More loss, more layoffs for Yahoo under Bartz

Yahoo reported that revenue and profit fell during the first quarter — the first full quarter under new chief executive Carol Bartz. In response, the company plans to trim its workforce again, this time by 5 percent to cut down on expenses.

The search giant’s net income for the first three months was $118 million, down $542 million from last year at this time, representing a 78 percent decline. If you subtract the $401 boost … Continue Reading

Zynga becomes largest Facebook app developer (and it's making big money)

Social gaming site Zynga has just become the largest application developer on Facebook, with more than 40 million monthly active users according to AllFacebook and AppData. This title changes hands quite often, but it’s perhaps more significant in this case because of how much money I hear Zynga is making through all these users.

Rumors have been circulating for a few months that it is on track to make up to $50 million in revenue … Continue Reading

SF Mayor Gavin Newsom tweets he's running for governor

Oh, so maybe that’s what Twitter chief executive Evan Williams meant when he said, “We are Twitterfying SF!” after meeting with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. Newsom just announced he’s running for the governor of California, and according to his website, the announcement first went out via a tweet on the microblogging site.

“It’s official- running for Gov of CA,” Newsom wrote to his 275,000 Twitter followers. “Wanted you to be the first to know.”… Continue Reading

Med device maker Starion sells to Microline, bringing varying returns

Starion Instruments, a medical device maker based in Sunnyvale, Calif., has been acquired by surgical tool provider Microline Pentax, bringing in generous returns for some of its investors, while leaving others at break even, reports VentureWire. Financial details of the deal haven’t been disclosed.

Starion’s backers included Atherton Venture Partners, Johnson & Johnson Development, St. Paul Venture Capital, Tyco Ventures and WTI Ventures. While it remained in stealth through most of its existence, the company … Continue Reading

Sonoma secures $12M to heal wrist, clavicle fractures

Sonoma Orthopedic, maker of a device used to mend wrist and clavicle fractures, has raised $12 million in a third round of funding to commercialize its first two products, reports VentureWire. Based in Santa Rosa, Calif., the company’s flagship offering is the WaviBody — a flexible device inserted directly into a fractured bone that then becomes rigid, setting the break in an anatomically accurate way.

Both wrist and clavicle fractures have proved problematic for doctors … Continue Reading

Texting is so dreadfully simple — Smash wants to liven it up

Well-known investor and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has led a $1.35 million first round of investment in Smash Technologies, a company that is creating newer, slicker ways to use text messaging.

So far, texting has remained dead simple. You get a message, and you respond. In some ways, the ease of use is the beauty of it. It requires no downloads, special phones or (usually) extra data plans. Users love it. And as a … Continue Reading

Kazeon captures $10M for advanced search and discovery

Kazeon Systems, a company that specializes in software used for electronic investigations and discovery of buried network information, just brought in $10 million in sixth-round funding from JK&B Capital, Clearstone Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures and Redpoint Ventures, reports peHub. Based in Mountain View, Calif., the firm had previously banked $65 million in capital since its inception in 2003.

Among the processes it streamlines, Kazeon focuses on information management for advanced security and privacy, record-keeping and … Continue Reading

Will the game industry slow, or is it just getting started?

I’m giving a speech today in Berlin, Germany at the Quo Vadis game conference. I was asked to talk about the state of the game industry and the prospects for game startups. Here’s an abridged version of the speech for those who want an overview of investment in games.

I love games. I played the original Pong when it first came out. I played Wing Commander in the early 1990s until my right arm … Continue Reading

Zuora's online billing service gets 100 new features as it lands 100th customer

Zuora, a startup that offers online software to help companies automate subscriptions and billing, is releasing version 2.0 of its lead product, Z-Billing, complete with what it says are 100 new features that improve power, automation, and ease-of-use.

The Redwood City, Calif. company has been growing quickly since launching Z-Billing in May 2008, and with the release of 2.0, Zuora is also announcing its 100th customer. It’s a big one, too — server giant Sun … Continue Reading

Roundup: Fox News launches uReport, AT&T doubles 3G capacity, and more

Here’s the latest action:

Fox News gets citizen journalism arm on MySpace — Contributors to uReport can only upload and tag photos and videos, presenting fewer possibilities than CNN’s similarly named iReport.

AT&T doubling 3G capacity — The company, whose 3G network is the source of frequent complaints from iPhone owners, says it will increase downlink capacity from 3.6 to 7.2 megabits per second through base station software upgrades.

Startup icons create seed-stage fund in … Continue Reading

Omniture adds viral video analytics, targets startup rivals

Web analytics heavyweight Omniture is taking on a few video analytics startups today, by introducing a new service for tracking data about online videos across the web. The public company already offers a variety of software tools that let web and mobile sites precisely measure online traffic, showing details like where people are clicking on the site and where they’re leaving. The new feature will show traffic information about videos on other web sites — … Continue Reading

Healthline's semantic search engine adds treatment and doctor search

Healthline Networks, a health search engine that uses semantic technology to help you understand your symptoms and the best drugs to treat them, is adding two new features today: TreatmentSearch and DocSearch. Now you can use Healthline’s technology to not only find out why you’re not feeling so great, but also to see detailed information about how to make yourself better.

Now, when you search for strep throat, you can also see the gamut of … Continue Reading

Stoke, the fixed-wireless convergence company, raises $15M more

Stoke, the company that wants to let you use your mobile phone or other device on your wireless carrier while on the go, but let you switch to your broadband connection at home, has raised $15 million more in a fourth round of financing.

The company recently partnered with WiFi Internet access provider Trustive, which has roaming agreements with more than 70 hotspot operators in more than 65 countries. The partnership will seek to enable … Continue Reading

Doing it live: Qik's streaming mobile video service connects with Facebook

Video-sharing hasn’t been a major part of Facebook — until the site’s March redesign stuck a button on the “publisher” message box on everyone’s homepage and made the feature much more obvious.

Since then, the company has been getting nearly half a million video uploads a day, and nearly 40 percent have been web cams. Which means live-streaming mobile video company Qik‘s integration with Facebook Connect looks well-timed.

You can now create and upload Qik … Continue Reading

ImageShack aims to play media host to the Twitter ecosystem

Twitter‘s traffic could more than double this month to above 30 million unique visitors on its web site in the US alone (that’s not counting Twitter traffic on other applications nor traffic outside the US). Expect to see the number of third party developers building applications for Twitter increase accordingly — and that’s what media-hosting startup ImageShack is betting on.

Today, the company is releasing Tweetero, an open-source Twitter client for the iPhone and iPod … Continue Reading

Arizona surges ahead with new $1B solar plant

Arizona, already a dominant force in the solar sector, is adding another $1 billion solar plant to its repertoire. The state just struck a deal with Albiasa Solar to build the 200-megawatt concentrated solar facility near Kingman, Ariz. — a city in the northwest part of the state very close to the California and Nevada borders.

The good news for Kingman and local residents is that the project should deliver 2,000 construction jobs and more … Continue Reading

Brazil bringing TV-internet convergence to big market

SAO PAULO, BRAZIL — In Sao Paulo, a consortium of university researchers is nearly finishing a five-year digital TV project that could bring low-cost, high-quality broadcasts and TV-internet convergence to 50 million Brazilian households later this year.

Funded by the Brazil government and private industry, the digital TV initiative has teamed together hundreds of technologists to speed the convergence of digital TV and the Internet for Brazil, one of the fasted growing developing economies, whose … Continue Reading

CMEA looks to diversify with three smaller funds

With capital drying up in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, a lot of venture capital firms that fund technology startups are looking to diversify their holdings. In response, CMEA Capital is looking to raise three different funds that are not only smaller than usual, but more specialized in their goals, reports VentureWire.

One fund would exclusively back materials science companies in China, for example. The second would be a cleantech fund specifically focused on funding late-stage … Continue Reading

Lavante racks up $5M for vendor communication services

Lavante, a company that automates communication between vendors and major companies to prevent transaction errors and losses, has taken in $5 million in second-round funding from Venrock and ATA Ventures. Based in San Jose, Calif., the firm, previously known as AuditSolutions, plans to use the new money for continued product development.

It claims its software can help Fortune 1000 companies recover three times as much cash as they can using manual or other auditing options. … Continue Reading