StartupBus Day Four: Sa...

The “buspreneurs” have arrived in Austin! The StartupBus, which began a four-day journey from San Francisco/Silicon Valley on Tuesday morning, completed the final leg of the voyage yesterday. The teams of entrepreneurs hoping to debut new products at South by Southwest Interactive arrived by way of San Antonio, where they received an enthusiastic welcome at Rackspace. “We live in a magic moment of innovation and entrepreneurship right now,” remarked Rackspace CEO Lanham Napier as the StartupBus teams took another break from the road. Take a look at the video to see how apps like Expensieve have become reality. And as the entrepreneurs pull into rainy Austin, they share what they gained from this whirlwind experience and where they hope to go from here. The entire TechCrunchTV team has landed in Austin as well, so stay tuned for more video coverage of SXSW plus updates on the StartupBus finals. If you missed the beginning of the road trip, make sure to take a look back at the first three days of the StartupBus journey: Day One: San Francisco to Indio, California Day Two: Indio, California to Las Cruces, New Mexico Day Three: Las Cruces, New Mexico to San Antonio, Texas

Mexico City Boards The ...

A combined hackathon and roadtrip to South by Southwest, the StartupBus is in its third year and becoming a bit of a tradition — and this time, it won’t be limited to the United States. That’s because, after doubling the number of buses, the organizers decided to choose participating cities a little differently this year. To make sure it wasn’t overlooking any cities with passionate startup communities, StartupBus organizers allowed people to vote for their favorite regions . And it turns out that Mexico City was one of the top vote getters, behind only Cincinnati and Tampa Bay. Until now, the main StartupBus event — founded in 2010 by Elias Bizannes — has limited its departures to US cities. Still, there were signs that it was starting to attract an international following. Entrepreneurs have flown in from other countries to join the US buses, and there was a StartupBus bound for Le Web last December. Eoin McMillan , who is both “conductor” (basically, the organizer) of the Mexico City bus and director of operations at Bizannes’ new StartupHouse venture, says the entrepreneurs who will actually ride the bus are still being selected. (For logistical reasons, the bus will leave from San Luis Potosi.) In the meantime, there are other obstacles. The main one, not surprisingly, is money. Some of the costs will be covered by Tec De Monterrey Zona Norte , which McMillan describes as “the MIT of Mexico” and which is sponsoring the bus. In addition, StartupBus will probably be reducing or waiving its normal fee (needed to cover costs like gas and paying the driver). But there are still the basic travel costs associated with the road trip, like buying food and paying for nightly lodging, that could make the trip too expensive for some Mexican entrepreneurs, especially college students. So McMillan is hoping for help — ideally, he’d like to find a big sponsor who can providing the funding to give each passenger a small travel stipend, but failing that, he’s interested in talking to anyone who might be willing to help. If that’s you, email him at eoin@startupbus.com. McMillan can speak passionately about the life-changing aspects of riding the bus — after all, he took the trip himself last year, after traveling from Australia to San Francisco to pursue his dreams of entrepreneurship. Now, he admits to not just drinking the StartupBus Kool-Aid, but “mainlining it,” and he says, “The thought that someone amazing who wanted to get on the bus might not be able to because of finances pisses me off.” He also argues that Mexico City’s involvement is symbolic of a larger trend toward international entrepreneurship. “It’s no longer about, ‘Can Mexico City compete?’” McMillan says. “It’s about, ‘Can San Francisco compete against the rest of the world combined?’”

Android Market’s “Featu...

Getting featured in the Android Market is starting to have a meaningful impact for mobile app developers. According to the recent news from fitness app maker RunKeeper, the company saw a 637% increase in downloads since November after just a few days of being a featured app in the Android Market “Health & Fitness” section. But is RunKeeper seeing the boost because of the New Year’s resolution-making crowd? Or is being featured in the Android Market really bumping up download numbers in the extreme for anyone who makes it there? RunKeeper’s success story is a great one. On January 1st, the app became featured in the Android Market, which led it to become the #3 “Health & Fitness” app, up from a previous ranking in the 20′s, and #288 in the entire Android Market, which, as we now know , is at 400,000 apps. It’s certainly a hopeful tale, but one that left us with questions – how much is being featured really worth? Was being a “Health & Fitness” app the real story here? Apparently not. Another popular Android application, Lightbox , a photo-sharing app that’s sort of like a mashup of Instagram and Tumblr , was also featured in the Android Market over the holidays, starting on Christmas Eve. Says CEO Thai Tran, in the week following its new highly visible status, Lightbox saw over 500,000 downloads to bring its total number of downloads to over 1.5 million. For comparison purposes, it took Lightbox three months to reach its first 500,000 downloads. More importantly, getting “featured” didn’t always amount to this level of traction. In summer 2011, for example, as Lightbox was working on its first 500K, it was featured in the Android Market for nearly an entire month . And yet, it still took three months to reach 500K. Lightbox’s growth also mirrors  Android’s international growth , Tran notes.  Previously, the U.S. accounted for 55% of Lightbox’s usage, and the U.K. was its #2 country.  But now the U.S. is down to 33% of its usage, and India and Brazil have leapfrogged the U.K. to become its #2 and #3 countries respectively. Lightbox is also seeing traction in Mexico, Malaysia, and Indonesia, says Tran. But Lightbox’s jump was during the holidays – a time when many people are getting brand-new mobile devices and downloading apps. In fact, Flurry said that 1.2 billion apps were downloaded during the 2011 holiday season. What about the Android Market’s impact on growth outside of the Christmas/New Year’s rush? For a third example, let’s look at the intelligent, social to-do list Any.DO, which announced in mid-December that it had seen 500,000 downloads over the past thirty days. The increase, says CEO Omer Perchik, was in part due to the app’s featured status in the Android Market. Although he declined to share hard numbers, he did say that during the app’s featured period, Any.DO was seeing “tens of thousands” of downloads per day – something that’s “an order of magnitude” above its normal download numbers. Other successes include Evernote’s Skitch, which reached 1 million downloads in November, also while it was being featured on the Market. It later  hit 3 million by December . Going further back, in July, Point Inside Maps was featured in the Market for an increase of a more moderate 50,000 downloads per week. So how does an app get featured in the Android Market, developers want to know? That’s easy: build a great app. Any.DO’s Perchik says that he’s never seen unstable, unusable apps getting featured – Google looks for quality. Android Market PM Fernando Delgado previously explained the process , saying that Google has a team of editors and category managers who proactively look at new apps being released on the Market. “If an app is determined to have high potential, it is thoroughly reviewed to make sure it meets the high bar for being featured,” he says. In other words, it’s Google’s own curation process – not just raw download numbers that help an app make the cut.

Use the New Google Map ...

Google does several things, well, make that a lot of things really well. There is no mistaking the fact that they are a very strong company and perhaps even too strong for many people. One thing they do really well is to get end users to do work for them. Here’s where the asterisk in the title comes into play: *The headline says you can WORK for Google but it really is semantics since you actually DO work FOR Google and it’s, of course, for free. Google’s cachet allows it to get people to do a lot of their work for them. People do for a variety of reasons that you can figure out. The latest effort is to make Google maps better. How can YOU do that FOR Google? Use the new Map Maker of course. Map maker is very cool for sure. In the Google Lat Long blog we read With Map Maker, you can easily help ensure that the changing world around you is accurately reflected on the map. Add your favorite gift shop, the nearest tree farm, or even the golf course where you once got that hole in one. It’s also easier to mark the best route to Grandma’s house and draw better buildings with courtyards and crisper corners. The options are endless when it comes to mapping the places you know and love. Once approved, your contributions will appear on Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Maps for mobile for all the world to see. Now don’t get me wrong. There is nothing bad or unethical about what Google is doing to enlist the services of unpaid volunteers to improve their product so they sell ads on it. The bottom line is that if people want to do the heavy lifting then all Google has to do it check up behind then it’s a free world it should happen. Google doesn’t totally dismiss these contributors. They had a top contributors gathering in recent months which was a nice touch. In the end though Google can pul this off because people want to contribute to something bigger and usually don’t have the chance to be found. Take this instance from the Google post about a high school kid in NC. You don’t have to be an expert to start using Google Map Maker. High school student and Eagle Scout Tommy Bruce is a mapping superstar who finds mapping fun, fulfilling, and a simple way to help those in his community have the best, most comprehensive information possible. He started by mapping bike trails in his hometown of Mooresville, North Carolina and is now on an exchange program in Puebla, Mexico, mapping unmarked rivers that run through town! After witnessing Tommy’s accomplishments firsthand at the U.S. Geo User Summit, even his mother Margaret began thinking of places that she’s eager to put on the map. Maybe he’l get a job with Google someday after he meets the academic alphabet soup standards that are a pre-requisite to working there after answering mind bending questions. Or maybe, just maybe, Google would hire based on talent without the pedigree? Nah, now we are probably talking about an idea that would only appear in the Google Fantasy Maker.

Accel Backs Brazilian S...

Kekanto , an Yelp-like local guide and site in Brazil, has raised a undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by Accel Partners with Kaszek Ventures participating. This actually marks Accel’s fifth investment in Brazil over the past twelve months. Accel Partner Andrew Braccia will join Kekanto’s Board of Directors. Kekanto, which translates as “In which corner?” in Portuguese, is a source of local reviews for millions of people in Brazil. The platform offers consumers the ability to quickly find information on local businesses, tourist attractions, public service offices, and other points of interest in the country. Kekanto´s search and recommendation system blends your social network and demographic information to replicate real life word of mouth. The startup is seeing around 3 million unique monthly visitors and Kekanto will use the new funding to expand to Argentina, Chile, Mexico and other countries in Latin America. It’s no secret that Accel views Brazil has a huge growth market for online services. The venture firm’s recent previous investments in Brazil include Elo7, and Shoes4You.