Category: Tech news

If the idea of running Linux full-time is foreign or novel to you, this is not the laptop for you. But if you’re a software developer, listen up.

Apps don’t have to be for everyone. Development tools, reduced costs, and the trend of nailing a single use case are spawning a generation of homespun applications. The latest is Dolo. Useful for finding friends in San Francisco’s crowded Dolores Park, useless for everyone else. Bespoke apps designed exclusively for little groups of friends, neighborhoods or inside jokes could be the next big thing.

Dolo was stitched together by former Facebook (stickers) designer Sophie Xie, Facebook mobile engineer Jason Prado, and Foursquare engineer Ryan Williams in their spare time. They found it annoying trying to locate friends in the hipster haven of Dolores Park.

Often referred to as the funemployment capital of the world, the sunny park fills to the brim on weekends. Cell reception can be shoddy, and people are terrible at explaining their location.  ”I’m, like, equal to the bathrooms, on the left,” or “Dude, I’m right near the sidewalk.” And sometimes you’d be just down the street and not know your friends are all enjoying a beer in the grass.

For the privileged iOS techsters like me who are ruining San Francisco, this is actually a problem. So Xie, Prado, and Williams built Dolo. It offers an adorable, animated cartoon map of the park where you can drop a location pin with your face on it. You can also set it to send you push notifications when friends are there so you don’t miss the party. The map is even responsive to the time of day so you can watch the sun set. It’s cute, simple, and gets the job done for the tiny fraction of the world who might want it.

Xie tells me “We made the app mostly to encourage our own friends to meet up and make the most of the beautiful summer coming up in San Francisco. Dolores Park has spawned lots of amazing memories for the three of us, and Dolo.app is sort of an expression of our love. We thought writing an app is as good a love letter as anything else, regardless of the size of its intended audience. DIY apps can let us extend our interpersonal worlds, change the ways we behave in our free time, and let us have connections to our peers that were previously impossible.”

There’s An App For That, And That Only

Some cringe at the word “bespoke,” especially after Path founder Dave Morin used it to describe the special Operator app he had built to help him and his assistant communicate. But it’s an apt app adjective for custom-tailored mobile experiences — ones not made to scale to the entire world, but instead delight a defined audience.

Xie agrees that bespoke apps like Dolo will proliferate, telling me “I think lowered software barriers mean more opportunities for people to build software that answers to their specialized needs. Apps give us new ways of interacting and increasingly people will want to shape technology to fit the new ways they want to connect.”

Another example is Intros.io. Baldwin Cunningham, CEO of Y Combinator startup Partnered, found he was constantly being asked to make introductions between friends, colleagues, and the brands his startup works with. So he had Partnered’s developer Addison Hardy build him a bespoke app to streamline the introduction process. Cunningham says he uses it every day, and enough friends wanted it that they put Intros.io in the app store.

Nowadays you don’t need to work at a big company, hire premier tech talent, or even know how to code to make your own app. Startups like Propeller, Appery, and Conduit are all building front-end app-building tools, some that let you drag-and-drop in entire mechanics like photo filtering. Meanwhile, backend-as-a-service providers like Facebook’s new acquisition Parse will handle all your hosting and data storage.

All you need is the idea. Make an app for mom and dad to keep track of you instead of sending them a birthday card. Make one for your kids that accompanies that treehouse you built them. Or make one just for yourself. What matters is that you’re making. It’s an art many thought lost to the age of ones and zeros. For a while, many of us didn’t have a way to get our hands dirty in the digital world. But the era of bespoke apps is here. Now you can build something more interesting than a spice rack.

Dolo is now available for iOS

The Dolo team (from left): Sophie Xie, Jason Prado, Ryan Williams

This morning, PandoDaily reported that Los Angeles-based eCommerce startup, BeachMint, had finally tanked after a long, “slow unraveling.” The problem, however, is that this doesn’t exactly mesh with reality.

The reporter, Michael Carney, says that “multiple sources” informed him that the startup’s board had essentially fired CEO Josh Berman and President Diego Berdakin, and, on top of that, had asked them to return their remaining $20 million (of the $73.5 million total) to their investors. Were that the case, it would be a clear indication of BeachMint’s impending demise.

However, TechCrunch has since spoken with Berdakin, Berman, NEA General Partner and BeachMint investor and board member Pete Sonsini and JewelMint Product Lead David Oh, who tell us that the reports of the company’s death have been greatly exaggerated. In a series of emails and conversations, the founders reported that, in fact, Berdakin and Berman remain 100 “percent committed to and focused on BeachMint” and at no time have been asked to step down by the company’s board of directors. Nor were they asked to return any of the money they’d raised.

Sonsini says that the board is “completely behind the founders” and NEA, which is the largest stakeholder in BeachMint, has invested in each of the startup’s three financing rounds because the firm believes in the founders’ vision. Even if actualization of that roadmap takes time.

So, in short: Everyone we’ve talked to at BeachMint says that these reports are completely untrue.

In its report, Pando essentially speculates that BeachMint’s lack of traction and burn rate have forced the company into an overhaul reminiscent of the one that recently took place at fellow Los Angeles startup, Viddy, in which it recapitalized and gave back $18 million in funding to investors and reshuffled its board.

The BeachMint President tells us, however, that the company has been laser-focused on limiting its burn rate, still has “north of the $20 million [in capital] that was reported” left in the bank and has plenty of runway left. If there is any truth to the story, Sonsini says, it’s that the company has been talking to strategic partners about fundraising. Whether that’s smart or not, well, the truth would appear to lie in the middle.

In the big picture, subscription commerce is beginning to enter a period of consolidation similar to the one that the Daily Deal space went through after its gold rush. As the space matures and the big fish (like Walmart) move into the market, some of the “early-mover” startups in the space are going to experience (or are currently experiencing) growing pains. In eCommerce marketplaces (subscription commerce is no different), scale is critical.

So, even with celebrity endorsements and early hype, the road hasn’t been a cakewalk, and BeachMint is no different. The company, which began began with a single brand, JewelMint, before expanding to six, features endorsements from celebrities like Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (StyleMint), Jessica Simpson (BeautyMint), Rachel Bilson (ShoeMint) and so on, with each brand offering different collections of products in their particular vertical and operating behind some kind of personalized subscription commerce model.

Berdakin says that BeachMint went in knowing it wanted to experiment with various models and permutations and that, even if each brand didn’t end up a total success, the process would hopefully identify the ideal vertical and model. Going forward, BeachMint likely won’t be able to sustain or dedicate equal resources to all six brands and thus may have to eliminate a couple of these brands in the future. So, it hasn’t just been smooth sailing for the company.

However, while Carney says that the startup’s brands mostly failed to get any significant traction (with the exception of JewelMint and ShoeMint) and that they’ve since been “left to idle,” Berdakin, of course, says that the company is not giving up on its brands and continues to focus on all of its “FashionMints” and within that, he says, to turn more aggressively to a marketplace model, while increasingly on “removing inventory while keeping exclusivity.”

The “quality of BeachMint’s revenues continue to increase as well as revenue itself,” the BeachMint co-founder continued. In turn, while he declined to share specifics, David Oh, who leads acquisition and is the head of product for JewelMint, said that he’s run R.O.I. calculations and found nothing in growth trajectory or the company’s margins that even remotely justifies PandoDaily’s conclusion. “That’s why I’m still here after two-and-a-half years,” Oh says.

The reporter has also written several articles about the departure of senior executives from BeachMint, which he implies act as corroborations of BeachMint’s inevitable tanking, especially as he claims they were a result of “internal strife.”

Multiple members of the BeachMint team (including the co-founders) admitted that the company was guilty of scaling too quickly, too early, hiring faster than they likely should have. So, while they confirmed that reductions were made and people were let go, it was because they weren’t the right fit and because it was forced to tap the breaks. While certainly an indication of fallibility, people within the company disputed Carney’s portrayal of the events, which seem to take liberty with certain facts in order to support a pre-conceived conclusion.

“We are growing 50% year-over-year and continue on path to profitability,” the BeachMint President said and hinted that he and his co-founders were working to draft a response piece that would share further details on the company’s traction, user base, churn and so forth. While founders are reliably biased towards the sunny side when it comes to the success of their business, it doesn’t seem as if this is quite the obituary the initial report made it out to be.

As of yet, it is not clear whether or not the board or the company will pursue legal action. But one thing is clear: Wherever he is, Sean Parker just winced and probably grew a gray hair.

Below you’ll find the official response from BeachMint to PandoDaily, passed along to us by Berdakin, and below THAT, you’ll find the BeachMint President’s short letter to employees that was subsequently posted to Facebook.

“The recent article on PandoDaily suggesting that Diego Berdakin and I have left BeachMint and that the company has been asked to return capital to our investors is not accurate,” said Josh Berman, CEO of BeachMint. “Diego and I remain 100% focused and are fully backed by the BeachMint Board of Directors, and there are no plans to make any changes to our leadership team. Unfortunately, nobody at BeachMint or the Board of Directors was contacted to confirm or provide input on this story.

Josh continued: “We are fortunate that our Board of Directors and our partners are closely aligned and as excited by our company’s ambitions and performance as we are. BeachMint overall has grown 40% year over year, in both sales and subscribers, and we continue to add top talent to our team, including a new General Merchandise Manager for our FashionMints from Kellwood, a Senior Marketing Executive from eHarmony and a VP Finance who joined us from ShoeDazzle.

“I am more confident than ever that BeachMint will exceed all expectations and continue to deliver amazing product to our customers, and strong performance for our investors,” added President Diego Berdakin

“The Board of Directors is incredibly positive about the future of BeachMint and we fully support both Josh and Diego in their efforts to build a phenomenally successful business,” said Peter Sonsini, General Partner, NEA, Beachmint’s largest shareholder and a member of BeachMint’s Board of Directors.

“BeachMint’s business performance, alongside the talented and experienced executive team at the helm, ensures we remain incredibly positive about the future of this company, and the role we know it will play in driving innovation within e-commerce.”

Update: Here is PandoDaily’s response to BeachMint’s refutation of their initial reporting.

New Zynga CEO Don Mattrick, who just left Microsoft to fix the ailing social gaming company, is getting incentivized heavily with stock for his new gig.

He starts with a sign-on bonus of $5 million, a base salary of $1 million, then gets a pro-rated minimum annual bonus that is either worth 200 percent of his salary or the average bonus percentage for the rest of the company’s executives — whichever is greater.

The first big stock part of the package is worth about $25 million at the moment, and vests over three years. It’s a “make whole” grant that makes up for the stock Mattrick is giving up in leaving his job at Microsoft.

Then on top of that there’s an “inducement grant” that vests over five years that’s currently worth a little over $6 million at about 1.8 million restricted stock units or RSUs.

It also gives Mattrick the option to purchase more than 7 million shares of stock equal to the closing price on the grant date, with the target for these options being worth about $10 million. If Mattrick is successful in turning the company around, that grant could be worth much more. He is also eligible for equity grants every year, with the one for 2014 being worth about $7 million in restricted stock units.

If Mattrick leaves, he gets a severance benefit worth twice his annual salary of $1 million plus two times his bonus. He also gets accelerated vesting of all of his initial “make whole” $25 million stock grant and any other grants that would have vested in the same year.

If he gets terminated in the event that Zynga has a “change in control” or gets acquired, both the big stock grants get fully accelerated with the cash severance being paid in a lump sum.

Zynga also covers his legal fees with the salary offer up to $60,000. If any payments to him trigger a “golden parachute” tax, the payments and benefits may get reduced to the point where he would be better off overall on an after-tax basis.

It’s a package that’s designed to incentivize him to get that stock price up, which has been hovering around $2 to $3 for the past six months. Zynga debuted at about $10 during its IPO but its stock sank by almost 75 percent in the year afterward as investors lost confidence that the company could keep its hold on the Facebook platform and successfully transition to Android and iOS. Indeed, Zynga and King are neck-and-neck in terms of monthly active users on the Facebook platform, according to AppData.

In the same SEC filing, Zynga also reveals that Owen Van Natta, who was at one point Zynga’s Executive Vice President of Business, is also stepping off the board.

Avid Twitter followers saw the short reign of Egypt’s Mohammed Morsi crumble in real time this afternoon, as the army overthrew the mostly tyrannical ruler. Twitter began auto-translating Morsi, who issued a string of desperate tweets.

“Pres. Morsy urges civilians and military members to uphold the law & the Constitution not to accept that coup which turns #Egypt backwards,” tweeted the official account (more tweets embedded below).

Morsi on Twitter: Measures "represent a full coup categorically rejected by all the free men of our nation." apne.ws/14RuJzT

—
The Associated Press (@AP) July 03, 2013

Pres. Morsy urges everyone to adhere to peacefulness and avoid shedding blood of fellow countrymen.

—
Egyptian Presidency (@EgyPresidency) July 03, 2013

Pres. Morsy urges civilians and military members to uphold the law & the Constitution not to accept that coup which turns #Egypt backwards

—
Egyptian Presidency (@EgyPresidency) July 03, 2013

After widespread protests, the Army issued an ultimatum for Morsi, which he defied in vain. Morsi, with cabinet members resigning en masse, took to his social media accounts in the hopes of starting a revolution. It was, in the words of the Internet, an epic fail.

This afternoon, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces announced that the chief justice would assume the presidency until a new leader can be democratically elected. The successful overthrow of Morsi puts Egypt back at square one.

On the eve of America’s Fourth of July, let us hope that Egypt can enjoy their own independence day by this time next year.

So email management startup Xobni was acquired by Yahoo today, the company officially announced on its blog. Initial reports said the company was acquired for “upwards of $30 million” but TechCrunch has learned that total consideration for the deal will be about twice that amount, somewhere in the $60 million-plus range.

Founded in 2006, Xobni raised about $42 million over the years, as it tried to reinvent the way email was done. The company’s last round of funding came in February of last year, and investors over the years have included First Round Capital, Khosla Ventures, RRE Ventures, Baseline Ventures, RBC Venture Partners, Relay Ventures, Cisco, Atomico, as well as a number of angels.

A source with knowledge of the acquisition disputes the $30 million figure, saying total consideration is about double what had been reported. A price in the $60 million range (including earnouts and other considerations) isn’t a fantastic return for its investors, but at least the company wasn’t acquired for less than it had raised. While the company didn’t get to be as big as the team or investors might have hoped, they also didn’t get rocked in the transaction, as has been suggested.

We’re still hoping to talk to both Yahoo and Xobni about the deal and how the startup will fit into Yahoo’s products and culture. It’s likely that Yahoo will be able to incorporate some of its technology into its own mail products as a way to improve them.

We’ve also reached to Yahoo and Xobni about terms of the deal. Yahoo says that it’s not commenting on the financial terms, and a representative from Xobni hasn’t responded to our request yet.

A little while ago, I reviewed the Cambridge Minx Air 200 and found it a solid new performer in the UK-based company’s new lineup of wireless speakers. Today, I’m looking at the Cambridge Audio Minx Go, a portable Bluetooth speaker with 18 hours of advertised battery life and a $149 price tag. It’s bigger than cheaper competitors like the Jawbone Jambox, but it’s got plenty more juice, too, and Cambridge’s high-quality pedigree.

• Bluetooth
• 3.5mm input
• Built-in digital signal processing
• USB charging port for phones and devices
• 18 hours battery life
• MSRP: $149
• Product info page

Cambridge is sticking to a common design language with its Minx line of wireless speakers, and the Minx Go resembles its older sibling the Minx Air almost exactly, but shrunk down to about a quarter of the size. That still makes it larger than the comparably priced (though more expensive) Jawbone Jambox, arguably the most recognizable competitor in this category.

The size is still fairly portable, however, and the same design principles that give the Minx Air 200 such room-filling sound are at work here, too. The arc of the front grille projects sound out, and the narrow base is supplemented by a small, extendable foot that keeps it upright. It can do without, as well, in my experience, but those wary of the thing toppling off a deck railing will want the foot.

As far as Bluetooth speakers go, the Minx Go is pretty barebones. It connects to your smartphone, tablet or computer via Bluetooth, and streams audio from that source (or from a hardwire connection via the 3.5mm jack). The device itself features a volume up, volume down and power button for controlling music, without any kind of back/forward or play/pause features like you might find elsewhere. It’s simplicity defined.

Simplicity is nice in terms of offering a straightforward user experience, but competitors like the Jambox offer speakerphone capabilities, and remote control is nice if the speaker is more portable than your source, for instance. Plus with gadgets like the Boombot Rex, which I also just reviewed, that speaker function is very useful, especially when hanging out lakeside.

One very nice feature is the USB charging port, however, which unfortunately only works for pass-through charging when the AC adapter is plugged in. The Minx Go also charges very quickly, topping up completely in just two hours.

The battery is the real star for features: 18 hours of advertised battery life isn’t an extreme exaggeration. I’ve used the Go extensively, and have charged it only twice during that time. It’s been a cottage companion, and a daily work soundtrack provider, and it goes so long you forget it isn’t plugged in. Truly a category leader in this regard.

Battery is impressive, as mentioned, but audio performance is also obviously important in a Bluetooth speaker. And in my experience, the Cambridge is one of the top contenders in that area. Cambridge has a long pedigree of building high quality audio products, and the Go is no exception. It delivers plenty of clarity at even high volumes, along with impressive bass performance from such a small package.

At least one other review I’ve read suggested that the bass performance on the Minx Go led to undue case rattle and distortion, but I haven’t found that at all with my unit. To the contrary, the bass remains strong and clear at even high volumes, which is in contrast with more muddy speakers like the otherwise excellent Big Jambox. The Cambridge at $149 rivals many AirPlay speakers that cost $200 and up, in my opinion, which is all the more impressive since it’s primarily using Bluetooth as its source.

Cambridge’s Minx Go is a new bright spot in the portable wireless speaker category, and the battery life along paired with the relatively low price tag should turn a lot of heads. If you don’t mind missing a few bells and whistles like a speakerphone function, this is the Bluetooth speaker I’m recommend, for summer adventures and beyond.

An ABC News report is dashing the hopes and dreams of Android fans everywhere. According to Joanna Stern, a version of the Motorola X will be available with custom casings and wallpapers, not customizable internal hardware like was widely speculated.

Owners will reportedly be able to order a version of the phone with different color options, backside engravings, and pre-installed custom wallpapers. This is said to be done in a new 500,000-foot factory in Texas, enabling Motorola and Google to deliver the custom phone to State-side customers in a quick manner. Another version of the phone will be available for purchase in retail stores, sans the artistic flair of their custom-ordered counterparts.

Motorola previously announced that the upcoming phone would be assembled in this facility and kicked off the phone’s marketing campaign with a full-page spread in several U.S. newspapers touting its American roots. The company’s new logo has gotten plenty of spotlight lately too, and the colorful new design may be representative of the chromatically diverse options for Motorola’s new flagship handset.

The Motorola X has long been rumored to be available with customizable options, though colors and trim weren’t exactly what some people were hoping for. It was widely speculated that the phone would be offered with various hardware options, and while that could still be the case, today’s report points towards a more logical plan.

Ordering a phone with more or less memory is one thing, but the thought of a user getting to pick and choose internal components such as the SoC, amount of RAM, and type of screen is rather ludicrous. Smartphones are relatively inexpensive through the economics of bulk ordering — if that’s removed, allowing the owner to swap different parts, the device’s price will ultimately be higher. And in the end, doesn’t everyone want the best option anyway?

These customizable options aren’t exactly novel. Apple has long offered backplate engraving on its iPods, and once upon a time Microsoft also offered the Zune with stunning backside artwork. As for custom color cases, Colorware is one of a few startups offering a similar service, allowing owners to customize their gadgets with a fresh coat of paint. But Motorola’s reported plan is the first to combine all the services prior to purchasing.

According to ABC News, the Moto X is currently in testing with carriers. With the ad campaign in full swing, it will likely hit stores sometime this summer.

---

Update: NoWhereElse.fr just published the pictures below reportedly showing the swappable backsides. Details are light and to me, I would wager these plastic backsides are for a mid- or low-level model. Motorola definitely doesn’t need a massive manufacturing facility to pump out colorful plastic back panels.

Yahoo has just announced that they’ve acquired Xobni, the startup that tries to make your inbox and contacts list less terrible by focusing on the people you communicate with most.

(To answer the question that most people are probably wondering : it’s pronounced Zob-Knee, and it’s “inbox” backwards.)

Back in 2007 (at TechCrunch 40!), Xobni launched as a plugin for Microsoft Outlook that sorted all of your correspondence by contact, automatically pulling in each contact’s data from the likes of LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networks. Over the past few years, they’ve rolled out similar functionality to Gmail, iCloud, and (fittingly) Yahoo! Mail. Around the end of last year, they launched Smartr Contacts — an app that sorted your contacts by their perceived “importance” — for iOS and Android.

There’s no official word yet on how much the acquisition was finalized at, but previous rumors had pinned it at between $30M and $40M. We’re still trying to confirm a number with our own sources. Update: According to our own sources, the final price after consideration was factored in was closer to $60M. The company had raised almost $42M to date, says the Crunchbase data.

Okay, Yahoo, seriously, I’ve run out of “Ha-ha-ha, Yahoo bought another thing” jokes.

As for the future of Xobni’s existing products: the company says that if you’re already using Xobni’s stuff, you’ll be able to keep using it indefinitely. No word yet on whether or not they’ll let more people onto the Xobni-boat moving forward, though their Smartr Contacts app still appears to be available on at least the iOS App Store following the announcement.

The video editing app Givit is releasing an update to their iPad app today, an effort to bolster the social, video watching side of the platform.

The app updates include an expanded screen view, hashtag tracking, and improved friend feeds — nothing major, but necessary changes to make Givit a more viable social site. People tend to shoot and edit on their phones, making social a better bet for iPad use, which stands at 21% of total Givit activity.

This comes at the behest of users who have been pushing for a more social experience lately. CEO and founder Greg Kostello told TechCrunch that although he initially imagined that users would edit their videos on Givit and then share through more established social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, they seem disinclined to do so.

That’s an interesting finding given that Givit recently partnered with Dailymotion, the second largest video sharing site after YouTube. It was the first US app to integrate into the France-based Dailymotion’s API, and the partnership was intended to make Givit an easy feed to the site.

But as it stands the vast majority of videos stay on Givit, despite a prominent “share” button placed front and center, Kostello said. This seems to be because users want to interact with makers with similar interests. Parkour pros with like-minded souls, for instance.

Although Givit is appeasing its users with a better social platform, it will have to make some moves to encourage them to move their videos over to Dailymotion. If the “share” button has been there all along and users haven’t been eager to click on it, it should be interesting to see how they’ll accomplish that.

4chan, one of the wildest corners of the web, is growing up without losing its edge. The image board just opened a self-serve ads tool for scrappy businesses and trolls willing to pay for lulz. Founder Moot tells me “We’re already seeing users using it to troll one another, advertise specific threads or their favorite boards, etc. I think there’s a lot of potential for people to use the self-serve ads in a creative manner.”

Known IRL as Christopher Poole, Moot tells me “I’ve always operated 4chan more as a hobby than a business.” The site lets anyone post pictures and comments to any of its 60+ themed image boards. They range from Safe-For-Work topics like Pokémon and Paranormal to decidedly adult stuff like “Sexy Beautiful Women” and “Hentai/Alternative” (I’m not linking to it, and you’ve been warned). 4chan is most famous for /b/, its totally anonymous board where freedom of expression spawns both offensive filth and brilliant memes.

Moot’s tried to keep the site true to its counter-cultural roots, but wanted a way to make it more sustainable, especially as he devotes his time to his venture-backed startup DrawQuest, which tries to inspire fledgling artists. “We’ve had trouble making ends meet over the years — which comes as a shock to most people since 4chan serves approximately 575 million pageviews to 25 million unique visitors per month,” says Moot.

4chan has always managed display ad sales, but that’s tough to scale to the long tail of small businesses while staying lean since it requires sales people. To help bring in some money while fighting spam, 4chan introduced the $20 “4chan pass” that lets users bypass the captchas you have to complete to post to the site.

Now, self-serve ads could let the site stay healthy without the need for headcount bloat or outside funding. It’s almost completely DIY beyond ad creative approvals, so self-serve ads could bring in the cash to pay for servers without the team having to do much work.

Anyone can buy header, middle-of-page, and footer display banners targeted to specific boards. Though ads might end up next to images of unspeakable debauchery, they can’t be NSFW. Moot says one big advantage is that 4chan ads are “a great deal with prices starting at $0.20 CPM and a minimum buy of $20 (read: damn cheap).”

What’s really fascinating about all this is that these ads aren’t just for advertisers. Originally, the self-serve ads FAQ explained “Self-serve ads are intended for anyone who wishes to promote a product, website, Kickstarter project, etc—or just for fun/to get a message in front of the 4chan community (“MODS=FAGS”, promoting a board or thread/contest, etc).” Wait, what? “MODS=FAGS”? I told you 4chan was a little rough around the edges. That’s 4chan slang for “moderators of this forum are annoying,” a sign of the site’s rebellious users who hate even the tiny bit of censorship and restriction needed to keep the site usable.

The phrase has since been removed from the FAQ, but yes, 4chan was encouraging users to buy ads to call each other homophobic slurs. I’m not condoning that. But the suggestion may have been intended to show the site’s diehard community members that it’s still firmly rooted in controversial Internet culture even though it’s maturing and focusing more on advertising. And considering the gore, tentacles, and copious gay porn that live on 4chan’s racier boards, being offensive fits.

There’s no denying that 4chan is its own community with its own code of morals. By democratizing its ad offerings, it can avoid heavy-handed big brands or venture capital and retain its identity indefinitely.

[To give people a taste of what they can buy with 4chan ads, here are some of the ridiculous ones the site is running itself.]

Vine, Twitter’s six-second looping video-sharing app, has just launched some new features to the app, including a redesigned camera, categories for various vine genres, and the ability to revine people’s existing Vines.

The update brings some much-asked-for features to the social network, and also improves users’ abilities to gain and following and get noticed within the app.

To start, you’ll notice that the camera has been redesigned to make it even easier for hard-core creators to frame their shots, which is especially important with stop-animation (something that’s become a bit of a hobby for many Viners). The redesign brings a grid, the ability to focus, and “ghost tools”. Ghost tools let you view your previous shot, but unlike Instagram video, there is no editing within Vine.

The update also brings with it some new ways to explore and be noticed on Vine. For one, Vine now includes 15 channels, letting you submit posts to the Explore screen with a better chance of being noticed. These categories include music, nature, comedy, and more. Each one has it’s own theme and popular feed, which allows for a number of different ways for you to be discovered on Vine.

I recently spoke to Meagan Cignoli, a professional Viner who makes her living making stop-animation videos for various brands on the platform, who explained that she was truly hoping for Vine categories so that others can be discovered as she was. She now has over 200,000 followers, as opposed to a measly 10,000 on Instagram, which she claims has to do with Instagram’s lack of options to rise to popularity.

But if channels aren’t enough, Vine has also included a new “On the Rise” category, which lets you check out people who are gaining popularity on Vine.

The ever-growing community of Viners has also been clamoring to have the ability to “Re-vine,” which seems like a logical request given that Vine’s parent company is the original creator of the Retweet. Now, users will be glad to know they can share a Vine in their feed to their own set of followers with the simple tap of a button.

Finally, Vine has added the ability to control who you share with. When the app originally launched, users had no privacy whatsoever. Once a Vine was shared within the community, it was public. Now, users can decide to only let followers see their posts by going into Profile > Settings > Your Content.

With Instagram’s recent launch of Instagram video, many have posited that the end of Vine is near. However, Vine has shown rapid growth and an active community over the past six months, with over 13 million users on the service. The limits put forth within the app, like a six-second maximum, and a lack of editability, have actually made the app more appealing to users both creatively and consumption-wise.

Obviously, time will tell if Instagram Video is hurting Twitter’s new video-sharing beast, but it seems like there’s plenty of room for both in the market. Especially when Vine continues to iterate quickly.

Remember, the app launched as a relatively barebones video-sharing service before responding to user requests for front-facing camera functionality and user mentions. And shortly thereafter, Vine made its way to Android.

This is just the latest in a succession of solid updates from Twitter and Vine. Interested users should update the app here.

Azumio, the maker of health apps, such as Fitness Buddy and Instant Heart Rate, has another one up its sleeve. The Palo Alto-based startup, which is backed by Founders Fund, Accel and Felicis, is out with a comprehensive activity and food-tracking app called Argus.

Argus follows how much you move, walk, run or cycle through the accelerometer; it does not rely on signals from cell towers like other competing apps which might drain the battery more. It also helps you log what you eat, how you sleep, how much water and coffee you drink and how much you exercise. The idea is that it’s a catch-all, life-logging app where people can store all of their activity, eating and sleeping habits in one place without having to switch from app to app. It was a common request from Azumio’s user base, the company’s CEO Bojan Bostjancic says.

The app has a beautiful honeycomb design with individual cells showing behaviors like cups of water or coffee consumed per day. You can scroll through it like a visual diary of your past habits. If you hold down a cell for two seconds, the app will aggregate your activity data. If you press down on a walking cell, it shows how many steps you’ve taken in the day hour-by-hour and how long you’ve been active.

For other types of activity tracking, users have to proactively do things like take pictures of their food or log a workout or yoga session. If you take a picture of food, Argus will ask you to categorize it into one of six categories including grains, fruits and veggies.

The other cool part is that the app also syncs with other activity-tracking devices. It’s a platform that can pull in data from some New Balance devices and the Salutron Lifetrak automatically without the need for switching from app to app to see different data. It also works with the Withings’ weight scale and MapMyFitness, with more devices on the way. Argus also gives users personalized goals and reminders if they fall off track with their workout regimens.

The company says the beauty of having all of this data in a single app is that it makes it easier to track different correlations. Does working out regularly affect your standing heart rate? How much does changing your diet affect your weight?

There are also basic social features for sharing photos of what you eat with friends inside the Argus network or on Facebook.

The startup itself has been around for two years, and has been an early pioneer in building mobile health apps for smartphones. Their earlier heart rate app would measure a person’s pulse by using a phone’s camera to detect faint changes in color in their fingers.

Through a suite of apps, they’ve racked up about 40 million different users with 2 million weekly actives. Some are paid, but ultimately Azumio plans to switch to more of a subscription-based model. The revenue they make now is enough to cover their costs, but the hope is that freemium could bring them a larger revenue base. Other companies in the mobile health space like Fitstar, which partners with athletic celebrities to make interactive workouts, also use a subscription model where people pay per month for extra workouts or features.

Argus is competing with other apps like Moves, which is another activity tracker. That one doesn’t do food, sleep or coffee intake, but it does follow where a person goes and guesses whether they are walking, cycling or in a car.

For today’s Founder Stories, I met with Ram Ramkumar, co-founder and new CEO of Concept.io, which last week launched Swell, an adaptive mobile app that streams audio news content.

“The most challenging part about being a CEO is creating a sense of mission in the team,” says Ramkumar, who previously founded the mobile marketing solution Snaptell, which sold to Amazon in 2009. “We are lucky to have some of the key team members out of Snaptell that joined me at Concept.io.”

Ram explains how, as CEO, he has to focus on usability and design, which is in contrast to his experience running a technical team at Snaptell. For Concept.io’s new app Swell, he brought diversity to his team by including design as the core mission of the product in addition to engineering. ‘There’s more to the product than technology,” says Ramkumar.

Everyone talks about simplicity, but simplicity is really hard to achieve. Knowing what buttons to not include, knowing what features to not include is, in fact, as hard as knowing what to build.

Ram and I also dove deeper into the value of mentorship, celebrating small and large successes, and creating a corporate culture that includes employees who have families and responsibilities outside of work. Watch the full interview above to learn more.

Editor’s Note: Michael Abbott is a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, previously Twitter’s VP of Engineering, and a founder himself. Mike also writes a blog called uncapitalized. You can follow him on Twitter @mabb0tt.

New York-based startup Pave launched with the idea to allow investors to put their money not into startups or companies or ideas, but into people. The idea was to highlight a group of potential prospects who wanted to get a particular personal project off the ground and to help them get that funded. In return, those who contributed money to help would receive a small share of their future income afterward. Now it’s offering a way for backers to pay it forward, with a new investment plan called Ripple.

For prospects, Pave provides the ability to get things funded that are more creative or aspirational than through other crowdfunding platforms. And it enables backers to bet on individuals — like a filmmaker or martial artist — looking to pursue individual dreams.

While still in the beta phase of its rollout, Pave has had a number of its prospects already backed, and hopes to continue adding more as time goes on. During its pilot phase, the average campaign size was around $24,000, with some as high as $75,000 and others as low as about $2,500.

At first, the platform was opened just to accredited investors — which for individuals would mean people who either have a net worth of more than $1 million or who make more than $200,000 a year. Those people would then receive some return on their investments in Pave’s prospects.

But that potentially limited the base of backers that could participate in its platform. So Pave has introduced a new way for backers to make contributions with its new Ripple “Pay It Forward” option. With Ripple, backers don’t have to be accredited investors, and they won’t necessarily be expecting individual returns based on future income. That’s because instead of having that money go back to the backer, it gets pooled into a fund that can be reinvested into other prospects and projects.

Essentially, returns from Ripple contributions end up being reinvested into others on the platform. That offering will be open to anyone, but backers must contribute at least $250 as part of the program. Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see if this new model takes off, and if it does, how it changes the way we think about crowdfunding people rather than products or companies.