Mobile answer service ChaCha raises another $4M
ChaCha, a service that answers questions sent from users’ mobile phones, has raised $4 million in a new round of funding.
Users can send in almost any kind of question — queries highlighted on the ChaCha homepage right now include “What is somnambulism?” and “How can I get a girl to dump her boyfriend and come to me?” — and they receive answers from other people. (The most interesting use I’ve seen so far was … Continue Reading
New York Times CEO: Advertising won't keep us afloat
The New York Times is, for some readers, a bible of news and commentary. So it’s important whether or not the Times survives the gut-churning economic changes in the newspaper business that have knocked out the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, threaten to shut down the San Francisco Chronicle, and are forcing the Times to sell off the Boston Globe. Even angry bloggers rely on the Times — who else have they got to pick on?
Bloggers may … Continue Reading
Kontera raises $15.5 million for in-text ad service
You’ve surely seen Kontera‘s double-underlined links in the middle of a news article. Kontera’s technology analyzes the text content of a web page, then places ads behind keywords in the page. Rolling over the link pops up a small window with an ad in it, as shown here. Advertisers bid for the spot.
The company has announced the closure of its third round of funding, led by Sequoia Capital with participation by Tenaya Capital and … Continue Reading
Twitter culls spammers from follower lists overnight
If your follower list drops overnight, it’s not something you tweeted (hopefully…). Instead, Twitter is cleaning out spammers and other “data inconsistencies,” which have artificially inflated follower counts.
Twitter says, “Those with large followings may see significant changes as we correct for spam accounts and data inconsistencies. No legitimate followings should be affected—we’re just cleaning up artifacts in the system.”
Spam continues to be a problem from the nascent microblogging network as false accounts share … Continue Reading
Hints of many business models in Twitter 101's case studies
Beyond the basics covered in the guide Twitter released last night, the most interesting part involves case studies showing how companies are using the microblogging network to build customer bases. As internal company documents released by a hacker last week show, the company is very much improvising its business model, but the case studies give an idea of where Twitter thinks its adds value.
Kill direct mail: NAKEDPizza wanted to find a way around … Continue Reading
What's wrong with Twitter's home page
Twitter founder Biz Stone has confirmed to BoomTown reporter Kara Swisher that the company will finally fix its home page, which has a few basic problems that have very likely cost the company members and money by not engaging new users.
There are three big problems with Twitter’s front door that are readily apparent to website builders. First, it’s not clear to first-time visitors what Twitter is about. Stone told BoomTown that the new home … Continue Reading
Overcommunicate — even in the bad times
It’s easy to share good news with your employees, but it’s just as important to keep them in the loop when things are less than ideal. Pacific Biosciences chairman and CEO Hugh Martin stresses the importance of overcommunication in this Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Lecture given earlier this year at Stanford University.
Martin holds a weekly company-wide meeting in which he shares information about strategies, funding and other big-picture items. That openness, he says, gives employees … Continue Reading
Matrix Partners closes ninth fund at $600M
Matrix Partners announced today that it’s closed its ninth fund at $600 million, with plans to finance consumer internet, software and telecommunications startups.
This is a pretty impressive feat for any fund considering how difficult it has been for most firms to raise money since the downturn. Matrix simply says it is fortunate to have committed limited partners. Maybe this is because it’s been around for 30 years and has an established reputation. Even when … Continue Reading
Twitter 101: Does CoTweet point the way to Twitter's business model?
Twitter watchers are already poring over Twitter 101, the company’s guide for businesses who want to use the microblogging service. Twitter has hinted that it sees the site, and the bigger vision of serving businesses, as a major part of its revenue model, so I, at least, had hoped to find more hints about that model on Twitter 101. But for the most part, the site feels extremely simple (at least to a reader who’s … Continue Reading
Twitter 101 not immune to Twitter's technical problems?
There’s a lot of excitement around the launch of Twitter 101, the how-to guide to the microblogging service that the company is describing as the first step in its business plan. But the launch just experienced a minor hiccup — Twitter 101 disappeared for a few minutes, as did the blog post promoting the new site.
I’ve emailed Twitter to find out what happened, but I have to wonder if the site saw a surge … Continue Reading
Twitter 101: An official how-to guide for the David Lettermans of the business world
Microblogging service Twitter is hot — or at least it has been experiencing heat waves of growth. So the company has just rolled out an extensive guide so businesses can get a better understanding of how to make use of its 140-character broadcasting service. Called Twitter 101, the guide includes a whole range of stuff: Simple explanations about its features, case studies from companies like Best Buy and Dell, best practices, and links to some … Continue Reading
Palm restores iTunes compatibility to Pre
Last week, Apple openly admitted to updating its iTunes music management software with a patch that blocks Palm Pre phones that attempt to connect to and sync with iTunes by identifying themselves as Apple iPhones.
Palm today responded by updating the Pre’s software to work with iTunes yet again. Gossip blog AppleInsider has confirmed that the Pre works with the latest version of Tunes.
“As we’ve said before, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may … Continue Reading
Roundup: Amazon's apology, Yahoo/Microsoft search meeting, Google comics themes
Yahoo’s board of directors meets again over Microsoft search partnership — The Wall Street Journal reports that another meeting over a potential search advertising partnership happened today.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos apologizes for erasing customers’ e-books — Last week, the company remotely deleted copies of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 from the Kindles of customers to whom Amazon had accidentally sold copies to and for which it didn’t have e-rights. Bezos said at the … Continue Reading
YouTube Insight shows global reach of political videos
Yesterday, YouTube began letting video uploaders share traffic statistics with the public via its Insight analytics service. One interesting early result, political technology blog techPresident has discovered, is that you can see who is watching — or not watching — President Barack Obama’s speeches.
Whether or not you think Obama’s open-handed approach to foreign policy is the right one, Insight at least shows that his target audiences are sometimes paying attention.
His speech on June … Continue Reading
CitySquares locates $322.5K for local directory info
CitySquares, a web site that lets users find detailed information about their local neighborhoods online, has raised $322,500 of an expected $350,000 round of debt, options, warrants and rights, according to VentureWire. Based in Boston, the company has yet to expand beyond New England. So far, its received investments from eCoast Angel Network and individual investors Mark Cuban and Jonathan Kraft.… Continue Reading
New York Times Company introduces self-serve local ads on its blogs
In a post on The Local, a three-month-old New York Times blog targeted to the historic-meets-hip-hop Fort Greene and Clinton Hill neighborhoods of Brooklyn, editor Jim Schachter explained the site’s new “hyperlocal” ads that advertisers can set up themselves. The beginning CPM (“cost per mille,” the price for 1,000 impressions) is $5, which means that five bucks gets your ad shown to a thousand people.
The Local is going after plumbers and pizza parlors, hoping … Continue Reading
ZocDoc takes $940K for online doctor appointment booking
ZocDoc, a web site that allows regular people to book doctor appointments, view patient reviews and find physicians online for free, has raised $940,000 of a targeted $1.6 million round of equity, reports VentureWire. The New York company’s backers include Khosla Ventures, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ firm Bezos Expeditions, and Salesforce founder Marc Benioff.
ZocDoc has raised $3 million to date.… Continue Reading
Google finally adds Latitude to iPhone, but as a toothless web app
Commence geostalking on the iPhone.
Google added Latitude to Apple’s smartphone today, but it’s on the web instead of in the app store. Latitude, which came out in February, is a social layer over maps that shows your location in real-time. Google said it chose the web route because Apple was concerned users would confuse Latitude with Maps. However, Google vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra provocatively declared last week at VentureBeat’s MobileBeat conference that … Continue Reading
PayPal tries to revamp e-commerce by opening to developers
PayPal has been talking about opening up its payment technology to third-party developers for a few weeks now (ever since TechCrunch broke the news by publishing a leaked internal document), but today it offered more details at a developer event in San Jose, Calif.
The big vision for the platform, as articulated by PayPal spokespeople, is to provide the “electricity” for e-commerce, by becoming the underlying technology for payments on the web. Of course, PayPal … Continue Reading
Medfusion buys iHealth software suite from Medem
Medfusion, provider of communication services connecting patients and their health care providers, has acquired the iHealth suite of software that keeps track of personal health records from Medem, reports VentureWire.
The deal will bring 8,000 new medical providers into Medfusion’s fold. Based in San Francisco, Medem previously raised $3 million from individual investors in 2006. It recapitalized in 2004, pulling in a $3.5 million first round of funding. It has been backed by the American … Continue Reading
