tech crunch

Let's just pretend for a second that Facebook Places aka Facesquare is a charitable attempt on Facebook's part to quell check-in fatigue by making nice with Foursquare , Gowalla, Booyah and Yelp (and not another attempt by Facebook to turn the world into this ). Because Booyah always throws people for a loop ( "Who the hell uses MyTown?" ) and Loopt's 4 million users statistic always seems to shock people, we've posted this handy LBS comparison below. Water cooler tech forecasters should take note of Facesquare's current lack of game mechanics.  

Through their third party offer partner, TrialPay , all EA/Playfish games are currently offering a fantastic Groupon deal that will not only earn you $25 off any Gap apparel, but will also give 35 Playfish Cash. According to TechCrunch , this national deal has been spreading like wildfire, expecting to sell over 700,000 Groupons by the end of the day. If you log in to your favorite Playfish game such as Hotel City or FIFA Superstars , you can make the purchase and get a bonus of 35 Playfish Cash.  

Travel startup Hipmunk.com aims to simplify online flight searches. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Adam Goldstein was a whiz-kid MIT engineering student with an enviable network of tech contacts and a decade of industry experience. He also had a lofty dream: To reinvent Internet flight search.

We spent a disproportionate amount of time on building that interface   -Adam Goldstein

 

This is the first part of a two part post by Sarah Hardwick, Founder & CEO of Zenzi Communications. Starting a business is challenging enough, let alone managing the ins and outs of PR to successfully promote your product or service. Here are the first 5 easy tips to help you through this process, and get your startup the attention and exposure it deserves! 1.  

Executive management at Skype ( News - Alert ) is about to change as chief development officer, Madhu Yarlagadda has announced his departure, citing personal reasons. According to a recent New York Times post , Yarlagadda had only held the position for one month.Included in Yarlagadda's list of responsibilities at Skype was running engineering for all company products. This sudden departure comes directly on the heels of Skype's first steps toward a public offering .  

This summer, rumors have been flying about Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) creating a CDMA iPhone, which could mean, finally, a Verizon Wireless iPhone. But even if the rumors are true, you might not necessarily want to get one as soon as it's available. Months before Apple officially introduced the first iPhone, bloggers, analysts, and other assorted pundits were saying: "Verizon will sell the iPhone."

the wheels are turning on N92, the CDMA variant of the iPhone 4.   -Daring Fireball

 

With gloomy talk of ever-evolving security threats on the Internet, Intel announced that it's acquiring the antivirus software vendor McAfee. PC World — With gloomy talk of ever-evolving security threats on the Internet, Intel announced that it's acquiring the antivirus software vendor McAfee. McAfee will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel, so don't expect any drastic changes to the PC security software McAfee already offers.

We have lots of activities going on in growing connected devices ... from connected television to mobile devices   -Renee James

 

Chegg, a venture-backed online textbook-rental company, has bought CourseRank, a startup founded by three Stanford University computer science majors that helps college students decide which courses to take. "We are excited about adding CourseRank to the portfolio of content and services we can offer students to make college easier and more affordable," Dan Rosensweig, CEO of Santa Clara-backed Chegg, said in a statement Thursday. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

We are excited about adding CourseRank to the portfolio of content and services we can offer students to make college easier and more affordable   -Dan Rosensweig

 

Today's big rumor, coming from an un-named single source by way of the Download Squad blog, is that a Google tablet, made by HTC, running Google's Chrome OS, and available on the Verizon network, will go on sale on November 26th this year. That's Black Friday. Or, maybe not: Citing similarly un-named sources among "upstream component makers," Digitimes asserts that it's Motorola, not HTC, that is Google's first choice for a tablet , which Digitimes says will be based on Android.  

Thoora, an automated real time news discovery service, today announced the appointment of Husni Khuffash to chief executive officer of the company. As CEO, Mr. Khuffash will lead both the development and execution of Thoora's strategic plan, advancing the company's mission and objectives, while maintaining oversight of the company's ongoing operations. "Thoora is entering a new period of growth and development as we work to bring more products to market and provide people with access to popular, ...