In addition to the two "Phoenix" Nike Air Force 1 Low CBs that we previewed [here] and [here], Nike is also set to release a "Phoenix" Nike Air Force 1 High Supreme dedicated to Charles Barkley's three years playing for the Phoenix Suns. Sporting the classic Black/White/Purple colorway that graced many of Sir Charles' classic sneakers, the "Phoenix" Nike Air Force 1 High Supreme is one of very very few High AF1s, let alone, High AF1 Supremes to release during the Nike Air Force 1 25th Anniversary. As a Supreme AF1, the "Phoenix" Nike Air Force 1 High Supreme CB features soft premium leather and a smoked-clear midsole/sole.
The "Phoenix" Nike Air Force 1 Supreme CB from Nike's Charles Barkley Pack is set to release this Sat., 12/8.
Tech Info:
12/08/2007 Air Force 1 HI Sprm Max Air
317330-011 Black/White-Varsity Purple
$275
Discuss the "Phoenix" Nike Air Force 1 Supreme CB by clicking the "Add/View Comments" button, or, by clicking [HERE]
Images: Nkestyl via [NT]
More After the Jump
(more...)
Following up on the recently released on their Artist Series Nike SB PRod II Boot, Nike is set to release a High Top version of their Nike SB Paul Rodriguez II High. The "Cement" Nike SB PRod II Highs feature a a throwback colorway with an Elephant Print trim a White base and Red piping. The Nike SB PRod II High is very reminiscent of 1980s/early 1990s Nike Basketball footwear.
The "Cement" Nike SB Paul Rodriguez II High is scheduled to release during the Fall of 2008
Discuss the the "Cement" Nike SB PRod II in the KATC Community by clicking the "Add/View Comment" button, or, by clicking [HERE]
Images: MosWundrus via [ISS]
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Social music service MyStrands has completed the second half of their B round, raising an additional $24 million from Spanish Bank BBVA on top of the $25 million we reported earlier.
BBVA is a financial services group with more than $782 billion in total assets, 42 million customers in 40 countries and a market capitalization of approximately $95 billion. This brings total financing for the Corvallis, OR based startup to $55 million, significantly more than $5 million raised by London-based Last.fm which started around the same time (later sold for $280 million).
MyStands core products are a music recommendation engine for discovering songs you love on your computer, mobile, and even playing them in bars you frequent. They recently launched a music video product that puts a more pleasant face on YouTube’s music video archives. They’ve made over $12 million in sales from these products during 2007.
Even with revenues pacing nicely, $24 million is a lot of capital and its not clear they really need it. The company says the money will go towards expanding their recommendation engine beyond music, although they’re not saying how quite yet. The most MyStrand’s VP of Communications Gabriel Aldamiz-Echevarria will say is that “…the general idea is to keep building technologies that will help people discover different products and services.”
Well, now they have quite a war chest to pursue that goal.
News Corp has acquired New York based religious community site Beliefnet, according to a report at FishbowlNY.
Beliefnet was founded in 1999 and provides a service that offers commentary and community discussion on various religious beliefs. The company has a checkered history, having declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2002, then restructuring and emerging from bankruptcy in October the same year. According to earlier reports, around 70% of the sites traffic is related to Christian interests, with around 70% of users being females, and the most popular age group being 35 to 45. Beliefnet raised $7 million from Softbank Capital in 2005.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
In related news, a “source fimilar with the matter” has told Reuters that News Corp is not in negotiations to buy LinkedIn, rumors of which first surfaced on TechCrunch UK in November. The source claimed that News Corp was in talks with LinkedIn, but the two companies had been discussing future partnerships, not a takeover. With the Dow Jones (Wall Street Journal) acquisition being finalized a partnership between News Corp and LinkedIn would make a lot of sense; the premium business sites from Dow Jones provide a high-wealth business focused demographic that would sit well with LinkedIn’s business networking product.
Update: sources at Fox Interactive are saying they know nothing about the deal; this isn’t to say that its not happening but it is a little strange. The site may have been purchased by another part of News Corp.
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The deadline to apply to participate in the FCC’s upcoming auction of wireless 700 MHz spectrum passed on Monday. And we still don’t know exactly who the bidders will be. But we have a pretty good idea.
Google is in. So is AT&T, Frontline Wireless, and Craig McCaw’s Clearwire. Comcast and Time Warner are out. But Cox Communications is in.
Verizon Wireless isn’t saying either way, but everyone expects it to bid. Sprint Nextel is sitting this one out, as is Microsoft. And T-Mobile isn’t expected to play a big role.
At least initially, there seems to be two major camps. Google and Frontline on one side, looking for an opening in the entrenched wireless industry. And AT&T and Verizon on the other, trying to keep the technology pirates from climbing aboard their ships. And Craig McCaw as always, is the wild card.
As for other possible bidders, you can never count out Qualcomm, or the handset manufacturers like Nokia or Sony Ericsoon, who might like to bypass the carriers for once. Smaller wireless companies like Alltel or Leap Wireless could bid on a regional basis.
I would not be surprised if at some point Google and Frontline combine forces. Any auction strategists or game theorists out there have any advice for how they can improve their chances of winning? Please enlighten us in comments.
(Photo by Steve Jurvetson)
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
When Steve Jobs first announced the iPhone, he promised that it would revolutionize the mobile browsing experience. Roughly 1.4 million sales later it barely registers than more than a blip on global mobile phone sales charts, but its users a making their mark.
According to figures from Net Applications, the iPhone now holds a 0.09% browser market share; a small figure perhaps but remarkable when compared to the market share of Windows CE on 0.06%; this despite at least 20 million Windows Mobile devices having been sold. Simply iPhone users are using their iPhone to surf the web far more often than users of Windows powered mobile phones. Symbian phone users (S60) rank at a lowly 0.01%, despite Nokia having sold hundreds of millions of phones worldwide.
In perspective the iPhone still only holds a small marketshare in the area that counts (sales) but those users are becoming a far more influential and reachable target audience than users of other phones, such as the LandRover iPhone campaign in our earlier post also shows. With a 3G version on the iPhone due in 2008 that will finally deliver broadband mobile browsing speeds to the handset, this is a product that will just continue to grow in importance.
(via Computerworld)
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A iPhone focused LandRover campaign powered by San Mateo based mobile advertising startup AdMob has seen some interesting results (video demo above).AdAge has some details on the campaign here, but I obtained some raw figures from AdMob. Of those users who clicked on the Land Rover advertisement, 23% responded to at least one call-to-action on the landing page. 88% of those users watched the video, 9% entered their zip code to find a nearby Land Rover dealership and 3% used the click-2-call action, all of who were highly qualified leads. Of the 3% who clicked to call through the advertisement, 50% of the calls lasted more than 30 seconds and 20% of the calls lasted for more than a minute. Sales figures from the campaign were not available, but consider that the campaign was only 400,000 impressions; if LandRover had managed to sell one or two cars it would make the campaign more than effective.The results would seem to indicate that the iPhone has become a more effective means of targeted mobile advertising campaigns than regular phones; the integration with Google Maps and the display of video provides a richer experience for both the viewer, and for the company seeking to expose their product.
Paypal has launched the Paypal Storefront Widget, a web based widget that allows anyone to embed a store widget on a web site.
The Storefront widget offers a seamless e-commerce platform for those wishing to sell anything on their site, such as t-shirts, CD’s or other items
The widget (see pic right) includes:
An Index page that shows thumbnail images of all the items for sale through the widget
a product page that shows a larger view of the items/ products for sale
A shopping cart directly within the widget
About and policy pages mean that any conditions are also contained with the widget
Users can set the widget to “sold out” or “sorry we’re closed” from the central control panel, and comes standard with a sharing option; visitors are able to grab the html for the widget from the widget and display it on their own site should they so desire.
I spoke with Paypal prior to the launch and they emphasized that the product was focused on blogs and social networking sites. Paypal has a deal with SixApart that sees the widget being embeddable into TypePad blogs without the need to copy and paste, for everyone else though its no more difficult than any widget is to embed, presuming you know where to get at, and where to paste the html.
Initially there are some limitations with the service, for example you only get the choice of one size for the widget, and it currently only supports sales in US dollars. Paypal though will be seeking user feedback once the program takes off and they are open to expanding the options available in the future.
Paypal sees a lot of possibilities for the widget; for example it provides a seamless shopfront for bands on MySpace who may want to sell recordings. It may also be a substitute for donation buttons that are occasionally used by bloggers as well; Paypal admits that some of their previous embeddable shopping options haven’t been as user friendly as they’d hoped, where as the Storefront widget is focused on being simple to use for everyone.
I’ve had time to play with the setup features for the widget and there’s little doubt that Paypal got the easy part right. Drop down menu items for navigation compliment sample products to get users started.
There are some parallels to Tailgate, in that both are transaction on the page. The difference with the Paypal widget is that like any Paypal transaction payment is made on the Paypal website itself to guarantee a secure transaction; the widget is fully transactional only to the last purchase point. This is functionality usually delivered by often expensive merchant solutions where as Paypal is offering this service for free, except of course they get a standard cut from the sale itself.
I know when I first heard about Paypal’s Storefront Widget that my thoughts were: here we go, yet another widget offering, but this is impressive and quite unique in the marketplace. I’d think that this product will be warmly received by those with something to sell, or those who haven’t offered items for sale previously on their blogs or social networking pages due to the cost and technical knowledge required in doing so.
In addition to the two "Phoenix" Nike Air Force 1 Low CBs that we previewed [here] and [here], Nike is also set to release a "Phoenix" Nike Air Force 1 High Supreme dedicated to Charles Barkley's three years playing for the Phoenix Suns. Sporting the classic Black/White/Purple colorway that graced many of Sir Charles' classic sneakers, the "Phoenix" Nike Air Force 1 High Supreme is one of very very few High AF1s, let alone, High AF1 Supremes to release during the Nike Air Force 1 25th Anniversary. As a Supreme AF1, the "Phoenix" Nike Air Force 1 High Supreme CB features soft premium leather and a smoked-clear midsole/sole.
The "Phoenix" Nike Air Force 1 Supreme CB from Nike's Charles Barkley Pack is set to release this Sat., 12/8.
Tech Info:
12/08/2007 Air Force 1 HI Sprm Max Air
317330-011 Black/White-Varsity Purple
$275
Discuss the "Phoenix" Nike Air Force 1 Supreme CB by clicking the "Add/View Comments" button, or, by clicking [HERE]
Images: Nkestyl via [NT]
More After the Jump
(more...) 
Comments Off
Following up on the recently released on their Artist Series Nike SB PRod II Boot, Nike is set to release a High Top version of their Nike SB Paul Rodriguez II High. The "Cement" Nike SB PRod II Highs feature a a throwback colorway with an Elephant Print trim a White base and Red piping. The Nike SB PRod II High is very reminiscent of 1980s/early 1990s Nike Basketball footwear.
The "Cement" Nike SB Paul Rodriguez II High is scheduled to release during the Fall of 2008
Discuss the the "Cement" Nike SB PRod II in the KATC Community by clicking the "Add/View Comment" button, or, by clicking [
When Steve Jobs first announced the iPhone, he promised that it would revolutionize the mobile browsing experience. Roughly 1.4 million sales later it barely registers than more than a blip on global mobile phone sales charts, but its users a making their mark.
According to figures from Net Applications, the iPhone now holds a 0.09% browser market share; a small figure perhaps but remarkable when compared to the market share of Windows CE on 0.06%; this despite at least 20 million Windows Mobile devices having been sold. Simply iPhone users are using their iPhone to surf the web far more often than users of Windows powered mobile phones. Symbian phone users (S60) rank at a lowly 0.01%, despite Nokia having sold hundreds of millions of phones worldwide.
In perspective the iPhone still only holds a small marketshare in the area that counts (sales) but those users are becoming a far more influential and reachable target audience than users of other phones, such as the LandRover iPhone campaign 
Paypal has launched the 
Initially there are some limitations with the service, for example you only get the choice of one size for the widget, and it currently only supports sales in US dollars. Paypal though will be seeking user feedback once the program takes off and they are open to expanding the options available in the future.
Paypal sees a lot of possibilities for the widget; for example it provides a seamless shopfront for bands on MySpace who may want to sell recordings. It may also be a substitute for donation buttons that are occasionally used by bloggers as well; Paypal admits that some of their previous embeddable shopping options haven’t been as user friendly as they’d hoped, where as the Storefront widget is focused on being simple to use for everyone.
I’ve had time to play with the setup features for the widget and there’s little doubt that Paypal got the easy part right. Drop down menu items for navigation compliment sample products to get users started.
There are some parallels to 
