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Earlier today, I wrote about a new startup called Perka that’s attempting to bring an end to loyalty cards with a kick ass merchant-facing service. Well, it seems that today is the day for launching loyalty program-disrupting startups, as a company named Perkville is coming out stealth mode and launching into the public sphere.

Many of us have overflowing wallets due the amount of loyalty cards, buy-five-get-one-free tickets, and Groupons we carry around in our wallet. Or we get to our favorite coffee shop only to remember that we forgot our punch card at home. Perkville, as opposed to Perka, is taking a different approach to providing local merchants with a loyalty solution by turning customers’ email addresses into virtual reward cards. That means no more cards to carry and forget at home, no apps to download — just an email address, and users can participate in any merchant program on Perkville. And for merchants, Perkville is free to use and can be set up in minutes.

So how does it work? Merchants decide on what kind of reward program they want to establish for their customers, whether it be per visit or purchase, etc. When customers make a purchase, merchants reward customers with points via an in-store tablet (i.e. iPad) or their point of sale (POS) system. Customers can then track their points online and refer friends to the merchant, who then receive a special deal in return. The referring customer then receives points for a successful referral.

Founded in early January of last year by former Senior Product Manager at LinkedIn and Yahoo! Sunil Saha and Eric Bollman, the former Director of UX at Yahoo!, Perkville has been working diligently in stealth to partner with POS software providers to scale the business and get it to a place where it can become a valuable service for merchants. At launch, the startup has already attracted 200+ active merchants across the U.S. and has 100K+ consumers on board, 25 percent of which are registered users.

Whether merchants are onboarding with Perkville through POS visual touch solutions like Mindbody, which provides business management software for a wide range of businesses, including salons, spas, fitness studios, yoga, martial arts and retail, or by encouraging iPad adoption at the POS (which the team says work well for places like coffee shops, for cashiers who don’t feel comfortable with complicated approaches), or whether the merchants are entering the customer’s email address manually, once they have the email, the rest of the Perkville process remains the same. The user then gets an invite to join, they register, and the rest is history.

The Perkville Co-founders told me that they’ve been seeing low adoption among merchants using mobile solutions, QR code solutions, Shopkick, etc., because they all require downloading an app, scanning, holding a card next to some wonky device — and that this type of friction leads to concern, skepticism, and hesitation from small, local merchants. For companies like Groupon that have large sales forces, or for companies that don’t have such an automated process, there’s a lot of marketing spend and going door-to-door for these types of deals and loyalty solutions, and it can be tough to scale. Perkville doesn’t have to worry about that.

Another cool thing about Perkville is in how it’s monetizing. Because its core platform is free for merchants, Perkville is offering merchants the ability to set perpetual deals, or “winback” deals, for example, that lets merchants identify customers who haven’t been back to the store in awhile and send them a deal to get them back and buying. For Perkville’s highly targeted deals, the startup takes a 30 percent cut of profits earned by merchants.

But, on the whole, merchants retain full flexibility control and its loyalty program runs in the background — merchants can do as much or as little as they want to once Perkville is set up.

To test its new email-based loyalty hypothesis, Perkville established a case study with a yoga studio, and the results they’re seeing are impressive. Of the 9,000 people using Charm City Yoga, an average of 25 percent have joined the loyalty rewards program. Of the Perkville registered yoga enthusiasts, 70 percent are taking more classes — 340 more classes to be exact. And since Perkville gives consumers the option of connecting their programs to Facebook and Twitter, the yoga studio has seen 500 postings and 100 tweets, as well as 77 referrals and 77 new customers. Their “Winback” program has reactivated 150 customers.

Perkville is currently actively seeking outside investment, after a $500K raise from friends and family and a year-plus of bootstrapping. It’s an interesting idea to be sure, and their email-based loyalty program seems to proving itself in case studies.

Check Perkville out at home here and let us know what you think.

PowerInbox, the new email platform that lets you run apps for Facebook, Twitter, Groupon and Google+ inside your inbox, just closed an additional $800, 000 in seed funding, bringing its total Series Seed to $1.9 million.

The company had previously raised $1.1 million in August, mostly from AngelList investors.

Today, PowerInbox’s investors include Atlas Venture, Longworth Venture Partners, Correlation Ventures, Egan Managed Capital, Founder Collective, Cloud Capital Partners, Ecosystem Ventures and angels Christopher Lynch, Michael Mark, Praveen Gollapudi, Ted Chan, Alan Phillips, Mike Dornbrook, Peter Bordes, Russ Wilcox, Mark Rose, Eric Scott, Ed Chalfin, Eric Groves, Greg Cangialosi, Leslie Murdock, Philipp Stauffer, Joe Caruso, Mike Santullo, Dan Peterson, Jerril Jacob, Tim Barton and others.

The company plans to use its additional funding to further expand the platform and hire engineers.

For those unfamiliar with Powerinbox, it’s one of the most practical applications I’ve come across in recent months. The service runs on top of your email platform (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, and soon, Outlook) by augmenting the messages sent to you by various services, essentially turning your emails into apps. You can follow, message, and @reply Twitter users, like and reply to Facebook posts, add users to Google+ Circles, keep track of the time left to grab a Groupon and more, all from within the email message itself.

After we reported on PowerInbox’s addition of Google+ functionality in September, CEO Matt Thazhmon said the service’s usage jumped by 50% and  has remained at that number ever since.

Users have told PowerInbox (via this survey, still active) they want to see LinkedIn added next, but there isn’t an API available that would allow PowerInbox to properly leverage that service. Other apps on the startup’s radar include YouTube, Dropbox, Flickr, PayPal, Netflix and more.

Looks like email was dying for a breath of fresh air, hmm?

It’s interesting to chart the size and shape of fitness watches over the years. The first Garmins looked like protein bars melted to your wrist by this new one, the Forerunner 910XT, looks as svelte and lithe as the marathoners who will probably wear it. The 910XT costs about $400 and will be available next week.

The new model supports Garmin’s Connect online service as well as their clever Virtual Racer feature that pits you against a ghost runner. It’s good for swimming, biking (with the appropriate add-ons), and running. Optional bike mounts allow you to slap it to your handlebars and then take it off when it’s time to swim.

The 910X adds vibration alerts for hands and ear-free operation. Sadly it looks like you’ve got limited battery life on this thing – about 20 hours – so you’ll need to charge it on long trips.

Product Page

As Chris Dixon’s conversation with Meetup co-founder, Scott Heiferman wraps, Dixon asks Heiferman what advice he has for entrepreneurs?

Heiferman responds by saying that having passion for your project is key and adds “avoid thinking you have to do it all.” For example he mentions launching Meetup with a finance co-founder. He tells Dixon, “it’s been the greatest thing in the world” because each founder focuses on their strengths. He continues, as founders “your job is to make something awesome that people will thank you for and to divide and conquer and build a team that is going do everything needed to make it work.”

Dixon agrees and adds “self awareness of your weaknesses” is critical for success.

Heiferman concludes by stating the key role founders can play in shaping the future. “Reinventing and revitalizing this country and every country is really just going to be about how entrepreneurs and people are building companies that are built to be great companies, not built to sell and sell up to big ugly companies that will screw it up.”

Check out the video for additional insights and make sure to watch episodes I and II of this interview.

Past episodes of Founder Stories which include interviews with Christopher Poole, David Karp and Fred Wilson are here.

I drop my iPhone a lot. In fact, since I decided to hang on to my 3GS and hold out for what ended up being a pretty disappointing announcement yesterday, I’ve cared increasingly less each time that thing hits the floor. Once I get my hands on the iPhone 4S… Well, that’s another story. Still, accidents happen all the time and for the cash Apple’s asking, a little insurance never hurt. Enter: AppleCare+.

If you’ve ever had an Apple product then you’ve heard about AppleCare. In the case of the iPhone, AppleCare offers you two years of technical support and hardware repair so long as the damage to the phone wasn’t caused by your own clumsiness or liquid. Now Apple has bumped the fee from $69.99 to $99.99 and has added some tweaks to the agreement.

AppleCare+ offers up two years of the same technical support and hardware repair, except this time Apple has included “accidental damage due to handling” to its coverage. However, don’t get all excited and throw your phone across the room just for the heck of it. You only get two chances when it comes to “accidental handling,” each of which will cost an added $49. So if you drop your iPhone in the toilet, which happens way more than you think it would, don’t fret. Grab a Benjamin and head over to Apple, and the problem should be resolved in no time.

As far as pricing goes, it’s a little unclear why Apple raised the price of the AppleCare+ to $99.99 if we’re still paying a fee for accidental handling. On the other hand, even with the extra $30 down payment, $50 bucks is still less than the cost of replacing a screen or buying a new iPhone entirely.

Good news, FiOS fans! Verizon and Microsoft have announced today that they have struck an agreement to bring live HD television channels to your Xbox 360 without any additional hardware.

Now, don’t expect to get Verizon’s full channel lineup on your console just yet — according to their just-released statement, Verizon will only be bringing “a selection of popular live TV channels to the Xbox 360.” So far, Verizon has 26 channels on deck, including MTV, Spike, Food Network, Comedy Central, HBO, CNN and Nickelodeon.

Even cooler is the fact that Verizon’s FiOS application will have full support for the Kinect, so you can finally put the remote down and flick through channels from the comfort of your couch. I’m not sure how many people will embrace the added physical movement needed to channel surf, but the true couch-lovers can always stick to a controller.

The offer will only be open to FiOS TV and internet customers who have active Xbox Live Gold subscriptions, but that seems to be it as far as eligibility requirements go. Sorry folks: as AllThingsD succinctly put it yesterday, this isn’t a “tool for cable cord cutters.”

Verizon and Microsoft have yet to make any official statement on a launch window aside from saying it’s due out by the holidays. Bloomberg reported last month that Comcast was engaging in similar talks with Microsoft, so hopefully the FiOS-deprived among us aren’t left out in the cold for too long.

Update: Comcast has jumped on board Microsoft’s new TV initiative, but is only providing access to their On-Demand service as opposed to live television.

Developing…

General Motors is partnering with a car-sharing startup called RelayRides on a new venture that will allow GM owners to rent out their idle vehicles via the OnStar service and their mobile phone. The program will launch first in California in 2012, before expanding to other markets.

RelayRides, a peer-to-peer car-sharing marketplace lets auto owners choose to rent out their car when they’re not using it, with the car’s owner controlling the rate and availability through the online service.

It’s different from other car-sharing networks like ZipCar, for example, as it doesn’t have its own fleet – all sharing is peer-to-peer. And unlike former TechCrunch Disrupt winner Getaround, the company sends out its own reps to install the device in your vehicles. Now, with the new GM partnership, RelayRides will be able to leverage the built-in OnStar service to unlock the doors, control the engine and track the car. Chevrolets, Buicks, GMC and Cadillacs are all supported.

RelayRides takes 15% of the list price for itself, 20% for its $1 million insurance policy and the remaining 65% goes to the vehicle owner. If the borrower ever wrecks the car, RelayRides handles the insurance claim and your personal policy isn’t affected. Drivers are also vetted first, to verify their driving records are up to par.

RelayRides was founded in June 2010. The company currently operates in San Francisco and Boston. It plans to rollout to additional markets based on consumer demand.

Google is rolling out a new data and analysis tool, called Our Mobile Planet, which gives anyone access to data and research on smartphone usage. The site features an interactive tool that anyone can use to create custom charts from data from the Google’s “Global Mobile Research: The Smartphone User & The Mobile Marketer” report conducted earlier this year (you can read more about the data here). OurMobilePlanet provides deep dives into consumer search, video, social and email behavior, as well as mobile research and purchase intentions.

You can choose from the type of smartphone data you want view, including penetration of consumer adoption of smartphones, behavior (why and how consumers are using these devices), activities (what consumers are doing on smartphones), commerce (purchasing behavior on smartphones) and advertising (consumer engagement with mobile advertising).

Each of these data sets has subsets so you can really drill down on specific research. For example, under commerce, you can choose mobile commerce, research and purchase by vertical and statements. Under each of those, you can choose a number of data points including purchases by type of payment, NFC, etc.

You can then select to filter the data by country, and Google offers data from 30 different countries worldwide. You can add other filters to the chart such as age, gender and mobile internet usage. And you can export the chart into a JPG, CSV or XLS file.

Clearly the platform provides a massive amount of data, and you can get information as simple as smartphone penetration in a certain country to more in-depth analysis like how many consumers in the country visit a store after doing a local search on their smartphone.

Google says this is the first time a study this extensive has been made available for free. And obviously anyone can use Our Mobile Planet.

According to the official Google Blog, Google Earth downloads have topped 1 billion since it’s 2005 launch. Yes, 1 billion.

After acquiring Keyhole, Inc in 2005, Google was able to launch Google Earth and “never imagined our geospatial technology would be used by people in so many unexpected ways,” writes Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering for Google Earth and Maps. To celebrate, Google is aggregating all of the interesting ways people across the globe have used Google Earth and posting them on www.OneWorldManyStories.com.

Tagtile is a new company (and recent TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley participant), which is using the Square model involving free hardware to address the issues surrounding customer loyalty, management and rewards for brick-and-mortar merchants.

Like mobile payments service Square, which uses a free hardware dongle that attaches to a mobile phone, Tagltile also provides its merchants with a free hardware device – in this case, a white cube for customers to tap with their phone at checkout.

The cube is meant to serve as a stopgap solution until NFC (near field communication) really takes off in mobile. “In spite of all its promise,” explains Tagtile Co-founder and CEO Abheek Anand, “NFC has always been a technology that’s 3 years away…We want to focus on only one thing – changing consumer behavior.”

(Devices in stores – this is a thing now! See also: the iPod-based Perka, launched today). 

What Tagtile provides is a simple way for customers to register their visit to a participating merchant, in exchange for points, coupons, discounts or whatever other loyalty rewards the merchant wants to distribute. The customer simply launches an app on their smartphone (iPhone or Android, BlackBerry soon) and taps the cube at checkout to get the rewards. They can also check-in on Foursquare or Facebook via the app, or (soon) tweet about their visit.

The experience is very much like what an NFC-enabled solution would provide – it just doesn’t use NFC. Instead Tagtile leverages sensors common to mobile phones today to make the connection, but Anand doesn’t want to publicly discuss which sensors or how Tagtile is using them.

On the merchant side, the cube either plugs into a PC via USB to integrate with any existing point-of-sale system offering an SDK (software development kit). For those merchants without the USB option, Tagtile can plug directly into a wall outlet. In that case, the cube borrows the data connection on the user’s smartphone to send data back to Tagtile servers.

For consumers with privacy concerns, Tagtile is clear in that personally identifiable isn’t shared with merchants, only with Tagtile itself. Focused on the security of that data is Tagtile’s other founder, Soham Mazumdar, who spent six years at Google working on infrastructure and data mining for Google Search. Meanwhile, Anand previously worked in Product Management at Engine Yard, as an investor at Lightspeed Venture Partners, and as an early engineer at VMware.

Tagtile merchants can go beyond the basic “punch card” rewards system with service, getting access to something that’s more akin to a “Google analytics” for their store. Who shopped there, how often, when, etc. is displayed in a dashboard-like interface. Merchants can also narrowly target customers via campaigns – e.g. “everyone who hasn’t been back to the store in the past 2 months.” Tagtile serves as the middleman, delivering the message from the merchant to the shopper.

Currently, the company has 35 merchants across different verticals testing the service in San Francisco, New York, Florida, and the Maryland/New Jersey area. Tagtile is a few weeks away from closing its first seed round, expected at around $1 million. The round may also coincide with its public launch, also a month out.

In the meantime, interested merchants can sign up here.

Love or hate gaming, this Sony advert properly captures the very essence of video games. It’s about the experiences. It’s about the memories. Video games allow a person to, even briefly, become someone else, and enter their life and see a different world. Link, Ghost, and Gordon Freeman all become part of a gamer’s narrative with just as much consequence as Tom Sawyer or The Hardy Boys.

Sure, this particular video spot is for Sony and the Playstation 3, but it portrays the vast draw to gaming in general. Good job, Sony. You won the Internet today.

Looks like Bose is taking another swing at phone accessories because the company has just revealed their new Series 2 Bluetooth headset.

So what exactly does Bose bring to the party this time? Aside from the basics, like A2DP streaming and multiple ear tips in the box, the Series 2 has a few new tricks up its sleeves.

The Series 2 packs a two-microphone configuration meant to reduce background noise, and Bose’s new Adaptive Audio Adjustment technology. Bose claims that thanks to AAA, the headset will be able to adjust its output in different environments. Taking a quiet call at a fancy restaurant would mean a lower volume level so as not to blow out your eardrum, while the Series 2 would crank up the sound while at a loud party.

Perhaps the best thing about the Bose Series 2 is that it finally comes in left and right ear versions. That’s right — their original model was specifically designed to go in a user’s right ear, so auditory lefties were forced to find an alternative.

At $149, its price eclipses a lot of its competition, but hey — what else is new for Bose? The big question is if the Series 2 will perform well enough to justify the price tag. The Series 2 headset is already live in Bose’s online store, and I’d expect to see it in certain brick-and-mortar retailers before too long.

Ultrabooks are set to light the notebook market ablaze, but the two largest PC makers are arriving fashionably late. A Digitimes report collaborates earlier rumors that HP and Dell do not plan on releasing ultrabooks anytime soon. This puts Acer, Asus, Toshiba and Lenovo in particularly prime positions to stake claim in what could become a pivotal market. But they better get while the getting is good. You can bet that HP and Dell are going to eventually bust through the ultrabook wall Kool-Aid man-style.

The Digitimes report puts HP releasing its first ultrabook at the end of 2012 while Dell will do so in the first quarter of 2012. Reportedly, Dell will use CES 2012 to announce its expected 14-inch model. HP will presumably announce additional models at CES, as well.

The delayed launch is rather smart. The first crop of ultrabooks hitting in the coming weeks are built on Intel’s current Sandy Bridge CPU architecture, which while plenty powerful, do not feature the advance power management found in the upcoming Ivy Bridge CPUs. HP and Dell are likely waiting Intel launches the new CPU platform later this year as well as watching the public’s reception of the first batch of ultrabooks. The average consumer should probably take the hint and wait as well.

Ad revenue from social networks worldwide is expected to reach $5.54 billion this year, according to eMarketer estimates, and will double by 2013. eMarketer is taking into account a number of popular social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Half of this year’s ad spend on social networks, $2.74 billion, is coming from the US market. Unsurprisingly, the majority of this ad revenue is coming from Facebook, which is expected to pull in over $3.8 billion this year from advertising to its 800 million members.

Revenue is clearly growing, but eMarketer’s data shows that the fastest growth over the next few years will take place in ad spending outside the U.S. By 2013, non-US revenues will make up 51.9% of the total, which will hit $10 billion worldwide. In the US, social networks will make nearly $5 billion from ads that year.

Social network ad revenue grew 50% in 2010, and is expected to increase by 55.6% this year. But growth is expected to drop to 45% in 2012, and 25.2% in 2013.

We know that Twitter has been growing its ad revenue steadily, and should see even more growth once the network’s self-service product for advertisers debuts. For the first time, eMarketer actually forecasts ad revenues for professional social network LinkedIn, who has recently been rolling out a number of new, social (Facebook-like) ad formats.

eMarketer predicts LinkedIn will account for 3% of worldwide social network ad revenues this year, with $140.8 million. The site has more than tripled its ad dollars in two years, but eMarketer cations that growth is tapering off. Ad revenue is expected to grow by 79% in 2011, but will drop in its growth rate to 44% in 2012 (with $200 million in ad revenue) and 24.3% in 2013 (with $250 million in ad revenue).

Still, LinkedIn is seeing two members join each second, and has over 120 million members, so it is still a popular place for advertisers to reach consumers.

In terms of all digital ad spending, 8.8% of online ad dollars in the US and 6.9% worldwide will go to social networking sites this year. By 2013, social network ad revenues will make up 11.7% of all online ad spending in the US and 9.4% around the world.

Of course, one thing that this report does not factor in is brand new ad formats and how that could effect revenue in the next few years. For example, at TechCrunch Disrupt a few weeks ago, Facebook’s Product Director for Ads Gokul Rajaram said that the network is thinking about developing an AdSense for Facebook advertisers.

It looks like Christmas may come early for T-Mobile customers. Internal documents show four device launches this month and twice as many in November, including the Samsung Galaxy 7.0 Plus tablet. What’s odd is that pieces of this roadmap seem dead-on, while others don’t make a whole lot of sense. So we’ll proceed with caution and figure it out together, shall we?

First on the list are three “October 19″ launches: the HTC “Ruby” (officially known as the HTC Amaze 4G), the Samsung “Hercules” (the Galaxy S II), and the Huawei “Wayne,” which you may recognize as the Huawei Sonic 4G Mobile Hotspot. The Hotspot is pretty self-explanatory, so I’ll spend my words on the two beastly smartphones supposedly hitting shelves on the 19th.

To start, this is the most flawed part of the roadmap, as noted by its original poster TmoNews. Both the Amaze 4G and the Galaxy S II are slated for pre-order on October 10 and in-store releases on October 12. Though it’s odd, the incorrect dates probably have something to do with the fact that this roadmap is just a bit old, and probably not the most up-to-date version in T-Mobile’s system.

Moving along you’ll find the Samsung “Arnold,” not nearly a hot enough codename for the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which will launch on October 26. Specs on Apple’s least favorite “copycat” include a dual-core 1GHz processor, a 10.1-inch 1280×800 WXGA display, and a waist line of just 8.6mm.

The November 2 mega-launch day seems pretty legit, since TmoNews found another internal T-Mo document (pictured at right) promising six launches on November 2. Lo and behold, six devices are slated for that date within the roadmap.

Devices scheduled for the 2nd include two new myTouch handsets from LG (the Maxx and Maxx Touch), the LG Flip II (a baffling dual-screen Android slider), the HTC Omega (officially known as the Radar 4G), the Huawei “Tallsome” (which looks a lot like a little 7 or 8-inch tablet), and the Samsung “Ancora” (likely a mid-range to low-end Galaxy device).

Last but certainly not least, November 9 should bring us face-to-face with the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus and the BlackBerry Torch (codenamed “Dumoine”).

Since the roadmap cuts off at November 9, we wouldn’t be surprised to see plenty more out of T-Mo in the latter half of November and early December. Especially since the carrier made such a fuss over holiday sales when taking Samsung’s side in its infamous battle with Apple.