Why I spent the morning learning about something called Magnum Ice Cream. (Hint: William, Kate + Twitter).

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Every year at The Next Web Conference, we invite a large number of startups to present their new products and services at the TNW Startup Rally. Spread across four sessions over two days, sixteen startups get five minites to present their new stuff in front of our Jury of Experts. The second block of four to present […]

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Happy #RoyalWedding day! Here’s what you need to know:

• Amazon explains and apologizes for their huge crash disaster. The crash not only brought many websites down but also permanently destroyed many customers’ data.

• Microsoft reported “OK but not spectacular” earnings, and the stock is down. Our full analysis →
• RIM slashed its outlook, the stock is tanking. Investors thought they would announce a sale, but no.
• Logitech’s earnings provide more evidence that Google TV is a dud.
• PayPal buys a mobile payments startup.
• The long and sad story continues: everybody at Yahoo is jumping ship.
• Samsung counter-sues Apple, which sued it for ripping off the “look and feel” of the iPhone.
• GPS maker TomTom sold customer data to law enforcement.
• Hot ad software startup MediaBank buys startup AdBuyer
• BONUS: Our live-blog of the royal wedding.

For the latest tech news, visit SAI: Silicon Alley Insider. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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See Also:

• 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning
• 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning
• 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

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Steve Rubel has long been a commentator on new media via his early blog Micropersuasion and now as a principal at Edelman PR. I caught up with him at The Next Web conference in Amsterdam to chat to him about how he thinks startups can better promote themselves on social media.

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At The Next Web conference in Amsterdam I caught up with Guillaume Decugis, CEO of Scoop.it, a news curation startup coming out of France, but which is rapidly gaining traction and is poised to put down roots in the US. We’ve previously covered Scoop.it on TechCrunch France

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I know that it’s not the 1st of April today and we are much closer to May now but I could not help but check the calendar when I’ve read a title in the local news today: a well-known retailer announces availability of iPad 2 in the city where I live. But the huge (I […]

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With recent mobile app store changes forcing developers to emphasize more engagement in their apps, it is highlighting the importance of push notifications, which can be key tools in retaining users and keeping them involved in an app.

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Yesterday at The Next Web Conference Startup Rally, the Dutch based startup Marvia launched a new service from called marvia.ads, which places power back into the hands of print advertisers by providing a ‘click and go’ online platform that allows anyone to create and place an advert across all types of media. [See our launch story here.] Marvia.ads […]

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Microsoft is adding Hulu Plus to the Xbox Live online gaming service on Friday, expanding the system’s entertainment options in a very good way. Users who pay $7.99 a month can get access to the streaming movie and TV show service of Hulu via the Xbox 360.

The new system works with Microsoft’s Kinect motion-sensing system, allowing you to speak voice commands or wave your arm in the air to pause, fast forward, rewind, or play a Hulu Plus show.

That’s nice, but the functionality is pretty much the same as with the previously launched Kinect-based Netflix service and the Zune videos service on the Xbox 360. On the one hand, we’ve seen this before and it’s not a novelty anymore. On the other, it’s smart for Microsoft to make motion-sensing and voice commands consistent across different video services.

Playing and controlling a movie using the Kinect user interface is kind of neat, but it’s also slow. That’s because Kinect makes you hold your hand up in the air until it clearly recognizes the gesture and verifies that you aren’t making a gesture inadvertently. You hold your hand on top of a circle overlay on your screen in order to select a video. That takes precious seconds to complete.

Kinect is imperfect as a gesture-control system because it takes seconds to complete a task. By contrast, I can use a game controller to make changes to a video, such as pausing it, in a fraction of a second. That matters because when you’re watching TV, you don’t want to waste your time. The voice-control feature of Kinect — which has multiple microphones and can discern voice commands — seems to work a little faster. But you still have to semi-shout the word “Xbox” before you can issue a command such as “Pause.” Sometimes the voice command doesn’t work.

Hulu Plus itself is a good addition to Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which has become a full-fledged entertainment gateway. With Hulu Plus, Microsoft offers more options to its 50 million-plus Xbox Live members. Hulu Plus allows users to watch TV shows from ABC, Comedy Central, Fox, NBC, MTV and others. The first week of service is available for free.

Hulu Plus offers both hit TV shows and classic movies in high-definition streams, including current season episodes of shows like Modern Family, 30 Rock, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and others. You can also see back seasons of shows such as Lost or Battlestar Galactica.

Tags: Hulu Plus, Kinect

Companies: Microsoft

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Chrome only: If you dug the More »

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In a counter-move against Zynga, game maker PopCap Games said today that it has acquired the San Francisco-based social game developer ZipZapPlay. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The move could be one of the first for a more aggressive PopCap, the Seattle-based makers of hit games from Bejeweled to Plants vs Zombies, as it tries to be more competitive in social games on Facebook, where Zynga dominates. San Francisco-based Zynga opened an office to recruit game developers in Seattle recently, and now PopCap is acquiring a game studio on Zynga’s home turf. It’s kind of like a tit for tat move in a very high stakes battle for the future of social games.

PopCap is increasing its efforts in part because it plans to file to go public in the second half of the year. John Vechey, co-founder of PopCap and head of its merger and acquisition efforts, said in an interview that the deal is a strategic one, not so much because ZipZapPlay has lots of users. On Facebook, ZipZapPlay’s Baking Life game has 3.2 million monthly active users. That’s small compared to Zynga’s 259 million monthly active users. Zynga’s huge user base has allowed it to buy 12 companies in 12 months.

“What was important to us was their willingness to experiment,” Vechey said. “They get how social gaming will evolve so that it will become actually social, with authentic social interactions. This is a strategic move with a lot of potential.”

In other words, a lot of so-called social games on Facebook tap your friends to do stuff for you, but they don’t actually require you to work together closely with your friends inside the game itself. Vechey acknowledged that PopCap competes with Zynga and that it had previously thought of opening its own office. With this acquisition, PopCap adds 17 new employees and a base to expand in San Francisco, which is the center of the social gaming industry. Curt Bererton and Mathilde Pignol, the top executives of ZipZapPlay, will continue to run the studio.

PopCap reported more than $100 million in revenues last year and it is one of the most successful independent game companies. But it was born in 2000, long before the era of social gaming. PopCap pioneered snack-like casual games with Bejeweled, which has been sold more than 50 million units.

PopCap has been adapting to the rapid rise of Facebook games and it has 16.3 million monthly active users. In that respect, it is playing catch-up with No. 1-ranked Zynga. PopCap has 4.3 million daily active users, or those who come back once a day, and it ranks No. 3 behind Zynga and Electronic Arts in that respect, according to AppData.

Vechey said he has been scouring through potential acquisitions for the past 18 months and found that ZipZapPlay is a nice cultural fit, since it focuses on design excellence in the same way that PopCap does. ZipZapPlay is at work on a new game that could be a big leap forward in social games, Vechey said. That game could come out this year. By the end of 2011, PopCap expects to have four or five games available on Facebook.

Overall, PopCap chief executive Dave Roberts said in a recent interview that PopCap’s aim is to diversify across the important platforms, including social, mobile, and the web. And it will also spread its focus on different geographies and types of games as well so that it can produce more predictable financial results.

Tags: Bejeweled, casual games, Plants vs. Zombies

Companies: Popcap Games, ZipZapPlay, Zynga

People: John Vechey

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An estimated 2 billion people watched the Royal Wedding. How did you catch the nuptials? The marriage of Kate Middleton (now Catherine, Duches…

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As we reported yesterday, OneDrum is looking to enable new levels of online collaboration by providing a platform that can be added to any app or service. As a proof of concept, the company has unveiled the public beta of its Microsoft Office collaboration toolset. OneDrum is part of this year’s Startup Rally at The […]

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With Wikileaks State Department cables showing how much the US influenced copyright policy in Sweden and in Spain, it shouldn’t really be much of a surprise that the US unduly influenced copyright policy elsewhere as well. The latest Wikileaks report confirms what pretty much everyone knew already: copyright reform in Canada was driven mainly by US interests. Michael Geist points out some of the highlights, including the US Government demanding anti-circumvention provisions (things that the creators of those provisions in the US have even admitted were a failure). Yet, the US demands this, while maintaining that it would prefer there be few, if any, exceptions on circumvention:

If there are any exceptions to TPM or rights management information (RMI) liability, the exceptions should be clearly enumerated and narrow in scope

Separately, the US demanded third party liability on ISPs to pressure them into acting as Hollywood’s private copyright police force:

A system of protections and obligations for ISPs that shelters them from certain liability, reduces and prevents copyright infringement on the Internet and provides incentives for ISPs to work cooperatively with copyright owners.

In response, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harpher seemed happy to promise such things, which explains why the Canadian government kept pushing so hard for anti-circumvention “digital lock” rules, despite widespread opposition to that key part of the proposed Canadian copyright reform. And yet, the US keeps complaining that Canada isn’t ratcheting up its copyright laws fast enough, not recognizing the widespread public opposition that such laws are facing.

Embassy Ottawa remains frustrated by the Government of Canada,s continuing failure to introduce - let alone pass - major copyright reform legislation that would, inter alia, implement and ratify the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Internet treaties. Several recent factors compound this frustration, including the fact that:

– the Prime Minister told the President last August that Canada would pass copyright legislation;

– the November Speech from the Throne laying out the government,s Parliamentary agenda stated that it would “improve the protection of cultural and intellectual property rights in Canada, including copyright reform;” and

– senior GOC officials, especially Industry Minister Prentice, repeatedly assured the Ambassador and senior Mission Canada officers that the copyright bill would be introduced “soon.” Specifically, assurances were given that the legislation had been finalized and would be introduced prior to the Christmas recess, and then again immediately upon Parliament’s return in January. Neither of which occurred.

Note that there is no discussion as to why Canada hasn’t moved forward. No discussion of the rather effective opposition to overly draconian copyright laws. Just demands that Canada “do something,” and plans for the US to keep applying more and more diplomatic pressure.

Even more telling, the US ambassadors only seem to speak with either the government or copyright holder organizations in all of this. In one cable, it discusses concerns from the recording industry and the movie studios that Canada’s proposed legal changes don’t go far enough. Nowhere do they seem to speak to actual consumers or to anyone who represents consumers. Because, you see, it’s not about them. In fact, it appears that the “Canadian” Recording Industry Association has a very cozy relationship with the US government, with the two meeting to get feedback on proposals and strategize about policy issues. Again, no mention of any similar consultation with the people actually impacted by such changes in the law: everyone else. In fact, it seems like the only time the public is mentioned at all, it’s to note how pesky it is that they don’t seem to like these changes, and to explain why Canada has slow rolled the changes (because politicians were afraid negative publicity would hurt their re-election campaigns).

In one of the earlier documents linked above, the State Department (based on feedback from industry) criticize the idea of “notice and notice” rather than “notice and takedown” with a snarky complaint about how it’s “if I told you once, I’ve…. told you once.” Apparently, the officials don’t recognize how notice and takedown invariably leads to false takedown and stifling of free speech (something we thought US diplomats were supposed to be protecting).

Once again, none of this is even remotely surprising. The US government, at the urging of the US entertainment industry, has been pushing its own brand of overly aggressive, speech stifling, copyright laws around the globe. It’s just too bad that Canadian politicians apparently don’t have the guts to stand up to bullying US diplomats.

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Amazon Web Services:
Summary of the Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS Service Disruption in the US East Region  —  Now that we have fully restored functionality to all affected services, we would like to share more details with our customers about the events that occurred with the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (”EC2″) …

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