Two days ago, I received an invite to Pinterest. (I know, I’m late.) After signing up, I pretty much ignored the welcome message, just as I do with most services. But last night I decided to get myself caught up after the Crunchies, and started reading through all my unread emails (even the ones from Nigerian royal’s relatives) and found myself actually reading through the Pinterest welcome email, too.

It’s wonderful, and the reason it’s wonderful comes down to just one bullet point:

Pin carefully! As one of the first members of Pinterest, your pins will help set the tone for the whole community. Use big images, write thoughtful descriptions, and pin things you really love. Also, no nudity

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This is the kind of thing that happens in the age of the Internet and Kickstarter. My daughter Emily told me one of her friends was involved in opening an art gallery and they were using Kickstarter to raise the…Continue reading →

Here are some recent stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: The Zen Table Practices Mindfulness So You Don’t Have To The Wheel: What Is The Foxconn Debate Really About? iModela Adds CNC Milling To Your Home 3D Printing ArsenalContinue reading →

I dare you to Facebook Like or even comment on this post. You can’t, because the Facebook Javascript API, the backend system which allows developer applications and Facebook’s own apps like Likes and Comments to communicate with the data available on the social network, is down, and has been down for at least an hour as far as I can tell, begging the question, “If article falls on a blog and no one Likes it, does it make a sound?”
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Those of us who have been following the social gaming industry already know that Zynga has made up a big portion of Facebook’s revenues. But lots of public investors only seem to have gotten the memo on Wednesday evening, when Facebook’s S-1 filing revealed that the developer made up 12% of its total revenues, or $445 million.

In the two days since, Zynga’s stock has gone up more than 26%, to close at $13.39 this evening.Continue reading →

I just donated $40 to Wikipedia, because I promised myself I would every time I poked fun at its Holiday donation drive and then just never got around to it. Did you know that you could actually donate during the off-season (Via the covert “Donate to Wikipedia” link at the far left of each individual entry page)? I didn’t, before I asked Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales whether it was possible to donate in the off-season. Spoiler alert, it is.

My 40 bucks got me, in addition to the very sweet ‘Thank You’ letter below, the satisfaction of paying duly for something I use all the time.Continue reading →

In interesting but ultimately not very shocking news, Google has signed on as a major sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference, which is more or less what it sounds like. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just a little odd seeing Google, which is becoming increasingly political, listed next to such organizations as the Koch Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the NRA.

But this isn’t the moment Google comes out as a closet Republican. It’s actually quite in keeping with Google’s position of aggressive neutrality.Continue reading →

The Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire has been publishing statistics on angel investing for decades.  Over the past several years, the numbers of US companies funded by angel investors has increased from about 50,000 per year to over 60,000 annually.  Based on CVR reports, Mark Boslet of senior editor with [...]Continue reading →

The Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire has been publishing statistics on angel investing for decades.  Over the past several years, the numbers of US companies funded by angel investors has increased from about 50,000 per year to over 60,000 annually.  Based on CVR reports, Mark Boslet of senior editor with [...]Continue reading →

The Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire has been publishing statistics on angel investing for decades.  Over the past several years, the numbers of US companies funded by angel investors has increased from about 50,000 per year to over 60,000 annually.  Based on CVR reports, Mark Boslet of senior editor with [...]Continue reading →