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Goldman Sachs: Internet IPO Window May Be Closed Until After Labor Day
Jun 15, 1:40AM
Goldman Sachs' co-head of investment banking for global telecommunications, media and technology Anthony Noto said tonight that he'd be surprised if there's another IPO for an Internet company before Labor Day. Facebook's controversial offering has already shelved other deals from companies like Kayak, as public investors have driven down the value of newer consumer web companies. Facebook is now is at $28.23 in after-hours trading, down from the $42.05 price it opened at last month. Zynga is now worth $3.7 billion, down from the $14 billion valuation it commanded from private investors in February of 2011. "If you go public now, you have to have a high quality company that doesn't have a business model in transition. If you haircut the estimates and haircut valuation, you can go public," Noto said at the F.ounders conference in New York today.Let Them Eat Cake? Yammer's Price Tag May Be About $1.4 Billion
Jun 15, 1:12AM
Benchmark Capital general partner Bill Gurley tipped an interesting price point for a potential Yammer deal. He asked on-stage whether it was $1.4 billion to the co-head of Goldman Sachs' global telecommunications, media and technology investment banking unit Anthony Noto tonight at the F.ounders conference in New York. Noto declined to comment.After Raising $1.6M, SimpleReach Launches To Become The PageRank Of Social
Jun 14, 10:59PM
Pivoting is a part of life for startups. But, generally speaking, most entrepreneurs aren't going to go out of their way to pivot right when their business starts taking off. But that's what SimpleReach did. The startup's first product, The Slide, is a simple widget that lets publishers recommend similar content at the bottom of articles. In just a few months, it was adopted by thousands of publishers, like Freakonomics.com, sparknotes.com, disinfo.com, The Washington Times, and SF Gate -- to name a few. Yet, in spite of strong early growth and graduating from AngelPad's accelerator program, they decided to pivot. They froze all new signups to The Slide and turned their attention to an idea they believed could have a much larger impact. Today, the NYC-based startup is revealing its new solution, a product founder Eddie Kim calls the "PageRank of social."To Fight Off Airtime and Google+ Hangouts, Facebook Tests Adding Video "Call" Button To Profiles
Jun 14, 10:58PM
Desperate to increase video chat usage, Facebook is testing out a "Call" button on top of people's timeline profiles. I don't think I've received a Facebook video chat since Facebook partnered with Skype to launch the feature a year ago, but now that might change. If a friend is online on the desktop version of Facebook, those in the test see a "Call" button next to that friends name on their profile , while previously a tiny videocamera icon in the text chat window was basically the only way to start a video chat. Facebook seems to have realized it needed to highlight the feature, otherwise when people want to smile and laugh with friends face to face their first thought might be the Google+ and its Hangouts, or the newly launched Airtime from former Facebook President Sean Parker.Switchcam Raises $1.2 Million From Mark Cuban, 500 Startups, Turner Media Camp, And Others
Jun 14, 10:20PM
San Francisco-based startup Switchcam has created technology that combines videos from multiple sources and allows users to watch concerts, political rallies, conferences, and other events from multiple different points of view. And it's attracted investment from one of the biggest names in video, raising $1.2 million in a seed round led by Dallas Mavericks owner, HDNet founder, and billionaire Mark Cuban. But he's not alone: 500 Startups, Turner MediaCamp, Vikas Gupta, David Beyer, Jeffrey Schox, Niket Desai, and Reed Morse also participated in the round. So far, Switchcam's killer app seems to be pulling together full concert performances from multiple video sources. The platform collects videos from YouTube, Vimeo, and other sites, determines which order they fit in based on audio recognition, and then stitches them together into one big video timeline. Based on the video and audio quality, it attempts to show the best stream of a particular scene available, but users are free to switch between videos when there are multiple sources to choose from.Ethiopian Government Bans Skype, Google Talk And All Other VoIP Services
Jun 14, 9:11PM
The Ethiopian government, Al Jazeera reports, has criminalized the use of Skype and other VoIP services like Google Talk. Using VoIP services is now punishable by up to 15 years in prison. This law actually passed last month, but mostly went unnoticed outside of the country. Ethiopian authorities argue that they imposed these bans because of "national security concerns" and to protect the state's telecommunications monopoly. The country only has one ISP, the state-owned Ethio Telecom, and has been filtering its citizen's Internet access for quite some time now to suppress opposition blogs and other news outlets.Out Of Africa — A Whole MEST Of Startups Emerges In Ghana
Jun 14, 9:10PM
Growing up as an adopted Korean boy in the cold climes of Norway, Jorn Lyseggen would have had no idea that one day he would be spearheading a technology renaissance in the sweltering heat of a West African state. But having created the successful $100m-in-revenue Meltwater SAAS company, which has made a name for itself in social analytics, he realised that it would be for nothing if he didn't "give something back". And so the Meltwater Entreprenerial School of Technology in Ghana was born. Founded in February 2008 in Ghana's capital city of Accra, MEST, as it's known, started out with modest aims: to take the brightest and most willing minds they could find, and put them through a rigorous two year training programme to become tech entrepreneurs. Indeed, MEST pre-dates Y Combinator's most recent overture to invest in people and ideas even before they have a startup idea.New Memolane Features Help You Share (Online) Memories With Facebook Friends
Jun 14, 9:06PM
Founder Eric Lagier is hoping to make his Internet time machine service Memolane more social today by allowing users to create shared "lanes" with their Facebook friends. The idea behind Memolane: People are usually sharing content on multiple sites, but it's not always easy to browse old content, or to look at content from multiple sites in one place. So for example, after I sign up and connected various social network accounts, I can browse and search a single timeline with photos from Facebook and Instagram, mixed in with my tweets and Foursquare check-ins. I also get emails reminding me of what I was doing, say, three months or a year ago.Facebook Asks Every User For A Verified Phone Number To Prevent Security Disaster
Jun 14, 8:48PM
Every single Facebook user is or will soon be seeing a link at the top of their desktop news feed asking them to "Stay in control of your account by following these simple security tips". The link leads to the the Facebook Security page where users are taught how to spot a scam, pick a unique password, and most interestingly, confirm their mobile phone number for account recovery. Facebook confirmed with me that the message will roll out to all desktop users over the next few days, and millions are seeing it right now. And while it might seem like a response to other recent security breaches on the web, Facebook tells me this security alert was planned before those happened. Well, break-ins to eHarmony, Last.fm, and LinkedIn should certainly get people clicking through. Here's why having confirmed phone numbers could help Facebook avoid a LinkedIn-esque fiasco...The Struggle
Jun 14, 8:42PM
Every entrepreneur starts her company with a clear vision for success. You will create an amazing environment and hire the smartest people to join you. Together you will build a beautiful product that delights customers and makes the world just a little bit better. It's going to be absolutely awesome. Then, after working night and day to make your vision reality, you wake up to find that things did not go as planned. Your company did not unfold like the Jack Dorsey keynote that you listened to when you started. Your product has issues that will be very hard to fix. The market isn't quite where it was supposed to be. Your employees are losing confidence and some of them have quit. Some of the ones that quit were quite smart and have the remaining ones wondering if staying makes sense. You are running low on cash and your venture capitalist tells you that it will be difficult to raise money given the impending European catastrophe. You lose a competitive battle. You lose a loyal customer. You lose a great employee. The walls start closing in. Where did you go wrong? Why didn't your company perform as envisioned? Are you good enough to do this? As your dreams turn into nightmares, you find yourself in The Struggle.ComScore U.S. Internet Report: YoY, Pinterest Up 4000+%, Amazon Up 30%, Android Top Smartphone & More
Jun 14, 8:04PM
In a report being released today, measurement firm comScore says that unique visits to social networking sites have increased by 6% year-over-year. The company also re-confirmed that Pinterest remains the fastest-growing social network as of Q1 2012, and its users rival only that of LinkedIn in terms of buying power. These figures were a part of comScore's latest "State of the U.S. Internet" presentation, which was first revealed via private webinar this afternoon, with a full report expected to be made public on comScore's website next week. In addition to measuring social networking growth, comScore also detailed trends in mobile, online advertising and e-commerce.Kevin Rose On His New Gig At Google Ventures, What He Looks For In A Startup Founder, And More [TCTV]
Jun 14, 7:30PM
Kevin Rose has been a familiar face in the tech scene for more than a decade now, in a variety of roles. All his gigs have been pretty unique from each other, but there has been a common thread: They've all been relatively "indie" in terms of size and scope, with a startup vibe rather than a corporate one. So in many ways, the acqui-hire of Milk by Google in March was perhaps the biggest shift in Rose's career -- a move that represented his most significant and complete step out of the entrepreneurial side of the tech industry, and into a role at a major corporation.The Full Run-Down On All 13 Startups At TechStars NYC Demo Day 2012
Jun 14, 7:16PM
The TechStars NYC Demo Day went down this morning, and thirteen new companies have officially come to market, ranging from a Pinterest for places, a social wireless MVNO, and a mobile workforce communication product, to a social network for trades and transactions, a moving industry disruptor, and a leisure class aggregator. Some are venturing into a brand new world, leveraging social media and our online identities to disrupt retail, consumer engagement with brands, and communication within workforces. Others are traveling back to the past, elbowing their way into traditional industries and trying to make a difference. If you happened to miss our earlier coverage, here's a rundown on the whole lot of them:Akkadian Ventures Raises $22M For Secondary Stock Purchases
Jun 14, 7:06PM
Akkadian Ventures has raised a $22 million fund for purchasing stock in private companies from entrepreneurs, early employees, and angel investors. Secondary sales have had a higher profile recently as a way for investors to get into hot tech companies like Facebook, Zynga, and Twitter before they went public, often through secondary market sites like SecondMarket. Co-founder and chief investment officer Ben Black (who previously co-founded New Cycle Capital and was on the founding team at Harris Interactive) says Akkadian "almost always" works directly with companies to set up a custom stock purchase program, giving team members a way to cash out on some of their equity without affecting any future IPO plans.Skills Marketplace SkillPages Raises $9.5M Series B Round To Fund U.S. Expansion, Mobile Push
Jun 14, 7:00PM
SkillPages, which helps people with useful skills to find those who need them, just announced that it has raised a $9.5 million Series B funding round. This new funding round brings the total investment in the company to over $18 million. Among the investors in this round are Irish VC firm ACT Venture Capital, as well as previous angel investors and the company's founders. The plan is to use this additional funding to accelerate user growth, launch new mobile products and expand the company's engineering team to enhance SkillPages' "SkillGraph" technology that matches people who are searching for a skill to people who have it."In the Studio," Javelin's Noah Doyle Unfolds An Intricate Mobile Mapping Ecosystem
Jun 14, 7:00PM
"In the Studio" this week features a guest who had the presence of mind to invest in a new mapping technology about a decade ago, eventually joined the company as a senior executive, and oversaw that company's sale to Google, where he spent four years managing enterprise products for Google Earth and Maps before becoming a full-time early-stage investor. Noah Doyle, now a managing director at Javelin Venture Partners, offers a fascinating perspective on Apple's big announcement this week regarding maps on iOS devices. While the news was certainly big, Doyle -- who has more than seven years experience working on maps, originally with Keyhole and most recently with Google -- believes this week's events were a long time in the making. He describes the maps relationship between Apple and Google as one that started as a mutually beneficial collaboration, then transformed into a marriage, and now will officially part ways.PeekYou Pivots From People Search To Social Analytics With The Launch Of PeekAnalytics
Jun 14, 6:12PM
Well here's a blast from the past. Remember when people search was big? Back before Facebook swallowed up all our personal data there were like, a dozen different search engines out there devoted entirely to helping you stalk your friends and ex-girlfriends online. But times have changed and pretty much anyone you'd ever want to find online is one Google or Facebook search away. So what's a people search engine to do? Well, if you're PeekYou, you use the data you've collected over the years to get into the suddenly lucrative social analytics market.Carat: The Brilliant App That Increases Your Battery Life By Showing What Other Apps To Kill
Jun 14, 5:45PM
"Kill Pandora - Expected Battery Life Improvement: 1 hour 50 minutes" This is what you'll learn from Carat, an incredibly useful free new iOS and Android app that's the first to give you personalized mobile battery life-saving recommendations. Carat quietly takes measurements from you device, does some math, combines is with other people's anonymized data, and sends back tips on if you should update your OS, kill or restart apps, and how many more minutes of tablet or phone fiddling you'll gain. As battery tech to is expected to improve slowly, some say increasing life just 5% a year, and as we get faster processors, more powerful apps, and brighter screens, everyone could use a Carat in their pocket.AOL's Armstrong on Winning Proxy Battle: Time To "Maniacally Execute"
Jun 14, 5:32PM
AOL fended off activist shareholder Starboard Value today, as all of the company's existing directors were re-elected to the board. All eight of them -- Tim Armstrong, Richard Dalzell, Karen Dykstra, Alberto Ibargüen, Susan Lyne, Patricia Mitchell, Fredric Reynolds and James Stengel -- are staying according to a preliminary vote count, while the three candidates Starboard suggested were not elected. It's a short-term victory for Armstrong, although he still faces the very formidable task of making AOL a sustainable business that can withstand the decline of subscription dial-up revenue. Shares fell 5.7 percent today to $25.55, giving the company a market capitalization of $2.4 billion. We caught up with Armstrong after the call. "We have one of the most public company strategies in the world," he said. "Investors knew what they were investing in. They saw us buying back a lot of shares, the patent transaction and the operational results."iPad Sees Small Drop, Nook Tops Kindle Fire In New Tablet Traffic Rankings
Jun 14, 5:21PM
Web traffic from the Apple iPad saw a slight drop in early June, according to new data from the Chitika Ad network, which analyzed a sample containing hundreds of millions of impressions to arrive at its conclusions. In May, the iPad had accounted for 94.64% of all tablet web traffic, the company previously reported. Today, the company says the iPad has dropped to a 91.07% share. However, the iPad still has a wide lead over its competition, so the change is fairly negligible. Among the non-iPad tablet devices, the top tablet was the Samsung Galaxy Tab, with a 1.77% share of traffic, for example. Meanwhile, the Barnes & Noble Nook overtook the Kindle Fire in tablet traffic share, now accounting for 0.85% of tablet traffic versus the Kinde Fire's 0.71%. Meanwhile, the Barnes & Noble Nook overtook the Kindle Fire in tablet traffic share, now accounting for 0.85% of tablet traffic versus the Kinde Fire's 0.71%.If at any time you'd like to stop receiving these messages, just send an email to feeds_feedburner_com_techcrunch+unsubscribe-hmdtechnology=gmail.com@mail.feed2email.net.
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