Report: Yahoo acquires Xoopit; will Yahoo Mail get even more social?

Yahoo is about to acquire Xoopit, a startup that brings social tools into email programs like Yahoo Mail and Gmail, for $20 million, according to multiple press reports.

The Wall Street Journal and BoomTown (both owned by Dow Jones, incidentally) have reported on the deal — the WSJ says talks are in their final stages, but BoomTown says the deal is done. I’ve emailed Yahoo, Xoopit, and Xoopit investor Accel Partners; Yahoo and Accel say … Continue Reading

AT&T to deliver data to Plastic Logic e-reader

They’ve done it again. AT&T, the company that beat Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile to land an exclusive three-year contract as the iPhone’s network provider, announced today that it’ll be the sole wireless provider for Plastic Logic’s e-reader, with which Barnes & Noble announced a partnership on Monday.

Plastic Logic’s attractively slim e-reader, with a black-and-white screen that’s optimal for reading text in varying lighting conditions, gets tech fetishists giddy in a way that Amazon’s Kindle … Continue Reading

Facebook story falls flat without Zuckerberg

The Wall Street Journal asked me to review The Accidental Billionaires, a tale of Facebook’s founding written by Ben Mezrich.

You can read my review here, but here’s the VentureBeat version:

The book is a hot topic for two reasons. First, West Wing producer Aaron Sorkin is already working on a movie based on the book. Sorkin has posted about this on Facebook.

Second, Mezrich is infamous for his use of outright fiction to enhance … Continue Reading

iControl raises $23M third round for broadband home management

iControl Networks, a Palo Alto-based startup, has closed a new round of funding that adds $23 million to bring the company’s total funding to more than $45 million. The company makes home security and energy control systems that are sold and installed by home protection companies such as ADT Security Services.

iControl is extending the accessibility of its systems with an iPhone app that lets users remotely watch their homes through cameras mounted throughout the … Continue Reading

Electronic Arts dives deeper into Chinese game market with Ultima Online

Electronic Arts announced a deal with Chinese game operator NetDragon Websoft to create a new version of the Ultima Online game for the Chinese market.

The deal shows that the Chinese online game market has become an attractive beachhead for the biggest video game makers as they adapt to a new world where online game play becomes more and more popular. Market researcher Niko Partners estimates that China’s online game market will grow 38 percent … Continue Reading

Raptr's instant messenger client lets gamers communicate across platforms

Social networks for gamers have been the rage lately. But Raptr seems to be separating itself from the pack by building a network that is bigger and more useful for the broadest audience of gamers.

Today, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company is announcing it has reached more than a million gamers with its Raptr gamers social networking software on the PC. That’s significant because the recommendations of friends on social networks are becoming a big … Continue Reading

The ABCs of interviews (and the DEFs)

To grow a successful company, you have to be able to find, attract and develop great people. Finding candidates is hard. Figuring out who’s good is even harder. And hardest of all is convincing someone to enlist. The most important tool in accomplishing both of these goals is a substantive interview. 

If done right, a great startup interview will serve two purposes. First, it gives insight into what kind of employee the candidate might be. … Continue Reading

Synaptics moves to cell phones with 10-finger touch screens

The Apple iPhone popularized the multitouch screens that you can swipe with your hands, but the underlying technology came from Synaptics, which supplied the touch-based components that made it possible to control a phone’s features with two-finger gestures such as a swipe or a pinch.

Now the multitouch screen is taking a big leap forward with more complex gestures. Thanks to advances like this, the market for touchscreens with multi-touch capability is expected to grow … Continue Reading

Danoo lands new chief executive for digital out-of-home ads

Digital ad company Danoo said today it has named Garry McGuire as its new chief executive. He replaces Aileen Lee, who returns to her post as a partner at venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Danoo operates a network of digital displays that air ads in a variety of places such as gyms, airplanes, coffee shops, and malls. Earlier this month, it acquired IdeaCast.

Lee will become chairman of Danoo. McGuire joins the company … Continue Reading

Adknowledge buys Super Rewards, expands to virtual goods advertising

Super Rewards, an Web advertising company that offers points or other rewards to Web users who sign up for services, has been acquired by advertising conglomerate Adknowledge.

It is one of the largest acquisitions to date among companies that build services on social networking platforms.

Super Rewards’ offers — where social game players can earn virtual points to use in a game through signing up for Netflix subscriptions, mobile ringtone services, and other coupon-style ads … Continue Reading

Lofty valuations aren't over for everyone — Ning raises $15M, valued at $750M

Ning, a startup that lets users create their own social networks, has raised $15 million in a fifth round of venture funding. The news was first reported in BoomTown, and a Ning spokeswoman confirmed the story.

The round, which comes from Lightspeed Venture Partners, doesn’t seem that big, compared to the $119 million that Ning has raised in all. On the other hand, Ning’s new $750 million valuation is very substantial indeed and runs counter … Continue Reading

MeetMe iPhone app solves pesky problem of finding a meeting point

Finding an appropriate and convenient place to meet a business partner, friend or stranger can get pretty time-consuming. Ann Arbor-based iPhone application publisher Basara is trying to solve that problem with Meetme. It’s a fairly simple solution: the app combines Google Maps with Yelp recommendations to suggest a handful of meeting points between two locations.

Suppose you’re trying to meet a business partner between San Francisco and Palo Alto, Calif., and you have a hankering … Continue Reading

Roundup: AOL's new boss, Google's coming Wave

AOL’s new chief says the company needs to believe in itself — Advertising Age interviews AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, who jumped ship from Google 100 days ago and took on the task of spinning AOL off from Time Warner into a stand-alone entitity. Armstrong will be heading up the creation of the world’s largest display-ad network, Platform A. Armstrong’s take after three months jetting between offices? “A big part of fixing AOL is getting AOL … Continue Reading

Tech sector flying low but gunning for takeoff

Valley companies’ quarterly results have made it hard to plot a trend this week. Apple reported a quarter that the company’s PR pros have dubbed “the best non-holiday quarter in Apple’s history.” By contrast, Yahoo’s revenue headed down for the third straight quarter. Google hung in there with a 3 percent increase over 2008.

What’s happening right now is the Great Tech Sector Shakeout of 2009, as the Internet economy shifts its feet to get … Continue Reading

Newly-opened Watchitoo lets you share content with friends like they're in the room

Watchitoo, which lets distant friends see and discuss content simultaneously in a shared window, is opening to the public today. (We covered the service in May, when it was in private beta testing.)

The site lets you search for YouTube videos or upload photos from your hard drive and see them on live web cam with friends. You can see how your friends react the way you might if were sitting next to each other … Continue Reading

Apple execs: Yes on value, no on netbooks, maybe on tablets

During this afternoon’s conference call discussing Apple’s third quarter earnings (when the company’s iPhone and Mac sales turned out better than expected), analysts continued to press executives about whether Apple plans to enter the cheap laptop market with either netbook or tablet computers. Chief Operating OfficerTim Cook continued to be emphatic that Apple doesn’t want to sell a traditional netbook, but he danced around questions about a rumored tablet computer.

Apple provided a good segue … Continue Reading

Valley job-clingers: Why you need to get fired

“Valley culture has an unwritten rule that if you don’t like a job, or if you think your company isn’t going anywhere, you leave. Instead of hanging around the office whining, you walk out the door and find something better and cooler to do. Because skilled tech workers are hard to find and interesting companies abound, employees, not employers, call the shots. This was true at Apple in 1984, and it’s still true at Facebook … Continue Reading

Adobe's Mobile Flash to get accelerometer, multi-touch support in 2010

Updated

One of the big topics at our MobileBeat 2009 conference last week was whether the future of smartphones lies in native mobile applications that we download, or in rich mobile websites that we access through our web browser. Now Adobe may be giving websites a boost — it has plans to release a mobile version of its Flash platform (which powers many websites, videos, and other media) at the end of 2009 or in … Continue Reading