Online Football Game ‘Quick Hit’ Relaunches With Official NFL License

TechCrunch-reading football fans may remember a nifty, free online game we wrote about last year called Quick Hit that puts you at the helm of a virtual football team. The game doesn't involve the twitchy gameplay of gaming goliath Madden, but is instead built around strategy and play calling (t...

Customer Service In A Brave New World: AT&T Puts A Finger In The Dam

I don't know why but I just can't stop re-reading this exchange. Poor AT&T shoots itself in the head today by emailing customers and asking them to provide feedback in one centralized place. Customers promptly complied, and the tower of hate is almost overwhelming. Someone at AT&T will ...

Why Google Instant May Make You Click On More Ads

Google made it clear at its press event today that Google Instant will not change way that company will rank ads or show ads. From the Google blog: "We recommend monitoring your ads' performance the same way you usually do. Google Instant might increase or decrease your overall impression levels...

Seth the AT&T Blogger Guy Shows Us All the Stuff They’re Doing In New York

In this video we find AT&T's rep, Seth Bloom, reaching out to New Yorkers in particular and explaining, as simply as possible, why their calls suck and how AT&T is trying to fix the problem. Wow. Essentially AT&T is starting to move some calls to the the 850 MHz band for more in-bu...

Marissa Mayer On Google Instant, SEO, Ad Sales & Power Steering (TCTV)

After Google's search event this morning, TechCrunch TV got a chance to catch up with Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of Search Products and User Experience, in the demo pit. In our brief video interview, an enthusiastic Mayer touts Google Instant as a "whole new way to search,"a game changer akin t...

Keen On… with Hagel and Seely Brown: Building a New Normal TCTV)

John Seely Brown and John Hagel are two of the most respected technology and business thinkers in Silicon Valley. Seely Brown is best known as the long time Chief Scientist at Xerox Parc, while Hagel is the author of a number of influential business articles and books including Net Worth. The gr...

Google Spam Fighter Matt Cutts Weighs In On The “Death” Of SEO (Or Lack Thereof)

Earlier today, Google launched a new feature that could fundamentally change the way people go about searching the web: Google Instant. The feature, which is rolling out now, shows results for your search queries as soon as you begin typing them — oftentimes you'll have the information you were ...

Jibe Taps Into Your Social Graph With Next-Generation Job Board

Earlier this year we wrote about TechCrunch 50 company Localbacon's relaunch as Jibe, a next-generation job board that leverages Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to help job seekers find the best positions in the job market. Today, Jibe, which has been in private beta since March, is launching to t...

“Thank You” Email Causes Angry Mob To Descend On AT&T Facebook Page

Earlier today AT&T sent out a "Special Message From AT&T" email highlighting a 18-19 billion dollar investment in their network as well as plans for other improvements. The email provides a link to their Facebook page an avalanche of comments like this cropped up: ""Im only sticking o...

What’s Next For Google Search? Two Icons May Hold The Clue

Over time, we've scooped things ranging from Facebook Places to various Chrome OS features simply by digging through code put out there in public. What's great about doing this is that it negates the inevitable non-denial denials from companies when you ask about these features. Code doesn't lie....

PlacePunch Launches Location-Based Marketing Platform For Foursquare, Twitter And Facebook

As location-based services have emerged as a compelling place for businesses to interact with potential customers, there have been a flux of marketing and social media platforms that help set up campaigns. Context Optional, SnackSquare, Geotoko, Sprout Social and a number of other platforms are h...

No, Google Didn’t Just Kill “I’m Feeling Lucky” — They Just Moved It

I noticed something interesting while watching the Bob Dylan Google Instant video during Google's search event today: some new text next to the drop down search suggestions. Guess what it is? The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button. So, no, Google didn't kill the feature as Business Insider stated today....

Bob Dylan Shows Off Google Instant — Google’s Second Commercial, Perhaps? [Video]

During their Search event today, Google's Marissa Mayer highlighted the fact that the search giant ran their first real commercial this year during the Super Bowl. If they choose to run a second, I think they have it. Later in the event, Mayer introduced a clip they put together using Bob Dylan'...

Sacca’s On A Roll; Raises Another $20 Million For Lowercase Capital

As we wrote yesterday, it appeared that Chris Sacca's newly launched fund, Lowercase Capital, has raised over $20 million in funding over the course of the summer. But today, it looks like Sacca has filed another Form D under the name Lowercase RT, LP for another $20 million. Similar to the fili...

Google Instant Is Less About Speed Than It Is About Volume

Google really did just change the game in search today with the introduction of Google Instant. While Google execs at today's event emphasized how much faster it makes search, Google Instant is really about showing you more search results. And this will have very interesting implications for ...

Proud Americans, Solvin’ The World’s Problems

When the World Economic Forum reaches out to the world and asks people to talk about resource sustainability, energy efficiency and carbon emissions, they expect serious, thoughtful answer. And for the most part they get them. Americans, of course, have to add a little flair. And so I'm not surp...

Super Angel v. VC SMACKDOWN Part 3: Are Angels Just about the Flip? (TCTV)

In part three of our Super Angel v. VC SMACKDOWN Dave McClure says "I am all about the flip. GREED IS GOOD. I am Gordon Gekko in Silicon Valley." But is he? Wouldn't greed be going after the big win not the tiny flip? In this clip we come to one of the core distinctions between Super Angels and ...

Google Instant Coming Natively To Browsers “In The Next Few Months”

Today at the Google Search event in San Francisco, the search giant unveiled Instant, a huge new feature that allows users to search in real time (without hitting the search button). It looks to be an awesome product that will save users a lot of aggregate time. But that's on Google.com. I rarely...

Google Instant Will Save 350 Million Hours Of User Time Per Year

Here at the Google Search Event in San Francisco, Google engineer Ben Gomes brought up the fact that the search engine serves up billions of queries every day, the average query length being 20 characters and the average time for a user to pick a result being 15 seconds. "There are billions o...

MySpace Beefs Up The Stream With Full-Screen Videos

MySpace is adding a new feature today that allows users to embed video streams within their activity streams. Powered by Redux, videos are seen directly within an activity stream and instantly plays video that you or a friend has shared, selected as a favorite, uploaded, and rated from your Strea...

Google Instant For Mobile Coming Later This Fall

Today at their Search event, Google showed of a huge update: Google Instant. As you can probably guess, this is a way to search in realtime simply by typing. While this new feature is rolling out on Google for users in the U.S. today (and the world shortly), that's only on google.com. But Google ...

Zynga Swallows The Facebook Credits Pill Whole

In May Zynga and Facebook ended their months long fight and entered into a five year deal to use Facebook Credits as the primary monetization engine for Zynga games on the Facebook platform. Zynga began rolling out Facebook Credits on some of its games months ago. But now they've made Facebook C...

Google Instant: It Searches Before You Type

We called it! So Google will be rolling out starting today search results that update while you type, "Google Instant", a feature which they had tested in the wild. The results stream to you, taking what you've typed so far as a cue. According to Google, the feature consists of three gears: *In...

Live From Google’s Search Event: The Importance Of Fast

Over the last 24 hours there's been a significant buildup to a special Google event that's being held this morning at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art. The search giant is clearly excited: Google featured a kinetic logo on its homepage yesterday, and they now have a logo that went live last ...

Google Now Serving 1 Billion Users Each Week

Today at their Google Search event in San Francisco, executive Marissa Mayer kicked things off with a big state: Google is now serving 1 billion users each week. Mayer noted that they have some big announcements coming up today (likely these), but first reiterated that they've already done a lot...