Get A Yahoo Mash Invitation At InviteShare

Yahoo Mash, Yahoo’s new social network experiment, sent out the first batch of invitations moments ago. The service is invite only at this point. Get yours at InviteShare now.

I am seeding the first few invitations. Then it’s up to you. Once you get an invite, come back to confirm it and invite a few more people to keep things going. The more people you invite, the higher you will appear on waiting lists for future private betas.

Touchscreen iPod? Fat Nano? Find Out ASAP from CrunchGear Tomorrow

Whatever Steve Jobs chooses to unveil tomorrow at a special media event in San Francisco, yours truly will be on location sending the guys over at CrunchGear the news as it unfolds. They will be posting all announcements to CrunchGear so be sure to keep checking that blog throughout the day to get your fill of Apple mania.

Live coverage will begin at 10:00 AM PST (1:00 PM EST) sharp on Wednesday, September 5th. The event is expected to last an hour and a half, but tune in at the beginning to find out what Steve will be wearing.

The rumor mill informs us that we have these announcements in store for us:

* Video iPod with 3.5-inch touchscreen display
* iPod Nano with video, a 320×240 display, 12 and 16GB capacities, and CoverFlow technology
* iPod support for digital radio and the purchasing songs from iTunes over WiFi
* Redesign and increased storage for the iPod Shuffle

CrunchGear 1st Birthday Bash Recap and Photos

We at one of the “other” Crunch blogs celebrated our first birthday last night and we have a plethora of pictures featuring some of the New York tech scene. It wasn’t quite a bunch of tanned, attractive people partying under a fading Palo Alto sunset, but was still a party. Special thanks to all the sponsors and Blast Media for allowing us to give out great prizes — including a robotic Elvis from Wowwee.

CrunchBoard Jobs

Here are some of the most recent CrunchBoard job posts:

• Facebook Application Developers at Coolapps.com in New Hope, PA

• Director of Business Development at Truveo in San Francisco, CA

• Web Designer at BWE an IAC company in Charlotte, NC
  

• Java Guru at MTV Networks in New York, NY

• Experienced Web Hacker at Zivity in San Francisco, CA
  

• Java Technical Lead/Architect at The New York Times in New York, NY
  

• Software Engineer/Architect at CastTV in San Francisco, CA
  

• Business Development at Panache in Encino, CA
  

• Flash Developer at IAC/Dow Jones in New York, NY
  

• Director of Product Management- Also Director of Engineering at GreeneSearch in San Francisco, CA

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.

http://www.techcrunch.com/

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.

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

View Results

MyLiveSearch Misses Launch Date, But The New Logo Is Top Notch

Some of you may remember our ridicule of the unlaunched Australian search engine MyLiveSearch back in May after a glowing but research-free Australian newspaper article about them. Being unlaunched is fine, but suggesting that Google is worried about them is a little over the top to say the least.

Dubbing itself the “world’s first live search engine” it promises to show us the 4/5 of the web that Google doesn’t index - this includes the grey web of dynamically created web pages as well as real time indexing of more traditional pages. Their sub tagline: “Searching the internet will never be the same!”

The company promised to debut the service in June. They missed that deadline and still haven’t launched. And frankly I probably never would have written about them again except that they’ve started emailing us again for coverage. They won’t tell us anything about the service, apart from the hyperbole. No demo’s or screen shots either.

But there is a bit of good news. They’ve ditched the old logo and have come up with something much more webtwoohified. Stay tuned. They promise to announce the (new) launch date shortly.

Happy Birthday, CrunchGear!

In honor of CrunchGear’s first birthday, the CG team is giving away over 30 prizes in the next 10 days, culminating in a get-together in Manhattan and maybe an iPhone or two. Head on over to check it out.