Yelp and its review service have once again come under fire, this time over stories where business owners claim that reviews are “too self-centered and not trustworthy” and that it hides reviews. It looks like the company has had enough and is firing back at its critics, saying that the claims are not, and never has been, true. In a blog post, Yelp’s Vice President of Communications & Public Affair Vince Sollitto, offered up what he says is evidence that contradicts the claims reported to the media. To be clear, the allegations that he hopes to debunk involve some believing that Yelp “manipulates reviews and ratings to reward advertisers or punish non-advertisers.” Sollitto cites a Harvard Business School study as evidence that supports Yelp’s belief that it doesn’t penalize non-advertisers. Based on that specific study, it shows that the company doesn’t favor advertisers, at least by selective filtering. In a Los Angeles Times article, journalist Sandy Banks reports that this is the complete opposite case. The story cites a local tutoring firm that received a one-star rating from a single complaint, but allegedly the positive reviews weren’t accounted for. The firm’s owner said that he was approached by Yelp to advertise, but business declined to avoid drawing attention to its one-star rating: The salesperson claimed she couldn’t do anything directly, but would let the relevant department know. Suddenly, the negative review was gone and some positive reviews got through. It’s near difficult, or even impossible for us to discern whether a particular rating was influenced through that interaction — anything else is pure supposition. But Yelp believes that it has further proof to back up its defense, coming from the legal system. Sollitto cites a 2011 decision that dismissed a class action lawsuit brought up by unhappy business owners. In that instance, Yelp faced the extortion claims over its advertising practices and ratings. In his last point, Sollitto says that Yelp’s position is on solid footing thanks to a Google search — yes, you’ve read that correctly. Quite candidly, he writes: Want to see if businesses that advertise on Yelp really do get “special treatment?” Feel free to do your own version of a simple Google test like this [site:yelp.com/biz “Yelp sponsor” AND “rude staff”] by inserting your own negative phrases in the last set of quotation marks. The words “Yelp Sponsor” only appear on pages of advertisers, which begs the question: if these Yelp advertisers get a special “Delete” button for negative reviews, why in the world aren’t they using it? (Hint: because it doesn’t exist.) Nor is there any rational incentive for a Yelp sales team member to jeopardize his or her career by pitching a product that can’t be delivered because it doesn’t exist. Sollitto says that people believe that Yelp is doing something nefarious because it uses an automated software service to protect users from businesses trying to “game the system”. He acknowledges that only a small minority of companies try to write or buy favorable reviews, but anti-gaming measures are still required. However, he admits that out of the more than 39 million reviews Yelp receives, some are perfectly legitimate and do get caught up in the filter. While not a perfect system, Sollitto believes that it’s an acceptable price to pay to prevent the service from becoming a place with dishonest reviews and ratings. Photo credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
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Square has lost two executives in a move that sees their roles consolidated under a single individual. As reported by All Things D, and confirmed by the company, Vice President of Partnerships Alex Petrov and Vice President of International Alyssa Cutright have left the company, seeing their jobs move to Francoise Brougher, Square’s Business Lead. What makes the management changes noteworthy is that Petrov hadn’t even stepped foot into Square’s office — he was one of the newest hires to help the mobile payment processing company establish partnerships with merchants and retailers. In Cutright’s case, she was the one that was responsible for Square’s expansion into Canada, its first international country. Her departure actually happened in March, more than a month before Brougher started her role. With the consolidation of power around Brougher, who oversees partnerships and international affairs, no word yet on whether the company’s third executive hire, former Deputy US Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis, will be affected.
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Clear, a simple and incredibly beautiful productivity app for iOS and Mac OS X, has been updated today with the ability to send to-do lists to another user by email. When TNW’s Matthew Panzarino first looked at Clear on the iPhone back in February last year, he gave it a pretty glowing review. “There are apps that make you re-think the way that you’ve been using apps altogether, breaking the mold and re-forming it with just a few minutes of use,” he said. “Clear is that kind of app.” It’s a straight-forward, if relatively limited list app for managing your workflow and getting things done. It’s separated into three levels – a main menu, list view and item view – where users can create tasks freely and dismiss them with a single swipe. That’s basically all there is to it. A bright color gradient conveys the priority of each item and a handful of intuitive gestures can be used to create, dismiss or rearrange them at anytime. The development team then launched Clear for Mac in November, bringing over the same polished design with an entirely new control method for the mouse or touchpad. Both apps were also updated with iCloud integration, adding some basic cross-device sharing functionality. Today’s update takes that feature one step further, however, by giving other Clear users access to your lists. Just shake the iPhone and hit the ‘Email List’ option at the bottom of the screen. Clear then packages a file that can be opened up through both the mobile and desktop version of the app, retaining all of the items and the user’s ordering. If the recipient isn’t using Clear, it’s not a problem either. The list is shown as a standard image embedded in the email, allowing anyone to take a quick glance and take action on the relevant items. Emailing a list from the desktop version of the Clear app works in much the same way. Head to the Actions menu and hit the Email List option to send your agenda into someone else’s inbox. Clear hasn’t changed an awful lot since its conception, but that’s okay. It’s charm and success can be attributed to its sheer simplicity, removing much of the noise associated with complex productivity and note-taking apps. For that alone, it still deserves your attention. ➤ Clear | App Store | Mac App Store Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service.
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Google on Wednesday announced it is deprecating almost all download options for Project Hosting on Google Code. The company is blaming “increasing misuse” for the move. This is not a complete deprecation, and Google has a timeline that is worth laying out: As of May 22, 2013 (today), existing projects that do not have any downloads and all new projects have lost the ability to create downloads. On January 15, 2014, existing projects with downloads will lose the ability to create new downloads. All existing downloads in existing projects will continue to be accessible for the foreseeable future. You might be wondering what misuse exactly forced Google to make this move. The company wouldn’t say anything beyond that downloads “have become a source of abuse with a significant increase in incidents recently” and that it has a “desire to keep our community safe and secure.” It’s not clear if this download feature was being used to spread pornography, pirated content, malware, or some other type of content Google deems abusive. Either way, the company apparently decided it would rather kill the feature than continue to fight the abusers. This is rather unfortunate as many projects use public downloads to host and distribute files, whether for open source purposes or for personal distribution. So what happens to those that need to periodically create new downloads? Google unsurprisingly recommends switching to Google Drive. In fact, Google has set up a FAQ for just this purpose. Here are the instructions: Create a new Google Drive account for your project’s downloads. Create a folder for your project’s downloads. Choose a descriptive name for this folder such as “Downloads for project-name.” Share this folder publicly on the Web by entering their email addresses in the “Add people” text box and selecting the “Can edit” option. Upload the files in your project’s downloads to this folder on Google Drive. Inform your users that downloads have been moved to Google Drive and give them the link to the folder you created in step two above. Consider adding a link to the folder (created in step two above) under the External links section in the left navigation area on your Project Home -> Summary page. You can create the link through the Links section on the Administer->Project Summary page. This is hardly a good solution, especially for those who want to offer their open source projects for download by the public. Unfortunately, Google this year has been on a rampage killing services and features that it considers to be overlapping. See also – Google will officially retire its Checkout service on November 20, urges US merchants to consider Google Wallet and Google to shut down Calendar features, Google Sync, Google Calendar Sync, Issue Tracker Data API, and Punchd Top Image Credit: Kimihiro Hoshino / Getty Images
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Earlier Today, Twitter announced its Lead Generation product, making it easy for anyone to post offers to Twitter and have people claim them without having to leave Twitter.com. Shortly after, a job ad posted to Twitter, with the ability to apply for the position without leaving Twitter.com was brought to our attention. We believe it’s the first job listing to allows candidates to apply for the role without having to venture anywhere but the tweet page itself. We’ve attempted to get absolute confirmation from Twitter but the company’s response was “this isn’t something we can help you with.” Given the fact that Twitter’s Lead Generation features only launched a few hours ago, I think it’s fair to say this is the first. Check out a screenshot of the job posting below and the link to it here. We woud have embedded the tweet but it seems the lead generation section isn’t a part of embedded tweets just yet. Note: clicking “find out more” will send your email address to Demonware, the company hiring, and Zartis,  the recruitment software company behind the listing itself (Disclosure: Zartis is the company behind our TNW Job Board). Expect to see many many more of these. And as more appear, expect job hunters to include links to their CV in their Twitter profile, as well as more information about their skills, interests and passions. Update: Zartis CEO John Dennehy has reported back to us to say “”I can tell you without any doubt: we’ve got a better response to the Twitter ad tonight than anything we’ve ever seen.” Given the fact that this is something of a novelty, it’s hardly surprising. But a sign of its potential as a recruitment platform? Perhaps. Image Credit / ThinkStock
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Docstoc, an online resource for starting and running a business, today launched a new service called ExpertCircle. With it, small and medium-sized businesses can get expert reviews about products and vendors across a host of different industries, all vetted by peer professionals. Originally geared towards being a document-sharing service, Docstoc has slowly been moving beyond simply providing files to companies to a one-stop shop for anyone looking to create, manage, and wind down their business, anywhere in the United States. In January, the company released License 123, a database service that helps businesses find and file licenses and permits with their local government. License 123 has gone on to partner with multiple city governments to create a centralized spot where companies can begin obtaining the right permits specifically for that area. San Francisco has become the most recent integration. It has also partnered with the city of Los Angeles. With ExpertCircle, Docstoc’s 30 million members will be able to take advantage of a service the company says will help surface the best products and vendors easily. It will show entrepreneurs what their competitors are using and what is recommended. What’s more, the service is categorized by both subject areas like accounting, human resources, and real estate, and by industry, such as retail, restaurants, and health care. Utilizing Yelp-like game mechanics, ExpertCircle is hoping that business owners will find peer reviews helpful. Often companies are willing to help one another and it’s no doubt that starting a business can be incredibly difficult. What service should you use to build a website? Is this cleaning crew good in a restaurant? What accounting software is commonly used in the retail space? These are just some questions entrepreneurs might have — ExpertCircle believes it can help answer them. To begin, users will need to create a profile on ExpertCircle. It’s intended to help provide “ongoing recommendations” of the best products and vendors, something like “You might be interested in this”. Just like with LinkedIn, users can endorse someone or a product if they had a great experience or rate a product they’ve used. Jason Nazar, Docstoc’s founder and CEO, says that with millions of businesses using his company each month, they have been telling him that they need help finding the best products to help achieve their goals: Most small business owners rely on word of mouth for business advice; with ExpertCircle we’re incorporating the ability for those same professionals to share their personal endorsements on a platform accessible by all business owners, so that they can, too, easily find the best products and vendors that are reviewed by their professional peers and based on their given needs. The same way that consumers turn to Yelp and Angie’s List for reviews, ExpertCircle is a free platform for business owners, entrepreneurs and operators to get the most reliable recommendations on business products that their peers recommend and use. ➤ ExpertCircle Photo credit: Thinkstock
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Rdio on Wednesday announced it has updated its native Android and iOS apps with user interface changes and new features. You can download the latest versions now directly from Apple’s App Store and Google Play. First and foremost, the new “Find People” feature (available on the side navigation) gives you a curated list of recommended friends and their music taste, based on your connected Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as hand-picked artists and influencers. If you use Rdio for music discovery – this is definitely for you. Next up are the new label Pages. Just like on Rdio’s Web and desktop apps, you can now search for a record label and find its top albums and artists. Last but not least, Rdio has updated the side navigation panel in its app. It now shows blurred background and a cleaner interface, which Rdio says makes it easier “to access your profile, sort through playlists, and more.” Rdio says these new apps unify the service’s experience regardless of platform, thanks to various user interface improvements and new features. In fact, the Rdio for Android and Rdio for iOS changelogs are identical: Find People. The new feature makes following friends and artists easier than ever. Labels. Search for a record label to find its top albums and artists. Various minor bug fixes and UI improvements, including a new, cleaner look for sliding side navigation. Rdio is facing increased competition from the likes of Spotify and most recently Google. The company’s latest attempt to differentiate itself has been a video service by the clever name of Vdio. See also – Rdio launches Vdio social movie and TV service with an iPad app coming later today and $25 credit for Rdio subscribers and Rdio launches free music streaming internationally, unlimited listening for 6 months in 15 countries Top Image Credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service.
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Tripping has carved a sizable niche for itself in the online accommodation-booking space, and now offers more than 850,000 rentals in 36,000 cities around the world. Founded in 2010 by veterans from Expedia, Travelzoo and StubHub, Tripping has evolved as an online travel site and is now what you’d call a MetaSearch engine, or an aggregator. Indeed, it trawls the likes of HomeAway, Wimdu and Flipkey to pull in listings and compare by price, reviews, ratings and location. So, if one property is listed for a cheaper price on one platform over another (which does happen), Tripping will tell you. You could call it a Kayak for home rentals and, indeed, many have. Instant karma Now, Tripping is integrating ZenRentals vacation rental software for its new Instabook platform, letting property-owners list directly on Tripping, and guests book instantly without having to wait for confirmation. Ultimately, it’s designed to narrow the gap between online hotel and private vacation rentals. ZenRentals originally specialized in hotel booking software, but it seems they were inundated with requests by property owners and managers asking if they could tweak the software for vacation rentals. This is what they did. And result of this ‘tweaking’ has enabled Tripping to spread its proverbial wings. While the likes of Airbnb is synonymous with this type of booking, founder and CEO Jen O’Neal says that Tripping is actually instant, with property managers contractually obliged to give any booking made through Tripping priority. Indeed, with Airbnb you could be waiting up to 24 hours to get a response from the owner, only to discover that they’ve already listed it on another site and, well, it’s not available. Also, another key differentiator here relates to curation – Tripping manually approves properties prior to listing, to ensure everything is above board. The one obvious downside to this, however, is that it will take time for Tripping to gain a sufficient number of Instabook-enabled properties. But given this is an add-on service for users, any search that is carried out will still throw up all the usual alternatives from the likes of HomeAway. An Instabook rental can be clearly identified by the label emblazoned across the main photo as you can see here. At launch, Tripping will only host a handful of Instabook properties, however 700 hosts are signed up who have thousands of properties between them. Plus, ZenRentals will be distributing its own properties on Tripping, so there should be thousands available shortly. It’s also worth noting it will only be available in private beta for select hosts in the US, but it will be rolling out further afield in the next few months. So this is still very much a work-in-progress from a content and availability perspective. “The vacation rentals industry is years behind hotels online, so we wanted to find a way we could work together and bridge that gap,” says O’Neal. “We wanted to make vacation rentals more like hotels from a booking perspective. So by using existing software, and integrating it into Tripping, anyone could make a vacation rental instantly.” In addition, Tripping is also launching a guest verification service, which is essentially a safety check that taps national and international crime and fraud databases to verify would-be guests are of a sound disposition. We’re told it takes seconds to carry out during the booking process. So, Tripping is trying to make the short-term property booking process instant and seamless, which could see it appeal to the lucrative last-minute market. Though it will obviously need to ramp up its catalogue of properties to gain a reputation for this over its contemporaries. And this is something Airbnb could learn from, given that the available dates it lists are often not actually available. Feature Image Credit – Thinkstock
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Today Hewlett-Packard reported its second quarter financial performance for the 2013 fiscal year, including revenue of $27.58 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.87. Analysts had predicted that HP would earn $0.81 per share on revenue of $28 billion. HP missed expectations slightly in terms of revenue, but the market has yet to penalize the company. In regular trading, HP was up by just half a percent. In after-hours trading, the company is up a surprising 12%. In the release, CEO Meg Whitman credited “better than expected performance in Enterprise Services and Printing” for its high EPS. As for its low revenues, HP reported that its PC revenue was down 20% year over year with a 3.2% operating margin. More on HP’s poor PC performance: Commercial revenue decreased 14%, and Consumer revenue declined 29%. Total units were down 21% with Desktops units down 18% and Notebooks units down 24%. Given the massive decline in PC sales across the board, you’d be forgiven to think that HP has been on a downward spiral lately. On the contrary, the company has risen quite a bit since its November 2012 lows (as shown in the graph below). The reason behind this growth appears to rest on the shoulders of CEO Meg Whitman, who joined the firm in late 2011. Optimism aside, the PC market reportedly accounts for approximately 30 percent of HP’s total revenue. In other words, unless Whitman’s investments in R&D pan out soon, HP is in for yet another painful decline. Other important factors include the success of HP’s recent re-entry into the tablet market (the ElitePad and H-P Slate 7) and the company’s plan to cut thousands of jobs to lower costs. It appears that HP has in fact lowered its costs, but the company’s latest tablets were noticeably absent from today’s earnings report. In other words, the  ElitePad and H-P Slate 7 have performed as poorly as everyone expected. Image credit: Getty Images / Justin Sullivan
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Twitter unveiled today a new security measure it hopes will better protect user accounts from hacking and unauthorized entries. Called login verification, once enabled, users will be prompted to verify their phone number and email address to confirm their identity. In light of the recent phishing scams, hacks, and takeovers by either Anonymous or the Syrian Electronic Army, Twitter has started to take measures to ensure user data and privacy is ensured. While acknowledging that most login attempts come from “genuine account owners”, there are those that Twitter hears from that have been compromised from password leaks. This feature is beginning to roll out today so if you don’t see it right away, be patient. I checked my Twitter account settings at the time of publishing this story and I didn’t see this feature. More to follow.
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Thumb Labs, the New York-based digital agency that developed Behance’s official mobile apps, has announced that it is joining Adobe full time to work with the Behance team. The terms of this deal were not disclosed, but Thumb Labs called it a “talent acquisition” — an acqui-hire, if you can stand the term. Thumb Labs tells us it has maintained a close relationship with Behance since 2011. Aside from building Behance’s main app, the agency also built Behance’s Creative Portfolio app, which we reviewed here. Beyond Behance, Thumb Labs has worked on a number of other projects, including the ReadyForZero financial app, a Dribble client dubbed ‘Travveling‘ and BPM, a metronome and tap tempo app. “Thumb Labs will be blended into the Behance mobile team entirely” Thumb Labs co-founder Jared Verdi tells us that his entire team, which consists of less than 10 employees, will be joining Adobe and is moving into the Behance offices in Soho. As for their new roles, Verdi simply shared that his teammates will “be assuming continued roles in mobile design & mobile development.” The Thumb Labs team will begin working with Behance before the end of this month, and expects to complete all existing client work “over the next several weeks.” After that time, Thumb Labs will be blended into the Behance mobile team entirely. Behance was acquired by Adobe last December. Since then, the popular social network for creatives has received quite a bit of attention from Adobe. It’s noteworthy, however, that Behance’s services have not been modified by Adobe (yet); instead, Adobe has integrated social features from Behance into its upcoming suite of Creative Cloud (CC) branded apps. Image credit: Thinkstock
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Today the popular on-demand grocery delivery service Instacart announced that it is bringing its service to two new cities: Oakland and Berkely. The two cities join its other active locations, all of which fall inside of the Bay Area. Instacart appears to be succeeding where other firms have failed; it appears to have made grocery delivery economically viable. The service earns its keep by charging a fee for delivery – it costs more to get your goods sooner, and you tip delivery people on top of that – and by charging small markup on items sold. The combination, of fees, a cut, and tips appears to work. According to the firm, the decision to add new cities to its service area came “[a]fter proving out and perfecting the customer and personal shopper economics in San Francisco.” Where might Instacart be headed next? I mentioned Seattle and Portland as potential likely next locations for the service to expand to. The company’s own Apoorva Mehta demured, calling them too small for their current model. He did note instead that the company has year-long plans to add new cities to its list of supported markets. The company will, however, follow demand; where folks that want to become its users are the loudest, may get what they want. Apoorva, in a statement provided to TNW, stated that its decision to launch in Oakland and Berkeley was “based on the phenomenal inbound customer demand that we have seen from those areas.” If you want Instacart in your neck of the trees, make noise. Instacart has evolved since its launch, including adding new stores to its roster – Costco, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s. The pace of its geographical expansion will be interesting to watch, as the company enters markets with demographics that are economically different from the affluent San Francisco. Top Image Credit: lord enfield
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Following the first wave of its “Explorer Program,” Google has shared that winning #ifihadglass applicants will start receiving invitations to try Glass “over the next few weeks.” Sadly, if you are not among the lucky few selected by Google, it doesn’t look like you’ll get your hands on Glass any time soon — the company has shared that it isn’t “taking any more applications right now.” For successful #ifihadglass applicants, this announcement should be satisfying to read; Google had previously been unclear as to when the winners would receive their Glass. Last we heard, the company simply said “we’ll start reaching out to [winners] later on” back in April. Google ambiguously stated that it is “thrilled to be moving into the next phase of our Explorer Program and we hope to expand in the future.” Now over a year old, the Explorer Program is still limited to a very small group of users. Whether you’re excited to try Google Glass or can’t help but rip on them, it looks like these futuristic specs are rather far from being ready for a public release. For more on Google Glass, you can read about the product’s new software update cycle and Google’s vision of its mainstream potential.
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Mel Kirk, Managing Director of UK based Tribal Media, posted a tweet complaining about her bank, HSBC. Nothing out of the norm so far. However, within 24 hours, she’d received a video from a competing bank, Barclays, effectively singing for her business but also promoting Bespoke Offers, its new personalised UK shopping service. Watch: It was Old Spice that captured everyone’s attention back in 2010 with a similar idea, but credit to Barclays for working harder than other banks for business, and being creative with it at that. Worth noting that Mel is somewhat of a “social media influencer” and that Barclays were probably aware of that.
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Just a day after releasing Chrome 27 on the desktop, Google on Wednesday announced the release of Chrome 27 for Android, adding fullscreen support on phones and a tab history option on tablets. You can download the latest version now directly from Google Play. The device-type features are fairly straightforward. To access the new fullscreen function on an Android phone, just scroll down the page and the toolbar will disappear (sidenote: full screen support for iOS arrived Chrome 26 stable). When you scroll back up, the toolbar returns automatically. To use the new tab history on tablets, long press the browser back button to view what you’ve been browsing. This is one of those features that should have been in Chrome from the start, but as Android tablets become more popular, Google has finally been forced to add it. Next up, we have “simpler searching.” Google is referring to a change it is looking to implement in regards to the way its search engine (and possibly other search engines) work in Chrome. The company has been experimenting with leaving the search query in the omnibox, removing the need for a second search box on the results page, since December 2012. So far, however, only beta and other test versions of Chrome have seen the change. Chrome for Android is thus the first stable release of Google’s browser to get the feature. The full Chrome 27.0.1453.90 for Android changelog is as follows: Fullscreen on phones – Scroll down the page and the toolbar will disappear. Simpler searching – Searching from the omnibox will keep your search query visible in the omnibox, making it easier to edit, and show more on your search result page. Client-side certificate support – You can now access sites that require you to use a certificate and Chrome will allow you to select an installed certificate. Tab history on tablets – Long press the browser back button to view your tab history. And a ton of stability and performance fixes. As you can see, Chrome also now has client-side certificate support. Most users won’t be using it on mobile but its addition does show Google’s dedication to having a full-blown browser on its mobile platform. More to follow.
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Photo-sharing app Piictu announced today that it’s joining forces with Kandu, a mystery startup owned by Betaworks, and will be closing its own service as a result by the end of the month. A blog post published by the Piictu team says that Betaworks “shares our vision and ideals of how technology is a catalyst for a better and richer world.” However, the partnership means that the Piictu app will no longer be available to users as of May 31. “From the entire team we want to thank you for the great energy, trust and support you have brought to the community and we look forward to bringing you more fun, exciting and heartfelt products in the future,” the team added. We’re excited to announce Piictu is joining Kandu, a betaworks company! Read more on piictu.com — piictu (@piictu) May 22, 2013 If you’re a diehard fan of the service, however, all is not lost. Piictu says that users will be able to download all of the photographs that they’ve uploaded through the service until June 7. Simply email piics@piictu.com using the same email address used during the registration process, and then specify which email address you would like them sent to. It’ll take a few days, but Piictu will then send though a file of some description with all of your photographs. We covered Piictu all the way back in November 2011, when the fledgling startup was graduating from TechStars’ accelerator program in New York City. Rather like Instagram, users were encouraged to upload photos and give them a caption, before watching the flood of photo interactions and responses from other users. It’s unclear whether this move is a simple partnership or part of a wider acquisition, but there will undoubtedly be a significant group of users who will be sad to see Piictu close. We’ve reached out to both parties to understand the reasons behind this move and will update this article if and when we hear back. Image Credit: Shutterstock/Brian A Jackson
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Google on Wednesday announced the release of a revamped Drive app for Android to make creating and accessing files on-the-go easier, via a new card-style grid view and added features such as document scanning. You can grab the new version now directly from Google Play. First and foremost, Drive files in the Android app are now displayed in a card-style grid view. You can swipe between files as well as glance at large previews to quickly check out their contents. Here’s a screenshot of the swiping in action on an Android tablet: While Drive is still very much a cloud storage service, the app now lets you download a copy of your files for offline access (check the actions menu inside settings). This is only available on Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) and up. Next up is the addition of a way to keep track of your paper documents like receipts, letters, and billing statements. The app has gained a Scan option in the Add New menu, which lets you snap a photo of your document, have Drive run Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology on it so you can search for it later, and turn it into a PDF for safekeeping. Here’s the feature in action on an Android phone: Last but not least, the editing experience in Google Sheets has been improved: you can now adjust font types and sizes for a spreadsheet and tweak the cell text colors and cell alignment right from the app. The full Google Drive 1.2.182.25 for Android changelog is as follows: New grid view makes it easier to find your files. New quick preview lets you view photos and other files from within the app. Scan documents, receipts and letters for safe keeping in Drive; then search by contents once uploaded. Download a copy of files to your local device (Honeycomb+). Spreadsheet editor now supports changing fonts, colors and cell alignment. View properties of files from within the editors. Bug fixes and visual improvements. This is a big update both in terms of design and new features. We’ll be looking closely to see if similar changes are made for Google Drive’s iOS app as well. Top Image Credit: Pawel Kryj
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HTC has confirmed that Lennard Hoornik, CEO of HTC Asia, has left the company to pursue “other interests”. The high-profile departure follows a similar exit by Jason Gordon, Vice President of Global Communications and reportedly Chief Product Officer Kouji Kodera, among others. “HTC can confirm that Lennard Hoornik has left HTC,” a statement sent to Engadget reads. “We appreciate his contributions to our South Asia efforts over the past year and wish him all the best. HTC’s CFO, Chialin Chang will provide interim leadership in this strategic region while we work to find a permanent solution.” Gordon announced his departure on Twitter earlier this week, explaining that his last day was in fact May 17. “After nearly seven years at HTC, my last day was Friday,” he tweeted. “I’ve worked with some amazing people and I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished.” HTC is in a vulnerable state right now after launching two key products; the HTC One, its new flagship Android device that will compete with the Samsung Galaxy S4 over the next 12 months, as well as the HTC First, the only smartphone to come pre-installed with Facebook Home. The Verge is reporting that Kodera also left the Taiwanese tablet and smartphone manufacturer last week. To have such high-profile employees is cause for concern on its own, but it follows a turbulent few months where Rebecca Rowland, Global Retail Marketing Manager, John Starkweather, Director of Digital Marketing and Eric Lin, Product Strategy Manager have also moved on to pastures new. To all my friends still at @htc – just quit. leave now. it’s tough to do, but you’ll be so much happier, I swear. — eric L (@ericlin) May 20, 2013   Company morale is likely being affected by flagging revenue; the company reported net income after tax of $2.88 million for the first quarter of 2013, on top of $1.45 billion in total sales. Final quarter performance for 2012 was equally concerning. HTC is also set to abando HTC Watch, its mobile movie rental and purchase service, in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden by the end of the month. The firm is looking to refresh its image at the moment and perhaps these departures area reflection of that. Regardless, we’ve contacted HTC to find out why Kodera left the company and whether this is all part of a larger restructuring.
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Runscope, a startup founded by former IFTTT and Twilio engineer John Sheehan, has raised $1.1M and is launching a suite of tools that help developers who rely on third-party APIs. For app developers, third-party APIs can make process of building a service significantly easier, because they let you build atop foundations created by other companies. For example, if you’re looking to build a photo sharing service, it might be more efficient to rely on Aviary’s photo editing API; in that case, the editing interface is already built. This way, developers can focus on actually building something new instead of reinventing the wheel continuously. Currently, there are tons of tools out there for API providers, like Aviary and Twilio, but Sheehan believes that there has yet to be a perfect solution for developers rely on these APIs. This is where Runscope comes in: as of today, the startup is debuting a suite of tools which let you monitor API traffic, debug problems and perform automated integration testing. More specifically, Runscope now offers a “Traffic Inspector” which lets developers “inspect any HTTP API call with complete request and response data;” a “Powerful Request Editor,” which lets developers test API calls without writing code; and Request Sharing, which lets developers link to their requests. So far, Runscope has already begun using its funds to build out its initial team. Sheehan tells us Runscope also plans to use its fresh capital on community outreach efforts. Additionally, the company has set aside time to contribute to various open source projects that inspired the company to “put together a more integrated solution” for developers, including localtunnel. For more on Runscope, check out the link below. ➤ Runscope
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I know, I know, the ‘Y is an Airbnb for X’ thing is a horse that’s been beaten to death already, and then some. Still, it happens to be an adequate way to describe Cookening, a brand new online marketplace for home-cooked meals that is making its debut today. In essence, Cookening invites travellers to eat at local’s homes in the places they visit. The French startup is starting up in France (haha), targeting all foreigners who make their way to the République. Kicking off with French hosts only (after six months of private alpha testing) makes sense for Paris-based Cookening though, as co-founder Cédric Giorgi explained to me. After all, France is ranked as the top tourist destination in the world – ahead of the United States – and it is famous for its cuisine. How does Cookening work? Basically, Cookening enables people to invite travellers into their homes to share an authentic local meal, with a pinch of culture to boot. For hosts, Cookening provides a way to establish an online profile and a ‘table’ page showing pictures of his or her favourite dishes, and set a contribution price for guests. Cookening adds 20 percent on top of that price as a commission. Foreigners (which can be vacationers but also expats or business travellers) can visit the Cookening marketplace to select a table and connect with hosts to set up a meeting for a joint meal. Payment is made via Cookening, and hosts only receive the money the day after the shared meal. Giorgi didn’t spell out the reasons for this, but I assume it’s a good way to ensure a trustful relationship between the parties and also helps avoid some of the awkwardness associated with coughing up dough for a meal in someone’s home on the spot. It’s worth noting that Cookening is far from the only startup trying to become the ‘Airbnb for local food experiences’. Indeed, there are quite a few moving into the same direction, in particular Kitchen.ly, Melba, HomeDine, Super Marmite, Spotsupper and NewGusto. There’s even a – quite interesting – Quora thread on the topic: “Will “Airbnb for food” be a successful business model?” That said, Cookening is one of the first to come out of Europe. Anyway, Giorgi pitches the new venture thusly: “The moment we spend eating a meal with others is, by essence, a moment of sharing. Cookening wants to amplify that moment by creating a new moment of sharing around gastronomy between foreigners. With a jeopardized economy, but also social isolation that has increased in the last few years, people want to go back to simple and authentic experiences, to conviviality. Sharing a meal in a warm atmosphere with foreigners meets exactly this need.” After France, Cookening aims to go global. Fancy Cookening? As a current expat in Spain and frequent business traveller, I honestly think this is a great idea, and not just for foodies. In the same way Airbnb makes me book fewer hotels as time progresses, I can totally see myself using Cookening or similar services to share authentic meals with locals rather than dining at the first random restaurant around the corner on my own. I can also totally see people who like cooking but often only prepare food for themselves for whatever reason, signing up as hosts to share meals with foreigners and exchange culture with others. Sébastien Guignot, co-founder and CTO of Cookening, put it this way: “While we want to make Cookening a major player in the collaborative economy space, our main objective is to facilitate meetings between people from different cultures, with love for good food as a binder. We want to connect people around food.” Binders full of food! Seriously, would you agree Cookening is on to something here? Image credit: Thinkstock
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Functionality is only part of what makes a great app – the importance of good design can’t be overstated. That’s why Boxes might just be worth your time. A new iOS app that has just launched in private beta, Boxes promises to help you make the most of the stuff you own, through organizing everything in one place. While this concept may appeal more to the OCD among you – it will surely take a mind-bogglingly long amount of time to catalogue all your belongings – the design and usability of Boxes reveals a lot attention to detail. It’s a treat to use. Also, it’s not just about organizing your stuff, it’s vying for the e-commerce market too, making it easy to buy and sell stuff. How it works, how it looks Firstly, you sign up via email, and then you can connect with Facebook, Twitter or the contact in your address book – to get the full benefits of Boxes you are of course encouraged to connect your social profiles. To start cataloging, simply click ‘Add Item’ from the main menu, and you’re invited to take a photo, which you can apply filters to. Why not, right?     Once you’ve added a price (if you’re selling), description, location and so on, you’re good to go. You can also search for items using keywords and hashtags. Given that Boxes is still in private beta, the checkout process is not currently enabled within the app, but when this launches properly in a couple of weeks, it will feature a full-scale marketplace with integrated checkout. It’s worth noting here that Boxes isn’t all about buying and selling stuff, it pitches itself as something like a photo-based social network for ‘things’ – one that just happens to have e-commerce built in to the core. If that sounds confusing, well, it’s about as close as we can get to hitting the nail on the head with this app.     You can followe other users, and message them directly within the app, asking and answering questions, and over time you will build – unsurprisingly – a collection of boxes with all your things in it.     Certainly, one potential use-case could be for someone who knows they’re moving house in the near future and needs a clear-out. They can snap all the stuff they need to get shot off and, well, create a sort of virtual car-boot sale. “People use Boxes for all sorts of things,” says Solomon Engel, Founder and CEO of Boxes. “It’s a great tool for collectors to organize their collections, artists can show off their work, brands can promote their products and increase their sales, it makes moving from place-to-place a lot easier, and what’s best, whenever they’re ready to sell something, they can list an item for sale with just a few taps.” Boxes is a quirky and interesting idea underpinned by a genuinely well-designed app, and it will be interesting to see what kind of traction this gains when the doors open. “Boxes closes the loop for folks looking to reach a wider audience,” adds Engel. “With a community of people that share the same interests, you’re far more likely to have success promoting or selling your products as individuals, brands, or retailers.” How you use Boxes is entirely up to you, given you can add, organize, buy, sell, and search for stuff. “Our clear goal was to create a world-class experience that would not only be fun and easy to use, but would also open up opportunities for others and help make them successful,” continues Engel. Given this is still in private beta, you won’t be able to sign up quite yet – unless, of course, you’re quick off the mark and get one of 100 promo codes Engel is giving out to TNW readers. Simply email this address – tnw@box.es – and ask for a code. Then head to Box.es to get started. Meanwhile, check out the official promo video below. ➤ Boxes Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service Feature Image Credit – Thinkstock
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Foursquare has updated its iOS app today with a revamped filtering system that allows users to set additional parameters, such as price and number of previous check-ins, for all of their search queries. In the previous version of the app, tapping the search bar at the top of the screen would trigger a number of different choices, such as location type (shopping, sights, food, etc.) as well as a number of additional options such as ‘Saved’ and ‘Haven’t Been’. These were particularly useful for finding places that were suitable to your tastes; you might have been taking your girlfriend out for a romantic dinner, but wanted to make sure you reserved a table somewhere neither of you had been before. Likewise, tapping ‘Open Now’ ensured that the five-star bar you traipsed off to afterwards was actually open. Combining these with search queries, however, was difficult. The updated iOS app now includes a new ‘Filter’ area which can be accessed from the top right-hand corner of the screen at any time. It means that the user can set multiple filters simultaneously; both before and after submitting a search query. The area is a little boring and unintuitive – it looks remarkably similar to a spreadsheet or online booking form – but means that users can filter results based on whether they have or haven’t been there before, whether their friends have checked-in already, as well as whether their open and offering specials. Results can also be sorted by best match or distance, the latter of which is particularly useful if you’re stuck outside in the cold and want to find somewhere suitable pronto. Setting the parameters within the app is straight-forward, however, requiring a single tap to highlight it with a clear green tick. Tap ‘Done’ at the bottom and you’re away. These features might sound small, but its impact on finding new and suitable places to go is profound. Foursquare thrives on being a service that is quick and simple to use; if it takes more than a few minutes to make a decision, the likelihood is that user will simply give up and just try the place closest to their current location. Foursquare gave its iOS app a major facelift in April, placing its search bar front and center and merging it together with the friends tab. The location filters announced today were also added to the Foursquare website earlier this month in advance of a wider rollout on its various mobile apps. ➤ Foursquare | iOS Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service. 
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Google search is arguably the most effective way of learning what the world is thinking about and Google Trends has always been a decent way of illustrate this. The World Ranked Today, Google releases a revamped version of the product with new charts of the most-searched people, places and things in more than 40 categories. Everything from business people through to cars are ranked for the world to see. Each category is updated monthly and goes back to the 2004. How is Michael Jordan still the most searched for athlete month-on-month in 2013? Built on top of Knowledge Graph, the data is accurate beyond simply keywords. Google understands the difference between “The Next Web”, “TNW” and “TNW Conference” for example and therefore the charts are an accurate representation of what is being searched for. Trending Searches Visualised In addition to Top Charts, Google has added a neat customizable visual way to illustrated these trending searches *as they happen*. You can view an example  here: More to follow.   / via Google Official Blog
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Music apps and services often feel overbearing because they try to offer a multitude of features simultaneously. On-demand streaming, Pandora-style Internet radio stations, collaborative playlists, social hooks and so on and so forth. In the photography space, Instagram has proven to be incredibly popular because it strips away much of this noise and focuses on a quick, stress-free way of shooting and sharing images. Yap, a startup that launched a second screen television app for iOS devices back in 2010, is launching a new iPhone app today called Yap Music, which aims to streamline the process of following artists and discovering new music. How it works It’s worth getting Yap Music’s fatal flaw out of the way first; the service is almost completely dependent on Facebook. Users connect to the app through their existing Facebook account, after which the app then pulls in all of the existing bands and artists that they’ve chosen to follow or ‘like’ on the social network. Avid music fans will have a diverse stream of content to browse from the get-go, but those who make an effort to avoid Facebook will need to build up a list of artists from scratch. Yap Music does a pretty good job of accelerating this process, however, with an area for artists that users’ friends are following, as well as dedicated sections for specific music genres, such as rock, pop or country. The experience The home screen then offers up three choices; the user’s curated feed, a global stream for specific music genres and a discovery feature called ‘Search & Discover.’ Tapping the first option will create a stream which looks and feels like Instagram. There’s a simple, vertical stream offering images and videos uploaded by artists through Facebook. There’s a small area for the band’s profile image, as well any accompanying status update and the option to share and ‘like’ it over on Facebook. As users scroll up and down through their feed, a small playback icon is shown in the top right-hand corner. It offers a link to the relevant iTunes page, either for the song in question or a recent track if the artist is posted about something inapplicable; a photograph from the studio, a festival date, etc. To add new artists to the feed, users hit the ‘Search & Discover’ option from the home screen. Here listeners can search for an individual artist, browse by genre or look up what their friends are following on Facebook. It’s not particularly innovative, but the interface is functional and works well for the most part. Venturing into the ‘Genres’ section is arguably the most interesting and powerful part of the Yap Music app. Here users can scroll up and down numerous vertical streams for different music types. A scroll bar along the top offers a new genre with a single swipe and all of the content shown below is for artists featured outside of your network. Here, users can choose to add these artists to their curated feed, as well as access their iTunes page if they feel compelled to make a purchase. I often found myself absently flicking up and down these streams while I had some free time, but stumbling across an interesting video or image that resulted in a new artist I wanted to check out. It’s simple, but rather like Instagram – just works. The bottom line Yap Music will both live and die on its Facebook dependency. By leaning on another social network, the app already has a wealth of content to serve up to its users. The problem is that if users aren’t too keen on Facebook, or don’t have many friends who engage with it either, the service is far less compelling. Integration with other services is pivotal. Twitter seems like an obvious addition, but Google+ wouldn’t go amiss either. The ability to source tracks from other music apps too, such as Rdio or Spotify, would also improve the experience no end. Regardless, Yap Music offers a new, if familiar experience for discovering and following musicians. There’s a lot to be iterated upon, but as a first version it’s a decent effort. ➤ Yap Music | iOS Image Credit: DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/Getty Images
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The BBC has developed an experimental piece of hardware called the Perceptive Radio, that adjusts the content it plays based on a wide range of circumstances, such as location, time, a user’s proximity to the device and background noise in the environment in which it’s being used.. The device was unveiled today at the Thinking Digital conference in Gateshead, UK and builds upon the Perceptive Media project that the BBC announced last year. Perceptive Media adjusts content for each audience member based on their specific circumstances. The only demo content announced so far is a radio play that adjusts the location in which it’s set, the weather and other factors depending on where and when it’s listened to. The radio shown off today includes a light sensor, proximity sensor and a microphone that can influence the content it plays. The proximity sensor is currently used to adjust the audio mix of the radio play, adding or removing background sound effects depending on how close a listener is to the device. The BBC’s Ian Forrester has been working on the Perceptive Radio project at the Future Media & Technology department in Salford, UK. He said today that the radio set will soon be tested in homes to see how it can be applied in real-world scenarios. One content idea that Forrester suggested for the device, which streams audio over a WiFi connection, is a ‘karaoke drama’, which could incorporate audience engagement via the microphone. He added that an accelerometer had been discussed as a possible additional sensor to influence content based on whether or not the device was moving. Personalized advertising is one compelling possibility for future commercial uses of Perceptive Media. Imagine a TV ad that tweaks its messaging based on your Facebook Likes, for example. Despite the BBC’s non-commercial status, that’s certainly a possibility – the Perceptive Radio design will soon be open-sourced, and most of the Perceptive Media source code is already freely available on GitHub.
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