Fashion magazines shrivel up — where are the ads going?
A host of women’s magazines are slimming down to anorexic states now that advertisers have pulled back during the recession and are finally experimenting with more efficient places to put their money — online and on mobile devices.
Lifestyle magazines InStyle, Vogue and Elle are expected to see revenue declines this year of 21 percent, 26 percent and 20 percent, respectively, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. September issues of these magazines are almost a … Continue Reading
FatSecret wants nutritional info everywhere
For many of us, the extent of learning how healthy we’re eating amounts to glancing at the back of our food’s packaging, but FatSecret aims to provide a more complete picture.
The New York-based start-up recently launched a tool for food companies and restaurants to upload the nutritional information of their products, along with an interface for programmers to mash up that data. FatSecret’s Web site is currently a hub for diets, recipes and general … Continue Reading
Sequoia Capital reduces its web site . . . to a search bar
Sequoia Capital, one of the most successful Silicon Valley venture capital firms, has redesigned its Web site, reducing it to a simple search bar.
[Update: Sequoia apparently is using this to measure which partners and deals are getting the most interest from visitors to its site, according to a source who requested anonymity and who got in touch after this story was published.]
Type in some letters, and the site makes suggestions based … Continue Reading
User-generated fashion mag Polyvore grabs $5.6 million
As fashion mags grapple with vanishing ad pages, user-generated fashion site Polyvore has raked in $5.6 million in a second round of funding.
Users on the site grab images of shoes, clothes and accessories from Polyvore’s library to create outfits and share them with friends — it’s like getting to be an editor in charge of a fashion spread in Vogue or Lucky. The start-up can earn a commission when users buy clothing items through … Continue Reading
Test-driving Facebook's new iPhone app
Facebook unveiled the latest version of its iPhone app, which further orients itself around the site’s stream of user updates. We’ve tried out the app, and it’s pretty slick. It has a more graphical interface and adds more full-fledged functionality from the main site. It will come out for free whenever Apple approves it for the app store.
You can write and read your friends’ notes, upload videos from an iPhone 3GS and upload photos … Continue Reading
MySpace's iLike buy raises questions about Facebook
updated
The reported sale of popular online social music application iLike to to MySpace for the surprisingly low price of $13.5 million set off a flurry of rumors and fragmented reports across the web earlier today — some calling it a quickie fire sale, others claiming it spells doom for all web-based music distributors, and many questioning why Facebook would let its most popular music application fall into the hands of its rival.
One of … Continue Reading
FastPencil adds features to make book-writing more social
FastPencil, a Campbell, Calif.-based company that shepherds authors through the book-publishing process, is launching a host of features through Twitter and Facebook to make writing more collaborative.
The features let you send out status updates on both social networks when you update drafts and invite friends to look over your work in progress. The site, which launched a month ago, aims to provide an end-to-end solution for aspiring authors, guiding them through the writing, editing, … Continue Reading
Tesla keeps it local, plans powertrain plant for Stanford Research Park
Tesla Motors announced today that it will base its new powertrain assembly plant in the Stanford Research Park in Palo Alto, Calif., as well as relocate its headquarters to the same area. In doing so, the now San Carlos, Calif.-based electric car company is playing up the historical significance of its new site as the birthplace of Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, Facebook and other Silicon Valley legends.
However the car maker still hasn’t announced the news everyone’s … Continue Reading
Sony cuts PS 3 prices, launches PS 3 Slim
[Updated with Sony interview]
Sony surprised no one today as it cut the price of its PlayStation 3 video game console, which has languished in third place among the console makers since its launch in 2006. It also announced its much-rumored PS 3 Slim, which is a thinner and smaller version that costs a lot less to produce. The Slim will replace the current 80-gigabyte PS 3 at the same price.
The PlayStation 3 price … Continue Reading
eBay introduces new third-party apps for sellers
eBay has launched a new suite of applications provided by third-party developers, which are now available to sellers on the popular auction site. These tools, embedded into users’ My eBay homepages, were introduced to increase efficiency for sellers and to ease the marketing, selling, and shipping process.
The applications are available for those who use the site’s Sell Manager and Sell Manager Pro — primarily small and medium-scale businesses. Available to browse and purchase directly … Continue Reading
Major League Gaming buys online multiplayer stats company
Major League Gaming has acquired Agora Games, which offers tools for developing such features as leaderboards and shared player statistics for online game communities.
New York-based MLG is one of the biggest companies that lets online gamers compete against each other in both live and online tournaments. Stats give gamers bragging rights and so are very important in online games.
The acquisition will enable MLG to offer more features in its competitive gaming communities. Terms … Continue Reading
Future-proofing your company's vision
You’ve heard time and time again that vision matters. But ‘vision’ is a loaded word. Everyone thinks they know what it means, but everyone’s definition varies slightly.
In fact, I rarely use the word but instead ask the question: ‘What do you hope the future will hold for your company and customers?’ What’s so remarkable about this question is that it asks an entrepreneur to take a perspective on what the world will look like … Continue Reading
BumpTop bundles with graphics chips to give you Windows in 3-D
BumpTop has created a user interface that runs atop Windows and makes it easier to view your desktop in three dimensions. So it makes sense that the Toronto, Canada-based company has agreed to bundle its software with the hardware of three leading 3-D graphics card makers.
BumpTop’s free desktop software turns your Windows screen into a 3-D view of an office. You can file things away on the side, post things on your virtual walls, … Continue Reading
Scoreloop scores $2.8 million for socializing iPhone games
Scoreloop, which develops infrastructure to make iPhone games more social and addictive, has raised a $2.8 million second round of funding.
By “socializing” iPhone games and making them easier to discover, Scoreloop tries to help games get noticed amid the tens of thousands in the AppStore.
The latest funding comes from Earlybird Venture Capital and Target Partners.
Scoreloop, based in Munich, Germany, is like someone who sells shovels to the gold miners during the Gold … Continue Reading
Jambool raises $5M for virtual goods platform
Virtual currency seems to be the way to get venture capitalists to part with their real currency.
Jambool said it has raised $5 million in a second round of funding for its virtual currency and payments platform, Social Gold, which has become a common way to monetize games and other apps on Facebook and MySpace.
It is by hundreds of applications on social networks and across the web. If you want to send someone a … Continue Reading
Mint moves into retirement savings, adds richer analytics
Personal finance site Mint.com is moving into retirement savings and adding richer analytics to track your net worth as part of a push into higher-ticket items and long-term financial goals.
Launched two years ago, the Mountain View-based company started as a place to sync your bank accounts and watch credit card spending. Since then, it’s attracted 1.4 million users, added mortgage and investment tracking and raised $31 million in funding in three rounds. That includes … Continue Reading
Roundup: MySpace buys iLike, Tom Tom's $100 app
Tom Tom GPS app for the iPhone draws a $100 price – Engadget rounds up early reviews and finds that it’s well liked … by guys who just spent a hundred bucks on it.
IBM says DNA could become part of microchips — Future generations of semiconductors may use artificial DNA as part of their basic structures.
MySpace buys music-centric social network iLike — Two months after laying off a third of the company, MySpace … Continue Reading
OpSource lands $4M for cloud operations
Companies are turning quickly to cloud computing services, which run their websites for them from remote locations. Cloud computing means never having to buy servers or maintain them again. That becomes someone else’s problem. OpSource, a Santa Clara based company, not only serves up companies’ websites for them, but also “includes the application management, compliance, and business services that are necessary for on-demand business success,” says their press release. A typical customer: Star_Base School Suite, … Continue Reading
California's renewable energy tangled in power lines
A recent report from the Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative says that the state will need to shell out $15.7 billion to install the transmission lines necessary to meet the government’s renewable energy mandates on time. On top of that, power lines have proved to be extremely unpopular with the public.
The new estimate is even higher than the $12 billion price tag the California Public Utilities Commission had predicted for transmission lines back in June. … Continue Reading
Ron Conway accelerates investments to real-time
Ron Conway, arguably the most prolific investor in new Internet companies, has shifted his attention almost solely to “real-time data” companies, saying the market will experience astronomic growth and a value reaching at least a billion dollars within three years.
In a call with VentureBeat today, Conway said he has even restructured his fund to focus investing in this area, peeling off three investors including himself from his existing fund called Baseline Ventures. This group … Continue Reading
