TechCrunch
Poppy, A Device That Turns Your Phone Into A 3-D Camera, Launches On Kickstarter
Every now and then in this job I see something that’s just fun and new and interesting and I think, “Wow, why hasn’t anyone else thought of that?” That’s kind of how I felt when I first saw Poppy, which is a cute little device that lets you view and record 3-D photos and videos from your iPhone.
Poppy is the newest little gadget to go up on Kickstarter, offering up a new fun toy for anyone who likes to shoot or view 3-D video. And it’ll be priced to sell — at less than $50, Poppy is within reach for pretty much anyone who wants it, or who wants to give a cool little gift to friends and family.
Poppy looks kind of like an oversized Viewmaster — you know, that 3-D photo viewing thing you had as a kid? You’d click the wheel you’d be able to see another 3-D image through the viewfinder? Weren’t those the days?*
Anyway, Poppy even kind of works the same way as a Viewmaster — but instead of putting some weird rotating disk in a slot, you plug in the iPhone. Then you flip the front half of the device over to align it with the phone’s camera, and voila! You’re able to shoot and view 3-D.
The whole thing works through the science of mirrors, but science isn’t really that interesting. Just trust me. It’s a cool gadget.
All images and videos are recorded so that they can be viewed from your phone. But to be honest, maybe you want to watch 3-D video other people have shot? Well you’re in luck! There’s a whole bunch of swank videos on YouTube that you can stream through the device as well.
The guys behind Poppy are looking to raise $40,000 on Kickstarter. That’s doable, right? Kick in a little, get you one. They plan to ship by the end of the year.
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* It saddens me to know that there is an entire generation reading this that has no idea what I’m talking about.
LinkedIn Gets A Little More Watchful, Now Tells You Who's Viewed Your Updates, And Where You've Been Looking
LinkedIn, the social network used by people for job hunting and making other business connections, is adding two more enhancements to its homepage that highlight one of its creepier, but occasionally useful, elements: how it tracks what people visit on the site and then reports on that activity.
From today, it will start showing users who has viewed their not just their overall profiles, but their updates on the site; and it will also start showing what you’ve been visiting yourself. Together, the two build on a long-standing feature on LinkedIn’s homepage, “Who’s viewed your profile,” and they also underscore how LinkedIn continues to add services to encourage more activity on its platform.
The bigger picture, too, is that LinkedIn is fighting another creeping trend: that of declining revenue growth. While actual sales are still on the rise, and even exceeding expectations in recent quarters, the overall trend is one of growth on the site slowing. In that context, the hope is that adding new features to increase activity on LinkedIn will drive more paid users, as well as more advertising.
“Who’s viewed your updates” differs from the existing profile viewing tracker in a couple of ways. For starters, there is no paygate on the feature that limits how much data you can see. In comparison, LinkedIn uses its profile view as a way to drive paid subscriptions to the service: you receive a limited list of those who have looked up your profile; you cannot see a full list, or who is seeing your name in searches, unless you “unlock the full list with LinkedIn Premium.”
LinkedIn tells me it has no plans to charge for “who’s viewed your updates,” perhaps because it wants to push the site as a platform for sharing content. To that end, it shows how much specific status updates and shared news gets viewed, liked and commented on, and by whom, and whether those people are in your first, second or third circle of contacts.
This, in turn, not only serves as a reminder to people to keep updating their accounts — “Share something new,” the box notes — but like the profile view, seeing who has been responding to your status updates is a way for you to make new contacts or revisit existing ones. (And also like the profile view, it’s a slightly unnerving reminder that you are being watched wherever you go on the site.)
“Who’s viewed your updates” also highlights LinkedIn’s wider social media ambitions. The concentric circles and datapoints about comments, likes and views speaks to how the site is, bit by bit, offering more analytics tools to its users, particularly those who look to the site as a marketing platform either for themselves or for their businesses.
“You recently visited” is another play on analytics, but this time focusing on you. It tracks personal profiles that you’ve viewed, searches you have made, and group discussions where you have contributed. Down the line, LinkedIn tells me it will also include articles you have seen and company profiles.
“This makes it easier to retrace your steps, re-engage in conversations or follow-up with that old colleague you intended to connect with,” writes Caroline Gaffney, Homepage product lead at LinkedIn in a post that will soon be posted on the company’s blog.
Again, this highlights LinkedIn as a place for research, and if you use it a lot, it can be a simple way to track what you’ve done in case you need to return to something. Like the other new feature, LinkedIn tells me there are no plans for now to charge for this.
Today’s two new features are the latest additions to LinkedIn’s homepage, which it first started to update about a year ago. They will start appearing in that all-important right-hand column, where the profile viewing data, advertising, new contact suggestions and other high-priority features are placed.
Altogether, these features are part of a much bigger platform refresh at LinkedIn that has seen the site move to more updated, interactive features across the board. These have included the ability to add photos, presentations and other media to your profile; an update to the Contacts page to add in more “personal assistant” life organizing features; new iPhone and Android apps; an expanded search engine; @mentions in status updates; Klout-style endorsements; and a Recruiter homepage redesign for the site’s most dedicated user vertical.
Gaffney notes that there will be more updates coming soon.
Onefinestay, The Airbnb For The 1%, Launches Neighborhood Guides For Everyone
Since 2010, Onefinestay has been in the business of helping visitors to London and New York City find posh accommodations in other people’s homes while they’re in town. One side benefit has been that those visitors also get access to a directory of things to do in local neighborhoods, created by its community of hosts. Now anyone will be see those recommendations, as the company is opening them up to all.
The U.K.-based startup provides a peer-to-peer marketplace of awesome homes that are available to rent while their owners are out of town. Onefinestay has a very curated list of high-quality places to stay while its high net worth hosts are out of town — at their summer homes, perhaps, or traveling to Asia for a month on business.
It gives its guests the best of both worlds: They get to stay in an actual home while visiting some of their favorite cities, but they get all the same amenities that one might expect from a high-class hotel. Onefinestay ensures that all homes are professionally cleaned before they are rented out, and they even provide their own towels and linens. There’s also a concierge service for guests, and the company even provides a free iPhone pre-loaded with neighborhood suggestions, so visitors can live like locals.
It’s kind of like Airbnb for people who usually stay in five-star hotels.
Anyway, about those neighborhood suggestions. Onefinestay has been collecting tips from both hosts and guests over the last few years. The site now has 20,000 recommendations for things to do, and that’s just for London and New York City. While these previously were only available to those people who used the service, the company is now opening them up for anyone to peruse.
Of course, Onefinestay isn’t alone in this. Airbnb has been rolling out neighborhood guides for various cities around the world since last fall, crowdsourcing suggestions from its hosts on things to do and places to go.
While Onefinestay might not attract a whole lot of new clients — after all, not everyone has $1,350 a night to stay in an all-white Flatiron loft — the neighborhood guides will give guests and non-guests alike valuable information for how to live like a local. The company has raised $15.9 million since being founded in 2010, from investors such as Index Ventures, Canaan Partners, and PROfounders Capital.
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