Blancer.com Tutorials and projects

For months, the Federal Trade Commission has been considering whether or not to block Google’s acquisition of Admob for $750 million, which was announced back in November. As part of its investigation, the FTC has been reaching out to developers of mobile applications to get their thoughts. The only problem? Numerous developers and even some Admob competitors are coming out to say that they support the deal, and some of them believe that the people involved in the investigation are either unqualified or have an anti-Google agenda. The latest to join the fray is Echofon, which has just written a blog post likening its conversations with the FTC to an interrogation.

The post was penned by Chika Watanabe, who writes that she has spoken with the FTC for at least five hours about the deal. Overall, Watanabe writes that “the FTC seemed to have a (strong) agenda”, as it pounced on things she said that could possibly be used against Google. As an example, Watanabe recalls a discussion in which she mentioned that Google may have pulled a ‘bait and switch’ by offering high ad rates at first and then dropping them, but she didn’t have evidence and didn’t consider it to be a major issue. But the FTC wouldn’t let it go:

The FTC staff seemed to jump on my comment, and tried to use it to portray how unfair Google was.

I made sure to emphasize that we had no proof that Google did this intentionally, and the drop could have been due to many other reasons.

In fact, it did not affect our choice of ad networks either. Since we can allocate our ad inventory among different ad networks on the fly, we just allocate more of our ad inventory to an ad network when it’s performing well, and less it when it’s not. This real-time allocation is done with an ad mediator service. There were several of those ad mediators, and we use Adwhirl.

The FTC staff kept going back to the possibility that Google did the bait-and-switch intentionally, and I had to say we had no proof for that several times.

In another discussion, Watanabe attempted to bring up the issue of the Apple/Quattro deal and iAd, which could potentially block third-party ad networks from appearing on the iPhone. She was told that it was “irrelevant” (it clearly isn’t). Later, when the FTC produced a written declaration and asked Watanabe to sign it, it lacked any mention of the Apple/Quattro deal. Watanabe fought back until it was added:

After my insistence, they included one paragraph about it but without any explanation of why this was significant to Google/Admob deal, making it sound out of place. After one or two more back-and-forth, they finally put my whole argument in the declaration.

Watanabe also addresses the opinions some developers have had that the FTC is simply not qualified to make this decision. She disagrees, explaining that she believes they do have the capacity to make an informed decision. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean they’ll do it fairly. Toward the end of her post, she writes:

To me, the problem was that the FTC seemed to be determined to stop the deal from the beginning. Though they did agree to put together the declaration close enough to my belief in the end, I felt I was pressured to say things in a way that met their goal. (The word “interrogation” came to my mind several times while talking to them.)

We’d previously heard that the FTC was aiming to reach a decision in early May, but it has since been reported that it got a two-week extension. Expect a final decision soon.

Last week, as the outrage grew over the privacy implications of Facebook’s new ambitions to spread its tentacles deeper into the Web, Michael offered some advice to MySpace. This is MySpace’s moment to shine, he argued:

MySpace, the once great social network that still has scores of millions of active users, should be reworking their policies and products at a feverish pace to provide the perception of giving users fair and easy to use privacy controls along with a promise never to change those controls without their express permission. YOUR DATA IS SAFE WITH US is how the messaging would read.

It looks like MySpace took our advice. Today, co-president Mike Jones announced that MySpace will roll out new, simplified privacy settings. The options will be simplified to “public, friends only, or public to anyone 18 or over.” In a blog post Jones writes:

We respect our users’ desires to balance sharing and privacy, and never push our users to an uncomfortable privacy position. That’s why we give our users control over their data, following the fundamentals of notice and choice.

Well played, sir. Well played.

Apple hates Flash. Adobe “loves” Apple. Apple hates Android. And now, yes, Android loves Flash.

It’s widely expected that Google will unveil the latest version of Android, 2.2 (codenamed “Froyo“), at Google I/O which starts on Wednesday. The update is promising big things including huge performance improvements, tethering, and the ability to create your own WiFi hotspots with your phone. Another huge feature is expected to be the integration of Flash 10.1, a version finally optimized to run on mobile devices. And Google is apparently going to be highlighting the feature the moment you update to 2.2.

From what we hear, Android users with phones eligible for the 2.2 upgrade (Nexus One, Droid, and soon, HTC Evo) will be greeted with a link to an Adobe Mobile website after the upgrade. This page will give you the option to “View Flash enabled websites” or “Get Adobe products.” If you click on the first link, you’ll get a full list of sites Adobe is featuring that take advantage of Flash 10.1. These sites include Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers, BBC, Google Finance, and a whole range of others.

In fact, the list of sites is already live for both the Nexus One and the Droid. What’s odd is that the list is different depending on what device you’re using (Droid shows many fewer sites). I have no idea why that is, but maybe that will change before the launch.

Adobe’s Mobile page also lists sites enabled for Flash on the Palm Pre. And, humorously, has a page for the iPhone which has a “Get apps” link rather than a “View Flash enabled websites” link.

This list seems to be a direct response to Apple’s list of sites that are optimized to run on the iPad — meaning, they don’t use Flash. It’s an obvious thing for Adobe to do, but the most interesting aspect is that Google will apparently promote it. Clearly, they believe Flash support will be a big selling point of Android phones versus iPhones. And Google is also working with Adobe to bake Flash into its Chrome browser (and yet, soon Chrome OS too).

In case it wasn’t clear, the war between Google and Apple is on. And Google is moving fast to ensure that Adobe is one of its soldiers.

The group buying craze is now officially in overdrive. There are so many group buying sites—Groupon, LivingSocial, BuyWithMe, SocialBuy—that it is hard to know where to go for the best deals. Enter the DailyD, a new site that just launched today which pulls together all the deals for a city in one site and sends out a daily email as well.

The founders of the DailyD are Matt Coffin and Doug Hirsch. Coffin previously founded LowerMyBills, which he sold to Experian for $330 million, and Hirsch started online support-group site DailyStrength, after being a product manager at Yahoo and Facebook (where he launched Facebook Photos). They are funding DailyD in Los Angeles with their own money.

DailyD already covers 53 cities, and it works on an affiliate model. Every time somebody follows a deal link from DailyD to one of the daily deal sites, DailyD gets an affiliate fee. DailyD is basically aggregating all the deals in one place and acting as a marketing channel. In addition to becoming a one-stop shop for social commerce, DailyD will also add on top its own set of personalization and other features.

“The daily deal space advertising is so pervasive that it reminds me of the mortgage ads of 2004 and 2005,” says Coffin. He wants the DailyD to be “positioned as the go-to service for consumers and consequently the #1 source of traffic for the deal sites (outside of facebook). I look at this whole category as ripe for experimentation and that’s what Doug Hirsch and I are going to do—and then we will layer intelligent advertising on top of that to drive a big audience.”

DailyD seeks to fill an organizing role in a highly fragmented market right now. Who ever thought so many people could become so excited over digital coupons? I guess everybody loves a good deal.

A couple years ago when Twitter was having major scaling issues, engineer Alex Payne was able to work through them to help create the Twitter API. That API, of course, is now one of the most important on the web. And now Payne is moving on to a new challenge.

As he tweets today and writes on his personal blog, Payne has quit Twitter to join the social banking startup BankSimple as a co-founder. More on that in a second. First, a little bit more about Payne’s time at Twitter, and his departure.

Payne started working at Twitter in January 2007, when it was technically still under Obvious Corp. By May, he had moved to San Francisco, just as Twitter was starting to take off a bit. While at first, he was working on a random selection of things that Twitter needed, he eventually focused on the API. That API quickly became the way most users were interacting with the service. And in August 2008, Payne was rewarded for his foresight by being promoted to API Lead.

But along with Payne’s success, he also seemed to find controversy. In 2008, Payne posted a Q&A on the Twitter Developer Blog, answering questions from third-party developers. One question asked if there was anything users could do to lighten the load (Twitter was in the midst of major scaling issues at the time), Payne responded that “popular” users were generally the ones that hit the system the hardest and caused issues. While true, this upset some of the “power users” such as Robert Scoble. He felt that his heavy use of the service contributed to its fast success and that he shouldn’t be blamed because they couldn’t scale to match it.

Twitter quickly clarified Payne’s comments, but again, noted that the Scoble problem was an issue. That issue, was of course solved eventually. But others arose.

In February of this year, Payne made headlines again when he tweeted that some of the site features that Twitter was working on may make users forget about using third-party Twitter clients. This enraged (and scared) a portion of the Twitter developer community, which thought Twitter was now coming after them. Payne once again had to backtrack from those comments, but in reality, he was in many ways right. Soon after, Twitter bought Atebits, the makers of Tweetie for the iPhone, and launched their own Android and BlackBerry apps.

More importantly, Payne’s comments were not something he should have had to apologize for. It’s ridiculous to think that Twitter wouldn’t be working on building the best product that it could make. Still, the incident presumably led Payne to take a hiatus from blogging.

Meanwhile, Payne was also taking a step back from his role at Twitter. Back in October of last year, he noted that he was “taking on a new challenge.” This included “working on new layers of Twitter’s infrastructure” but Payne also tweeted that he was working on some sort of unnamed project. It’s unclear what that was or if that will see the light of day now. More significantly, this move meant that Payne was no longer in charge of the API, as the more robust Twitter Platform sprouted up around him.

With regard to leaving Twitter, Payne notes that, “Walking away from Twitter wasn’t an easy decision. Working there has been a life- and career-changing experience. I’ve learned all sorts of lessons, made great friends, and worked on something that millions of people now use every day.” When I asked Twitter about the departure, I got back that the move was “absolutely amicable.  He has a great opportunity on his hands, and we’re happy that Twitter provided a key role in giving Alex the experience to help him obtain it.”

So what is this new project?

As I noted, Payne will be a co-founder, as well as Chief Product and Technology Officer at BankSimple. According to their about page, BankSimple is “an easy, intuitive, and social bank for people who appreciate simple online services. Unlike other banks, we don’t trap you with confusing products nor do we charge any hidden fees. No overdraft fees. We use sophisticated analytics to help you better manage your finances by providing you a individualized service, catered to your needs and goals.“

The service is set to launch later this year “with a simple card with in built checking, savings, rewards and a line of credit.“ This post from April on their blog gives a bit more about the idea behind the company.

“We have absolutely no intention of spending your money on high-budget ads. The best way to sell a product is to have a kick-ass product. And for us this means no hidden fees, fantastic online experience, awesome customer service and, a much simpler, personalized financial service.”

The post concludes with, “By not sucking, we will win.” I like the sound of that.

Of course, online banking with a bank that’s not an established one is bound to be controversial. And maybe that’s a perfect fit for Payne.

[photo: flickr/DaveFayram]

Despite a lot of attempts over the years, Yahoo’s embrace of social feeds has been slow and painful. Yahoo doesn’t want to become another social network. It couldn’t if it tried (and it has tried). But it is beginning to appreciate the power of social sharing to drive traffic to its content.

Cody Simms, who heads up what is left of Yahoo’s Open Strategy, tells me that early data suggests social links spread through Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo’s own status updates “can drive an order of magnitude more sharing on Yahoo.” And those visitors are more engaged also. For instance, when people click through from a status update to Yahoo News, Sports, Finance or another Yahoo property, they end up spending at least twice as much time there than the average visitor. For Yahoo, tapping into social traffic is what it’s all about.

A year ago, Yahoo introduced its own status updates to Yahoo Mail and Messenger, and followed up with limited integrations into Facebook and Twitter.

Yahoo users can now update their status messages on both of those services without leaving Yahoo. However, they cannot yet read their Facebook streams inside Yahoo.

“By end of the quarter, you will be able to consume your Facebook feed in Yahoo Mail and throughout Yahoo,” promises Simms. And what about adding Facebook’s “Like” buttons on Yahoo? You can imagine every story on Yahoo News having a Like button which would drive traffic from Facebook to those pages. “We are looking at it heavily,” he says, “it makes a lot of sense.” However, he cautions no decision has been made one way or the other on the Like buttons.

The bigger play for Yahoo is to combine social feeds and content in more intuitive ways. “Think about news articles with associated tweets and updates,” says Simms, “and combining the feed next to the content from your network or the Web at large. Or, if you are looking at the feed, bringing content into the feed.” In the latter case, if someone sends out an update about an upcoming movie, Yahoo could embed the trailer within the social feed. Something along those lines could potentially be rolled out “later this year,” he says.

What is clear from my discussion with Simms is that Yahoo is thinking about social feeds first and foremost as a publisher. It wants to drive traffic and pageviews from Facebook, Twitter, and its own status updates to Yahoo’s various sites. And on the advertising side, it is exploring ways to get consumers to share ads via their streams. It’s all very reactive to the underlying changes in online consumption patterns, but if social sharing can boost Yahoo’s already-sizeable traffic numbers, these simple moves could have a large impact on Yahoo’s bottom line.

Last Friday, we wrote about 4chan founder Christopher “Moot” Poole’s stealthy startup, Canvas Networks, which just raised $625,000 in funding. Poole has revealed the names of the investors in the round, which are impressive to say the least. The investors are Ron Conway, Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Kenneth Lerer, and Joshua Schachter. Lerer led the round.

Poole is still remaining tight-lipped on the exact details of Canvas, but he did tell us that it is “a re-imagination of the online community– a look at what forums might be if they were invented today.” A few months ago, Poole told The New York Times’ Nick Bilton that he was “working on a new project to reimagine what an image board should be today using the current technologies available.” It also appears Poole has bought the domain “Canv.as” for the project.

Poole is best known for founding 4chan, an online bulletin board where anyone can post comments, expound on topics and share images. Poole was featured as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world last year. As of March, 4chan was receiving around 8.2 million unique visitors per month and receives an average of 800,000 new posts a day.

Whatever Canvas really as, it has to be fairly innovative, considering that some of tech’s most notable and astute investors are betting on the product. Poole may share more details on the stealth project at TechCrunch Disrupt next week, where he will be speaking at the conference. Poole will be sitting on the “Digital Crowds Into Dollars” panel along with Judy Hu, Global Executive Director – Advertising & Branding, GE;
Brian Pokorny, CEO, dailybooth; and Andrey Ternovskiy, CEO, Chatroulette.

[crunchbase url=”http://www.crunchbase.com/company/4chan” name=”4chan”]

I have just about every song by The Beatles in my iTunes collection. As the best-selling artists of all time, I suspect a lot of people do. Of course, not one of those songs was actually bought through iTunes, because none of them are available through the iTunes Store. Instead, they’ve magically landed on my computer through other means. I’m not going to say how, but let’s just say that record label EMI wouldn’t be too happy. Too bad. It’s their own damn fault.

Paul McCartney gave an interview on Friday to BBC Radio’s Newsbeat program. In it, he clarifies the situation a bit. “To tell you the truth I don’t actually understand how it’s got so crazy,” he starts out. ”It’s been business hassles. Not with us, or iTunes. It’s the people in the middle, the record label. There have been all sorts of reasons why they don’t want to do it,” McCartney says. While he doesn’t specifically name them, that record label is EMI.

Assuming McCartney is both well aware of the details of the situation, and that he’s telling the truth (and we’re going to assume that’s the case with both), this is pathetic. It has been over seven years — let me repeat, 7 years (!) — since the iTunes Store first launched. Ever since then, there’s been no shortage of rumors that The Beatles’ catalog would be available on the platform soon. This is both because Apple CEO Steve Jobs (like everyone else) loves them, and because it just makes sense to have the most-popular recording artists of all time on what is now the most popular store (both online and retail) for getting music. But EMI apparently doesn’t care about making sense. And, it seems, they care even less about making money.

Okay, that last bit obviously isn’t completely true. But it sort of is. Think about the lost sales The Beatles have seen by not being available on iTunes over these past 7 years? The number of albums and songs that would have been downloaded legally would definitely be in the tens of millions range. Again, the key word is legally. People would have been paying for this music. Tens, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars has likely been lost because of EMI’s odd decision to stay out of the online marketplace.

And that’s another key. This isn’t just iTunes. The Beatles music isn’t available anywhere legally online. That means that the only way to get it onto your computer legally is to buy the CDs and rip the songs. People were likely doing this quite a bit in 2003 when the iTunes Store first launched. But now, I would bet that the other way of getting digital versions of these songs has far, far surpassed the legal means. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if The Beatles were the most pirated act of all time thanks to EMI’s stubbornness and/or stupidity.

Of course, EMI doesn’t think they’re being stupid. Their comment to Newsbeat reads as follow, “Discussions are ongoing. We would love to see The Beatles’ music available for sale digitally.” So yes, they’re negotiating, and have been this whole time. It’s one thing to negotiate for a few months — maybe even a year to ensure you get the best deal possible. But seven years? Again, we’re talking maybe hundreds of million of dollars in lost sales.

If EMI’s stance (and I’m not saying it is, just thinking out loud here) is that putting The Beatles catalog online would just lead to even more piracy and a decrease in CD sales, well then, I’m afraid they’re hopeless at this point.

What’s odd about all of this is that it would have seemed Apple and EMI see eye-to-eye on things. After all, EMI was the first label to offer DRM-free music on the iTunes Store after Steve Jobs’ “Thoughts on Music” rant in 2007. Of course, back then, the lack of Beatles music on iTunes may have had just as much to do with the trademark lawsuit between Apple and Apple Corps (the corporation in charge of The Beatles’ music). But that was settled around the same time, in 2007. Three years later, still no Beatles on iTunes (or again, anywhere else on the web).

This Fall, there will undoubtedly be an Apple iPod/iTunes event just as there is every year. And just as there is every year, there will be rumors of a Beatles launch on the iTunes Store. And just as with every year, publications will use a name of a Beatles song to title their posts of the rumors. And just as every other year, there will be no Beatles announcement. And why? Because EMI is the fool on the hill.

[via MacRumors]

On the heels of Gilt Groupe’s $35 million round last week, Brazilian private sales site Brandsclub has raised $17 million in funding from South African media conglomerate Naspers and European fund Trayas. Naspers put in the bulk of the funding, investing $15 million in the e-commerce company.Founded in March 2009, BrandsClub has been riding the flash sale site wave. The site now has over 1.1 million users in Brazil and is also operating in Mexico. The funding will be used to fuel growth and expansion in other areas of Latin America. The online private sample sale was originally brought to market in Europe by Vente-Privee in 2001 and since US companies like Gilt have been able to capitalize on the model’s considerable success.

According to a release, Naspers is using the investment to build out its presence in Brazil. Naspers has previously invested in Brazilian tech companies Grupo Abril, Movile and Buscapé. You may remember Naspers as a potential buyer of AOL’s ICQ (which was eventually acquired by Russian form DST).

Techcrunch is hosting a free, open Hack Day, before its Disrupt conference in NYC. Create, build, collaborate and present to an audience of peers and pros. Enjoy free hacker food (this is the pizza capital of the world, right?), meet a diverse group of attendees and hack! This is the city that never sleeps, so burn the midnight oil and build a mashup that blows everyone at the event away. Three winners will have a chance to present onstage to over 2,000 people at the main Disrupt conference on Wednesday. Register Now!.

The TechCrunch Disrupt Hack Day is being organized by Chad Dickerson (who held the first Hack Days at Yahoo, now CTO of Etsy), Daniel Raffel (Yahoo) and Tarikh Korula (Uncommon Projects) and Jonah Brucker-Cohen (Scrapyard Challenge). We expect 200 – 300 attendees at the Hack Day on Saturday and Sunday. The main conference, which starts on Monday, May 24, will draw more than 1,500 attendees.

Where and When
2pm Saturday, May 22 to 2pm Sunday, May 23rd
(Registration begins at 1pm, Saturday, May 22)
570 Washington Street (between Houston and Clarkson Streets)
2nd floor, New York, NY 10014
Schedule of Events and more info

What’s a Hack Day?
Simple — form a team of 1 or more and spend 24 hours building a new software/hardware idea using publicly-available data and APIs. Working code (no matter how rough) is the order of the day — no PowerPoint, Keynote, or slideware. Those who brave the night to build and make their dreams real get 90 seconds to present their work in front of a live audience. A variety of awards will be given. Everyone who builds something is a winner — if you finish something and present you’ll get a ticket to Disrupt (worth $3,000). All the top hackers and projects will be covered by Techcrunch and attending media. This is an awesome opportunity.
Collaborate on Hack Day Wiki

Who’s invited?
There will be a diverse melting pot of artists, designers, students, dreamers, software developers, hobbyists, hardware hackers, and industry thought leaders all looking to turn their ideas into something real! Join them in making something sublime, simple, interesting, useful, silly, or all of the above. Expect some surprises.

What companies will be there?
Etsy, Facebook, Foursquare, Simple Geo, Yahoo and many more companies will have developers on hand to talk about their APIs and help support you in building your projects! We’re grateful to sponsor Facebook for helping us make it happen, and to Media Temple (mt) for hosting the servers.

What’s in it for you?
We’re creating a free stage for creative technologists to meet, greet, and build. Maybe you’re looking for the inspiration to build something you keep putting off, or maybe you just want to connect with other technologists in NYC. You might be looking for new career opportunities and want to show off your skills. No matter why you’re attending, there’s something for anyone who cares about building cool things. Bring your ideas and we’ll supply the pizza. Everyone who finishes a project will get into the main Disrupt conference for free.

Sign up! Hack Day promises to be a great time for everyone involved. We’ll provide the audience, hacking peers to inspire you, and the promise of fame. Deliver the hack and all eyes will be on you for a minute and a half. Make it happen!

Joost’s former CEO Matt Zelesko is announcing a new role today at Inform Technologies, a company that helps media companies sort and tag content on their sites. Zelesko will be taking on the role of Chief Technology Officer, overseeing all technology development and operations for the company.

Prior to joining Inform, Zelesko was CEO of video aggregator Joost. The failed video venture was started by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström and was eventually acquired by Adconion Media Group for an undisclosed sum. Though the video network has had a tumultuous past, the video network seems to be driving impressive amounts of traffic. Prior to joining Joost, Zelesko was VP of engineering for Comcast Interactive Media where he was responsible for the development and delivery of all CIM web properties, including the Comcast portal and Fancast.

Inform Technologies provides a simple yet crucial task for media companies. Inform processes the millions of pages of content on media sites, and automatically identifies people, companies, places, organizations and products as they appear in the news. The product’s semantic technology is able to tag data and establish relationships between different data and news content. To date, the company has raised close to $30 million in funding.

Here in Europe we’re a little preoccupied with the volcanic ash cloud but apparently there was a major oil spill over in The Gulf of Mexico. Once again, social media is coming to the rescue.

As we discovered recently, a group of a dozen or so organizations including BP, the EPA, the U.S. Department of Interior, the Department of Defense, and OSHA have set up Deepwater Horizon Response, a “Unified Command” established to “manage response operations.” This also involves several social media accounts.

And now there’s a theory that if enough people tweet information using the hashtag #gulfspill the environmental mess will clear itself up. OK, perhaps not, but the newly launched Gulf Coast Spill Coalition thinks that using social media to record and share information related to the oil spill can make a difference. And that’s exactly what Gulfcoastspill.com has been setup to do.

Yesterday, while he was visiting his father and working beside a Colorado stream, Kevin Rose sent out a seemingly bland, lazy Sunday Tweet:

Working on @digg stuff while relaxing with my dad in evergreen, co. Home tomorrow #lifeisgood http://twitpic.com/1ofwqh

But the payload of that Tweet, a link to picture showing a glimpse of Rose’s computer screen, is much more interesting. The laptop is angled, but if you squint through the glare you can spot some features of what may be the long-awaited new Digg design. I’ve blown up the photo above and annotated it. The image is clearly different than the one on the new Digg sign-up page.

I was able to spot at least three new features. The first one that struck me is that each item now has two icons: the familiar Digg counter and a second social icon which looks like a Digg avatar. The second is that underneath the headline and action links, there is a third line with what appears to be a realtime status update, perhaps a Tweet, about that story. And third, the page Rose is on is a personalized tab along with what looks like a list of personalized topics along the left-hand column. Can you find any more new features in the pic? You can see the original and a bigger annotation-free blow-up below (along with a screenshot of what Digg looks like today, for comparison purposes).

Of course, this could just be a customized view that Rose uses for himself or maybe he is testing out new features which may or may not make it into the final design. But Rose keeps hinting that the new design is around the corner. Rose recently took over as CEO of Digg from his longtime business spartner Jay Adelson left, and cut 10 percent of Digg’s staff. Rose has a lot riding on this redesign. Hopefully, there is a lot more than what we see here. Our advice to Rose: don’t listen to Digg’s hardcore users and go with your gut instead.

Update: A somewhat clearer picture has emerged (courtesy of X64bit).

The Groupon acquisition of CityDeal is being hailed by many across Europe as a good exit for the German-based clone (yes, there is no point in saying it is anything else but a Groupon clone). But luckily there are more than just clones in Germany. The burgeoning cluster in Mitte, central Berlin, is producing startups such as Soundcloud, hiogi, Babbel, Twinity, SongBeat and aka-aki. Nokia bought Dopplr and with it set up an innovation lab amongst the beating heart of Berlin’s startups. Hamburg has spawned many others include Qype, Europe’s Yelp, and more recently the interesting Apprupt. VCs in Hamburg and Munich vie over raw engineering talent out of German universities, and our TechCrunch Europe Munich and Berlin events last year were buzzing. As US-born Germany-based VC Paul Josefak recently guest posted for us, he’s coming across “multiple companies who recently closed either initial or follow-on rounds.”

Berlin is now vying with London as the second tier cluster in Europe with a decent critical mass.

But there are clouds on the horizon, and they come in the shape of an attack of the clones, if you will, or more accurately, Pollution of the Clones.

While the market for copycat businesses aping the latest startups form the Valley is well known, it’s been a component, but never the only aspect, of the German scene. With Groupon’s acquisition of CityDeal the Clone Scene could now threaten to overtake it’s younger brother, the Innovation Scene. Here’s why.

Online video management software company KIT digital has agreed to acquire privately-held Benchmark Broadcast Systems, based in Singapore, for approximately $10 million.

KIT digital’s chairman and CEO, Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, in a statement says they’ve been working on the acquisition for quite some time, and that the deal is testament to the company’s ambition to become leader in video asset management in the BRIC markets.

Benchmark is a video asset management provider and broadcast video systems integrator with six regional offices throughout Asia, where it employs about 100 people.

The company serves clients in 12+ countries and expects to generate at least $10 million in revenues during the next 12 months. Its clients include companies like CNBC, Express News, ESPN Star, ETV, MediaCorp and NDTV.

In consideration for 100% of Benchmark’s shares, the transaction includes guaranteed payments of approximately $9.5 million directly to the company over time ($4.5 million in cash plus $5 million in KIT digital common stock) plus approximately $1.1 million paid to employees over the next two years.

The transaction also includes corporate performance-based contingent considerations at the first and second anniversary of the transaction.

KIT digital has acquired quite a number of smaller rivals in a variety of countries so far, most recently picking up competitor Multicast Media for net consideration of approximately $18 million.

The company has itself raised $20 million in venture funding from KCP Capital and now trades on NASDAQ under the KITD symbol.