New Playboy Social Network Built On Ning

Well, this is a big win for build-your-own-social-network Ning, which just raised a massive round of funding. The new Playboy social network we covered earlier today is actually built on Ning, not self-built code or one of the many other white label social networking options available.

Once you actually sign up for the site it becomes clear it’s Ning, since their pervasive toolbar remains at the top of the site. Users actually use their Ning address to log in. You must have a .edu address to get an invitation, but you can then sign up using any Ning account.

Whether or not this network is successful, it’s great validation for Ning.

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Most Useful iPhone Site Yet: Meebo

Facebook may have the best looking iPhone site to date, but Meebo for the iPhone is more useful, as it brings instant messaging, finally, to that phone. ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and Jabber/Google are supported.

Meebo took its time building the site, which is actually their first mobile application. There is no special URL, just go to meebo.com from an iPhone and the browser will load the correct code.

The application scales either way you hold the phone (I recommend vertically to see contact, horizontally to chat - see pictures). All of your settings from Meebo are retained on the iPhone, including any avatar you’ve created. And people who you’ve had recent conversations with are always listed on the top of your buddy list.

I have a couple of complaints with Meebo. First, you still can’t access Skype text chat - a limitation of Skype, not Meebo. Also, if you leave the browser to take a call, send a text message, whatever, you are auto-logged off of Meebo and IM. This is an iPhone limitation and underscores the need for real IM chat software for the iPhone. Adium is what I use on my desktop Mac. Hopefully we’ll someday see something similar for the phone, too.

We previously covered FlickIM, which has a very nice AIM-only chat app for the iPhone. Mundu and eBuddy also have their own iPhone products as well. Mundu works well, although they may charge for it at some point; eBuddy only connects with MSN, Yahoo, and AIM.

Technorati Loses A “Great Leader.” PodTech Also Loses CEO

We’ve all known that blog search engine Technorati and videocasting site PodTech weren’t doing particularly well: that both companies were conducting CEO searches. But today the bloodletting became real.

PodTech CEO John Furrier is out. James McCormick, the COO, steps up to the CEO position. The company also announced that 1938 Media is no longer partnering with them, which is a real loss.

Technorati is a bit more complicated. Dave Sifry, the founder, is no longer CEO. And surprisingly, he is no longer an employee with the Company at all. And no one is replacing him yet.

Sifry said previously that he’d stay with the company: “I expect to resume a more active role in product development.” Today the message was the opposite: “I would go ahead and transition to the board exclusively.”

Teresa Malo, CFO, Dorion Carroll Vice President of Engineering and Derek Gordon, Vice President of Marketing, now jointly run the company.

Sifry’s last blog post as CEO of the company was representative of his entire tenure - vague and cold. Layoffs also occurred today but Sifry didn’t mention them until the end. The blog post sort of went like this:

me….me…me…and oh yeah we layed off eight people.

Sifry also refers to himself as a “great leader” in the fourth paragraph of his post.

How about a different approach? Perhaps a blog post lamenting the layoffs and the disruption in people’s lives would have been in order. And then an ending saying that he takes responsibility for the problems which led to this and will be stepping down, too.

To be fair to Dave, some people who’ve worked with him say he cares a lot about the wellbeing of his employees, and will go above and beyond the norm for them when needed. That side of him doesn’t come out very well in his blog posts. But writing an “I’m leaving” post is certainly difficult to do. I’m not saying I think the post was entirely appropriate, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt to some extent.

Update: David Dalka thinks Technorati’s Google SEO tactics may have accelerated Sifry’s departure. And it does look like the Technorati traffic party has ended - Technorati no longer shows up in the search results for the terms I mentioned in that post.

EBay Sees $1 Billion Knocked Off Market Cap; Skype Outages Continue

It was a bad day for stock in general, but eBay had a double whammy.

eBay shares closed down 2.58% (89c) Thursday despite a late rally by NASDAQ listed stocks. The decline knocked $1 billion + off eBay’s market cap and follows a day where the eBay owned VOIP provider Skype remained crippled by a system wide outage.

The Skype outage is now approaching 18 hours (at the time of writing) with little information coming from Skype other than that the issue is related to “sign-on problems.” Skype earlier in the day was forced to deny rumors that their platform had either been hacked or subject to a cyber attack.

Some users have reported intermittent Skype service, with the service connecting then dropping after several minutes.

TechCrunch Reader Polls

A little while ago, Fred Wilson over at A VC posted a reader poll in which he asked his readers to identify themselves by their occupation. We thought this was a cool idea so we’ve decided to run our own polls below.

We have provided an occupation poll that is a near facsimile of Wilson’s. Further down, we have placed a couple of polls that address other topics.

Thanks for taking a few seconds to fill these out - the results should be interesting!

Which of the following labels best describes your occupation?

• Startup founder
• Established company staff
• Student
• Other
• Startup staff
• Established company founder
• Educator or academic
• Research scientist
• Journalist (Traditional or Citizen)
• Venture capital firm partner
• Venture capital firm staff
• Angel investor
• Hedge fund staff
• Hedge fund partner
• Buyout fund staff
• Buyout fund partner

View Results

How often do you read TechCrunch?

• Daily
• A few times per week
• Hourly
• Once per week
• A few times per season or less
• Every other day
• Once per month
• Every other week

View Results

Do you smile or grumble when TechCrunch covers Facebook news?

• Grumble
• Smile

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Some People Benefited From the Skype Outage

Alexa stats up to August 17 show a massive rise in traffic to Skype competitor Gizmo Project and a more modest rise for Grand Central at the peak of this weeks 36 hour Skype outage.

The SIPphone owned Gizmo Project offers a nearly identical package to Skype, but with added features including built in recording, and cross platform compatibility. Gizmo’s traffic tripled in the space of three days and rose to a rank of 8,561 in Alexa from a 3 month average of 19,102.

The Google owned Grand Central offers a one number everywhere telephone service. Whilst the service doesn’t compete with Skype in the softphone market, the service does provide functionality that competes with Skype services such as Skype In. According to Alexa, Grand Central hit a 4 week high on Friday with a 33% increase in rank over its 3 month average.