Amazon.com posted its biggest holiday season sales in history, the company reported Friday. According to data it compiled from witnessed sales, over 6.3 million items were ordered on December 15, its "peak" day, representing 72.9 items ordered per second. It shipped 5.6 million units that day, as well. Amazon shipped products to more than 210 countries and more than 99 percent of orders were sent in time to meet holiday deadlines worldwide. The Samsung 52-inch 1080p LCD HDTV with RED Touch of Color was the top-seller in consumer electronics, followed by the 8GB iPod Touch and the Acer Aspire One.
Ringful, a start-up that focuses on connecting the Web to mobile phones, launched a new Facebook app Friday called Voicetag, which lets users send voice-mail messages from their mobile phone to friends or groups in Facebook. To send a message, Voicetag requires the user to choose a friend and input his or her mobile phone number. Once complete, Voicetag calls the user and records their voice message. The recipient then receives a notification from Ringful, which includes a link to play the message. Voicetag is free and available now in Facebook's App archive.
TechCrunch is reporting that Charles River Ventures, a venture capital fund that focuses on Web start-ups, is trying to find a hot company through Facebook. According to the report, the firm is running ads on the popular social network saying it can "help...by investing in great entrepreneurs and big ideas."
LetsTalk has launched a new service this morning called ToneMine that lets you build your own ringtones. The service uses a multitrack composer that lets you drag and drop short, prerecorded sound clips onto an editing canvas. There are eight themed "packs" to choose from ranging from hip-hop and salsa, all the way to heavy metal. You also get some shared sound clips that will show up no matter what pack you've chosen.
The eventual goal is a takeaway ringtone you'll be able to use on your phone. You can get it sent directly to your handset via your carrier (which is configured when you sign up for the service), or download it as an MP3 ringtone to transfer on your own. You can also share it with other ToneMine users in a massive pool. There you can preview other people's ringtones and go in to remix them if you'd like to change something. It also keeps track of how many times it's been listened to and downloaded by other users.
Despite the selection of eight packs, there's really not that much to play with, although the editor is quite snappy. As an occasional user of Apple's Garageband application, I felt like the one thing it's missing is the capability to extend a looping sound clip. Instead, you're often dragging more clips together as well as you can. The service is also missing some of the commercial tie-in you'll find on competitors like Razz and Ringblender--the latter of which actually lets you go in and remix bits of commercial songs. It also reminded me a little bit of MusicShake, which demoed at last month's TechCrunch40 conference, although with a little less extensibility.
On a side note, for any 24 fans, you can get that wonderful CTU office ringtone free of charge from the site. I've embedded it after the break.
Put together all sorts of sounds, then spit them off to your phone to annoy everyone around you at meetings and in other public places.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Google has just announced the much-rumored acquisition of communications service GrandCentral. TechCrunch broke the news about the acquisition last week and is now reporting the deal is rumored to be somewhere in the range of $50 million. Details about final price and terms are confidential.
This is Google's latest move into the telecommunications market and one of their biggest. For current GrandCentral customers, service will go uninterrupted. For users interested in signing up, GrandCentral is now limiting sign-ups to invitation only.
The other big change in place as of today is GrandCentral's RingShare service. Previously, users were able to upload their own MP3 sound files for callers to hear instead of the classic tone. Users are now limited to a small selection of licensed music.
There was no other news from either of the companies about integration into Google's various tools and services. Google insists that "there are no specific product plans to discuss at this time."
- BBC to broadcast in 'Second Life'. BBC's show The Money Programme will broadcast on Friday both on regular television and in the MMORPG Second Life. This episode of The Money Programme deals with with the economies that have sprung up as a result of these micropayment-filled virtual currency markets, including World of Warcraft, Lord of the RingsOnline, and Second Life. The social network has played host to several other real-life events in the past, including concerts and business meetings.
- Warner to put ad-supported video archive online. Warner music is putting together a platform to deliver music videos and other music-related content for free. Users will also be able to purchase digital copies with an integrated marketplace that will be made available on mobile phones as well.
- Yahoo's chief technology officer resigns. Farzad Nazem, who had resided as Yahoo's CTO since 1996 has left his post at the Internet media company. His interim replacement will be Jerry Yang, who co-founded the company in 1994.
- Mass deletion sparks LiveJournal revolt. Popular publishing platform LiveJournal is currently experiencing a user revolt due to their deletion of hundreds of blogs the company deemed inappropriate. The service, which hosts approximately 13 million journals, has been deleting selected journals containing content that promotes pedophilia, or other topics or items that violate the terms of service. Many users who have had the content deleted are up in arms over LifeJournal's "delete first, ask questions later" approach.
[All stories via CNET News.com]
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