Digg's former CEO Jay Adelson has "no regrets" about not taking offers

Former Digg chief executive Jay Adelson said he had “no regrets” about not accepting offers to sell Digg to large media companies before the company began a decline that ultimately led to 37 percent layoffs at the company today.

Adelson made the comments in a fireside chat with social media expert Cathy Brooks of OtherThanThat at the FailCon conference in San Francisco. It was his first extensive interview on the subject of failing at Digg … Continue Reading

Success of First Wind's $300 million IPO is up in the air

Wind farm developer First Wind Holdings is planning a $300 million IPO this week. But with a large debt load and choppy cleantech IPO waters, it’s  unclear how well the stock offering will fare.

The company plans to offer 12 million shares between $24 and $26. At the mid-point of that range, First Wind’s market value would be $1.2 billion, according to Renaissance Capital. It remains to be seen whether First Wind can land within … Continue Reading

Facebook investor Mail.ru files for $876M IPO

Mail.ru, which made sizable investments in Facebook and other American tech companies, has filed for an initial public offering on the London stock exchange. The company aims to raise $876 through the IPO at a $5.7 billion valuation, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The IPO might be the only way for non-accredited investors (i.e., investors who aren’t wealthy and don’t manage large funds) to get a meaningful stake in Facebook, social gaming giant Zynga, … Continue Reading

FailCon: How to fail gracefully with a startup

Most conferences celebrate business successes. At the second annual FailCon event in San Francisco, the stories are all about how to fail gracefully with a startup.

The point isn’t to teach people to fail but to help others learn from your own failures. The investor panel came up with a number of tips about how to fail without alienating everyone else around you, including your employees, co-founders, investors, and customers. The conference recognizes that many … Continue Reading

Why social game maker Zynga wants a patent on virtual currencies

Zynga, the creator of social networking games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars, has filed a patent on purchased in-game currency.

Online games have long offered virtual currencies, usually earned by performing actions within a game. The currency can then be traded for in-game objects which help players progress within the game. But they have not traditionally been something one can purchase legally. As a result, booming bootleg economies have sprung up around these games, leading … Continue Reading

On the GreenBeat: First Wind plans IPO, BMW tries the Zipcar route

Here are the stories we’re following today on the GreenBeat:

Wind farm developer First Wind Holdings is planning a $300 million IPO for this week, Reuters reports. Look for more on this story on the GreenBeat today.

Subsidies for ethanol are slowly losing federal support– instead, the government is looking to boost next-generation biofuels by supporting infrastructure like biofuel pumps and flexible-fuel vehicles, the New York Times reports. The current tax on imported … Continue Reading

VLC Media Player lets you play any video file on your iPhone

Forget about the slog of converting video files to play on your iPhone. The VLC Media Player app, which was first released for the iPad in September and lets you play practically any video file, has been updated today to support the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The app is an extension of the VideoLAN project, an effort to develop free media software that can play any video file format. Instead of dealing with multiple video … Continue Reading

Review: Nokia’s N8 is a hardware beast trapped in Symbian's cage

Why can’t Nokia sell phones to Americans? Because of phones like the N8.

Nokia’s new flagship smartphone was announced in March this year, and it’s the first to support the Symbian^3 operating system. At the time we described it as a phone for “Facebook hipsters” thanks to its 12 megapixel camera. After spending some quality time with the N8 over the past few weeks, I can’t even imagine that hipsters would use it. Even they … Continue Reading

Angels and VCs partner up to pump $282M into startups

Angel investors and venture capital firms are teaming up to find the best deals, new data released today shows, with investors paying particular attention to startup companies active in the IT and business technology space

The statistics released by Dow Jones VentureSource showed that during the first three-quarters of 2010, angel and VC co-sponsored deals put $282 million into 68 separate deals.

That’s a significant uptick year-over-year, when the same period in 2009 saw only … Continue Reading

Skype cuts off mobile VoIP app Nimbuzz in prep for IPO

Skype has asked Nimbuzz, makers of a popular VoIP mobile app, to remove support for all Skype services starting October 31st.

Nimbuzz provides a mobile application for accessing multiple VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and messaging services such as MSN, ICQ, Google Talk and various social networks. It says it has 30 million users and clocked up 3.5 billion mobile VoIP minutes last year.

According to Nimbuzz, Skype plans to disconnect all third party VoIP … Continue Reading

Adobe’s AIR apps come to TVs

Despite the continuing feud between Apple and Adobe (which is sometimes passive-aggressive, sometimes aggressive-aggressive), Adobe continues efforts to bring its technology to every device it can.

At this week’s MAX conference in Los Angeles, the company is unveiling AIR 2.5, the latest version of its application platform. AIR started out as Adobe’s format for Internet-connected desktop apps, and has become a platform for apps that you install on your phone as well — AIR for … Continue Reading

Jack Black and Tenacious D rock out at Blizzcon 2010 (video)

It was only a matter of time before musical group Tenacious D took the stage at the closing ceremony of Blizzcon 2010. When they did, the crowd of around 20,000 attendees almost brought the roof of the Anaheim convention center down.

About halfway through the set, Jack Black and company welcomed the spirit of The Metal on stage. But it wasn’t long before The Metal faced off against a new challenger from Blizzard.

You can … Continue Reading

Blizzard "announces" its newest online role playing games (video)

There was a little bit of buzz that World of Warcraft creator Blizzard Entertainment might finally announce its newest online role-playing game at its Blizzcon convention in Anaheim, Calif. this year. Paul Sams, chief operating officer of Blizzard, took the stage at the closing ceremony of Blizzcon 2010 to finally put the rumors to bed.

Blizzard didn’t disappoint, “announcing” a number of new games at the closing ceremony of Blizzcon 2010 just before Tenacious D … Continue Reading

Cosplaying Blizzcon 2010 attendees strut their stuff on stage (video)

Roughly 20,000 people attended World of Warcraft and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty creator Blizzard Entertainment’s Blizzcon 2010 convention in Anaheim, Calif. A good number of them pulled out all stops to dress up as their favorite Blizzard game characters.

The best of the best were brought on stage to show the crowd their costumes for cash prizes. You can see them in a video after the jump.… Continue Reading

The sights of Blizzcon 2010, day two

It took Blizzcon 2010 attendees a little longer to fill up the Anaheim convention center today, but by the end of the night the place was once again packed with fans of Blizzard Entertainment’s video games. Tenacious D, a musical group featuring actor and musician Jack Black, closed out the conference by rocking out to some World of Warcraft-themed videos.

Here are a few photos from the shenanigans happening in southern California. Keep an eye … Continue Reading

Blizzard cut content and corners to make Starcraft II good for professional gaming

Blizzard Entertainment, the creator of real-time strategy games like Warcraft and Starcraft, sacrificed a lot of potential improvements to Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty — including content and graphics — in order to make it viable as a “sport” for online gamers in the U.S. and globally, said Dustin Browder, Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty’s lead designer. Browder made the comments at the Blizzcon 2010 convention in Anaheim, Calif. today.

Promoting e-sports, essentially playing video … Continue Reading

End of the Nook? Amazon announces 14-day Kindle ebook lending

It was only a matter of time. Amazon will be introducing a 14-day lending feature for Kindle ebooks later this year, the Kindle team announced yesterday. The move brings the Kindle up to date with Barnes and Noble’s rival Nook e-reader, which has touted 14-day book lending as a key feature since it launched last year.

Just as with the Nook, Amazon says you won’t be able to read ebooks while they’re lent out. The … Continue Reading

Week in review: Mark Zuckerberg talks profits

Here’s our roundup of the week’s tech business news. First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:

Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook doesn’t make real profits, and that’s okay — Speaking at incubator Y Combinator’s Startup School event this week, Facebook’s chief executive talked about how his attitude toward building a business has changed over the years.

Creator of the fierce Doom and Quake games tries his hand at a cute Facebook app … Continue Reading