Technology

LinkedIn — the social network with more than 560 million members who connect around work-related topics and job-seeking — continues to add in more features integrating technology from its new owner Microsoft, both to improve engagement on LinkedIn as well as to create deeper data ties between the two businesses.

Today, the company announced two more: users can now instantly view translations of content on the site when it appears in a language that is not the one set as a default; and they can now use QR codes to quickly swap contact details with other LinkedIn members.

In both cases, the features are likely overdue. The lingua franca of LinkedIn seems to be English, but the platform has a large global reach, and as it continues to try to expand to a wider range of later adopters and different categories of users, having a translation feature seems to be a no-brainer. It would also put it in closer line with the likes of Twitter and Facebook, which have had translation options for years.

The QR code generator, meanwhile, has become a key way for people to swap their details when they are not already connected on a network. And with LinkedIn this makes a lot of sense: there are so many people with the same name and it can be a challenge figuring out which &Mark Smith& you might want to connect with after coming across him at an event. And given that LinkedIn has been looking for more ways of making its app useful in in-person situations, this is an obvious way to enable that.

Translations are coming by way of theMicrosoft Text Analytics API, the same Azure Cognitive Service  that powers translations on Bing, Skype, and Office (as well as third party services like Twitter). It will be available in more then 60 languages, with LinkedIn says more coming soon, to a &majority& of members using either the desktop or mobile web versions of LinkedIn.

The company says that it will be coming to LinkedIniOS and Android apps in due course as well. Users will get the &see translation& link based on a number of signals you&re providing to LinkedIn that include your language setting on the platform, the country where you are accessing content, and the language you have used in your profile.

Content covered by the option to translate will include the main Feed, the activity section on a personprofile, and posts if you click on them in the feed or share it.

Meanwhile, with QR codes, you trigger the ability to capture one by clicking in the search box on the iOS or Android app. Through that window, you can also pick up your own code to share with others.

LinkedIn suggests that the QR code can effectively become the replacement for the business card for people when they are at in-person events. But other options is that you can use this now in any place where you might want to provide a shortcut to your profile.

For the past twelve years I&ve followed the rise of the startup & defined as a small business with global ambitions & from my perch at TechCrunch. During that period I watched business reporting change from a sleepy backwater on the back of the Sports section into a juggernaut, a force that controls the global conversation. Why Because business reporting became war reporting and the battles fought were between VCs, businesses, and ideas that changed the world.

In that period, VCs rose from glorified bank tellers to rock stars. Incubators popped up to socialize nervous founders and turn them into capital F Founders and the path for startups became a codified journey from failure to success.

Now we&re seeing the same thing happen in ICOs. But something is wrong. The startups coming out of the ICO craze aren&t being judged on the character of their founders, on their technologies, or their probability for success. They are being judged, quite simply, on quantitative metrics that interrogate a token with one question: &When Lambo&

This is the wrong approach. Token-based startups must receive the same level of socialization and scrutiny as the old VC-based startup vetting process. But something is different, and itan important difference.

In the old VC model a group of men & and it was mostly men for a long time & would stand in judgement over an idea. If any number of arbitrary points of risk appeared they would smile and say &No& to the founder, sending them down the road for another &No.& Unless you were plugged in professionally, went to https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/15/clunk/, or had your own cash, seed to even late stage investment wasn&t available and the resulting https://twitter.com/kteare/status/391689067370278912 of undercapitalization sunk countless startups.

Now, however, something new is afoot. While italways nice to look at tokens in comparison with other tokens, this sort of quantitative masturbation can easily hide a multitude of sins. Due diligence on token-based companies must be done, but it must be done through the wisdom of crowds. Instead of trying to impress one dude in a fleece vest and chinos on Sand Hill Road a founder must impress the world. They must tell a true, human story of actual value and explain their product without mumbling and hand waving. And they have to do it again and again.

Cryptocurrencies were supposed to bring us an egalitarian age of decentralized decision-making and a mathematical certainty. But the founders forgot one thing: humans offer no mathematical certainty. Instead of looking at numbers, these startups must be assessed on the basis of their value to humanity, on their technical ability to solve a real problem, and on their understanding of human-to-human interaction. The future isn&t a number. Instead, the future is a many-to-one investigation of a startup and the decision & by the decentralized crowd & whether or not to continue funding.

Again, if your primary driver is greed then by all means check out a chart that compares TRON to TRON. Ityour right. But if your goal is to make startups that will drive us deep into the future, then the old ways are best. A lot of things are about to change.

A few years ago I spoke to Deepak Chopra about his vision for a global voting system. In short, he was working on a way to take the global temperature. If a politician wanted to spend money on a road or, god forbid, go to wore, they could put the question to the crowd via their cellphones. One vote per person, defined by biometric controls. This pie-in-the-sky idea is slowly coming to fruition and I think itgoing to be very exciting. And it will find its perfect home in the future of startup funding.

The age of centralized decision-making in which analytics were used to help make seat-of-the-pants decisions is over. Now we enter a new world and the folks used to the old ways should probably watch out. After all, when the crowd speaks even VCs listen.

All good things, as the saying goes, must come to an end. And to which good thing do we refer Your chance to exhibit for FREE as a TC Top Pick at Disrupt San Francisco 2018 on September 5-7. The application window slams shut tomorrow, June 29 at 5 p.m.(PST). Don&t miss out on your chance to showcase your early-stage startup to all the right people at a price anyone can afford: free. Apply right here, right now.

Granted, not just any pre-Series A startup can qualify to be a TC Top Pick. For starters, your company must fall into one of these categories: AI, AR/VR, Blockchain, Biotech, Fintech, Gaming, Healthtech, Privacy/Security, Space (as in &outer&), Mobility, Retail or Robotics/Hardware.

Still with us Great. Next, our team of TechCrunch editors will review every eligible application and select up to five startups to represent each category. Several companies will earn the coveted TC Top Pick designation and each team receives a free Startup Alley Exhibitor Package. Herewhat that gets you:

• A one-day exhibit space in Startup Alley
• Three Founder passes (good for all three days of the show)
• Full use of CrunchMatch— our investor-to-startup matching platform
• Access to the full event press list
• TC Top Pick Media Bonus: A three-minute video interview on the Showcase Stage with a TechCrunch editor — promoted across our social media platforms

Exhibiting in Startup Alley at a Disrupt event offers founders tremendous networking, collaboration and investment opportunities. Luke Heron, the CEO of TestCard.com, had this to say about the benefits of exhibiting in Startup Alley at Disrupt:

&TechCrunch uses a curation process regarding the companies it accepts. So being at Disrupt — among all these other fantastic startups — has a hugely positive impact when you&re fundraising.&

You truly have nothing to lose by applying to be a TC Top Pick, but you&ll never know what you missed if you don&t get your application in before the clock runs out.

Disrupt San Francisco 2018takes place on September 5-7 at Moscone Center West. The opportunity clock is winding down, and the application window for TC Top Picks closes on June 29 at 5 p.m.(PST). Click and apply right now.