Is Twitter worth $4B? Kleiner Perkins evidently thinks so

Various reports in the past couple of weeks have suggested that Twitter is in the process of raising a new round of money that is akin to a hot-and-heavy speed dating session. A couple of weeks ago, the rumor of the day put the company’s valuation in the $3 billion range.

But Techcrunch reports tonight that Twitter’s valuation is more like $4 billion, thanks to a bidding war of which Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers … Continue Reading

Zynga launches FarmVille in Japan: will the Japanese like purple cows?

In a bid to find new markets for its blockbuster social game, Zynga is announcing a localized version of its FarmVille game in Japan today.

Called Farm Village, the Japanese version of the world’s largest game — which has 53.7 million monthly active users on Facebook — will be available in early December on Mixi, Japan’s largest social network, which runs on feature phones.

Zynga has made global expansion a big priority as it searches … Continue Reading

FitnessKeeper scoops up $1.1M to build out fitness app

Startup FitnessKeeper, the parent company of the RunKeeper smartphone app, has raised $1.11 million and will use the money to build out its nine-person operation and dive into the highly competitive world of now-fashionable mobile fitness applications.

The RunKeeper iPhone app uses GPS locating to track your distance, time, elevation, pace and path on a map and has caught the eye of several major investors since the company was founded two years ago, primarily because … Continue Reading

Money pours into the private cloud as Abiquo rakes in $10M

Enterprise cloud management software company Abiquo has raised around $10 million in a second round of funding. The company is ramping up its global sales and marketing in a bid to compete in an increasingly crowded “private” cloud marketplace.

Cloud computing allows computers and mobile devices to bundle off all their resource-intensive data crunching off site to larger, better-equipped servers. Abiquo creates software that lets companies create and manage private, public and hybrid clouds. This … Continue Reading

How's your beta test going? Ask users with Prefinery

A startup called Prefinery launched last year to help other startups manage the beta testing process, where they only let a small number of users play with an early version of the product. A new feature now allows Prefinery customers to find out what their beta users think of the product.

Previously, most Prefinery features were built around the invitation process. You could create invitation forms and invite codes, see how many invitees actually used … Continue Reading

Gawker's Nick Denton writes an obituary for old-school blogging

Founder Nick Denton has been talking about Gawker Media’s move away from the standard blog format for a while now. Today he published a long post explaining the thinking behind the changes. You might even call the post a manifesto, if it wasn’t so clinical.

The basic idea behind the redesign — a layout with big images highlighting the day’s most important stories, while the old-fashioned, reverse-chronological news stream runs along the side — is … Continue Reading

Return of the Celtic Tiger: Can renewables refuel the Irish economy?

Ireland has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons, starring in a soap opera of EU intrigue and enforced bank bailouts. Watching my home country’s progress over the past few years has been like the troubled career of singer Amy Winehouse: huge talent and instant riches followed by a rapid and self-inflicted downward spiral cataloged in tabloid headlines.

In Dublin recently for the first time in years, I heard some good news … Continue Reading

Google rumored to be delaying its big social initiative until the spring

We’ve been eagerly awaiting the day when Google challenges Facebook in social networking, if only because it will be a big fight and will bring competition to the social networking market.

But Google has postponed that initiative until the spring of 2011, according to a story by Mashable. The tech news blog reported that Google’s social project, dubbed Google Me at one point, could debut in March or April.

Earlier rumors suggested Google would mount … Continue Reading

Mobile app sales on iPhone and Android soared during Black Friday weekend

Smartphone app downloads soared over the Black Friday weekend compared to the previous week, according to usage data collected by mobile analytics firm Flurry.

Downloads for smartphone apps were up 25 percent over the four days of the Thanksgiving holiday, from Thursday through Sunday, compared to the prior week. Downloads on Thanksgiving Day were the highest, up 54 percent compared to a week earlier. I can attest that just about every kid at my own … Continue Reading

Energy secretary Chu declares "Sputnik" moment on green race against China

The U.S. needs to maintain its lead on innovation in the energy sector given the rise of China’s growing energy needs and its commitment to cleantech, according to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu.

Chu likened the energy race to the “Sputnik” movement, an era in which the country was racing to catch up after the Soviet Union eked out an early lead on satellite deployments, sparking concern from President Eisenhower. It was also producing more … Continue Reading

Is Microsoft readying for a surprise comeback?

Microsoft is on a roll: Its newly launched Windows Phone 7 is gaining momentum, and Kinect, its motion controller response to the Wii, could very well sell out before the end of the year. If there was ever a time for Microsoft to get back on its feet and stand shoulder to shoulder with Apple and Google, this would be it.

This positive buzz comes at a time when Microsoft sorely needs it. Microsoft’s major … Continue Reading

On the GreenBeat: NRG and SunPower plan $450 million solar ranch, BlackLight plans water-to-electricity demo

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

NRG Solar and SunPower will team to build a $450 million solar ranch in California — NRG Solar will finance the 250-megawatt project, and SunPower will maintain it, according to the Associated Press.

Nuclear waste startup Kurion has emerged from stealth — The company turns nuclear waste into glass through a process it says is cheaper, faster and more efficient than its competitors, Earth2Tech … Continue Reading

Sony claims it has shipped 4.1M PlayStation Move units, but doesn't give sell-through number

Sony said today that it has shipped 4.1 million units of its PlayStation Move motion controller to retailers around the globe. But, as is its custom, the Japanese company did not say how many of those units have been sold to consumers.

The difference between shipped and sold-through is important in this case. Analysts don’t think that Sony’s Move controller, which is a wand-like device that senses your motion and position, is selling as well … Continue Reading

Enterprise social network Yammer raises a whopping $25M to triple its team

Yammer, which develops and distributes an enterprise-focused social network similar to Facebook, announced today it has raised an additional $25 million in funding to help expand globally and triple its engineering team.

Yammer recently revamped its business micro-blogging software to behave more like a Facebook for enterprise users and has seen a lot of success as a result. It’s now one of the flagship collaboration programs that help large businesses and companies that have employees … Continue Reading

No more syncing: Didiom streams music to your iPhone from anywhere

With the iPhone app Didiom, syncing music files to your phone may become a thing of the past. That’s why we’re choosing Didiom as the first innovative app for VentureBeat’s Mobile App Spotlight.

Didiom lets you stream music to your iPhone or iPod Touch (or BlackBerry, or Windows Mobile 6 phone) from your Windows PC over Wi-Fi and 3G. It’s available in two flavors: A free, or Lite, version that lets you stream up to … Continue Reading

Hatsize raises $5M to let businesses try new tech before they buy it

Hatsize, a service that helps companies demo and test new technology, announced today that it has raised $5 million in its first round of funding to execute its plans for aggressive global expansion.

The company’s cloud-based service hosts demos for new technologies. So instead of a company having to send out representatives or potential customers having to take the time to set up a new product — such as a new type of database or … Continue Reading

Good heavens! SEC could take aim at super angels

New financial regulations proposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will fall most heavily on super angels, a lawyer who specializes in the industry told VentureBeat this week.

Angel investors are wealthy individuals who put money in startups, often providing a company’s first funding. Super angels, unlike regular angels, also manage other people’s startup investments — putting them in a different class from regulators’ perspectives.

Jeff Bloom, partner and chair of the venture capital … Continue Reading

Could Mickey Mouse be the next video game star?

Warren Spector describes himself as one of Mickey Mouse’s biggest fans. He has a lot of company, too, and therein lies the potential for Spector’s new video game, Disney Epic Mickey. Launching today, the game is an ambitious title for the Nintendo Wii that has been almost five years in the making. The goal is to make Mickey Mouse as big a star in video games as he is in other media.

“Mickey Mouse deserves … Continue Reading

Google under EU investigation over online ads

In the latest blow to Google’s ever-expanding online ambitions, the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, has opened an antitrust investigation into Google’s practices in online advertising. According to allegations made by Microsoft‘s German subsidiary Ciao.de, British price comparison site Foundem, and French legal search specialist Ejustice, Google has discriminated against competitors by placing their links lower in search results than its own services, thus abusing its dominant position in online search.… Continue Reading