Toluu

TechCrunch

TechCrunch is a group-edited blog that profiles the companies, products and events defining and transforming the new web.

Google Reader Gets A Refresh; Adds Algorithmic Content BundlesYesterday

If you use Google Reader as your primary feed reader, you might notice that it has a different look today. The corners are less rounded all the drop shadows are gone. Overall, it has a more featherweight feel, and the sidebar sections are now collapsible. It’s a bit faster too.

Shared content from friends is now given more prominence. (FriendFeed envy, perhaps?) You can hide the counter telling you how many posts are unread, in case that just makes you feel like you can never keep up with everything. Sometimes you just don’t want to know how much you are missing.

But the biggest change is one hidden in the browse tab. It will generate some feed bundles for you that you can add all at once. And if you select “browse all bundles,” you can see all of the bundles. These are algorithmically generated, unlike in the past when bundles were edited by hand. You can find TechCrunch in the Technology bundle.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

With 850K Users In 2 Months, Circle Of Moms Comes Out Of NowhereYesterday

It may seem like the last thing the web needs is another parenting website, but you wouldn’t know that by the impressive growth the new website CircleOfMoms.com chalked up over the past couple of months. The site, launched in October 2008, has already grown to over 850,000 registered users. Seventy-five percent of the users are US-based.

Circle of Moms is what you would expect from the name. It’s a community that lets moms connect with friends, talk about their kids, and join topical Q&A communities. Users have created over 1,000 such communities for topics like parents with toddlers, special needs children, and even recipe swapping. Many have tens of thousands of members. This holiday season the site will also be turning on a gifting widget to let moms recommend the best gifts for kids by age group and gender.

Brand advertisements, beginning next week, as well as affiliate revenue from gift purchases are the main modes of monetizing the site in the short run.

But the story doesn’t stop with a site that’s struck a chord with mothers; Circle of Moms has grown its user base with a unique multi-pronged approach. The site has a standard web presence plus a

Oh No You Don’t, Google! Facebook Connect Now Generally Available, TooYesterday

Not an hour after Google announced the general availability of Friend Connect, Facebook is doing the same for its competing Facebook Connect service. Now any third party website that wants to pull personal data about visitors from Facebook - and send back activity reports to their news feeds - can do so by first filling out a self-service application.

The general availability of Facebook Connect comes only a few days later than our anticipated launch date of November 30th. The service was originally announced last May, just one day after MySpace announced its data portability initiative called Data Availability and just a few days before Google announced Friend Connect.

The three horse race between Facebook, Google

Google Friend Connect Now Open To All WebsitesYesterday

Update: Facebook just opened up FB Connect as well in a self-serve fashion.

The battle over who will control access to your online identity is heating up. In the wake of more and more partners finally starting to take a shine to Facebook’s competing FB Connect (which we just implemented on Techcrunch), Google’s Friend Connect is now in an open beta. Before it was in a limited preview release, but now any website can add Google Friend Connect as a login option.

Google Friend Connect is Open Social’s answer to Facebook Connect. It lets other websites accept a member’s OpenSocial username and password to log into their sites. More importantly, it also lets websites access users’ social data, which includes friend lists, profile information, feed messages, reviews, ratings and the like.

YouTube Uglifies Embedded Videos With A Search BarYesterday