or iPod touch address book. Basically, you open the application, and choose either to take a new picture of a business card, or if you’ve already taken a picture, you can upload that as well. After you take a picture, or upload a picture, the application scans the business card, and after about 15 seconds, you get the address book field to edit the scanned information if there are errors. Once that’s all done, it adds the new contact into your address book. It’s really that easy.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 26, 2009

With the iPhone 3GS, the possibilities are endless. In July 2009, Harold Smith and Graham Mcbain took the iPhone 3GS, and made the first prototype of the OWLE Bubo, which we covered on CrunchGear. Now, just four months later, the OWLE Bubo is ready to ship to the public. OWLE, which stands for Optical Widgets for Life Enhancement, is aiming to making mobile video much easier, by taking the parts you use on your camcorder, and enabling you to use them on the iPhone.

The Bubo comes standard with a hotshoe mount on top for LED lights, four tripod mounts and standard 37mm lens threading so that you can put your own lenses on it, in addition to the lens that the Bubo comes with.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 24, 2009

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has taken the stage at Startup School this afternoon to talk about company culture and delivering happiness. Hsieh started out by talking about his beginnings at LinkExchange, a company he sold to Microsoft in 1998. The reason LinkExhange sold to Microsoft was because of the company culture, according to Hsieh. After LinkExhange, Hsieh was an investor in Zappos, and two months after the founding of Zappos, Hsieh came in as the CEO. Zappos started in 1999 with no sales, and last year in 2008, had over $1 billion in gross sales. Hsieh mentioned that the biggest source of revenue for Zappos is word of mouth, as well as repeat sales.

Zappos is best known for their customer service. When Zappos started out, there was no company culture. In 2003, Zappos decided that they needed to differentiate themselves from all the other companies, and chose customer service. Zappos now follows the 3 C’s; Clothing, Customer Server and Culture.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 24, 2009

FriendFeed Co-Founder, Paul Buchheit has taken the stage at Startup School at UC Berkeley. Buchheit is talking about what he’s learned so far as an entrepreneur, from creating Gmail to founding FriendFeed. Buchheit made some interesting points from his career at Intel, Google, FriendFeed and now Facebook. He’s also winging his presentation to see how it goes (and he’s doing a good job at it).

Buchheit talked about his past at Google, where he is of course known as being the creator of Gmail, as well as Intel. At Intel, Buchheit learned that he didn’t enjoy working at large companies. People often ask what’s the formula to startup success. Buchheit answered with that Google had a formula for making successful products that everyone had to follow.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 24, 2009

Jason Fried of 37Signals has taken the stage at Y-Combinator’s Startup School this morning at UC Berkeley. I’m taking my notes below on his talk.

Fried has started off by talking about bootstrapping startups. Startups that bootstrap are more “money hungry” then companies that are funded. If you are a funded company, you generally have money to spend that investors encourage you to spend as well. If you’re a bootstrapped company, you’re hungry to make money.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 23, 2009

If you’re on the hunt for a new job, check out our CrunchBoard. We’ve added nearly 50 new jobs from leading internet businesses in the last two weeks, including two jobs here at TechCrunch. Here’s a quick sample:

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 21, 2009

Appsfire, the service for sharing iPhone Apps with anyone, has announced that they are doing a contest called App Star Awards, in partnership with SFR/AppliStore and LeWeb.

The idea is very simple. Anyone that has a legit iPhone application that doesn’t require jailbreaking, can submit a 30 second video to the contest, even if the app is not totally finished. 30 clips will be preselected, 10 in each category — games, entertainment, utility and other. Those clips will be reviewed and rated by a jury (full list below). Three winners, one in each category, will get a check of $1,500 and a free ad campaign with participating partners.

The results will be announced on stage at LeWeb in Paris on December 9th. TechCrunch Europe is organizing the startup competition in partnership with LeWeb.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 20, 2009

Palaran, a stealth-mode advertising startup based in Palo Alto, has raised $1 million Series A from True Ventures, we’ve learned. True Venture’s Jon Callaghan has taken a board seat along with Om Malik as a board observer. Palaran’s undisclosed round of angel funding came from Esther Dyson, Delicious founder Joshua Schachter and Vish Makhijani, among others.

Palaran was founded in July and has been in stealth mode until now, but we’ve learned that the startup has something to do with web based advertising.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 18, 2009

Adobe is a big company, with a lots of products, but one of its strongest brands is Flash. So when Adobe contacted Envato, an Australian startup that operates a set of popular marketplaces for digital creative goods to change one of their marketplaces names, Envato had no choice. Envato operates a property called FlashDen, which sells Adobe Flash and Flex files like preloaders, galleries, site templates and utilities. Files are created and sold by a huge community of authors from all over the world.

Last week Adobe contacted Envato and asked Envato to change the name and URL of FlashDen so that it would no longer contain the term ‘Flash’, which is a registered trademark of Adobe. With little time, Envato changed the name from FlashDen to ActiveDen.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 18, 2009

The App Store is crowded with tens of thousands of applications, many which do the exact same thing. Just do a quick search on the App Store for Twitter, and you’ll find over 170 applications related to Twitter. But how do you figure out which Twitter application is best? That’s where App of the Day comes in. App of the Day highlights a different application every day for iPhone or iPod Touch users looking to discover high quality applications in the App Store.

Founded by Jordan Satok, App of the Day features community-nominated applications that get featured on the home page each day. Users are then able to comment on the application, and provide feedback for potential buyers.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 15, 2009

If you’re on the hunt for a new job, check out our CrunchBoard. We’ve added nearly 50 new jobs from leading internet businesses in the last two weeks, including two jobs here at TechCrunch. Here’s a quick sample:

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 14, 2009

I spend a good amount of time on Twitter, and a lot of links go to websites, videos, and pictures. One of the leading services that lets Twitter users upload pictures is TwitPic. TwitPic was one of the very first companies to let Twitter users enable photo sharing, and due to the amount of traffic and traction TwitPic was getting, their servers couldn’t handle the load. From that point, many other services have come out, and it looks like yFrog is now leading the pack.

Hosting can be expensive — I know. But do you really have to take it this far, TwitPic? Upon looking at TechCrunch Developer Andy Brett’s photo hosted on TwitPic of Michael’s dog, Laguna, I was unpleasantly surprised with a huge overlay ad of Second Life. The whole point of Twitpic is to see pictures posted by people you (kinda) know. Blocking those pictures with a gigantic overlay ad showing avatars of people you don’t know is counterproductive.

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 12, 2009

Woopra, the impressive live tracking and analytics service, today announced that they are opening their doors for all new signups. Until today, new users had to be approved if they didn’t have an invite code.

Sure, there are a lot of analytics alternatives, so what makes Woopra so special? Real Time. It’s the big trend this year, and Woopra certainly delivers. Woopra is similar to Google Analytics but provides real time stats and a number of additional features, such as the ability to chat real time with visitors to the site. (See also, Chartbeat and our coverage).

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 10, 2009

Kids these days. It seems like they’re writing HTML before they learn how to talk. And a lot of them are starting companies before they graduate from high school. Here’s a list of some of our favorite teen entrepreneurs. And please keep in mind that there are lots of startups we’ve yet to hear about. So if you are a young entrepreneur, make sure to leave a comment below and add your bio and startup information to CrunchBase.

The list:

by Daniel Brusilovsky on October 8, 2009

If you’re on the hunt for a new job, check out our CrunchBoard. We’ve added nearly 50 new jobs from leading internet businesses in the last two weeks. Here’s a quick sample:

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