For His Next Act, Ousted Groupon CEO Andrew Mason Will Release an Album of 'Motivational Business Music'
You Jelly? Jack Dorsey, Al Gore, Bono Invest in Biz Stone's Stealth Startup
Kids As Young As Six Now Watching Porn Online
Oh no, our world’s children are succumbing to the perils of the World Wide Web. A new survey of 19,000 parents worldwide said their kids browse porn as early as age six and begin e-flirting at eight years old. The news comes from Bitdefender, a Bucharest-based antivirus company, that compiled the results from talking with parents and monitoring which sites parents block. Read More
Dear Startup People: Leave Music to the Musicians
At this point, it’s like shooting very large fish in a very small barrel to mock startup music videos. Everyone keeps doing them, and they’re always awful. But this latest installment from 500 Startups is probably–though it strains belief!–the worst yet.
We never thought we’d say this, but shouldn’t you guys be working on your pitch decks or something? Read More
Department of Homeland Security Shuts Down Dwolla Payments to and From Mt. Gox
The Department of Homeland Security appears to have shut down the ability to use Dwolla, a mobile payment service, to withdraw and deposit money into Mt. Gox, a Bitcoin trading platform. A Dwolla representative confirmed the move to Betabeat. Chris Coyne, cofounder of OKCupid, posted a screenshot of an email he received from Dwolla, stating that due to recent orders from the Department of Homeland Security, Dwolla cannot complete the bank transfer to Mt. Gox. Read More
The Jenna Marbles Paradox: Why Are YouTube Videos So Terrible?
It’s been nearly seven years since YouTube first launched its “Partners Program,” a platform for YouTube creators that gives them a portion of revenue made on their videos, and nearly two years since Google invested more than $100M in YouTube content producers. Despite this financial influx, the quality of content on YouTube has stagnated somewhere between “awful” and “downright terrible.”
Call it the Jenna Marbles paradox, after the top YouTuber profiled in the New York Times earlier this year who, after more than one billion views and millions earned in ad revenue, still makes some of the most amateur videos you can imagine. As she put it, she makes “more money than I need, ever” and yet, if you had no idea who she was and watched one of her million-views-plus videos, you’d think this was the first time she’d ever turned on a video camera.
Dour Germans Disapprove of Insulting Autocomplete Results
Good news if you’re a) still dodging rumors about the massive piles of cocaine you did in college and b) German. Bloomberg News says a German high court has ruled that Google is responsible for anything libelous that might pop up in autocomplete.
“The search additions affect the plaintiff’s privacy rights as they convey the statement that there is a relationship between the plaintiff and the negative words,” the court ruled.
This is going to add, like, 15 minutes of work for Berliners trying to screen cult leaders and shady apartment brokers. Read More
The Pitch Season 2, Episode Eight: Instreamia – Language Learning Made Easy
Moshi Moshi! Time to learn a new language, perhaps? Cofounders and brothers Scott and Ryan Rapp want you to parler francais (or Japanese or Spanish or Portugese) using their online language-learning platform, Instreamia. The educational app uses online videos to create contextualized teaching moments. So while you crank up Shakira or geek out to an online lecture, Instreamia will follow along with you to make sure you understand all the subtle nuances of the lyrics or prose. Unlike other language learning platforms, Instreamia utilizes technology to customize the learning experience and offer students interaction with teachers.
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Nintendo Reverses Feature That Lets Male Video Characters Get Gay Married
Pray for Nintendo’s PR department, as it’s undoubtedly going to face the wrath of some very angry gaymers. Last week, the company released a life-simulation game that let male characters to marry the same sex. But an update released yesterday removed that supposedly unintended feature…OF HAPPINESS. Read More
LinkedIn Bans Prostitutes From Using Its Site
LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, has decided to ban prostitution, the world’s oldest profession. In an update to its privacy policy and user agreement, spotted by ReadWriteWeb, LinkedIn specifically calls out sex workers and asks them to please stop advertising their wares on the site. Read More
It's Zuck's World We're Just Living In It
Facebook Talked a Professor Into Helping Build a Better Emoticon
Heedlessly disregarding the bad luck of looking anything like MySpace, Facebook recently added the option of emoticons for status updates. But, according to Popular Science, the social network couldn’t simply use the same smiley faces that’ve done the Internet perfectly good for more than a decade. No, besides the old standbys you’ll have the option of expressing your feelings with a custom-designed, “compassion-research-based set of emoticons.”
Hey, we’re willing to try anything that’ll keep drama out of our News Feed. Read More
Seattle Man Hovers Drone Over a Family’s House for ‘Research’
A Seattle man ascended to a new level of creepiness recently when he flew a drone just a “few feet away” from a family’s home and defended his right to do so because he was flying it in the air, and thus not trespassing. He also claimed it was for research. The camera-equipped device emitted a loud noise, similar to that of a weed-whacker, which caught the attention of a woman inside.
She told Capitol Hill Seattle Blog that she saw the man on the sidewalk controlling the device near a third-story window in the eastern neighborhood. Her husband approached the man, who was standing on the sidewalk, and told him to desist from being creepy. The man told him that he was doing “research” and the camera was transmitting the images to his glasses. They called the police, but they didn’t show up since Inspector Gadget had already left. Read More
