Category: Tech news

This year was a pretty amazing one in technology: Many startups were funded and acquired, and there were some real advancements made in the way that we communicate on a a daily basis. I’d definitely call 2012 a major win, but it’s been interesting to watch how companies operate to reach their goals and hit moving targets.

Sure, it’s not new that companies have to completely shift directions when something they’re doing is flat out not working or the space that they’re in is oversaturated.

How they get there is the key, and there’s more than one way to skin that cat. Two trends I saw this year, which are polar opposites, were the “slow and steady” approach and the “hacker mentality” of pushing things fast and iterating quickly. Some companies had success with their choice of operating procedure, and some didn’t. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Facebook

No company comes up with ideas and executes them as quickly as Facebook. It’s the “Hacker Way,” after all. You’ve seen it as recently as the launch of “Poke”, it’s Snapchat “competitor.” Mark Zuckerberg and company wanted this functionality for its 1 billion users, and when it couldn’t acquire Snapchat, it built it itself in just 12 days.

Did it work? It seems like it, since the app hit the No. 1 free spot on Apple’s App Store. Facebook Gifts? Quick hit and it’s great. Messenger and Camera? Same thing. Acquiring Instagram? Brilliant move. But it’s not always roses for Facebook when it comes to its fast-and-furious approach.

When it comes to privacy policies and terms of services changes, it just seems that Facebook’s quick approach rubs people the wrong way. Change is difficult, especially when it comes to personal information. With its own changes and Instagram’s as well, things got hairy.

Maybe Facebook should slow down on those types of initiatives.

Google

Google’s 2012 was one of patience. The company watched what the rest of the world was doing, especially Microsoft, Facebook and Apple. What Google did was consistently put out amazing products, with partners, that pleased and delighted audiences. The Nexus 7 and 10 were both a long time coming, and the waiting paid off. The products are amazing. The same thing goes for its newly released Chromebooks.

When it comes to social, Google was very meticulous about its presentation of Google+. Nobody who works for Google ever explained it as a social network, yet the media ran with the “Facebook vs. Google+” story, because it was easy to write. Looking at Google+ as a social network is purely lazy thinking.

What Google is doing with social is integrating functionality into all of its products in a very slow, planned out, way. It’s working for them. Look at the Maps debacle with iOS. Google had been working on a native Maps app for iOS for quite a while, but didn’t rush it out when the market was screaming for it.

Google did things slowly and intelligently, and it worked out for them in the long run.

Apple

Let’s not kid ourselves. Apple has the best year ever every year. The iPad mini will probably be the hit gift of the holiday season, and along with a new iPhone, laptops and computers, the fanboys, including myself, are happy campers.

In the above case, Apple was nice and slow with its rollout, as it always is. However, there was one rushed misstep, and that would be Maps for iOS 6. It’s an awful product that wasn’t ready for primetime. Apple wanted to distance itself in that space from Google so much that it released an inferior product.

And that’s something Apple simply doesn’t do often. Its CEO, Tim Cook, even apologized for it. That fast-and-furious approach didn’t work in this case, and Google’s slow-but-sure approach did.

Microsoft

What can we say about Microsoft? The company does really well in the enterprise space, but can’t get its stuff together when it comes to regular old consumers. If you’ve used a Surface, you know what rushed looks like. The product is horrible, and the operating system wasn’t complete either.

When a consumer product is riddled with bugs and slowness, you can tell that the company behind it wanted it out of the gates to simply “compete.” Xbox continues to dominate, and for some reason Microsoft takes its time with releasing new consoles and games. And it works.

Why can’t this approach be taken with its core products and new offerings? I have no idea, but Microsoft is a mess.

Snapjoy

For me, Snapjoy is the startup story of the year. Yes, even over Instagram.

This small team from Boulder set out to build a fantastic photo-hosting service that they’d want to use themselves. They never rushed a thing, even when they were finished at Y Combinator. People sniffed around at what they were working on, but the site was never fully opened to the public in a “finished” format. It was always beta.

The team pushed out release after release, feature after feature, a brilliant iPhone app built for the iPhone 5 experience — and all of that hard work paid off.

The company recently sold to Dropbox, which is an absolute match made in heaven. The guys at Snapjoy didn’t rush. They took their time, and it paid off. Big time. That team will now head up the photo division at Dropbox, and everyone should keep an eye on that company for a slew of reasons.

Instagram

Yes, Instagram. The company sold to Facebook for more than $700 million when all was said and done. The co-founders turned down a deal from Twitter and stuck to its guns when it came to what it wanted to be acquired for.

Its CEO, Kevin Systrom, spoke to Zuckerberg off and on, and finally got the deal that was right for him and his employees. They all now work at Facebook but stay in a tidy self-contained unit. His patience, as well as Instagram’s patience and passion for its users, paid off. Big time.

The terms of service and privacy changes? See Facebook. Not smart.

Most of these companies saw success in the long run, or are on their way to a huge 2013, but they all took different approaches. Find the one that works for you and your company and stick with it. Consistency always wins, and even when you have to change directions quickly, selling yourself out for a “fast win” isn’t always the way to go.

Remember, it’s your users who matter, because they are your customers. Whether you’re selling hardware or giving “software” away, if you don’t have customers, you have nothing.

Here’s to 2013.

[Photo credit: Flickr]

True Ventures’ partners Tony Conrad and Puneet Agarwal joined me for Ask A VC in the studio this week, where we talked about a renaissance in the hardware industry (True has investments in a number of hardware startups including Fitbit and Makerbot).

Another topic we delved into was the whole enterprise vs. consumer issue, and whether there is an investor bias towards enterprise startups in the current market. Agarwal has led a number of early stage investments in enterprise SaaS companies, including Puppet Labs and Duo Security.  And we chatted about True’s recent investment in Blue Bottle Coffee. Check out the video above for more.

A kind reader woke us up this morning with a missive that made my blood boil: another scam iOS maker was, in an insult to the great Mojang itself, selling a scam version of Minecraft. The company, Installous, is selling something called Minecraft Mobile, a $2.99 app that actually produces a bunch of lines on the screen that flock around finger taps.

As a parent and lover of Minecraft, this is an absolute outrage. The Installous developer, Thoa Le, is also selling fake Springboard editors (really an alarm clock), fake lock screen apps, and an app that makes colorful backgrounds (but doesn’t really). As one French customer wrote “Ce n’est pas minecraft!” To that I would add “C’est la merde!”

To be clear, this is apparently not the same Installous pirate app found on iOS.
Consider, then, this my good deed today: Apple, please shut down Installous. It’s a scam, a travesty, and an insult to those who strive to build great apps.

The presents are piling, the fire is crackling, the drinks are flowing and in some parts of the world the snow is falling. From all of us at TechCrunch, we hope everyone is having a merry Christmas. For this week’s giveaway, we wanted to do something extra special, because well, it’s Christmas! The lucky winner of this giveaway will win a Nexus 4 and a Nexus 10. Want them both? Details to enter are below.

The Nexus 4 is the brand new world phone from Google that comes with all of Google’s latest apps, including Google Now. You can read our review on the almost perfect phone here.

The Nexus 10 is the latest tablet from Google. Dubbed the “the ultimate tablet for watching movies or reading magazines,” the Nexus 10 runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, features front and rear-facing cameras, and much more.

Here’s how to enter:

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

– Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TechCrunch hashtag)
– Or leave us a comment below telling us what you love most about Christmas

Please only tweet the message once or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner on New Year’s Eve night. Anyone in the world is eligible. Good luck everyone and merry Christmas!

Every month I see several birth announcements on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I know exactly what moment the baby was born, what they looked like in sonogram photos, what their first food was, their favorite animal, who their siblings are, where they traveled on vacation, etc. I’ve enjoyed these moments, but in the back of my mind, I find myself feeling sad for children who are growing up during our online over-sharing era.

These kids get shared with all of us before they are even out of the womb.

I’ve grown to adore some of these children I’ve seen online over the years. Children I’ve never met. Their parents seem like good people. The fact that they share doesn’t make them bad. They absolutely love their children and take delight in sharing their milestones with everyone. It makes them proud. I’ve loved every moment of it, so why now am I positing that everyone should cease sharing this information about their children?

Well it is simple. I think children should have the choice to create what persona they have online themselves when they are adults or when they are old enough to understand what they are doing on there in the first place. We are slowly robbing children of this choice and freedom. Kids will grow up with every little detail shared on the Internet about them and they will have no say over it and may even grow up thinking that Internet approval is important to their self-esteem.

I don’t trust the future, because I don’t think the folks at Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. have thought much about it. It is our data until it is their data. Also, everything made public on the Internet has a pretty good chance of being there forever thanks to services that are in the business of archiving it all. So why would we trust them with our children’s data? We can barely trust them with ours.

Also, have we thought about the long-term implications of sharing every future security question with strangers? Biometrics might be the only solution to that, and I don’t know about you, but biometrics are only cool if you are a spy who’s lost your memory.

Maybe I’m old school. Maybe this is my “get off my lawn” moment, but I really think we just haven’t spent much time or discussion talking about the implications of our data-sharing habits in the future. Over-sharing seems like it is at an all-time high. Internet services make sharing things with strangers pretty much effortless, and what’s more fun than sharing a photo or tweet about one of the people you love the most? I know the likes and thumbs ups are fun and rewarding for parents and friends, but perhaps we should think less about ourselves and more about them and what future we’re creating for them.

So, this holiday season, I’m asking each and every parent who reads this to sit down and think about their actions, their children’s future and where they net out on all of this. I think privacy is one of the greatest gifts worth giving.

Aviary isn’t done with the news this year. In a nod to power users, it’s sending its advanced flash suite off as an independent product. The suite’s original developer, Mario Klingemann, is leading the effort and today has relaunched a core part of it, node-based photo manipulator Peacock, as a new AIR download called Nodewerk.

You can get it here and take a look at some of the visual creations from Peacock/Nodewerk by scrolling down here.

Aviary has been making big gains in another part of its business, providing customizable photo editors to other tech companies, including Twitter and, most recently, Flickr. Photographers, developers and other long-time users had been saddened when Peacock appeared left by the wayside, so the spin-out will be a nice Christmas present for them.

Not sure if that's a first, but it's awesome in any case: @aviary gave me the sources for Peacock so it can get a second life as @nodewerk

—
Mario Klingemann (@quasimondo) December 25, 2012

The growth also pushed the company to bring in a new CEO. It announced that Tobias Peggs, former CEO of recently acquired ad-targeting startup OneRiot, would be taking over from cofounder Avi Muchnick (check out Drew’s interview with him last week for more on his effort to “democratize creativity”). In a sign that the transition was a smooth one, Avi penned the post about Peacock today.

This holiday season, many of us will be tearing the cellophane off of a hot new pair of headphones, a new smartphone, or music player. Before you decide to test the limits of OSHA’s volume regulations on your eardrums, we thought you’d want to know some helpful tips so you can keep on jamming for the rest of your life.

Keep It Below 50 percent Volume

Personal Music Players “should be set at the lowest possible volume at which music can be comfortably enjoyed. Setting the volume to 50-60% of maximal output is generally considered a safe listening level,” says Dr. Sharon Curhan, who has found that 1 in 5 teens now suffers from some type of hearing loss, up 5 percent since the 1980s.

Different styles can be listened to at elevated volumes for shorter periods of time.

“If using in-ear earphones and listening to Electronic, Heavy Metal, Hip Hop or Rock music, it is advisable to limit listening time to 3.5 hours or less when the volume is set at 60%. The louder the volume setting, the shorter the safe listening time may be (e.g. less than an hour if volume set at 70%, and ~30 minutes when set at 80%)…Folk, Pop, Classic Rock and other music that are characterized as medium-output musical styles, can safely be enjoyed for longer periods of time, yet it is still important to maintain the listening volume setting at 60% or lower. In most cases, an individual can safely listen to this type of music at a volume setting of 50% for any duration.”

Beware Of Volume Creep

Ever notice how you have to increase the volume to maintain the same music sensation you originally felt when you first started listening? “This is due to the contraction of tiny muscles in the ear that limit how much the tiny bones of the ear can move, thereby diminishing the transmission of sound vibrations to the inner ear where sounds are detected,” explains Curhan. “Exposure to loud music results in what is called a ‘temporary threshold shift’. The ear, in effect, becomes less sensitive to sound and the amount of time the ear needs to recover from a TSS varies.”

Give your ears time to rest. After rock-concert levels of eardrum-pounding volume, your ears could need more than a day to readjust. It’s important to watch that you’re not inadvertently increasing the volume. Your ears are trying to give you a signal that they’re being abused.

“More importantly, with more frequency in these episodes of exposure, the ‘temporary threshold shift’ can become a permanent threshold shift and a permanent hearing loss.”

Don’t Drown Out Noise

It’s tempting to drown out a screeching subway or crying baby with some Bieber-tastic tunes. While it may not sound like much to increase the volume to block out ambient noise, your ears feel the difference. “Often, the factor that leads to turning up the volume is not sensory adaptation, but more likely to be the presence of background or environmental noise,” warns Curhan. “By increasing the ‘signal to noise ratio,’ we are better able to hear the music (signal) over the other sounds around us (noise). That is why we often can listen to music at a lower volume in a quiet space than we can when riding the subway.”

The good doctor recommends a pair of earphones that block out the noise, either by fitting snugly into the ear or by electronically blocking ambient noise. If your shiny new pair of holiday headphones don’t have these features, it might be worth taking another trip to the electronics store.

[Image Credit: Flickr User TedsBlog]

The first ever musical recording in space (that we know of anyway) was performed just a few days ago on the International Space Station by Col. Chris Hadfield, commander of the International Space Station. The song, which is already climbing up Reddit’s r/Music page, is an original Christmas Carol called Jewel in the Night.

Based on the commander’s Facebook and Twitter pages, he and his crew are celebrating Christmas in every way possible while they’re away from their families. They even have a Christmas tree on the ceiling, thanks to what the commander calls “the beauty of a weightless Christmas.”

Col. Hadfield is married, with three adult children, one of whom sent us his Christmas Carol.

The song is interesting, as it depicts Christmas from a birds’ eye perspective, from space. The International Space Station crew is spending Christmas as far away from Earth as possible, and while I try to stick with the classics, no situation is more suited to an original melody.

Here’s the SoundCloud file:

It’s crazy to think that someday, probably soon, when space travel has become a consumer industry, that this could be the Christmas Carol of outer space.

I mean, we made it through the Mayan Apocalypse (and the Black Friday Apocalypse), so in my book we’re good to go for at least a few more centuries.

In other words, get used to Jewel in the Night. One day, it too will be a classic with Oh Holy Night and Jingle Bells.

Lyrics

So bright, Jewel in the night.
There in my window below.
So bright, dark as the night.
With all of our cities aglow.

It’s long been our way
To honor this day
And offer good will to man.

And know, where eever we go,
It’s come round to Christmas again.

So far, shines every star.
They’re without limit to see.
So grand, far away land
Beckoning, calling to thee

And let it be shown
Where ever we go
In all of the wonders above,

With all that we bring
There’s no finer thing
Than this message, this province of love.

A love for the families
That gather below.
Love for the stranger
That you’ll never know.

For those who aren’t with you
Who wander above.

So bright, jewel in the night.
There lies the cradle we knew.
Home of all that we love
And all of our memories, too.

It shall be our way
To wander away
And take with us all that we know.
And never cease this message of peace
From Bethlehem so long ago.

It shall be our way, to wander away,
And take with us all that we know.
And never cease, this message of peace,
From Bethlehem so long ago.

Three years ago Mario Romero Zavala and José Antonio Bolio decided to create a Twitter account in Mexico City to alert people to cumbersome police checkpoints that too often resulted in various forms of harassment to locals. This was the beginning of Ret.io, which has since changed tremendously.

Ret.io’s Twitter presence has grown across multiple accounts in every Mexican state to 27,000 followers. Its website has more than 100,000 monthly visitors, and its iPhone app has been in the top 10 in the App Store within the navigation category.

For the first year Ret.io was just one Twitter account that tracked and tweeted mentions and tips. The iPhone app was released in February of this year, albeit Romero Zavala admits that the core functionality still lies with Twitter.

Although the app originally was created so people could report the checkpoints, users eventually began using the service in different ways. Zavala points out that the site isn’t set up to fight narcos in Mexico per se, but there are tangental intersections.

“Some reports help citizens avoid dangerous situations, like shootings or roadblocks, some of which may be linked to the war on drugs; but these aren’t things we think the cartels would really worry about as they are pretty public incidents,” he tells TechCrunch.

Ret.io is used much more to receive reports of police abuse and corruption, to the point that some police have spoken negatively about the service, he said. However, in places like Cancún and Mexico City, local authorities have used Ret.io to respond to citizen reports on the service, he added.

Another interesting thing about Ret.io is that it’s run primarily on open source projects, Zavala says. “From our data stores (postgres, redis) to our front-end frameworks (jquery, bootstrap), our whole system really is based on open source and services like Google Maps and of course, Twitter,” he says.

Zavala and Bolio are interested in funding in the long run, but are currently working to streamline some things to turn Ret.io into a better service. Investment is tough to come by in Mexico, Zavala added, but he’s hoping that expanding the service outside Mexico will help Ret.io find investors more easily.

“I think widespread adoption of Internet technologies in México, as in other places, is making it very hard to paint a dishonest picture of the local situation, which can only be a positive thing,” Zavala says. “It is also resulting in a society which is already collaborating to stay out of trouble.”

Gapingvoid’s unique style of visual communication has long been popular among successful and aspiring entrepreneurs: They decorate their offices with prints of gapingvoid art; they wear our t-shirts; and they read our blog and newsletter. We admire and appreciate all entrepreneurs – they are the future – and we salute them (and you) with this short look at entrepreneurship told through a series of cartoons.

Editor’s note: Cartoonist Hugh MacLeod’s artwork is on the walls at TechCrunch HQ and in offices around the world. What started as simply “drawing cartoons on the backs of business cards” has turned into a growing consulting and retail art business that is disrupting the world of Office Art. Follow Hugh on Twitter @gapingvoid.

What do European startups want for Christmas? We’ve come up with a list of ideas. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

1. Inspiration – We want European tech founders to think more collectively, lobby government more effectively and put themselves out there as heroes for the next generation to emulate. Don’t be shy!

2. Great local capital where they are – Europe is awash with wealthy individuals and ‘family offices’ style funds that have previously invested in property and traditional businesses. We need those opened up to tech entrepreneurs. These people are not going to make interest on their money sitting in a bank account. There is talent all over Europe but the investment money tends to reside in big hubs like London. Let’s get more of that money unlocked in places where it’s capitally efficient to build new startups, like Barcelona, Athens or Rome or Warsaw or Berlin.

3. Events that don’t cost the earth to attend – There seems to have been an event inflation over recent years. Granted it’s probably cheaper to attend a startup conference in Dublin than in Paris, or one in Berlin versus one in London. But event organisers need to make sure they don’t alienate their core entrepreneur community.

4. Universities that think about startups – Idiotic Universities in Europe are hide-bound by ideas about owning IP. You know what? Stanford didn’t care about IP, and let its students create amazing companies. Guess what? The students ended up donating vast amounts to Stanford later on when their companies were successful. European universities need to loosen up – and turn on students to the idea of being entrepreneurs. They should encourage current students to start up instead of chasing alumni in the hope of a donation (h/t @mstafford).

5. Local champions – These guys are the ones running all the meetups and get togethers. Support them, and your scene will grow. Grumble about them, or start too many competing events, and your scene will fragment. Double down on the ones that work and get going.

6. Mainstream media that gets tech – Too much local media in Europe calls tech people ‘geeks’ and ‘nerds.’ Shame them into realising this is one of the few sources of growth in their country. Go to lunch with the editor of the local paper or TV news station and reason with them. Or just shame them.

7. Alumni that give back to their home towns – Are they in SF already? Then tell them to come back and do a talk on their experience.

8. Exits – This is a tough one, but Europe needs many more exit markets. We can stamp our feet all we like. It won’t happen by sheer force of will. But it may also help if some media-oriented startups decided to build something that, say, BSkyB, might actually want to buy, rather than hoping a US media company would take notice of them. That said, there are also moves being made to create a new IPO market in London for tech companies. Let’s hope it happens, but it would be there for a few more years.

9. Serial entrepreneurs who now invest – Had an exit? Done well financially? Become an angel in your local market.

10. Talent and engineers that can move around – Europe is awash with talent. But it needs to move around. Let’s lobby governments to make sure work visas are as flexible as possible. They want growth don’t they?

11. Clusters – Don’t “poo-poo” the organic clusters in your city – make them work. Gang together. Co-work. Share ideas. It’s a way of speeding up what you do.

12. For us to use Europe’s diversity to our advantage – For example: Engineers from Poland. HQ in London. Subsidiary in Barcelona (where it’s sunny and you like to live). Business development in New York and SF. Use Europe’s network effect; don’t silo yourself. That said – you’ll go faster if your team is all in one place. So, tax haven HQ in Luxembourg, main office in London… You get the drift!

13. Customers and traction – You want customers? Then position and tailor your company for them – don’t expect to have to ‘educate’. Pinterest ignored the tech press and went for the women’s press. Are your customers TechCrunch readers or elsewhere? Think about that.

14. Investors who have to fight – Don’t like the term sheet from the VC you pitched in your home city? Don’t whine. Get on a fucking plane! Did Soundclould take the first one in Berlin? Now – they went to New York and London. If VCs have competition they will think harder about turning you down. Make the competition happen yourself.

15. Bonus point: Sustainable business models that mean you outlast your US counterpart when the Series A Crunch comes hunting for them…

We’ve had enough of people trying to re-create Silicon Valley where they are. It’s time to build some Silicon Bridges between us.

Statistics released yesterday (link via Google Translate) by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) say that as of the end of November 2012, there were 1.104 billion mobile phone users in that country, an increase of nearly 118 million people during the first eleven months of 2012. This would mean that about 82% of China’s population currently uses a mobile phone (though as commenters noted below, many of these mobile phones could have dual sim cards, which was not taken into account in the MIIT’s report). The number of 3G phone users reached 220 million, or about 20% of mobile phone users. Broadband Internet service users increased by 24.03 million in the first 11 months of the year, while the number of mobile Internet users increased by 111 million to 750 million. From January to November 2012, mobile communications revenue in China totaled 724.53 billion yuan (or about $116.26 billion US dollars), an increase of 11% over the same period last year.

The rapid growth of the Chinese smartphone market means that it is set to top the U.S. iOS and Android install base next year. According to a research report by Flurry released last month, China currently has 167 million iOS or Android devices, compared to 181 million in the U.S.

China pulled ahead of the U.S. in the number of smartphones sold for the first time during Q3 2011 according to Strategy Analytics; during that time frame, 24 million units were sold in China, compared to 23 million in the U.S.

According to research by Gartner, Lenovo, the maker of the Android-powered LePhone, is expected to take the number one smartphone seller slot in China away from Samsung next year, thanks to its strong brand recognition and portfolio of affordable phones. Other local brands to watch include Xiaomi Tech (which is positioning itself as “the Apple of China”), Yulong, ZTE and Huawei. Though the iPhone continues to be hugely popular in China, that has not been enough to keep Apple’s share of that country’s smartphone market from eroding.

Editor’s note: Yvo Schaap is a 27-year-old entrepreneur from Amsterdam who loves data and code. He’s founder of Directlyrics.com and Fanity.com and has been featured on TechCrunch regarding major security holes or new Google and Facebook products. Follow him on Twitter @yvoschaap.

TechCrunch has always been the most authoritative news outlet on what’s hot in Silicon Valley regarding startup trends, early and late investments, product launches, celeb founders and, of course, geeky drama. Although some frequently praised startups were eventually exposed as fads (Badgeville, Groupon), others were expertly picked early on (Twitter, Airbnb).

It’s again time for end-of-year recaps, and I’ve developed research focused on analyzing TechCrunch’s editorial posts, with an aim to expose this year’s trends in tech. And while I was at it, I even went all the way back into the archives from when TechCrunch was launched.

I analyzed all 106,664 posts made from January 2006 onwards, looking for interesting data hidden in the individual posts. Quickly my focus moved toward mentions – to be more precise, mentions of firms and people throughout time that could imply certain trends. My argument to focus on mentions is that a startup being covered by TechCrunch has a certain value due to its exposure to tech-savvy users, investors and other entrepreneurs. Getting your startup covered is seen as an achievement, hence mentions are a valuable key indicator. And what holds value for startups also holds up for buzzwords, people, brands, products and even old dinosaur tech firms.

6 Fictitious Questions Finally Answered

Quantitative data itself is a bit static, so I hereby present my findings as a fun Q&A:

1. Google, Apple or Microsoft?

Obviously Apple has been releasing a lot of products the past year. But also Google (with Android) and, more recently, Microsoft’s Windows 8 launch gave TC’s writers lots to write about. Can my data expose whether TC’s writers are Apple fan boys? I’ve grouped every company’s major products together to find out.

My results show an ongoing attention fight between Google and Apple, where over the past year Google was mentioned 12 percent more often (1626x) compared to Apple (1455x). Microsoft came only close to reaching them in the month of October, when they launched Windows 8 and their Surface tablet, but in total they were mentioned only 48 percent of the time compared to Apple mentions.

The big three tech firms competing for attention in TechCrunch’s archives.

Zooming in on operating systems only, Android (482x) got significantly more mentions than iOS (338x). But when I join the actual product names iPhone, iPad and Nexus, Galaxy, and Wildfire together, Apple products get almost double the mentions (1184x vs. 681x).

In the tablet war, the iPad also wins, followed by Nexus, Kindle, Note and, as last, the Nook.

2. What is the most mentioned startup of 2012?

While Google and Apple stuff is interesting, startups create the future.

Thanks to the acquisition of Instagram by Facebook, Instagram became the most talked about startup (peak: 21x in a month). Pinterest peaked at the beginning of 2012 (120x) but declined slowly. The only business that grew most in mentions compared to 2011 (72x) is Dropbox (111x).

If we compare the mentions of startups vs. incumbents, incumbents get 290 percent more coverage on TechCrunch.

3. What are 2012′s tech fads?

Exposing tech fads is the most fun to dissect. The past year has been the year of the app. In 2007, apps were mentioned 6x a month, while now peaking at 149x a month. “Realtime” peaked in 2009, while it was almost forgotten in 2012. “Big data” holds strong, together with “cloud.” But the buzzword Hackathon looks like the biggest grower of 2012.

Looking at tech categories, mobile (1042x) easily beats social (682x) followed by enterprise (288x), which did the biggest jump compared to 2011. Sustainable, green, and tech are following a strong downward slope.

4. What VC firms get the most TechCrunch love?

VC firms use their affluence to get coverage of the startups they invest in. So looking at the mentions they can attract, it should indicate something about how much extra value their investments can add regarding coverage.

From my results it’s obvious that in 2012 Google Ventures (82x) was able to attract most attention, followed by Kleiner Perkins (38), Andreessen Horowitz (38x), Sequoia Capital (37x) and Accel (37x). Looking at it from 2006 onwards Google Ventures (180x) and Sequoia Capital (137x) have been the most prominent VC mentions.

5. What incubator generates the most coverage?

Getting your startup noticed in the earliest phases of existence can be vital for getting early feedback and introductions to partnerships. Incubators help get startups off the ground with some cash and advice but also help them get noticed. So how do they perform?

Y Combinator looks like the best bet with 69 mentions for its ~40 2012 startups, followed by 500 Startups (54x). There is little mention of non-U.S. incubators, which is an overall trend on TechCrunch (although they have editors based in Europe).

I also looked into what the best topic is to get coverage. Comparing newsworthy keywords shows launch (1642x) and IPO (346x) as receiving the most mentions. No surprise there. The “Deadpool” was most popular in 2007, but only mentioned 4x in 2012. A site being “down,” or a funding round will get you some coverage. Fun facts: a “rumor” would get you noticed in 2008 and 2009 (644x), but in 2012 not so much (48x). Press releases get 1x mention a year.

6. Who are the most popular tech founders/CEOs?

Surprisingly, 2012 was the year of Google’s Eric Schmidt (26x). Compared to 2011, when Steve Jobs was most mentioned (53x), Apple’s current CEO Tim Cook only gets 18 mentions, almost the same as ex-Twitter founder Jack Dorsey (17x). The only female in the group, Marissa Mayer, gets an award for most CEO mentions (18x) in a single month in all of TechCrunch’s history.

Methodology

Being a good netizen I respected the robots.txt directive when crawling TC’s data. The researched mentions are only extracted from the post title and post snippet. The argument is, if it isn’t in the first ~100 words, it’s probably irrelevant to the actual post topic. Mentions are extracted by doing both regex text matching, as well as advanced NLP matching by OpenCalais. With all the data available, I built an interface on top that is able to do all the heavy lifting, while outputting pretty charts to easily expose the data needed to answer the questions stated above.

To test whether the data makes sense, I looked at rise and fall entities Myspace, Opera and HTC mentioned in the history of TechCrunch, and they looked spot on.

Singapore-based maritime technology company Ascenz has received $482,000 in funding from technology incubator Red Dot Ventures as it sets its compass towards China.

Established in 2008 by founders Sia Teck Chong and Chia Yoong Hui, Ascenz supplies remote monitoring systems for shipping companies to track fuel consumption and bunkering. The company’s patented software monitoring system allows data to be delivered from moving ships to an onshore control office, which in turn gives Ascenz’s customers a way to monitor fuel usage in real-time. The system also serves as a locating device by sending back information about the ship’s engines and current location.

Red Dot Ventures managing director Leslie Loh said that about 70% of Ascenz’s current clients are Singaporean firms, but the company hopes to extend its customer base in China, since most ships in the region are built there, as well as markets in Europe and the Middle East.

Instagram just got a lump of coal in its stocking: a class action lawsuit, which was filed in response to its change of service terms last week. Reuters reports that a California Instagram user has leveled breach of contract and other claims against Instagram owner Facebook. In response, Facebook told Reuters “we believe this complaint is without merit and we will fight it vigorously.”

Changes in Instagram’s policy privacy set off a controversy as users worried that their photos would be sold or used in ads without their permission or compensation. In response, Instagram founder Kevin Systrom changed the wording in the policy that had caused the furor which, at its peak, led to plenty of confusion among users. Last week, Drew Olanoff and Josh Constine discussed the ruckus and misunderstandings caused by Instagram and Facebook’s privacy policy and terms of service changes.

Although Instagram almost immediately changed some of the terms of service, it still kept language indicating “that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such.” Instagram also kept wording that gives it the ability to place ads related to user content, as well as a new a new mandatory arbitration clause that means users waive their rights to participate in class action lawsuits under almost all circumstances (the lawsuit comes before the new TOS goes in effect on January 19).

The lawsuit filed by San Diego-based law firm Finkelstein & Krinsk alleges that even if users delete their Instagram account, they forfeit rights to photos they have already uploaded.

“In short, Instagram declares that ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law and if you don’t like it, you can’t stop us,’” the lawsuit says.