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Welcome To The U.S.! What Spotify Can Expect When It Arrives
Apr 16, 1:03PM
I just read that Spotify is coming to the U.S! Oh, wait. That was an article from 2009. I hope they really mean it this time. I love the product. To grease the skids for them a bit, I've put together a little travel guide for what they can expect in advertising and media circles when they do arrive. Lots of love in digital circles.
Being Swedish I'm guessing they're fantastic dressers and that their accents will make even the Brits envious. American agencies all have European envy, and Spotify is certifiably a big deal abroad. Agency status meetings will be preceded by Absolut and herring in honor of Spotify's arrival.
Google Video Prepares To Enter The Deadpool For Good
Apr 16, 3:43AM
Looks like Google Tags wasn't the only product on the chopping block today — now Google Video, the mostly-forgotten service that was once YouTube's rival, is getting the axe too. Google just sent out an email to users who have previously uploaded content to the service informing them that on April 29 2011, the site will no longer host any more videos. Users are being encouraged to download and reupload their files to YouTube. The news was first reported yesterday by CenterNetworks. Google actually stopped allowing uploads to Google Video back in May 2009, but existing videos have played fine until now.
Google Kills Tags In Favor Of Boost
Apr 16, 3:22AM
Google is killing Tags, an advertising product for local businesses which allowed them to enhance their Google Maps or Places listings. For a flat $25 monthly fee, local merchants could make their their natural listings stand out a bit with a yellow tag and a few words pointing to offers, photos, menus, or links back to their website. Tags were introduced with Google Places, the search engines local listings effort, about a year ago after being tested for a few months. Google sent an email today to merchants using the service notifying them that it will be shut down in two weeks on April 29. One tipster who sent us a copy of the email writes:
Twitter's Phantom Punch
Apr 16, 2:00AM
Yesterday, the story on everyone's mind in the tech world was the turmoil at Twitter. Led by the Fortune cover story written by Jessi Hempel, if you read it, you might think the sky is falling on Chicken Little. Not surprisingly, Twitter responded — sort of. Though it wasn't an "official" response, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone put up a post on his personal blog late last night directly addressing the Fortune article. He even invoked Rocky. Yes. Fight!
Chatroulette Posts Lawyer's Notes In Privacy Policy For Your Entertainment And Edification
Apr 16, 12:40AM
Note to startups: Don't publish your lawyer's notes about the various ways you may or may not profit off of user data. Video chat site Chatroulette seems to have just done just that with its privacy policy, publishing lawyer's notes like ... "[Andrey, does Chatroulette intend to share the personally identifiable information of users with third party companies for them to send direct marketing or promotional materials to your users e.g. name, email address, postal address etc.? If not, please delete this Section 5.]"
Forum Network CrowdGather Acquires Free Forum Host Forumer
Apr 16, 12:21AM
LA-based Internet forum community CrowdGather has acquired free forum hosting platform Forumer for $400K in cash. Forumer will be joining CrowdGather's other platforms Lefora and FreeForums.org as a hosting option for its 65,000 plus online forums. Forumer currently serves 35 million monthly pageviews for 200,000 forums. The purchase increases CrowdGather's network traffic by 50% from 90 million monthly pageviews at the beginning of this year to 135 million monthly pageviews and 13 million monthly unique visitors (CrowdGather was at 100 million monthly pageviews before the acquisition). 
E-Books See Enormous Growth As Paper Book Sales Dive
Apr 15, 11:19PM
A report from the Association of American Publishers reveals that e-books sales experienced "powerful continuing growth" as they colorfully put it, and paper books of all types dipped, compared to the same period (January-February) from last year. This isn't surprising news, mainly because it isn't news — and even if it were, it's just history repeating itself; we've seen the same thing happen to music. The parallels are clear, though the situations and reactions of the RIAA and AAP are somewhat different. Mostly in that the AAP and other booksellers aren't being dragged kicking, screaming, and suing into the future, but are embracing it despite its implications.
Weekend Giveaway: An Authentic Darth Vader Costume
Apr 15, 10:49PM
Spring is upon us and a young geek's mind turns to thoughts of love. And what better way to win the heart of the guy (or girl) of your dreams than to dress up like Darth Vader in a completely authentic Sith Lord costume (saber not included). People will be able to sense your confidence along with your off-the-charts midichlorian count as you stride up to the bar and, in your deepest, smokiest voice, say to the bartender "I find your lack of MGD 64 disturbing." You will be, as they say, unstoppable. 
The Betrayal of Bnter
Apr 15, 10:01PM
We filmed this week's Ask a VC on Tuesday, and I started out by asking Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital about the danger of venture capitalists investing in competitors. There was no ulterior motive on my part. It's just a question I've seen coming up increasingly as dealmaking heats up and VCs invest across a bigger variety of company stages than ever before. And, I'd recently seen that Sabet did write a blog post on the topic. Little did I know then the big drama that had been brewing between Spark and two competitive companies behind for months. Not investing in competitors of existing portfolio companies is great. Even better? Not offering one a term sheet after months of due diligence before you decide that they're competitive. TechCrunch has learned from three sources that Spark Capital reneged on a termsheet offered to a New York-based startup called Bnter, throwing the company into tumult and reportedly enraging its well-known angel investors who we've heard include Chris Dixon and Ron Conway.
LivingSocial Financials Exposed: $2.9 Billion Valuation, $50 Million In Revenue Per Month
Apr 15, 9:20PM
There's nothing like full disclosure during the negotiating process in an acquisition deal. LivingSocial acquired SocialMedia for just $3 million in stock, we reported earlier today. As part of the negotiating process they disclosed key financial information to SocialMedia to help that company understand the value of the stock they were receiving in the deal. That information is now in my inbox. SociaMedia is getting around 545,000 shares of common stock of LivingSocial, valued at $3 million. That implies that there are approximately 520 million shares outstanding. At the recent Series E preferred price of $5.65 per share (which is what most people would use for valuation purposes), LivingSocial is a $2.9 billion company. LivingSocial is no Groupon when it comes to revenue, but it's doing just fine. February revenue was $50 million, says our source, and projected revenue for 2011 (assumed calendar) is a cool $1 billion. Our best guess on Groupon revenue in February was a little under $100 million, so it's roughly twice the size of LivingSocial.
Purchase Sharing Site Shwowp Becomes Buyosphere, Opens To The Public
Apr 15, 8:48PM
Like a Tripit for shopping, TechCrunch Disrupt alumnus Shwowp is opening to the public today, under a new name and after a complete site redesign and rebranding. Shwowp co-founder Tara Hunt tells me that the post launch feedback for Shwop's original branding wasn't good, but the tipping point was when the site won a "Worst Brand Name of 2010" award from blog Eatmywords. Ouch. But instead of getting down in the dumps or being stubborn, Hunt did what any founder committed to growing their business should do, she wrote a blog post inviting people to come up with new suggestions. While the survey brought in over 3000 hits and over 1200 suggestions, none of them were quite the right fit. Thankfully the original Eatmywords blogger Alexandra Watkins stepped in, and came up with the name Buyosphere which is sort of perfect, in a punny sort of way.
Ask a VC: Bijan Sabet on Competition, MBAs, and What He'd Rather Be Doing (TCTV)
Apr 15, 8:45PM
It's time for Ask a VC, and this week Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital was back. We talked about whether it's worth it for startups to launch at a conference like DEMO or Disrupt, the decision to turn a profitable lifestyle business into a venture-backed, cash-burning startup, how entrepreneurs in other countries can find US mentors and the value of MBAs. In one of our more personal questions from a reader Daryn asks Sabet what he'd be doing now if he wasn't a VC. Tune in below for his answers.
LivingSocial Acquires SocialMedia For $3 Million
Apr 15, 8:44PM
Fast growing daily deal service LivingSocial, which just raised $400 million, has acquired long suffering social advertising network SocialMedia, we've confirmed. The price was just $3 million, all in LivingSocial stock. Unfortunately, the company had raised around $10 million from Charles River Ventures, Marc Andreessen, Naval Ravikant and Jeff Clavier. SocialMedia's biggest asset today is probably its domain name. But a couple of years ago the company was tearing it up. They were one of the first companies to create a Facebook ad network that used your friends' pictures in the ads. 2008 revenue was $15 million, and 2009 revenue was on pace to hit $25 million. Facebook tried to acquire the company, says one source. SocialMedia declined, and shortly afterwards Facebook threatened legal action against them for privacy policy violations. What's most fascinating about the acquisition isn't the soft landing that the company has pulled off. It's LivingSocial's financials and capitalization information, disclosed during the deal negotiations, that has now landed in my inbox. More on that in a follow up post.
Shawn Fanning And Sean Parker Are Back With An Ambitious New Project; Investors Abound
Apr 15, 7:56PM
Longtime collaborators Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker are back together working on an ambitious new project, we've learned. In 1999, Fanning and Parker introduced the world to Napster. Their music sharing service was absolutely culture changing and ushered in a new wave of excitement about the web. Now, over a decade later, they're back at it. And the new project is nothing if not interesting. Think: Chatroulette — but done right. 
Greplin's Chrome Extension Now Makes Gmail Search Infinitely Better
Apr 15, 7:16PM
Gmail is arguably the best web-based email client out there, but it's far from perfect. Just navigating your inbox (particularly when it's a big one) can be an exercise in frustration... and then there's Gmail Search, which is just painful. Wait times of 30-40 seconds aren't unheard of, to the point that it's becoming the butt of jokes (what can you do in the time it takes to run a Gmail search?) Enter Greplin, the Sequoia-funded startup that's looking to search all of your online data from a single search box. Today the company is upgrading its Chrome browser extension to take that search box with you, and they're starting with Gmail. Put another way: they're finally making Gmail Search work well. 
My Twitter Debate With Mike McCue: Why Does Flipboard Need $50 Million?
Apr 15, 7:09PM
There is no question that Flipboard has an early lead in iPad news consumption. The company just raised a massive $50 million B round to cement that lead. This comes in between iPhone photo app Color raising a $41 million A round, and LivingSocial raising $400 million so that its founders and early investors could take half of that off the table. There is obviously a lot of venture money sloshing around, especially for high-quality companies and teams. When investors offer startups a huge pile of cash at favorable terms, it is usually a good idea to take the money. And that's exactly what Flipboard did. But does an iPad app company really need $50 million? And does taking too much money ever backfire? Flipboard is no lean startup. 
OMG. OMG!!! MC Hammer Bobblehead Day At Oakland A's In July
Apr 15, 6:54PM
Long time readers know how much we love MC Hammer around here. And the serendipity of having him perform at the end of TechCrunch DIsrupt last year, the day we were acquired by AOL, was wonderful. He's a performer, an entrepreneur and one of the most empathetic and caring human beings I've ever met (He's helped thousands of people in Oakland and around the world over the last two decades). Everyone smiles when they're around Hammer. As for me, if you've ever seen a 14 year old girl around Justin Bieber, I'm pretty much the same when Hammer's around. Well, first I usually tell him I have some extra gold jewelry I'd like to convert into cash and if he knows anywhere that can do that for me (he's a shareholder and spokesperson for Cash4Gold and takes a lot of much deserved ribbing for his commercials). But then I act like the 14 year old girl. Even so, I can't explain exactly why I'm so excited that the Oakland A's are having MC Hammer bobblehead day in July (the image is a prototype that Hammer sent me, they don't have the final product yet). Hammer was involved with the A's long before he was famous, and his ties to the organization are still very strong today. It's about time they gave him a bobblehead. :-)
LivingSocial Pulls A Groupon … And $200 Million Off The Table
Apr 15, 6:16PM
Fortune's Dan Primack reports that the LivingSocial management and investors have pocketed about half of the $400 million in new VC money they raised at the beginning of the month, citing this SEC filing. This cashing out early thing is not without precedent, in fact leader in the daily deals space Groupon pulled a similar endeavor during its DST round last April and in January, where it took $573 million off of the table after its $950 million round of funding, allowing founder Andrew Mason to solve what he called "the money problem" or the temptation to succumb to buyout offers (like Google's 6 billion) because you feel like you need the money.
TechCrunch Giveaway: Ticket To Disrupt NYC #TechCrunch
Apr 15, 4:57PM
Here is another chance to win a ticket to our first stop for Disrupt, which is taking place in New York City. We have almost narrowed down all of our guests and speakers and we promise you, you will not be disappointed. We're going to announce a few very special guest speakers soon, but for now this free ticket is available and will go to one lucky winner. If you want to take a quick look at our speakers from last year's Disrupt in New York City, you can view them here. A special congratulations to Emily Williams for winning last week's giveaway. As a reminder, Disrupt NYC will be from May 23rd to the 25th. If you want this free ticket, all you have to do is follow the steps below.
Trion Brings Twitter and YouTube Into The Online Gaming Experience
Apr 15, 4:30PM
When I was growing up, games were played offline -- whether it was Number Munchers on an Apple2GS, or Super Mario Bros. on Nintendo's NES console. But, needless to say, that 8-bit world is miles behind us. Like it has done to every other industry, the Web completely altered the course of gaming. It brought connectivity and scale to video games, allowing huge groups of people to play each other in a single game, simultaneously. Even so, most video game users continued to get their gaming offline; as is often the case, online adoption was mostly limited to geeks in solitude. 
Cleantech Investor Raj Alturu Moves From DFJ To Silver Lake Kraftwerk
Apr 15, 3:47PM
On Thursday, Raj Atluru announced that he was stepping down as a managing director with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, where he served as a key cleantech investor since 2001. He will join a private equity group that invests in later-stage clean energy companies, Silver Lake Kraftwerk, which was formed earlier in 2011 by Silver Lake Partners and Soros Fund Management, led by Adam Grosser. Atluru took board positions at six of DFJ's cleantech portfolio companies and will maintain seats on some of these, according to a managing director at DFJ in Menlo Park, Josh Stein. He also noted...
President Obama Wants A 'Cool' Phone
Apr 15, 3:01PM
There's a good chance that your office or home is more tricked out, tech-wise, than the Oval Office. President Obama complained yesterday, in what the AP calls "off-the-cuff remarks," that what the Oval Office lacks is a "really cool phone." Can someone get the president a Droid or something? We've known from some time now that Obama is a bit of a BlackBerry addict, but apparently his technological nous doesn't transfer to the Oval Office. He expressed remorse at the lack of "fancy buttons and stuff." It's like, come on! I'm the president here! 
NowLive Throws Its Hat In The High Quality Live Streaming Video Ring
Apr 15, 2:58PM
Companies like UStream, Livestream and even Google's YouTube are making a business out of live-streaming professional events on the web. Another player has entered the space, but is taking a more calculated approach to the live-streaming space. NowLive specializes in high quality live-streaming of red carpet premieres, concerts, celebrity chats, and more. NowLive, which was founded by studio and tech vets from Paramount, MGM, MySpace, and MoviePhone, is setting its sights on becoming the go-to live streaming platform for major events in the entertainment and music industry. The startup's platform goes beyond just streaming video to the web and offers social streaming chat tools within its interface, ad units, and real-time interactive quizzes and polls. The company even offers a pop-up video-like information technology for livestreaming events on the web. 
Twitter's Biz Stone: 'We're Long Overdue To Be Knocked Down By The Press'
Apr 15, 2:04PM
Twitter co-founder and creative director Biz Stone took to his personal blog today to respond to Fortune's cover this week on the operational problems plaguing the company. Stone basically says that Twitter has received its fair share of good press over the past few years from media outlets and it was only a matter of time before a publication knocked the company down. He writes, the normal press cycle is to put a company on a pedestal and then knock it down. He says that Facebook and Google have both received the same sort of treatment from the press.
Online Education Startup Instructure Raises $8M From Eric Schmidt's Tomorrow Ventures, Tim Draper
Apr 15, 12:50PM
Instructure, a startup that develops and open-source online learning management system, has raised $8 million in Series B funding led by OpenView Venture Partners, EPIC Ventures, Eric Schmidt's Tomorrow Ventures, and Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurveston. This investment brings Instructure's total funding $9.2 million. Instructure's software, Canvas, presents a more streamlined online course management product than competitors like Blackboard. The hosted SaaS solution features an integrated gradebook, assessment tools, discussions, multiple assignment submission types, rubrics and web chat. The SaaS also includes drag-and-drop file uploads, HTML5 video and automatic speech-to-text conversion. And it integrates with Google Docs and Facebook. 
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