Week in review: Company-decimating soda bottles, Metaplace's vanishing virtual worlds
Here’s our rundown of the week’s business and tech news. (Due to the holiday-shortened week, I’m including fewer posts than usual.) First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:
Can a single bottle of soda decimate your company? Absolutely. — Entrepreneurship guru Steve Blank writes about how seemingly insignificant things, like the availability of free soda, reflect the big challenges startups face as they grow.
2010′s hottest contenders: 8 products to … Continue Reading
EC Roundup: The soda principal and legal tips for securing angel financing
Here’s the latest from VentureBeat’s Entrepreneur Corner.
3 key legal tips for securing angel financing – Securing angel investing can be a confusing process for the start-up owner. Scott Edward Walker, the founder and CEO of Walker Corporate Law Group, gives three legal tips to help you ensured you’re not taken advantage of.
Can a single bottle of soda decimate your company? Absolutely. – Sometimes financial decisions that are seemingly rational on their face can … Continue Reading
Why so few paid Android apps? Blame Google Checkout
The new monthly report on location-based apps from Dutch app store analytics firm Distimo and American location-detection technology maker Skyhook Wireless opens with a striking stat: Only 21 percent of the location-based Android mobile apps in Google’s Android Market app store have a price tag. Most are free.
Why is that? After all, Apple’s app store has over 100,000 apps, of which 57 percent are paid rather than free. And BlackBerry’s store is 49 percent … Continue Reading
Your most important support staff
Engineers and an expert sales team are valuable to entrepreneurs, but the most important members of the team are supportive members of your family, says Frank Levinson, founder of Finisar. In this talk, given as part of an entrepreneur thought leader lecture at Stanford University many years ago, Levinson recounts a Christmas day when his family postponed opening presents to help customers – and keep the business moving forward.
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/swf/player-ec.swf… Continue Reading
5 o'clock roundup: Tablet rumors heat up Apple shares, NORAD tracks Santa
Here’s the latest action:
Talk of an Apple event in January has sent the company’s shares to an all-time high. Rumors that the company will debut a highly anticipated tablet were set ablaze again after The Financial Times reported that Apple had rented the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for an event in January. Apple shares rose to $209.35, passing their previous high of $208.71. Boy Genius Report has further details on what the … Continue Reading
Webvanta raises funds to help designers build complex websites
Webvanta, a startup that allows a web designer to build a site without needing any programming, has raised about $1 million in a first round of funding. That combines $500,000 in new money (coming from a group of angels from the North Bay Angels group) with converted debt. The Sebastapol, Calif. company compares itself to blog- and website-building tools like WordPress and Drupal, but says Webvanta allows you to create much more data-rich sites.
FlixUp brings its movie Twitter tracker to the web
Update: The FlixUp website is live.
If your family is anything like mine, your holiday traditions include a moment when the presents are unwrapped, the Tofurky (hey, it’s my family) is eaten, and everyone drives to the theater to a catch a movie. But how will you decide what to watch?
Well, if you want to see which movies the masses are talking up on Twitter, or what your friends are recommending, you should check … Continue Reading
iPromote helps local businesses advertise on phones
Small local businesses are different from big enterprises and Internet startups. They may not have anyone to sit around working out their media buys. They may not want to splurge on ad creation. But they do want to advertise to potential buyers who are nearby.
iPromote, which already operates a Web-based local ad network for small businesses, has extended its reach onto mobile phones. For a minimum of $5 per day, iPromote will serve ads … Continue Reading
BeenVerified's iPhone app runs 110,829 free background checks in first week
Background checks are simultaneously one of the coolest and one of creepiest things you can do on your iPhone. Intelius made a splash at the most recent DEMO conference (co-produced by VentureBeat) with its DateCheck app, but users have to pay anywhere from $10 to $200 for each background check.
BeenVerified, on the other hand, released an app a few days ago providing three free checks per week. It sounds like iPhone owners are getting … Continue Reading
Grou.ps lets publishers customize discussion groups with wikis, calendars, and more
A young San Francisco startup, Grou.ps, has launched tools to let content publishers customization discussion groups. The tools, called Elastic Modules, give publishers a lot of control over how discussion groups look and work on their sites. They can add wikis, calendars and status updates to the same page that hosts discussion threads, giving participants a way to collectively memorize important information and dates.
Their announcement comes just a week after I covered a similar … Continue Reading
Why more consumers want MSN on their phones than Twitter
When INQ Mobile showed me a phone with a fast built-in Facebook app earlier this year, my immediate reaction was: “It’ll do Twitter, too, right?” Sure enough, the latest version does Twitter.
But it turns out that my enthusiasm puts me in a minority demographic. Americans asked by research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics what brands they would want on their mobile phone gave tweet-crazed San Franciscans a reality check: They placed Twitter just below … Continue Reading
Panasonic's new home battery could store a week's-worth of electricity
Panasonic is charging into the green space headlong — first with deals to supply batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles — and now announcing that it will launch a massive lithium-ion storage battery capable of powering an average home for up to a week, the company says.
This is significant for two reasons. First, if home batteries like this one become commonplace, renewable sources of energy like rooftop solar and residential turbines could finally take … Continue Reading
Amazon toys with rating gadgets' greenness — but only goes so far
Amazon — in the midst of its busiest time of year — has announced a partnership with EPEAT, an organization that ranks electronics based on how “green” they are, assigning devices status from bronze to gold. This seems like a step ahead for the online retailer, which is racing to catch up with the green trend. But it seems to have deployed the system only halfway.
Instead of listing items’ exact EPEAT ranking, their Amazon … Continue Reading
Big Chevy Volt news expected on Jan. 7
General Motors still has some surprises in store when it comes to its highly-anticipated Chevy Volt. The company says it will announce something big on Jan. 7 during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
There are several things this could mean. First, the company could put a definite date on the car’s release next year. So far, we know that the hybrid-electric vehicle will launch first in California before the end of 2010, … Continue Reading
Alien Technology lands $9.5M for RFID tags
Alien Technology, maker of radio frequency identification tags that could be used to track various items over large distances, has brought in $9.5 million of an expected $13.5 million round of equity, debt and rights, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in Morgan Hill, Calif., the company is backed by Advanced Equities, New Enterprise Associates, Rho Capital Partners and SunBridge Partners. It has now raised $329 million to date.… Continue Reading
Curse captures $6M to connect MMORPG fans
Curse, a social network connecting fans of massively multiplayer online games, has brought in $6 million in a second round of funding, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in San Francisco, the company is backed by Ventech Capital, AGF Private Equity, and SoftTech VC. It has now raised $11 million to date.… Continue Reading
Novartis boosts its heart failure treatments with $620M Corthera buy
Novartis, a company that produces and distributes a variety of health care products, has bought heart failure drug maker Corthera in order to strengthen its offerings in that area. The company will pay $120 million in cash for the acquisition, with an additional $500 million if certain milestones are hit.
San Mateo, Calif.-based Corthera’s lead drug candidate, relaxin, is still in phase three clinical trials. It is hoping to submit it for approval in the … Continue Reading
The start-up chronicles: Experiments with Twitter
(Editor’s Note: The Start-up Chronicles is a weekly feature giving an inside view of the trials of a bootstrapped start-up – The Cost Savings Guy. CEO and founder Bruce Judson is also the author of “Go It Alone!: The Secret to Building A Successful Business on Your Own” and a senior faculty fellow at the Yale School of Management.)
As a direct marketer, I am a strong believer in experiments – even when I expect … Continue Reading
5 o'clock roundup: Attack downs e-commerce sites, Google hits FTC speed bumps and more
Here’s the latest action:
Blackberry Messenger to blame for service outage — Blackberry experienced delays and interruptions when trying to send or receive messages during a service-wide outage yesterday. Today, the phone’s parent company,Research in Motion, attributed the trouble to two recently-launched versions of Blackberry Messenger that turned out to be buggy. In response, the company is providing an even newer version, recommending that all users download it as soon as possible.
FTC puts Google’s … Continue Reading
Evernote's memory-jogging iPhone app adds offline access
Our guest columnist Megan Berry named Evernote one of the best productivity applications for the iPhone today, but it sounds like a new, just-released version of the app is even better.
The big change, according to the Mountain View, Calif. company’s blog post, is that when you create a note (which can include text, photos, or a voice recording), it’s stored locally, on your iPhone. That means that if you have a bad cell connection … Continue Reading
