Anthony Ha
Anthony Ha is a senior writer at TechCrunch, where he covers media and advertising. Previously, he worked as a tech writer at Adweek, a senior editor at the tech blog VentureBeat, and a local government reporter at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in Brooklyn.
Disclosure: I own shares in VentureBeat.
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Latest from Anthony Ha
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Twitter unveils new options for customer service
Twitter has been expanding the customer service side of its product, with recent additions including a Customer Service settings page for businesses. Today it’s adding a couple more features — namely, an automated welcome message that shows up whenever a customer starts a Direct Message conversation with a business’ account, and “quick replies” that ask the… Read More
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Digital ad revenue up 19 percent in first half of 2016, according to IAB report
Digital advertising spend increased to $32.7 billion during the first six months of 2016, according to the latest Internet Advertising Revenue Report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (a trade group for digital publishers and advertisers). That’s up 19 percent from the same period last year, and it represents an all-time high. David Doty, the IAB’s executive vice president… Read More
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AirPR raises $5M to bring more data to PR
AirPR is announcing that it has raised $5 million in Series B funding. The company started out as a marketplace that matched up startups with public relations professionals, but is focus has since shifted to building analytic tools that measure the impact of PR — in fact, it sold the marketplace side of the business last year. AirPR has now raised a total of $10 million. The Series B… Read More
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Facebook draws criticism for ‘ethnic affinity’ ad targeting
ProPublica pointed to some potentially problematic Facebook ad capabilities today — specifically, the ability to include or exclude users from a given ad campaign based on their “ethnic affinity.” These capabilities have existed for a while (Facebook told ProPublica’s Julia Angwin and Terry Parris Jr. it began offering them within the past two years as part of its… Read More
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Verizon acquires subscription video service Vessel, will shut it down on Oct. 31
Verizon is buying Vessel, the subscription video service founded by Jason Kilar (Hulu’s former CEO) and Richard Tom (its former CTO). Vessel enlisted YouTube stars and other video creators, offering early access to their videos for $2.99 a month. It raised more than $130 million from investors, including Benchmark, Greylock, Bezos Expeditions and Institutional Venture Partners. Tom… Read More
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IrisVR raises $8M to bring virtual reality to architecture and design
New York City startup IrisVR is announcing that it has raised $8 million in Series A funding. The company has built virtual reality tools for the architecture and design industries. Iris Prospect allows customers to take their 3D plans and blueprints and turn them into VR experiences viewable on devices like Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, GearVR and Cardboard. Iris Scope, meanwhile, converts… Read More
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The New York Times acquires gadget recommendation site The Wirecutter
The New York Times just announced that it has acquired The Wirecutter and its sister publication The Sweethome. The sites were founded by former Gizmodo editor Brian Lam, who The Times says will stay involved in an advisory role. Ben French of The Times’ Beta development team will serve as interim general manager, while Jacqui Cheng and Christopher Mascari will remain on-board as editor… Read More
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Doctor Strange’s science consultant talks about consciousness and the multiverse
Why does Doctor Strange need a science consultant? The Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t exactly known for its scientific accuracy, and with his psychedelic, magic powers, the character of Doctor Strange (created by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, and played in the film by Benedict Cumberbatch) goes even further into fantasy. Nonetheless, astrophysicist Adam Frank served as science consultant on… Read More
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With its first VR series, CollegeHumor gives a completely accurate overview of presidential history
How do you make things funny in virtual reality? That’s the question CollegeHumor is exploring with 1600 in 360°, a new video series depicting some of the, um, highlights of U.S. presidential history. Apparently, Google approached IAC-owned CollegeHumor about creating 360-degree content for YouTube and for its DayDream VR platform. Sam Reich, president at CollegeHumor’s… Read More
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Klout’s Joe Fernandez is back with Joymode, an equipment rental startup with a focus on experiences
Joymode is a startup for people who want to do fun things like host a backyard movie night or go on a camping trip — but don’t necessarily want to buy all the requisite equipment, especially if they’re only going to use it once. The company was founded by Joe Fernandez, Waynn Lue and Keith Walker. Fernandez previously founded social influence startup Klout and sold it to… Read More
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Osmo’s new Pizza Co. game uses augmented reality to teach kids about running a business
With its latest title, educational game-maker Osmo is tackling a subject that’s close to CEO Pramod Sharma’s heart — entrepreneurship. Co-founded by Sharma and Jérôme Scholler (both former Googlers), Osmo makes iPad games that combine touchscreen gameplay with real-world objects and physical activities in front of the screen. Past games have covered topics like coding… Read More
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Verizon says it’s “still evaluating” Yahoo discount as carrier sees another quarter of revenue decline
Verizon, the largest carrier in the U.S. and owner of a large set of media properties via AOL (including TechCrunch), today reported mixed third-quarter earnings and saw growth in subscriber numbers. But it was light on a detail about the big elephant in the room: would it ask for a discount on its original, recent $4.83 billion offer to buy Yahoo? Update: During the analyst… Read More
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HigherMe raises $1.5M to help businesses hire hourly workers
Hiring startup HigherMe is announcing that it has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. It’s also brought on some big names as customers, including Dunkin Donuts, Panera Bread — and most recently, fast food chain White Castle. Co-founder and CEO Rob Hunter (a past owner of multiple Marble Slab Creamery locations) has said that when employers hire hourly workers, location… Read More
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Social media display company Tagboard acquires Capture
Tagboard announced today that it has acquired Capture, another startup in the social media and user-generated-content business. Tagboard helps marketers find and create displays for social media conversation around a brand or topic. (When I covered the company a couple of years ago, I described it as a “cross-platform hashtag aggregator,” which is both accurate and… Read More
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Electric Objects slims down its digital art display and unveils a subscription art club
Electric Objects is announcing new ways to bring art into your home, with an affordable price tag. The New York City startup, led by Jake Levine (formerly of Betaworks), launched a Kickstarter campaign for its digital art displays in 2014, then started shipping them a year later. Levine told me he’s trying to tear down “the barrier between normal people … and art,” so… Read More
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Mobile marketing and data startup mParticle raises $17.5M
mParticle announced today that it has raised $17.5 million in Series B funding. The New York City startup helps marketers collect user data through a variety of services and then funnel that data to other marketing and analytics tools. Co-founder and CEO Michael Katz said this not only reduces integration challenges and technical difficulties, but also helps businesses get a more unified view… Read More
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Thrillist, NowThis, The Dodo and Seeker form a new, Discovery-backed holding company
Four digital media organizations are coming together to form a new holding company — and they’ve also raised $100 million in additional funding from Discovery Communications. Those four companies are Thrillist (lifestyle), NowThis Media (video news), The Dodo (animals) and Discovery’s digital network Seeker (including its production studio SourceFed). Thrillist’s Ben… Read More
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Alibaba backs PlaceIQ, a provider of location tools and data
PlaceIQ has a new, big-name investor — Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. The companies aren’t disclosing the size of the deal; they’ll only say that it’s a strategic, minority investment, and that it’s an addition to the $25 million round that PlaceIQ announced at the beginning of this year. Co-founder and CEO Duncan McCall told me this is part of a larger… Read More
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C1X raises $8.5M for its advertiser and publisher tech
C1X has raised another $8.5 million in what it says is the first part of a Series B round of funding. The company was founded by Mukundu Kumaran (CEO) and Daisuke Nagayama (chief operating officer and chief global strategist) — Kumaran previously worked as an engineering director at Yahoo, and he told me that his goal is “to simplify how the basic advertising transaction… Read More
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Google acquires FameBit to connect YouTube creators with marketers
Google just announced that it has acquired FameBit, a marketplace that connects video creators with marketers who want to sponsor their content. This could be an important step for Google’s YouTube, where monetization has been a big concern — not just for YouTube as a whole, but also for individual creators. YouTube has been working to provide more support on this front through… Read More