Former MySpace execs launch Gravity to personalize the Web
A team of former MySpace executives is launching a new company on-stage at the Web 2.0 Summit today in San Francisco. Chief executive Amit Kapur said he left MySpace, the troubled News Corp. Internet portal, because his new company Gravity presents an even bigger opportunity: Basically, it uses your interests to help you find relevant content.
That sounds similar to promises I’ve heard from many other companies, for example the content-sharing service Twine (which was … Continue Reading
Abeo thinks BIG for its superlight structures
For a company which has only been in existence since June this year, Danish startup Abeo has been racking up the awards for rethinking an everyday construction material — concrete.
The company just won the Cleantech Open Globals Ideas competition. It was also recently chosen as one of the Nordic region’s top 10 startups by the Nordic Venture Forum. Abeo’s technology will be used in a new building from BIG, the architecture firm of rock-star … Continue Reading
Website-tester Optimizely snags $1.2M in all-angel funding round
Optimizely, a website-testing startup, has raised $1.2 million in an all-angel funding round, the company told VentureBeat today, as marketers continue to search for new ways to track, measure and hold onto the “best” traffic their websites are getting.
A/B testing, Optimizely’s specialty, involves testing several different versions of a Web page with live users and then measuring the effect each version has on users’ actions.
Optimizely does this by measuring the number of visitors … Continue Reading
Carol Bartz keeps it clean as she tries to explain Yahoo's business
The most reliable question that pops up at Yahoo events is, “What is Yahoo?” The Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco today was no exception, where interviewer John Battelle posed that question to Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz.
Bartz replied that Yahoo is actually “a very simple story” that can be boiled down to five areas — “content, communications, media, technology, innovation.”
To be honest, when I first heard that, I thought it was little … Continue Reading
Can Coda steal sales from the backlogged Nissan Leaf?
Up against fickle consumers, an uncertain regulatory environment and marketplace, and industry giants, electric-car startups need every break they can get. So when yesterday VentureBeat learned that Japanese automaker Nissan will only release five of the much-anticipated all-electric Leaf this year (pictured, right) in the U.S., we immediately wondered: Could this be good news for Coda?
It appears that supply will continue to be limited well into early 2011 – to the extent that Nissan … Continue Reading
A million Optimus Ones say LG made a smart bet on Android
As with many cellphone manufacturers trying to figure out how to make the leap into superphones, LG’s bet on Google’s Android operating system is turning out to be a wise decision. The company announced today that its budget-minded Optimus One is its fastest-selling phone ever, hitting 1 million units sold worldwide in 40 days.
The Optimus One is currently available in the US as the Optimus T on T-Mobile for $29.99 (after a mail-in rebate … Continue Reading
Layar lands another $14M to turn augmented reality into a discovery tool
Layar today announced it has landed another $14 million in its second round of fundraising from Intel Capital to help make it easier to discover new places, like shops and restaurants, through its augmented reality interface.
Augmented reality essentially uses location-based technology to superimpose images and content on top of a smartphone camera’s viewfinder. The overlaid information can include a Yelp review or details about a landmark. Users simply point their camera somewhere and click … Continue Reading
Take part in "The Mobile Internet Tsunami"
SD Forum presents “The Mobile Internet Tsunami” on Friday, December 10, 2010 at Microsoft in Mountain View, California.
The mobility revolution that began with cell phone calls, then Internet access, and now media delivery is finally kicking into high gear. As mobile devices infuse our lives and change how we conduct business, they are creating unprecedented opportunities. With everything from TV, telecommunications, and retail, to publishing, gaming and social media going mobile, now is the … Continue Reading
Russian investor finds niche in letting Facebook and others postpone IPOs
In years past, Silicon Valley companies were always in a rush to go public. But Yuri Milner, the founder of Russian investment firm DST, has found a niche in helping companies such as Facebook postpone their initial public offerings as long as possible.
DST has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into hot social companies Facebook, Zynga and Groupon. But it made those investments when the companies were in relatively late stages of maturity, just … Continue Reading
Verismo raises $17M for web-enabled TV that plays nice with cable operators
Verismo, a provider of web-enabled TV services, announced today that it has raised $17 million in its most recent round of fundraising led by Intel Capital.
The company plans to use the funding to help market and expand the install base for its set-top box that streams Internet content to televisions. The content — which includes shows, websites and widgets — is packaged on Verismo’s side and delivered through the Internet to the set-top box.… Continue Reading
Yummly raises $1.85M for semantic recipe searches
Pushing forward with the trend for more and more narrow search technologies, Yummly has raised $1.85 million for its semantic search and recommendation platform for doing queries on recipes.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company makes the task of finding recipes simpler and more personal. David Feller, co-founder and chief executive of Yummly, said the company will use the money to expand its services. He said the company employs a cornucopia of algorithms to help it … Continue Reading
Help Pakistan fail faster … then bring in venture capital
Pakistan, often described as a failing state, isn’t failing where it matters. That’s my assessment from my recent visit to a country that Washington, D.C. has buoyed with aid.
The prospect of Pakistan’s collapse terrifies America’s politicians. To prevent that, they have committed $9.5 billion in assistance to their quasi-ally over the past two years alone. That may make sense, since Pakistan is nuclear-armed and afflicted by a host of plagues including insurgent violence, unemployment, … Continue Reading
RIM CEO on Apple: "We completely disagree with that worldview"
Tech executives seem eager to pile on the criticism of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Today at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion, elaborated on his past statements denouncing Apple’s approach.
Summing up RIM’s position versus Apple, Balsillie said RIM believes “you don’t need an app for the Web in mobile.”
In other words, Balsillie doesn’t agree with Apple’s emphasis of its App Store over mobile websites … Continue Reading
Net:Work 2010 – The Future of Work
A recent Gartner survey predicted that over the next 10 years distributed teams and blurred organizational boundaries would become the norm for most modes of work. Powerful cloud-based solutions for communication and collaboration are enabling a distributed workforce or “human cloud.”
Net:Work 2010 takes place December 9th at The Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. GigaOM editors, research analysts and technology business leaders will explore just how “working in the cloud” is propelling CIOs, … Continue Reading
Finally, the official Google Voice iPhone app hits the App Store
It’s been a long haul for Google, but now iPhone owners can finally download an official Google Voice iPhone app – giving them access to even more Google Voice features than the current web app, although still not as many as Android users enjoy.
We reported in late September that Google was possibly working on the app, spurred on by Apple’s relaxed app development rules announced earlier that month.
Google had submitted a Google Voice … Continue Reading
Glass company invests $2.6 million in NLAB Solar's cheap, transparent solar cells
NLAB Solar just landed an investment of $2.6 million from Fasadglas Bäcklin, Scandinavia’s largest glass facade company. NLAB Solar manufactures energy-producing dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC). The cells which can be integrated into transparent and colored facades such as those produced by Fasadglas. The funding will be used to accelerate product development in NLAB’s new plant in Stockholm.
DSC operate in a similar manner to photosynthesis in plants. In nature a dye called chlorophyll, which gives … Continue Reading
Activision drops the hammer on Bizarre Creations' 200 employees
Bizarre Creations, the creator of games like Project Gotham Racing, learned the hard way today what happens when you release a game to even mediocre reception.
In another sign that the video game industry is still somewhat fragile, parent company Activision Blizzard closed the studio after its newest release James Bond 007: Blood Stone garnered only lukewarm reviews from game critics, according to a number of reports.
Activision Blizzard’s move also shows that the video … Continue Reading
Windows 8 might fly high in the clouds with a web-powered operating system
The next time you buy a computer, it might not even be shipped with an operating system.
The next version of the Windows operating system — for both consumers and businesses — might be an operating system that is stored and powered on remote cloud servers and streamed to personal computers, according to leaked information from Microsoft’s architectural summit held in London in April.
Cloud computing allows computers and mobile devices to ship all the … Continue Reading
Analyst Mary Meeker's 10 questions for Web CEOs
Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker just gave her annual presentation to the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. She listed 10 questions that she said any internet executive needs to answer.
Here’s the list of her topics, the specific questions she asked, and related comments:
Globality — Do you know which players in which countries do what you do better (or at least differently) than you? Meeker said companies in the United States need to
On the GreenBeat: Thin-film solar's prospects look dicey, Nissan to sell 500,000 electric cars by 2013
Here are the top stories we’re following today on the GreenBeat:
Most of GE’s recent renewable energy investing has gone towards wind energy projects — 80 percent of the $6 billion invested went to providing equity and debt for wind projects, Dow Jones Newswires reports.
Nissan plans to sell 500,000 electric cars by 2013, with chief executive Carlos Ghosn saying the only constraint would be how many battery packs factories can produce, the New … Continue Reading
