futureinmotion

Porsche uses every opportunity it has to promote its upcoming hypercar, the 918 Spyder, which is set to debut at the Frankfurt auto show this September. The German sports car manufacturer has released a video showing the 918 undergoing hot weather testing in Nevada, USA. Read more »

Bomb-resistent garbage cans, complete with LED screens, in London. Credit: Renew London

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s effort to reinvent the phone booth got us thinking about other staples of the city street that could do more, or at least do what they do better.

In Philadelphia, there’s been a tempest in a teacup over the Big Belly solar garbage cans installed in 2008. The cans compact trash and also use a cellular network to inform workers when they are full. It’s meant to require fewer visits and save labor. According to a report by the City Controller, the cans have delivered significant savings, but less than promised. Locals also complain that the handles users have to pull to open the bins, which are fully enclosed, get very dirty.

In Toronto, they’ve solved the problem of dirty handles on enclosed bins by using a pedal at the bottom, which when stepped on opens the flap at the top.

Credit: Brady Dale

What other ways have cities gotten creative with the common street trash can?

Shanghai hosted the World Expo in 2010 and attempted to use the event to showcase ways in which cities could grow with less impact on the environment. One technology on display were these pneumatic bins that suck garbage and recycling into a computer-controlled center that automatically sorts the refuse without any humans coming into contact with it.

Perhaps if pneumatic technology is first deployed with garbage, that will be a first step toward cities that are fully rigged for pipe logistics.

The City of London, as the financial center of the UK, has been a target for streetside terrorist attacks. The city government has contracted for these space age, anti-explosive garbage cans as a way to keep the streets safer. With LED screens on the side, these bomb-resistant receptacles can also function as information displays for passersby — or places to stick an advertisement.

Credit: Renew London

We contacted Joe Peach, founder of the urbanist website This Big City, for his take on the London bins. He wrote us back to say:

Bomb-proof bins are certainly a welcome addition to the City of London’s streets due to the historical tendency of those with bombs to be attracted to waste receptacles… Many public spaces such as train stations have removed bins, meaning citizens are left with nowhere to dispose their rubbish…. A TV screen on a bin is like the kind of future that no one wanted but everyone feared we might get… I’m yet to see someone staring at a bin waiting to find out if the Central Line is running on time. Thankfully I’ve also yet to see too many obtrusive adverts on these bins, though my cynical side thinks it’s only time before they become more common.

These bins are also showing up in Singapore.

Apparently, there’s a great diversity of garbage bins in London, including this park bench garbage can in Camden and this playground frog bin in Colindale.

For some reason, Berliners like to keep their waste bins elevated off the ground. The color coding gives them an attractive quality that hopefully makes users more mindful of the need to sort their recyclables.

Credit: Peter Thorell on Flickr

In France, they have the binless bin. These are simply bags hanging on poles and you can find them all over the place. It would seem like they would need a lot of staff to empty them frequently in order to prevent rips, but they are also good for preventing crime. You can’t hide a bomb or anything else in one of these.

For creativity, you can’t talk about inventive dustbins without mentioning Push, the walking and talking garbage bin from Disney theme parks. Push is as much a character as it is a working bin.

Disney isn’t alone in looking into ways to use technology to reduce litter. A group called The Funtheory experimented with a technique that made a garbage can sound like a bottomless hole:

That’s not to say that officials can’t dress up the same old system in faux-innovation, such as Atlanta Airport’s “GreenSort.” The Airport claims to be able to collect all waste in individual bins, compact it and then sort the recycling from the trash at the waste facility.

While sorting out the metal should be simple and probably the glass as well, these bins are definitely losing a lot of recyclable paper. Cardboard and other paper isn’t recyclable anymore once it has been contaminated by food and grease. By not only asking visitors to throw otherwise recyclable papers (like newspapers) in with everything else and then compacting it on site, there’s simply no way that lots of recyclables aren’t getting ruined. GreenSort looks like classic greenwashing.

Know about any other cities with interesting, inspiring or off-the-wall trash cans? Let us know in the comments.

Travel portal TripAdvisor continues to push ahead with its mobile and social acquisitions: today the company announced that it has acquired GateGuru, a mobile app that provides real-time information on airports, weather, and flights — much of it picked up from crowdsourcing, much like Waze — acquired by Google last week — does with road travel. Terms of the deal between GateGuru and TripAdvisor have not been disclosed but we are trying to find out.

This is not an acqui-hire but a direct expansion of TripAdvisor’s services to its users. As more people take to mobile and social services, the company is looking to extend what it already offers online — a huge database of user-generated content giving reviews of destinations, hotels and other things travel-related, which currently brings in some 200 million monthly active users. In the case of TripAdvisor, it’s almost certainly easier to acquire and tap into services that have already been built rather than create them from scratch themselves.


”Flying is often an essential part of a trip and we have continually developed our suite of flights products, from the pricing and availability search on TripAdvisor, to our award-winning SeatGuru.com, with seat maps and more” said Steve Kaufer, co-founder and CEO TripAdvisor, Inc., in a statement. ”GateGuru nicely complements our existing flights products and we look forward to working with the GateGuru team as they continue to manage the GateGuru app and add great functionality to the TripAdvisor mobile experience.” It helps, too, that GateGuru is positioned to be in a good place for ubiquity, with apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone in place already.

On one hand, this is a sign of the times for TripAdvisor about what is big with users in the market today, and travel and mobile naturally go hand-in-hand.

On the other, this is also a sign of some ongoing consolidation in the travel start-up sector: with many services built for scale on thin margins on sales or large ad buys, if you’re a big property you will be looking to get bigger; and if you’re a smaller player you will struggle. (This could have been some of the problem, for example, behind a recent round of layoffs at travel site Ostrovok in Russia.)

It helps, too, that TripAdvisor in December got a big injection of cash from Liberty Media, which took a $300 million stake in the company; it could be some of that fuelling this series of acquisitions.

The news today follows TripAdvisor buying another mobile/social startup, TinyPost, in March of this year, followed swiftly by JetSetter from Gilt weeks later. As we speculated in March around the time of the TinyPost acquisition, it’s likely that some of this acquisition activity is the result not just of consolidation in the market — Like JetSetter, GateGuru is based out of New York, where it will remain.

GateGuru, founded in 2011, had raised at least $800,000 with backing from a pretty illustrious set of investors. They include Chamath Palihapitiya, the former Facebook exec who is now running the Social + Capital Partnership VC fund; Allen Morgan, the former MD of the Mayfield Fund; and Tom Glocer, the former CEO of Thomson Reuters, among several others.

GateGuru has even deeper links to the investment world: its founder and head, Dan Gellert, used to be a VC himself, working for Time Warner Investments and JP Morgan.

More to come. Release below.

LONDON, UK. June 19 2013 – TripAdvisor®, Inc., today announced it has acquired GateGuru (www.gateguruapp.com), the leading mobile resource for flight and airport information around the world.  Built on a mix of user-generated content and information from the airports, flyers can view detailed maps and insights on stores, restaurants, amenities and gate locations.  Combined with weather forecasts, estimated security wait times and real-time flight status information, the award-winning app aims to take the stress out of flying. 
 “Flying is often an essential part of a trip and we have continually developed our suite of flights products, from the pricing and availability search on TripAdvisor, to our award-winning SeatGuru.com, with seat maps and more” said Steve Kaufer, co-founder and CEO TripAdvisor, Inc.  “GateGuru nicely complements our existing flights products and we look forward to working with the GateGuru team as they continue to manage the GateGuru app and add great functionality to the TripAdvisor mobile experience.” The GateGuru team will continue to operate out of New York City, and report to Bryan Saltzburg, General Manager New Initiatives and leader of the TripAdvisor Flights product and SeatGuru brand. Terms of the acquisition will not be disclosed. About TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor® is the world’s largest travel site*, enabling travellers to plan and have the perfect trip. TripAdvisor offers trusted advice from real travellers and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features with seamless links to booking tools. TripAdvisor branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world, with more than 200 million unique monthly visitors**, and over 100 million reviews and opinions covering more than 2.5 million accommodations, restaurants and attractions. The sites operate in 30 countries worldwide, including China under daodao.com. TripAdvisor also includes TripAdvisor for Business, a dedicated division that provides the tourism industry access to millions of monthly TripAdvisor visitors.

TripAdvisor, Inc. (NASDAQ: TRIP) manages and operates websites under 20 other travel media brands: http://www.airfarewatchdog.com, http://www.bookingbuddy.com, http://www.cruisecritic.com, http://www.everytrail.com, http://www.familyvacationcritic.com, http://www.flipkey.com, http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk, http://www.holidaywatchdog.com, http://www.independenttraveler.com, http://www.jetsetter.com, http://www.niumba.com,  www.onetime.com, http://www.seatguru.com, http://www.sniqueaway.com, http://www.smartertravel.com, http://www.tingo.com, www.travelpod.com, http://www.virtualtourist.com, http://www.whereivebeen.com, and http://www.kuxun.cn. 

*Source: comScore Media Metrix for TripAdvisor Sites, worldwide, April 2013

**Source: Google Analytics, worldwide data, May 2013

©2013 TripAdvisor, Inc. All rights reserved. 

SOURCE TripAdvisor

In an attempt to keep its subscribers from defecting to Pandora and Spotify, Sirius XM is offering streaming Internet programming in the car for the first time.

BIG DATA costs big bucks. Perhaps then, it should be no surprise to see ERN, the London-based startup that’s planning to use Big Data to enable banks and merchants to create loyalty-based offers for cardholders, has announced that it’s raised more funding before actually managing to launch. Following a $2 million funding round raised last December, the company has added another $1.6 million in seed funding to its coffers.

Once again, ERN is remaining tight-lipped on who its backers are, only to describe them as “high net worth individuals”, the majority of which I understand are new investors, and that the additional capital will be used to further develop its platform.

In addition to its headquarters in London, the Fintech startup has an office in Silicon Valley and Singapore, and currently employs a team of 14 people, a head-count that it’s planning to ad to. Two noteworthy hires earlier this year include former Mastercard executives Anant Patel and Brian Eagle-Brown. Patel is now ERN’s Head of UK Sales, while Eagle-Brown is the startup’s UK Merchant & Acquiring Sales Director.

ERP’s analytics platform, dubbed “Looop”, enables banks (or more specifically, card issuers) and participating merchants to boost customer loyalty by creating new products and offers based on the analysis of their card transactions. The idea is that by drilling into the Big Data around a customer’s transactional history — after they’ve opted in, of course — individually-tailored offers can be pushed to their smartphone via the Looop app, in the form of an e-coupon redeemable in-store.

From the merchants point of view, these offers can be segmented using the Big Data that the system is able to make sense of, as well as being based on things like time and location. So, for example, only push an offer when a customer who has previously bought a dress is within a certain radius of the participating store.

In addition to receiving highly targeted offers — the Looop system is designed to be non-spammy and is self-learning based on how a consumer interacts with the platform (i.e. which offers they take up) as well as their card transactions — the Looop smartphone app lets consumers track spending on their credit and debit cards in “real-time”. The pull being that they can budget more effectively — the trojan horse needed to push those enticing loyalty-based offers.

Meanwhile, although yet to launch, ERN says it’s now in a position to conduct wider customer trials, which have begun already. What banks or merchants it’s working with, the startup isn’t saying or can’t say. However, I understand them to be household names.

Netflix has announced that it will begin operating in The Netherlands later this year, further expanding its European footprint. The Netherlands, Netflix’s seventh European country, is a relatively small market for the streaming video service, but in keeping with Netflix’s more cautious approach to moving into new countries after its aggressive international expansion last year lost money.

After breaking into several international markets, including the UK, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, in 2012, Netflix said in January that it would dramatically decrease the rate of its overseas expansion in 2013. During the past six months, Netflix has not launched in any new countries.

In its first-quarter earnings report this April, Netflix said that it expects a profit of up to $149 million from its U.S. streaming business in the second quarter, but losses of up to $81 million from its international streaming in 40 countries. The company’s U.S. business is also given a boost by its DVD-by-mail segment, which will contribute additional profits of up to $112 million.

Netflix now has 7.1 million international users in Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia and parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. The streaming video company currently has 29.2 million streaming subscribers in the U.S.

The company did not give any details about its catalog or pricing, but it did say that users in The Netherlands will get access to Hollywood-produced, local and global TV series and films, including Netflix Original Series “House of Cards” and “Arrested Development” on their mobile devices, PCs and game consoles. A site for The Netherlands is now open for notification sign-ups.

The physical environment in which a service plays out has a significant influence on the experience of a service. So it’s not uncommon for service design projects to take the physical environment into account.

In a recent project focused on the physical environment of the train station, the Dutch service design consultancy 31 Volts, specifically looked at the “extreme users“; that small group of people which cause a rather big impact on the experience of the larger group of “normal users”.

So instead of analyzing and optimizing the existing customer journey they took the lateral approach and explored the weird and quirky behavior, because extreme users bring an environment to life that would otherwise be sterile.

(via InfoDesign)

A new Ericsson ConsumerLab report, Unlocking Consumer Value, identifies the needs of today’s smartphone and mobile internet users.

“The rapid uptake of smartphones and other connected devices has transformed the mobile broadband landscape – shaping and broadening the way users work, play and communicate. When the uptake of smartphones begins to accelerate in a particular market, it is vital to differentiate between consumers based on what they prioritize in an offering, whether that’s unwavering performance or cost control and data usage.

This report outlines Ericsson ConsumerLab’s findings and details six different mobile internet target groups: the Performance Seekers, the Cost Cutters, the Curious Novices, the Control Seekers, the VIPs and the Devicers.

As an example, for Performance Seekers the interaction with the operator is less important and price is of medium importance while the device and the performance are of high importance. Cost Cutters, on the other hand, only prioritize the price.

The report can be used to help operators and developers better understand what is important to their users. This information can enhance overall consumer experience and loyalty by creating more value through relevant services and offerings.”

Video services provider Ooyala is setting up an R&D operations in Singapore, and is hiring researchers and data scientists for the facility.

The company provides video technology to media companies and telcos, enabling them to stream their content online such as the Australian Open, or helping ESPN embed videos in tweets.It claims to have a collective viewership of about 200 million across 130 countries each month.

Ooyala has had a small staff of four in Singapore since last year, but the new facility will bump up its presence here to about 20 when it’s operational in 2014, said CEO, Jay Fulcher. The center here will focus on researching localized products for Asia, as the company expands outside of the US. Ooyala will keep its core engineering team in Mountain View, where most of its 300 staff are. It also maintains offices in Sydney, Tokyo, LA, New York and London, with teams of about ten in each of them.

Fulcher wouldn’t say how much the company is ploughing into the center here, but said it is making “significant” investments into its growth. Last year, the company raised a massive $35 million round, led by Australian telco, Telstra. It was its fifth round to date.

The company isn’t profitable, but Fulcher said Ooyala can make its books positive “at any given point”, but is choosing to spend aggressively on expansion in the meantime.

45 percent of its revenue comes from North America, with Asia, Latin America and Europe after, in descending order. When I pointed out that it’s generally unusual for companies to have Asia as their second-largest revenue contributor, Fulcher said it’s because Ooyala landed a large client in the Times Group of India. “In fact, that was our first client ever,” he said.

As Ooyala expands in Asia, it’s also chasing the growing audience watching video on mobile devices here. According to its latest video index report, Singapore viewers had the longest live viewing sessions at 52 minutes on average.

57 percent also watched online videos to completion, indicating that they were engaged with the content. And more viewers in the region are watching videos longer than ten minutes—considered “longform” for videos, said Fulcher. A third of viewers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Thailand watch these longer videos.

Other video networks focusing on mobiles are making an active play for the region, too. California-based Vuclip just reported that its mobile video network has 80 million monthly viewers, with most of them in the emerging markets in Asia and Latin America. It has raised $35 million to date, and earlier this year acquired another mobile video player, Jigsee, to expand into India.

Teambox has added high-definition video conferencing, adding to a list of providers that are adding video to their collaboration platforms.

The Teambox offering is of particular note, as it fully integrates video conferencing and screen sharing directly into the collaboration platform through Zoom, a video-conferencing service. The service allows for video conferencing of up to 25 people across desktops, tablets and mobile devices. It supports iCal, Outlook and Google Calendar.

Teambox has earned recognition for its capability to integrate third-party apps for an inline experience. It’s in some sense a framework for aggregating apps such as Box and Evernote.

But is it that much better than using third-party services in conjunction with a collaboration platform?

Tibco’s Tibbr activity stream product now integrates third-party web-conferencing tools. A customer can start a live meeting by choosing their own platform. The intent is to allow enterprises to leverage the platforms they have invested in.

So there are benefits to both ways of integrating video conferencing with a collaboration platform. Most of the services, such as Microsoft Office 365,  have integrated video conferencing, mostly as an add-on.

But the tide is shifting. Services such as Unison now offer video chat through WebRTC, the real-time communications technology that is native to the browser through a JavaScript API. Google Chrome, Firefox and Opera now support the open-source project.

Then there are the services like Pexip, which I looked at last week, which is making video conferencing available as a software.

In all of this, there is one theme. Video conferencing is now moving to software, making integration into collaboration services easier than ever before.

Design-focused commerce company Fab has raised that round of funding we scooped a few months ago. Fab is announcing today that it has raised $150 million in the first tranche of the company’s Series D round of financing. We’re told that $150 million is the first part of a larger Series D round that Fab expects to complete over the next few months. New to this round is Chinese Internet giant Tencent, who will also have a board seat at Fab; and Japanese conglomerate Itochu. Previous investors Atomico, Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures, RTP Capital, Pinnacle Ventures, Lars Hinrichs, and Docomo Capital also participated in this latest round of financing.

This brings Fab’s total funding to $310 million. We’re hearing from multiple sources that the pre-money valuation of the company was $1 billion, as we had reported in April (a spokesperson for Fab has confirmed the valuation). And we’ve also heard from a source that Fab will be raising another $100 million or more in the later part of this round. At Fab’s last round of financing in 2012, the company was worth around $600 million. Past investors include First Round Capital, SoftTech VC, Baroda Ventures, Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary, Thrive Capital, Kevin Rose, SV Angel, The Washington Post, VTB Capital, Phenomen Ventures and the Times of India.

Founder and CEO Jason Goldberg said the company started down the fundraising route in March to raise enough capital to have several years of runway, at least until 2015. He added that for this round there was $400 million worth of interest coming from investors.

Growth, International And Another Pivot

Fourteen million users strong, Fab is continuing to grow at a fast clip after its initial pivot. Last year, the company saw $150 million in revenue, and revealed in February that sales were up by nearly 300 percent in January 2013 over January 2012. In fact, January was Fab’s third-highest sales month ever.

According to the company, Fab should reach $250 million in 2013 sales. Fab’s now achieving 43 percent gross margins, up from 29 percent in 2011. Interestingly, Fab says that most of its revenue is not derived from flash sales, which was the initial model Fab adopted after its pivot in 2011. As we wrote in this profile of the company, Fab infamously pivoted from Fabulis, which was a social network for the gay community, into a flash sales site. Fab says that two-thirds of sales are currently not from the flash-sales on the site, and the company recently rebranded to reflect this change. And 50 percent of Fab’s sales are in home categories.

In May, Fab debuted its new design store, which makes it more of an integrated e-commerce site. You can access design pages by room, type of furniture, color, designer and more.

International is also a huge potential growth area for the company. Fab has 1 million members in the UK, which is generating nearly 40 percent of its sales in Europe and is its fastest-growing market outside the U.S. Asia is the next frontier, which is why Goldberg and Fab are bringing on Tencent and Itochu as partners.

As Goldberg explains, there are currently only four e-commerce companies in the world that are valued at more than $10 billion: Amazon, Alibaba, eBay, and Rakuten. He believes that Fab has a legitimate chance to be the fifth by leading in what he calls Emotional Commerce. This basically means that Fab helps people discover the items they love and want.

Part of Fab’s plan to take over emotional commerce involves making its own line of products and home goods. Fab is also partnering with designers to manufacture and sell home furnishings exclusively through Fab. Additionally, Fab is experimenting with brick and mortar stores, with the first store debuting in Hamburg, Germany. Mobile is also a huge growth area, with one-third of sales being placed via mobile. And international will also be a major strategic focus for Fab, which just acquired German custom furniture store Massivkonzept. Fab sells products in 27 countries and 40 percent of sales today occur outside the U.S.

What Fab Is Spending The Cash On

$150 million is a lot of cash, and Fab is raising more. Where is the money going? Goldberg says that Fab will be investing in additional enhancements to its supply chain, logistics, customer service, technology, and merchandising. At the beginning of 2012 it took 16 days — on average — from time of purchase to shipping a product. Today, 75 percent of Fab’s orders ship within 24 hours of purchase, and Fab wants to make sure this is the case for 100 percent of the products sold on the site. This year Fab will open its own new Fab-operated warehouse in The Netherlands to serve European customers. In 2014 Fab will open a warehouse in the Las Vegas area.

As mentioned above, Fab will also be doubling down on manufacturing and designing more products in-house, as well as working with designers to offer items exclusively on Fab. We can also expect more development in social and mobile. And Goldberg says Fab will be putting more investment in international (likely via more acquisitions, as it has bought five companies in two years).

With the Tencent investment, Goldberg says that Fab will be working together to expand the site’s presence in China.

As for why Fab has raised as much as it has in only two years, Goldberg maintains that this is how retail works. “Tell me an e-commerce business that is worth more than $5 billion that hasn’t raised a lot of money,” he says. To fund things like logistics, fulfillment, inventory and manufacturing, a business needs a lot of capital, he explains. He adds that if Fab stayed as a U.S. business, the company wouldn’t need to raise as much.

There is also now a somewhat clear path towards profitability, at least for the U.S. and European businesses. Goldberg says that Fab will likely become profitable in its U.S. and European operations by Q4 2014 or Q1 2015.

For pretty much as long as anyone can remember, a relationship triangle, or a “love triangle” if you will, has taken shape between companies and the PR firms that represent them and the press that covers them — existing in some sort of recursive loop. Yet, while that triangle should have come to represent a symbiosis and a valuable communication network, somewhere along the way the triangle broke down. (Defying the laws of Geometry, even.) In reality, today this relationship is more like the Bermuda Triangle.

While the matter of who is responsible for the disconnect is subject to debate, the PR industry (for right or wrong) usually takes most of the blame. While the causes are numerous, in the end, most of the problems inherent to the startup-PR relationship are a matter of transparency (or lack therof) and the inability for either side to find the best (and most mutually beneficial) match on the other.

AirPR launched into private beta last year with $1 million in seed funding from 500 Startups, Mohr Davidow Ventures, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg and others to help solve this problem by creating a marketplace in which startups can find PR representation that’s right for them, and vice versa. Pitched as a kind of “Match.com for PR,” at launch AirPR focused primarily on matching top, pre-screened PR talent in the U.S. with technology startups looking for (and able to pay for) representation.

Last week, after a year of testing the system in closed beta, iterating and tweaking, the San Francisco-based company has finally opened its marketplace to the public. With its public launch, AirPR is opening its doors to all tech startups, expanding its marketplace to include companies in the lifestyle and consumer goods verticals and adding a few tweaks to its formula.

After watching 70 companies go through its PR matchmaking system and processing feedback from PR veterans, AirPR cut its onboarding process in half. Now, in order to find the best match, startups enter the date they want their PR campaign to begin and then answer a series of questions about their focus, stage of development, what kind of help they’d like, how much funding they’ve raised, and so on. AirPR then screens the startups and, if they meet its quality standards, uses the startup’s answers to match them with reps whose experience best fits that criteria. If not, they’re declined.

After being alerted to the incoming business leads, reps then place bids for the client, at which point the startup can sift through the offers, compare them, select the best option and pay for a 60-day contract.

Based on feedback from startups and PR pros, at launch, the platform also now includes a recommendation system, in which AirPR provides the top three matches based on the data its collected on the PR side. Initially, the company provided a list of all possible matches, but the co-founders tell us that companies were often overwhelmed by an abundance of choice and were less inclined to finish the process than if the system served provided three of its closest matches at the top.

In turn, by recommending PR reps and being more proactive in pushing reps to reach out to specific companies, the conversion ended up being faster and a higher percentage of companies closed the deal.

While there may be contention over the cause, most will likely agree that the PR model as it currently stands is in sore need of improvement. As someone who stands at one of the corners of the PR Bermuda Triangle, I can attest to this. PR reps have a tough job, and, as in any interest there are incredibly talented, bright firms and reps that get lumped in with the offenders who blanket journalists inbox with copy-and-pasted pablum and poorly worded pitches that aren’t even relevant to a writer’s beat.

Any improvement on the overall quality of the PR-startup relationship stands to benefit everyone involved, and while it’s still early to say just how effective AirPR’s model will be, it’s worth the effort.

While the startup’s matching algorithm and marketplace model are familiar, what may be even more valuable to the Bermuda Triangle (and to the industry at large) is the insight that can be pulled from the data AirPR collects on how startups are using the system, what they want help with, how effective PR is at meeting its goals, costs, publications they want to speak to, among other things. This data can help both startups and PR people be more effective and precise with their pitches and outreach. (One can also, much to the delight of everyone except PR, imagine AirPR eventually using this data to make a list of the “Top 10 Most Effective PR Firms,” for example.)

AirPR allowed TechCrunch an early look into some of the data (and insights) it’s collected thus far, and the conclusions are telling. For starters, as Alex Wilhem of TNW shared earlier this week, the most popular keyword or service startups were looking for help with was “Growth,” with 84 percent of companies listing that as top priority, followed by 69 percent of companies looking for “Brand Awareness,” 36 percent for “Launch,” 25 percent for “Fundraising,” and 16 percent for “Recruiting.”

Next, another one that will be of interest to PR reps: The company found that fixed bids (a bid with one amount, like $20K for a 4-month project, for example) were 29 percent more likely to close than retainers (monthly bids). In explaining just why in the sam hill we should care, AirPR CEO Sharam Fouladgar-Mercer explains that, historically, the PR industry has primarily operated on a retainer model.

However, the monthly averages for both fixed bids and retainers are almost the same, he says, so the data thus far seems to show that the reliance on the retainer model is psychological, rather than what its customers want. Clients seem to appreciate the one-time fee with specific deliverables, the CEO explained — a conclusion that helps startups and PR move closer to transparency rather than clients being forced to ask “what exactly are we paying for?” each month.

To date, AirPR has found that the average bid accepted on the platform breaks down to roughly $5K/month in fees (whether fixed or retainer) for an average of 5 months. In other words, companies that have between $500K and $4 million in funding want shorter-term contracts with lower rates. This, in and of itself may not be surprising, but the more data it collects, the more it will be able to reveal correlations between not only funding and how much they’re willing to pay, but size of bids and the work they want done, the industry they’re in, and so on.

The CEO also tells us that several of the PR reps on the AirPR platform have doubled their business since joining and are “now looking to grow their practice with other folks on the platform, like a co-op situation,” he says. To this point, the idea from the beginning has been to not only help startups who often have no idea where to start when looking for PR, but to serve PR firms and reps that are looking to expand their practices. In the end, the AirPR co-founder tells us, this helps them weed out lower quality PR and put the best firms and people in control.

If AirPR can follow through on that idea, its marketplace could end up providing a lot of value to both startups and the PR firms that love them by helping them navigate the Bermuda Triangle and get more bang for their buck.

Months after Hurricane Sandy left New York scrambling for power, the city is unveiling 25 solar powered charging stations in parks and public spaces throughout the five boroughs, starting today.

The pilot project between AT&T and the city of New York is officially called AT&T Street Charge. (DUMBO firm Pensa handled design, and Goal Zero provided the solar technology, AT&T handled the cash.) The stations will move to new locations at the beginning of July, rotating throughout the city until September. After that, we’ll see what becomes of them.

Most are a little out of the way for those who don’t go to Fort Greene Park, the Brooklyn Bridge Park, or Riverside Park on the reg, but solar powered, public, and free is a pretty great thing. Definitely better than those public charging stations that also charge you money.

Since the Union Square location won’t open until tomorrow, I headed up to Riverside Park to see what the good people of New York thought of it. If I was hoping for a rare Upper West Side mob scene — and I was — I was sorely disappointed. To be fair, it was an overcast Tuesday at 2:30pm. On a sunny Saturday afternoon when the adjacent Pier 1 Cafe is busier, I’m sure the station will be getting more love.

Joggers, cyclists, dog-walkers, and people who were otherwise not at work stopped by the charging station regularly and gave the attendant an “I’m just taking a look” or “I just wanted to see what it was” before moving on. It is a 12.5′ metal pole with six phone chargers at hip height and three arms at the top that resemble whimsical helicopter blades, so that is a valid reaction.

The most enthusiasm came from a group of 16-year-olds, who rushed the pole going, “Ooohhh, coool.” When I asked them if they’d feel safe leaving their phones there, all five of them gave an immediate and decisive no.

“Are you guys from New York?”

“Yes.”

So there you go. But two of the boys did stick around for a few minutes to plug in their phones.

“It’s okay if you’re standing right next to it.”

“I’d pull up a chair.”

Another man checking out the pole said that while he wouldn’t feel comfortable stepping away from his phone — “I hardly like to leave the house with it” — he could see imagine huge lines in the event of another blackout.

The attendant, who works for a company hired by AT&T for the launch, estimated that about 20 or 25 people had charged their phones on the pole in the four hours since she arrived at 11am. In the hour that I was there, only three did, teenage boys included.

A 24-year-old cyclist named Shana reclined in a nearby cafe chairs waiting for her iPod to charge. Asked if she felt comfortable sitting 15 feet away from it, she replied,

“Well, it’s about 6 years old, so…”

Most people seemed to think it was a great idea, especially in light of Sandy, but no New Yorker is going to leave their stuff lying around. I think a nearby Park Enforcement official put it best:

“Never leave anything unattended.”

And so the charging stations stood in the June drizzle waiting for the public to stand right next to them.

[Image: AT&T]

Instagram is planning to launch video functionality in two days. But don’t go deleting Vine just yet. Before shoving Vine’s into the deadpool, let’s just calm it down a second.

Vine has been declared by many as the “Instagram for Video.” Instagram’s own video product is likely already too late to squash Vine like a bug. Heck, Facebook couldn’t even get Poke and Messenger off the ground after incumbents clobbered the space. What makes anyone think Instagram video would be any different?

Vine launched in January of this year, just after the holidays, and spent a few months ramping up the user base before launching on Android a few weeks ago. At the time, Vine had 13 million downloads. Not too shabby for approximately five months of work. It took Vine a few days to swing to the top of the App Store, and the same was true on Google Play following the Android launch.

When Instagram launched on Android, seventeen months after launching on iOS, it had around 30 million users. Obviously, users are a different metric than downloads, but you can see how Vine’s growth is relatively astounding given the timeframe. Especially when you factor in the less pointed evidence: Vine shares have surpassed Instagram shares on Twitter, for example, or even just hearing the term “Vine it” regularly in every day life. And having Twitter as a parent company doesn’t hurt either.

Vine is already established, and better yet, making waves. Vine was used by the Tribeca Film Festival for a special #6SecFilm Contest. The app has been toyed with by designers and advertisers to build new interactive music videos. Brands love Vine because it lets products move in ways that Twitter and Facebook don’t.

And Vine, of course, is still iterating quickly. We’ve seen the team respond to feature requests like the ability to use front-facing camera as well as rear-facing camera, and I wouldn’t be suprisedt to see interesting additions like Voiceover or Animation pop up soon.

Instagram is a powerful foe. The app has over 100 million users, and is now owned by the most powerful social network in the world. But this is far from the end of Vine.

First, Vine is the end product of what Instagram was built to be. Vine skipped past still photos, and filters to make those photos (taken with bad mobile cameras) look prettier, and the slow grind of adding @mentions and photo maps and all those iterative feature tweaks.

Instead, Vine launched as a true Instagram for video, which now has an active and seemingly happy user base. It’s not Twitter’s Cleaner fish, even if Twitter bought up the app and launched it into existence (unlike Instagram’s organic growth that was later bought up by Facebook).

But where Instagram feels like a consumption app first (a time sink, almost), Vine doesn’t. Scrolling through my Vine stream is like having a hangover during an earthquake. Most often, it’s a lot of clanging and wind noise coupled with shaky video of my friends’ latest vacation.

Still, Vines are excellent content. I am utterly pleased when I see a Vine.co link pop up in my Twitter stream, or surface in someone’s Facebook Timeline. I’m even more elated by a Vine.co link sent to my desktop. I like to watch the six-second thrill ride in all its glory. There’s something special about getting a glimpse (in video no less!) into someone’s world.

Instagram is a different story. There was a time when I could scroll through Instagram for days. I’m not so entranced by the photo-sharing phenom anymore. Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way, but I get a sense of Instagram fatigue, both on the creative and consumptive side.

Perhaps it’s due to the fact that I’m all hopped up on Vine. Maybe Instagram’s had its time?

People like consuming video, sure, but it’s almost shocking how much people love making videos, too. Especially when given the right tools. When I see something cool happening out in the world, Instagram is no longer enough. I pray to the social media gods that this wondrous, hilarious, or downright insane scene before me will last the six seconds I need. I sense how strongly other people feel the same as I do.

Instagram for video might offer a similar creative experience, but it’ll be hard to do so without copying Vine’s ability to string together multiple clips in such an easy manner. Easy is the key. And we all know what happens when Facebook tries to copy a threat. Messenger launched after WhatsApp and Viber were blowing up. Poke launched to (shamefully) combat Snapchat. And here comes Instagram, ready to take on Vine.

But will Vine crumble where other competitors stood firm? Will it lay down and die?

Oh no! Not Vine! Vine will survive.

If you like the new Vanquish and have $300,000 to spare (actually, a little less at $297,995, to be precise - just as long as you avoid the temptation of ticking any option boxes) and prefer to see the sun instead of the coupe's headliner, Aston Martin has just presented the open top version dubbed Volante.

Among the many features highlighted by Aston Martin is the fact that the new Vanquish Volante is the first fully carbon fibre-skinned and simultaneously, stiffest convertible model in the brand’s 100-year history. The full height windscreens is another first for an open top Aston.

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When he bought his 1966 Volvo 1800S new, Irv Gordon didn't think about it too much. But after nearly 50 years and 3 million miles behind the wheel of the same car, Mr. Gordon has formed a special bond with it.

Fears regarding the Tesla Model S’ one-charge range don’t only concern the more eco-minded drivers who are set to achieve the maximum range out of it, because those with a faster driving style who also happen to like racing the classic quarter mile also have to be catered for.

Now, the crew over at DragTimes wanted to know how many 400-meter drag races can be performed with a full battery and good weather conditions.

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The first ever sedan interpretation of the A3 series is now available for order from Audi's UK network with first deliveries in September. The new A3 Saloon is offered with an initial range of three powerplants with on-the-road prices starting from £24,275 for the base 2.0 TDI Sport and topping out at £28,105 for the 1.8 TFSI S Line. Read more »

The courts aren’t a great answer, but pre-regulation before you know what the final form of the technology will be, is also a bad idea.

My feeling is the best approach is to let the companies fear the courts (and thus do a good job on safety) and you probably don’t need to force them to do much at all. If the courts are going the wrong way and killing the tech, you can use regulation to slow that down with liability caps.

It happened to me. Yes, I once uploaded a pic of my friend to Facebook from my phone, forgot to change the setting from “Public” to “Friends” and had the friend get told that day by a random person: “Hey I just saw a picture of you on Alexia from TechCrunch’s wall!” So now I’m circumspect.

Apparently this social media disaster was happening to more people, because Facebook just fixed it — at least on iOS. Android has apparently had the new feature for over a week.

Now iPhone users too are able to easily edit Facebook’s photo privacy settings — by selecting the drop-down arrow on the status update and selecting “Edit Privacy.” Though you still can’t edit the update text or any comments themselves from your iPhone, this is pretty useful. The last time I messed up on a photo privacy setting, I had to access Facebook’s Mobile Web page on a foreign connection to fix it. Not pretty.

In addition to this nod to paranoid people, Facebook iOS Version 6.2 allows users to post the emotion and action updates they’ve come to know and love on the web, including Happy, Sad, Wonderful and, my favorite, Loved.

You can also now start a new conversation with a photo sent to you in messages in Version 6.2, though I don’t think this feature will be remembered enough to see that much traction, unless teenagers are exhibiting some novel group photosharing behaviors on Facebook Message that I don’t know about.

And speaking of Facebook Message, let me take this post about an app update to let you know that a standalone Messenger for iPad is likely not happening, though a trial app was in the works when we reported on it. Basically Messenger was not seeing the growth Facebook hoped for (turns out people don’t want a messenger app PLUS a Facebook app) after Facebook’s primary app became less buggy and slow. So, nixed.

PSA: Update your apps periodically, people.