Category: Tech news

Last week I got the chance to play with the Ulysse Nardin Chairman, a goofy, expensive phone with a small, built-in mechanical rotor for manual winding. I interviewed the head of UN’s cell division, Paul Williams, about his experience building the phone as well as his background at Nokia’s Vertu line. The phone will run Android and will be available next year. If anything can be said of this phone it’s that it is real, it is a serious piece of electronics, and yes, someone will probably buy one or one thousand.

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The Gibson SG is itself a rock star.

Graced by the touch of Tony Iommi’s tipless fingers, Derek Trucks’ southern slide and Angus Young’s spastic gesticulations, the axe is as legendary as the players who lifted it to its iconic status.

When the ebony-finished Gibson SG Special arrived, my initial reactions were irreconcilable. I was unsure whether I should sit down, plug it in, and finger-pick a light and airy tune, or head into my garage, slip into my velvet trousers, and blast my neighbor’s tympanic membrane into oblivion before smashing the thing to pieces. The guitar’s renowned versatility had my sonic sensibilities all stirred up, but with a street price of around $800, pulverizing it wasn’t really an option.

In terms of design and fit, the SG’s famous “devil’s horns” shape gives off a mean vibe, but it’s actually a sweetheart when it comes to playability. The double-cutaway, beveled-edge body allows comfortable access to the upper frets. It’s also slender and lightweight — about five and half pounds. You can play it for hours without wearing out your shoulder, and it’s an incomparable joy to jump around with. The neck, which uses Gibson’s thicker ’50s profile instead of the ’60s shape found on the SG Standard, is made of solid mahogany and is topped with a fast rosewood fingerboard.

If the SG’s tone were served in a restaurant, it’d come with a side of A1 sauce and a big glass of ice water. With Gibson’s stock 490R humbucker pickup in the neck position and a thinner-sounding 490T in the bridge, the SG spits out a tone hot enough to boil your morning tea water, while maintaining a deliciously meaty low end. And it’s all adjusted with dual volume and tone knobs and a 3-way toggle switch. The ‘buckers are hot — I was able to get some seriously muscular power, whether I was wailing on a solo or strumming out power chords.

When this guitar was first introduced as a new and improved version of Gibson’s Les Paul in 1961, it was considered radical and edgy. Fifty years later, Gibson has barley changed the design — a larger pick guard, a different neck shape and a few tweaks to the pickups set today’s SG apart from the original ‘61. But the build quality still seems to be there. If you’re looking for a versatile, comfortable and handsome git-fiddle with thick, hot tone, this guy is a sure bet.

WIRED Lightweight, compared to other mahogany guitars. Slender body and beveled edges make for a super comfortable, well-balanced axe. Tone as hot as a grilled habanero.

TIRED Neck feels slightly thick. Low-end is not quite as full and present as its big brother Les Paul. Only comes with a gig bag — invest in a hard-shell case or put your repair guy on speed dial.

Top photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

What can you say about a camera whose design has barely changed in half a century?

First introduced in 1954, the M series is the German manufacturer’s flagship collection of rangefinders. Leica M system cameras have long been held in the absolute highest esteem by photojournalists, street photographers and travelers for their light weight, compact body, and versatility.

In 2003, Leica introduced the MP, an all-mechanical version of its classic design that looks and feels like a perfectly preserved artifact from your father’s shelf.

The MP is a stripped down machine that only presents the bare essentials. It doesn’t have any of the trappings of its high-tech cousins. (And yes, this is a film camera.) Even its solid, all-metal construction with brass top and bottom plates is an anomaly — it’s rare not to see or feel any plastic in such a small camera these days. The MP skips any garish branding, too. The Leica “red dot” logo found on the front of most of the company’s cameras is oddly absent. Not that the lack of logo would fool anyone from correctly guessing what brand of very expensive gear is hanging around your neck.

To test it, I did what a proper Leica owner would do: I hit the streets.

Street shooting has traditionally been a tough gig, since you have to rely on your skills of timing, judgement and, most of all, stealth. However, I found that the changes technology has imposed upon our society have only made it easier to shoot on the street. Smart phones and small digital cameras are ubiquitous, and people are used to having their photos snapped everywhere they go. As such, walking around with an MP around your neck is hardly a shocking sight. If anyone glanced at me, they were less likely to be nervous about having their picture taken and more likely to be curious about what kind of Leica I’m using.

When pulling it up to your eye or grabbing shots from the hip, it’s easy to go unnoticed, even if your subjects could hear the shutter clicking, which they certainly can’t, given the Leica’s deathly silent operation. The eerily quiet mechanical shutter makes less noise than your iPhone on vibrate.

The focus ring on the lens, a 50mm Summiux-M ASPH, is smooth, and if you’re not used to using a rangefinder it wouldn’t take long to get the hang of this system and make you a convert. It’s quick to learn, but it slows you down just enough to make you concentrate a bit more on what you’re doing, which could help keep your creative vision crisp.

Something about the entire package — the retro styling, the solid build, the feel and quality of the materials, and the ability to be operating without the need for electricity — makes you feel legitimate. Also, it’s difficult to describe how satisfying the click of the shutter is, especially when the weight of the metal body resonates with just the slightest muffled sound.

The Leica MP is such an icon (and so expensive) that it carries with it a sense of historical responsibility. You really feel like you’re making an honest, lasting record with this camera. It gives me the urge to document my life on film, so that one day my kids can see where I’ve been and what I’ve done. And since I know the MP will still be working when I get to that point decades hence, my kids will be able to use it, too.

WIRED A bona fide classic in design and construction. Thousands of lens options, since every piece of M-mount glass made by Leica is still game. Stripped-down shutter speed dial and manual focus ring are simple to use. Understated looks, compact design and stealthily quiet shutter make it perfect for discreet documentation.

TIRED At $5,000 for the body alone, the MP’s price is almost as inflated as its legacy. Lenses are extra, and they are expensive. Rangefinders have limitations that make them less than ideal for sports or nature photography. The permanence of film will make you stop and think before you shoot, though that isn’t always a bad thing.

Camera photo by Jon Snyder/Wired

Let’s get one thing out of the way: This is the best Mustang ever built. Which makes it one of the best muscle cars ever built, which makes it one of the best cars ever built, period. Which means you should probably go out and buy one, even though it costs $41,000 — a big chunk of change for a Mustang.

For a normal person, the ordinary, 412-hp Mustang GT has absolutely nothing wrong with it. It’s a $30,500 brawler that handles better than anything with a live rear axle has a right to. Best of all, it recalls that awesome time your dad hit up the ‘74 U.S. Grand Prix at Watkins Glen and got lost in the track’s world-famous Bog before drinking his weight in Schlitz and helping a rowdy mob set a Greyhound bus on fire.

OK, maybe your dad didn’t do that. But it would’ve been awesome if he did, right?

The 2012 Mustang Boss 302 offers a similar call-back to the past. It’s based on the Mustang GT, albeit with a razor-sharp, track-oriented suspension; a 7500-rpm (!), 444-hp 5.0-liter V-8; a shorter (3.73:1) limited-slip rear-axle; and various aerodynamic bits aimed at increasing high-speed grip. The front brakes are 14-inch units borrowed from Ford’s 550-hp Shelby GT500. Oh, and there’s a killer, Annie-get-your-bell-bottoms graphics package meant to recall Ford’s 1969–1970 Boss 302 Trans-Am racing special. Ask your dealer nicely, you can get a red ignition key, dubbed TracKey, that unlocks aggressive throttle programming and a blissfully lumpy old-school idle.

One more thing: It has side pipes — exhausts that exit under the rocker panels. Gurgle.

A classy pile of parts does not a great car make, but somehow, that list adds up to magic. The engine is an unstoppable corker, charging to its sky-high redline in one seamless, furious blast. The suspension tuning is spot-on; there is no more neutral or controllable 400-plus-hp car on the market. Gone is the plush body roll of the Mustang GT; absent is the nose-heavy, thick-witted behavior of the $49,500 GT500. Point it at a corner, any corner, and the Boss just inhales the landscape and goes. There are performance cars costing twice this much that don’t ride as well or handle as predictably. Most of them aren’t half as much fun.

Here’s the catch: Only a few thousand Boss 302s will be made. You want one? Get in line behind me. And stay the hell away from the Bog, OK?

WIRED Plucks every red-blooded American heartstring you’ve got. Will shame more expensive iron on street or track. Yet one more sign of Ford’s renaissance.

TIRED Limited run. Brake pedal can grow eerily spongy after track use. Graphics package virtually begs police to arrest you.

2012 Mustang Boss 302 photos by Sam Smith/Wired

When the Sony Walkman burst onto the scene decades ago, personal, portable tunes became viable for the first time.

Audio-Technica, a well-known producer of quality, vinyl-centric hi-fi gear, responded to the shift in our listening habits with the AT-727 “Sound Burger,” a strange-looking, pint-sized, battery-powered turntable that made the vinyl experience portable. It was small enough that you could take your records to the late-night party at the Moontower. Needless to say, it didn’t catch on.

Now, in the age of iPods, MP3s, and digital, well, everything, Audio-Technica has taken another swing at making vinyl portable. This one’s a solution much more suited for the 21st century — a USB record player.

The Audio-Technica AT-LP240-USB direct-drive turntable bridges the analog/digital gap by plugging directly into your computer via USB. Using the included free audio editing software Audacity, you can encode all those vinyl tunes to MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WAV or AIFF audio files. If you’ve amassed a sizable record collection, you gain the luxury of enjoying those wax-ensconced sounds not just when you’re lounging in front of your Bang & Olufsen speakers, but anywhere.

On the glossy surface, you’ll find the basic controls: and on/off knob, a start/stop switch and a speed selector with three settings — 33, 45, and 78 RPMs — that are kept in check with a stroboscopic platter and speed accuracy indicator. The S-shaped tone arm is fully adjustable. There’s no pitch control.

The LP240 has a built-in phono preamp, so it will work with newer A/V receivers that lack the phono input so common years ago.

The turntable uses a direct-drive motor. Unlike on a belt-drive turntable, the high-torque motor is directly connected to the platter and located just beneath it. There’s virtually no distortion as the platter accelerates to full speed. With less than 0.1 percent wow and flutter (speed variation), I had no problems with the platter getting off speed.

Plop down a disc and you’ll be rewarded with that rich, warm sound vinyl junkies rave about. The bass is a little light, but mids and highs were velvety, full, and crisp. For instance, Harry Nilsson’s voice sounded terrific on “Gotta Get Up,” the cut that opens his classic Nilsson Schmilsson LP, but as I noticed after playing a few different records, the bass tones tend to get a bit lost.

The turntable has a 55 dB signal-to-noise ratio, so there is some noticeable background noise as a record plays. It’s not a deal-breaking amount, but it’s definitely there, along with amplified popping if your record has accumulated some wear over time. Once a song is recorded, though, Audacity has directions for removing pops, clicks, hum and other noise.

Actually, Audacity does a fine job at representing everything about the original recording. It performs 16-bit analog-to-digital conversion at 44.1 kHz, which is CD quality, or 48 kHz, which is even better.

Taken purely as a turntable, the LP240 is a gorgeous piece of gear that delivers decent sound, but for a price. It’s $370, and that doesn’t include the stylus cartridge (I used an Audio Technica AT 120 E/T standard mount cartridge). If you take advantage of the USB features, then it’s worth it, but there are less expensive fully-analog turntables out there.

And hey, at least it’s cheaper than a vintage AT-727 on eBay.

WIRED You can finally copy your vintage Monkees albums to digital formats. Slick, luxe black chassis is beautiful, and it sounds good to boot. Setting up the included software is straightforward, and no special drivers are needed. Built in phono stage is a plus for owners of non-vintage A/V rigs.

TIRED It’s heavy, around 30 pounds. USB tether means a notebook or computer must be in close proximity. Price is a bit… pricey. Shiny exterior shows each and every fingerprint.

Photo by Jim Merithew/Wired

Meet the last of the original Moto Guzzis.

In the 1970s, most motorcycles handled like they had a giant hinge between the wheels. Then one Italian engineer invented a frame to which phrases like “mass-centralization”, “low center of gravity,” “short wheelbase” and “light weight” couldn’t be applied — not because they didn’t describe Lino Tonti’s tubular steel masterpiece, but rather because they didn’t exist in the motorcycle lexicon yet.

Forty years later, that frame is still in production, at least on one bike — the Moto Guzzi California Black Eagle.

So far as a motorcycle that represents an authentic “retro” experience goes, the Black Eagle is essentially perfect. It is a 1970s motorcycle, just updated with necessary emissions gear like fuel-injection and basic modern conveniences like push-button start. That frame is still welded by hand at Moto Guzzi’s 90-year old factory in Mandello del Lario while that distinctive 1,064cc, 90-degree, across-the-frame V-twin is nearly identical to the 949cc unit that powered the 1971 original.

Those ’70s specs are both good and bad: good for riders, bad for Guzzi’s parent company Piaggio, which has to shell out more coin to produce the labor-intensive design than it does its flagship, World Championship-winning superbike.

The California hails from a time before the word “cruiser” was dreamed up as a way to market uncompetitive, outdated motorcycles from the 1950s to a gullible public. Ignore for a second the swept-back handlebars and forward foot controls. What you have here is a relatively powerful, relatively light (for the time), sporting motorcycle from 1971 equipped with modern, adjustable suspension and modern, powerful brakes. Use the light steering to throw it into a corner fast, in defiance of its cruiser label, and you’re rewarded with ability and feedback. Trickle through traffic at low speed and the Black Eagle is both balanced and predictable.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have character. Twist the throttle at a stand still and the bike jerks to the left as torque is transferred through the drive shaft. The transformation from normal motorcycle to fashion statement occurred some time in the 1980s, when cruiser fashion saw ergonomics akin to a riding lawnmower rather than a horse saddled Western-style, as is en vogue now. That means curiously high floorboards and peculiarly low bars or, together, an inconveniently cramped riding position that compromises both control and comfort.

The end result is a matte black motorcycle that isn’t a retro trying to mimic an authentic experience, but rather that original trying to compete in the modern motorcycle market. If you value character over bling, it might just be the cruiser for you — just be prepared to do some classic-style wrenching, at least to swap out those bars and floor boards.

And enjoy it while you can — a whizz-bang, fully-modern replacement is scheduled to roll out at end of this year.

WIRED All the classic bike character, none of the classic bike headaches. Original details like the polished aluminum cylinder head covers must cost a fortune.

TIRED Costs a fortune: $13,500 is nearly as much as that superbike. Tall riders need not apply — ergonomics were compromised in the transformation from standard to cruiser.

California Black Eagle photos by Wes Siler/Wired

Yes, she’s heavy. And yeah, she’s probably overpriced.

But look at her. Seriously, up there in the photograph.

She goes by the name of Sawyer, just like all those hot girls in high school who had boys’ names: Billie, Sam, Jean, Randi.

The first impression is hard to shake. The lines are retro, yet modern. The curve of the down tube, the split top-tube, the gigantic 29er tires and the understated matte paint job … all meant to hearken back to the days when Gary Fisher and his friends were bombing the hills of Marin, inventing what we now call mountain biking. These intrepid, harebrained souls took bikes that were meant for cruising around the block and hacked them into dirt-bombing adrenaline machines.

This specimen is a part of Trek’s new Gary Fisher Collection — a special line of mountain bike models dedicated to the man who started it all. Among a wide range of frames all baring his signature, the Sawyer is a sentimental showpiece. Fisher was one of the first bike designers to start mass-producing 29-inch-wheel mountain bikes in 2001, and Trek (which gobbled up his company) is celebrating his 10-year obsession by launching this bike.

The design of the Sawyer hearkens back to the sport’s salad days. Given visions of those old-timers plummeting down Mt. Tamalpais on their sturdy steeds decades ago, there was no doubt in my mind that when I hefted the Sawyer, she was going to be a tank. And I was right: She’s not quite 30 pounds, but she certainly rolled right past 20 like it was standing still.

After letting her sit around looking pretty for a couple of days, I finally got a chance to throw a leg over her and put some time in the saddle. At first, I assumed she was going to be all show and no go. After a few miles, I realized I could not have been more wrong.

The Sawyer is fun. A little like the fun your dad might have had if he were a member of the Repack, burning up his brakes and shredding his tires while laughing hysterically down the mountain.

A few issues got in the way of the good times. The shifting is not quite crisp, and I had some brake adjustment woes right out of the box. In this price range (the Sawyer is $1,500) you’d expect a better kit.

When I turned to the bike forums on the web, I found some kindred spirits. A great many riders are so in love with the Sawyer’s curvy steel build, they are just buying the frame and fork and tricking it out. With some effort (and a small fortune) you can get the Sawyer well under 25 pounds, especially if you take advantage of the split dropout and convert her to a single speed. Belt-driven Sawyer, anyone?

In the end, I decided I liked her just the way she is, flaws and all. I wouldn’t want to spend all day in her saddle, slogging through singletrack or whipping the downhill course at Downieville. And there are certainly better choices for commuting to work or riding a century.

But for shorter rides that involve a little of this and a little of that, give the Sawyer a shot. Just like the rest of her crew — the Randis and the Billies and the Sams — she’ll make you feel like a man and leave you begging for more.

WIRED Stylish steed with old-school cred. Steel frame, rigid fork and swept Bontrager Crivitz bars give it a cruiser vibe, but it’s capable on the trails. Sliders and split dropouts allow for multiple drivetrain options. Modders already love this bike, and will continue to do so.

TIRED Lower end components and all that extra steel add up to one heavy bike. If function is more important than form, you should look elsewhere.

Trek Sawyer photo by Jim Merithew/Wired

The iconic egg-shaped chair appeals to our senses for a number of reasons. It’s not only a nice bit of furniture, but also an escapist refuge, a retro-kitch object, and a vehicle for astral projection.

But this particular egg chair adds even more sensual stimulation to the mix. It’s called the Sound Egg, and, given that name, it’s exactly what you’d expect: an egg-shaped chair with a blistering A/V system inside.

The large, womb-like pod — which draws equally from Henrik Thor-Larsen’s Ovalia and Mork’s egg ship — is fitted with a ring of speakers around your head and a subwoofer behind the seat. The interior is coated with sound-isolating open cell acoustic foam. Climb in, crank it up, and you’ve got your own personal capsule for watching movies, playing games or just plain spacing out.

Like the free range chicken tent at your local farmer’s market, there are several colors and configurations of egg to choose from. All the Sound Eggs are the same size, but you can pick different shell colors and padding colors. Choose from either a 2.1 or 5.1 system. In the 5.1 configuration, the left front and right front channels are aimed directly at your ears, the rear channels are behind your head on either side, and the center channel speaker is over your head and forward a little, just inside the lip of the opening. Each Sound Egg comes with a 110-watt amp, which is more than enough power to cook your head however you’d like — scrambled, fried, or over easy.

For the absolute ultimate in escapism, you can add a swivel-mounted arm for an HDTV. Climb in, swing the screen in front of your face, and you’re in the zone.

I tested the 5.1 system, listening to a variety of stereo and surround sources. The Sound Egg’s speakers have a really satisfying punch, not that far from a powerful, extremely well-tuned car audio system. The secret seems to be the proximity of the drivers as well as sound-dampening padding lining the inside of the egg. Nothing bounces around, so the sound stays tight and never gets flabby. The padding also mellows out the highest frequencies, so you can turn up the volume a little more than you normally would without aggravating your ears.

Perhaps best of all, the padding creates a heavily isolated environment. When you’re inside the Egg, you’re in your own space, visually and acoustically. You can’t hear much of what’s happening out there in the big scary world. And when you’re playing a game or watching a movie, the padding keeps your soundtrack from leaking out. It’s surprising how much louder it is on the inside than on the outside.

Back in the 70’s, your dad climbed into his egg chair when he wanted to zone out to his Floyd records. Now you can keep the legacy alive by climbing into one of these and watching the remastered DVD of The Wall with the volume cranked up to brick-smashing levels.

WIRED Your own portable happy place. Ultimately configurable: choose between 5.1 or 2.1, pick your own color combo, and add an HDTV mount or a padded seat. Fiberglass body is sturdy. Gold speaker connectors are on the back and out of the way.

TIRED Surround speakers require a whole mess of cables, so once you hook it up, you won’t want to move it. Built for one, so all trips are solo.

Top photo by Jon Snyder/Wired

Nintendo and Sony just announced the much-anticipated Wii U and the Playstation Vita last week at E3 and, well, we were pretty impressed. The Wii U, Nintendo’s new console, is a real step up for the brand as it adds HD game play and a unique new controller that incorporates third-screen features with Nintendo’s own paradigm-shifting controller style. The Vita is a little less exciting to console gamers as it’s a handheld, but it is definitely an improvement over the old PSP and PSP Go and looks to be a step in the right direction for the ailing Sony.

After a bit of deliberation, Erick and I were agreed on what would fly and what would die and, more important, which consoles would soon grace our living rooms. Picking a winner this early is obviously a bit difficult, but it’s interesting to see the growth and improvement of these two platforms over the years and we’re both pretty excited for a Mario- and Metal Gear Solid-filled future.

Check out or full coverage of the Wii U and the Vita here.

Seth Godin often writes short blog posts that makes (or rather, should make) one reflect for a not-so-short time. How’s that for kicking in an open door? At the risk of stealing the man’s thunder, let me copy-paste an excerpt from a blog post Godin published this morning, which resonated with me and I think will resonate with a lot of TechCrunch readers:

The goal isn’t to get money from a VC, just as the goal isn’t to get into Harvard.

Those are stepping stones, filters that some successful people have made their way through.
…
I don’t care so much how much money you raised, or who you raised it from. I care a lot about who your customers are and why (or if) they’re happy.

It’s a premise that’s rather easy to agree with. Of course raising capital doesn’t equal success.

Of course making (and keeping) customers happy is more crucial for any business.

VC funding is just one or more professional investors betting on people, an idea, a business model they believe in, knowing full well that only a small fraction of their portfolio companies will provide them with decent returns in the foreseeable future.

At the same time, we often congratulate entrepreneurs who contact us with information about their latest financing round, or with the recognizable name of his or her latest backer.

Perhaps it’s just become a habit, but then why did it become one?

Not every startup looking for financing gets funded, and some even die trying. Still, we are not easily impressed when startups do convince investors to back them, because we realize it doesn’t usually make a lot difference for the company’s chances of survival anyway.

At TechCrunch, we champion innovation. We love to try new stuff, and we certainly appreciate entrepreneurs who approach problems in ways others never thought of.

And yet, when we hear a startup got funding, we say: ‘congrats’ or ‘cool!’. I suspect that’s because we realize raising VC is not an easy thing to do for the large majority of entrepreneurs out there. No matter how you slice or dice it, raising capital consumes time, energy and resources that are often far better used for the startup’s business in question.

It can also be a stressful thing to do, so maybe us acknowledging that raising VC is not an easy feat, and congratulating entrepreneurs who do secure financing is another way for us to give them that extra nudge they might need to continue on their journey.

And yet, Godin’s words have made me wonder whether patting people on the back when they close their funding rounds is actually the right thing to do.

Maybe we should be encouraging them to genuinely try to change the world for good with the money they’ve just raised instead, and remind them that VC is indeed only one of many stepping stones they’ll need in order to make it to where they want to go. Discuss.

(Image via Flickr user Evan Prodromou, used with permission)

Years ago I thought I could be in a rock band (right around the same time I thought I could make money writing poetry) but I eventually resigned myself to the fact that I’d never be a great guitarist. I didn’t have the drive to practice and the act of soloing confounded me completely. How did you play along with the Zep and the Beatles? How do you get great? How do you meet groupies? As time passed, I gave up and my guitars lay fallow in the corner, the groupies forgotten.

However, I think Fretlight may have given me a new lease on life. Fretlight makes guitars with LEDs embedded in the neck. You connect these guitars to a computer, run a MIDI player, and then follow along with the lights as the music plays. You can slow things down or speed them up and loop parts of the song over and over to practice certain riffs. The Fretlight will literally show you how to play all of your favorite songs.

Read more…

Andrew Mason has been visiting Beijing and Groupon HQ has finally realized there are some problems in China.

On the Forbes website, Rebecca Fannin reports:

CEO Andrew Mason just arrived in China and hasn’t wasted time shaking things up. Four expatriate executives at Groupon who were recruited from rival site Ftuan just a few months ago will be leaving Groupon China.

This seems to be a belated response to the very obvious problems at Groupon China that seasoned observers have been noting since the group buy website first opened up shop in Beijing and Shanghai:

Groupon China was started and has been managed by a bunch of trendy-looking but ineffectual foreigners who can’t speak Chinese and are completely clueless about China.

Firing four unnamed foreigners is not evidence that anything has changed.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg has this report (which I’d wager a PR company helped put together) talking up Groupon’s Chinese partner Tencent:

“Tencent’s scale and user base gives Groupon an advantage, and China’s group-buying market is still at an early stage and has a lot of upside,” said April Su, an analyst at iResearch in Beijing.…

“We think we’ve found an excellent partner in Tencent and we’ve been very pleased with the progress we’ve made,” Mason told reporters in Beijing today, before leaving Ouyang to field queries on Gaopeng…

Gaopeng is seeking an edge in China with “world-class brands,” like Apple Inc., Ouyang said today.

“Our strategy is very strict selection of the merchant deals,” Ouyang said. “It’s not only about discount service but it’s also about being a city guide, a lifestyle.”

A few problems:

1. Tencent will end up shafting Groupon
If the Groupon model works in China, Tencent has nothing to gain by partnering with Groupon. Tencent has its own Groupon style offerings, and there is no need to make Groupon work for them to profit by the model.

2. Apple and “lifestyle”: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

This is too rich:

Gaopeng is seeking an edge in China with “world-class brands,” like Apple Inc., Ouyang said today.

“Our strategy is very strict selection of the merchant deals,” Ouyang said. “It’s not only about discount service but it’s also about being a city guide, a lifestyle.”

So, Apple is going to sell discounted iPads in China?

Yeah right, why would Apple do this when there are already Chinese people willing to sell their kidneys to get an iPad, or get into fistfights at the Apple store just to get hold of one.

Apple and Groupon China? Simply ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is the “city guide / lifestyle” nonsense.

I first worked on city guide / lifestyle print magazines in the late 1990s in China:

There is a small amount of money to be made in city guides and lifestyle guide products in big Chinese cities. There is quite a bit more money to be made in Internet and media products that help position brands as desirable for the new rich and emerging middle classes (e.g. Cosmopolitan China magazine and Vogue China , possibly the P1 social network and the Financial Times‘ FT Rui magazine).

There is also money to be made and a huge user demand for Dianping, which is like the Yelp of China that offers real, honest user reviews of restaurants.

But, based on my personal experience since 1997, every foreign-funded company I have ever encountered in China talking about making money from local vendors based on a “lifestyle” proposition has about a year or so before bankrupting itself or being run out of town.

3. iResearch

A final note: I don’t know if Groupon is paying iResearch, but iResearch has a reputation in China for doing “research” for companies who pay them. Somehow, the companies always end up looking very good in their research reports.

It’s all pre-IPO spin. Groupon China is simply a way to bleed cash.

TechCrunch turns 6 years old today. Back on June 11, 2005, Michael Arrington wrote his first blog post. Then he started having parties in the backyard of his old house in Atherton, one of the YouTube guys showed up to one of them, there were lots more parties, and the rest is history.

Michael’s come a long way from those backyard parties around a campfire, and so has TechCrunch. We now have millions of readers, dozens of employees, and our gatherings have gotten quite large (2,100 people at the last Disrupt in NYC). Oh, and we are now part of AOL.

We couldn’t have made it this far without all of you, our readers, coming back day in and day out (sometimes hourly). And we wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for all the startups, founders, and tech companies large and small who give us so much to write about. So we may a little bit bigger now, but we’ll never forget that the best things start small—sometimes around a campfire.

Photo credit: FLickr/Tom Magliery

According to BuiltWith, of the top million websites using content management systems (or CMSes), three systems own more than 75 percent of the total market share: WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. (All of which are open source, by the way.)

Many are likely most familiar with WordPress, which TechCrunch has covered quite a bit (and uses to power most its sites, for full disclosure). WordPress is the most popular CMS on the Web, running 62 percent of the top million websites that use a CMS, according to BuiltWith, with Joomla now ranking second at 10 percent and closing.

There are a ton of these content management systems out there, even though the top 3 claim most of the market share. And, as BuiltWith’s roster shows, microblogging and blog publishing services are often grouped in with CMSes — as some are able to be customized into a CMS — even though their scopes tend to be far more specialized. Services like Blogger and Tumblr, to name two, are sometimes lumped in with CMSes and have attracted a lot of coverage in the press, some of which is for good reason.

Because of this, services like Joomla seem to fly a bit under the radar. Or, at least so it seems with Joomla in particular, which has yet to be covered by TechCrunch. (Or has, at least, been covered minimally compared to 63 posts for WordPress.)

So what is this “Joomla”, and why should you care about it? Joomla is a free, open source CMS, written in PHP that uses object-oriented programming, storing data in a MySQL database, and does page caching, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, polls, search — things that every CMS should do.

And there are these impressive statistics: Joomla has now passed 23 million downloads, and currently stands at just over 23.5 million, to be precise. It owns 10.3 percent of the CMS market share, and BuiltWith shows it’s powering over 1.4 million websites. Joomla, for one, says that it’s impossible to know for sure, but estimates last year by FinishJoomla put that number between 1.5 and 2 million. Which admittedly seems small compared to the 23 million downloads.

Pure statistics are fine and dandy, but what’s led Joomla to become the second largest CMS on the Interwebs? This is an especially interesting question considering that, as an open source system, there is no figurehead or CEO pulling the strings, or making product decisions. Joomla is updated and expanded on, like WordPress(.org) and Drupal, by its community of developers.

But unlike Matt Mullenweg of WordPress (who, incidentally, was named one of the 50 most important people on the Web by PC Magazine) there is no “face” of Joomla; instead, it has been collectively run by the nearly 250K developers that use Joomlacode.org, the resource in which developers can build open source software projects, tools and extensions, for Joomla users. (And there are currently nearly 8K extensions available for the Joomla platform.)

Unlike, say Mullenweg’s Automattic, Joomla is loosely headed by OpenSourceMatters.org, a non-profit entity that provides organizational, legal, and financial support to the Joomla community. The goal for OpenSourceMatters is to maintain Joomla’s open source nature, assuring that Joomla is a project that acts autonomously, is socially responsible, and remains accountable to its community.

According to Ryan Ozimek, president of Open Source Matters, the Joomla community has evolved significantly over the last 5 years, and in January of this year, OpenSourceMatters initiated some changes to the way the service is released to its users, that have already begun contributing to Joomla’s growth.

Namely, the service has moved away from a feature-based lifecycle to a time-based lifecycle, which means that Joomla now releases a new version of its platform every 6 months. Instead of having the lead developers writing the code behind each sporadic release of new features, Joomla allows the community of developers to make patches, fix bugs, tinker with the framework or the design for the end-user. Then, a the end of the 6 months, the OpenSourceMatters team merges everything together into a finished product, which is then released to the public.

Version 1.6, which was released in January, has been downloaded over 2.5 million times in the last 3.5 months, according to Ozimek, with 220 users now joining Joomla forums every single day.

Compared to Drupal, Joomla has traditionally been focused on smaller companies, novices, and those who aren’t necessarily experience developers, whereas the other has gone after enterprises and has a greater array of lumber and plumbing for heavier use cases. Drupal (and for full disclosure, I run a website using Drupal) also comes with a fairly steep learning curve. It’s not so easy to use right out of the box.

Once you’ve created custom fields, content types — on other words, dug into and played around with it for awhile — Drupal begins to shine. So, Joomla’s strength in comparison is really that it’s ready to use; it requires no hardware investments or spending on software, and it works with a wide variety of SQL and noSQL databases.

Again, for a CMS that has nearly 24 million downloads, 10 percent market share, and 500K registered users in its forums, Joomla is relatively unheard of in the U.S. Another reason for this (and another one of its strengths) is that, since its inception, the service has been geared towards an international audience. Joomla is currently being used in over 200 countries, according to Ozimek, with more than 2,500 international government agencies using the service to run those websites. (NASA, the US Air Force and US Army, included.)

What’s more, Joomla has never taken in outside investment. Ozimek said that nearly 100 percent of the revenue for the non-profit has come from Google AdWords, or other advertising services, used across its network of websites — or from sponsorship.

Both in its open source nature, bootstrapped financing, international focus, and use among “the little guys”, Ozimek said, chuckling, Joomla has taken on somewhat of a “hippie vibe”. And, speaking like a true long-hair-type, when asked how he compares Joomla’s progress to that of its nominal competitors, Ozimek said that the goal is not grabbing market share from other platforms, the goal is showcasing the capabilities of open source communities and software. “Our competition is proprietary software”, he said. “We want to work towards a time when we’re all open coding”. What a hippie.

Can you draw the Internet? No seriously can you?

ArtWeLove, DeviantArt, digital ad agency Saint, The NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and The NYC Department of Education partnered up this Internet Week in a gallery exhibition of “Can You Draw The Internet?”, a contest that asks people to “capture the spirit of the Internet’s billions of pages in a single image.” Hmm … sounds like a Google job interview.

But more so.  In “Can You Draw The Internet,” digital artists like Douglass Rushkoff and Josh Harris joined schoolchildren in attempts to visualize what a networks of networks based on the IP protocol looks like. While the creative and digital artists received nothing but glory, the best student artist submissions received $100 gift certificates for art supplies. All submissions are being sold through Artwelove, the proceeds going to benefit NY public schools.

Defining let alone drawing something as complicated and ubiquitous as the Internet is a Herculean task, so props to anyone who entered this thing. I mean at this point 1/3 of humanity is online, so there are a lot more ways to win then to start sketching out individual data packets (I’m a huge fan of that USB brain piercing entry below).

So yeah “drawing the Internet” is hard, even for the most tech savvy. But if you’re in a pinch, just draw on the  best definition of the Internet I’ve heard so far, “It’s like all the world is in an room and the Internet is the air between them.”

My favorite entries, below.