Deals & More: Vitrue gets $17M to manage social media accounts
Today’s funding announcements include companies focused on social media, augmented reality and product management:
Vitrue grabs $17M to help businesses with social media: The Atlanta-based company has raised a third round of funding led by Scale Venture Partners and Advent Venture Partners to help brands like Kellogg’s, McDonald’s and Disney manage their social media presence online. The company plans to use the latest funding to open seven domestic offices and three international offices, in addition … Continue Reading
Twitter co-founder tells how it all got started
Twitter is an omnipresent part of the technology landscape today, but not long ago it was just another startup. Co-founder Jack Dorsey tells the story of how the microblogging site came into existence while he was working at Odeo, a consumer podcasting company in this Entrepreneur Thought Leader Lecture given at Stanford University.
It was there, when the company urged him to come up with new ideas, that the concept behind Twitter was born and … Continue Reading
BilltoMobile scores deal with Sprint for direct mobile payments
BilltoMobile is announcing today it has partnered with Sprint to allow mobile phone users to purchase goods online via their mobile phone accounts.
The deal is much like similar deals that the startup has struck with AT&T and Verizon. It shows that we are heading to a world where it will be simpler to pay for goods with our mobile phones rather than credit cards.
San Jose, Calif.-based BilltoMobile lets users pay for something they … Continue Reading
King.com takes tournament games into Facebook
King.com, a popular casual gaming site with 25 million unique players a month, is moving into social games in a big way.
The company is debuting 26 skill-based games on Facebook. Those games can be played in multiplayer tournaments and support the sale of virtual goods. It’s another attempt by an older casual game company trying to make a splash on Facebook, which is dominated by new players such as Zynga. Facebook is getting very … Continue Reading
President Obama dines with the Silicon Valley elite in Woodside
President Barack Obama came to Silicon Valley today to dine with the the region’s technology leaders to talk about how to create more jobs and improve education.
The crowd reportedly included Steve Jobs, the Apple chief executive, who made time for the President despite having taken a leave of absence for medical reasons. It also included a who’s who of the digerati. In Silicon Valley, you could say that it doesn’t get any bigger than … Continue Reading
WTF: How long before Zynga becomes the most valuable video game company? (poll)
It’s time to start taking bets on this question: Could Zynga become the most valuable company in the video game industry?
With its rumored funding round of $500 million, Zynga’s value is estimated to be $10 billion. That puts the company far ahead of Electronic Arts, which has a market capitalization of $6.47 billion. Activision Blizzard is the industry’s most valuable company, valued at $13.3 billion. This may be “bubble money” for sure. But like … Continue Reading
Zynga’s new funding values CityVille maker at $10B
It looks like early reports about social gaming giant Zynga’s new funding round were a little conservative.
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal said that Zynga was raising $250 million at a valuation of $7 – $9 billion. Now both The New York Times and All Things Digital report that the funding round is almost completed, and that it gives Zynga a $10 billion valuation.
The stories differ on the funding amount, with The … Continue Reading
Subscriptions put Apple in antitrust spotlight again
Federal regulators are looking once more into Apple’s control over the applications available on the iPhone and iPad, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. This time it’s Apple’s subscription feature for apps (which the company unveiled yesterday) that’s attracting antitrust scrutiny.
The problem isn’t the subscription plan per se, in which Apple takes the same 30 percent cut that it does on App Store purchases, but rather the restrictions that Apple put … Continue Reading
Calling all gamers! U.S. video games sales dip 5 percent in January
Video game players may have been too busy playing with their Christmas toys last month, as U.S. sales of video games fell 5 percent in January. Total sales of game hardware, PC games, console games, and portables fell to $1.16 billion from $1.22 billion a year ago, according to market researcher NPD. And January a year ago was down from the year before that.
The report was expected, since few huge games were released in … Continue Reading
SoloPower wins $197 million loan guarantee for solar panel factory
Updated
The Department of Energy has granted a $197 million loan guarantee to SoloPower for the building of a thin-film solar panel manufacturing facility in Wilsonville, Ore.
This marks a big win for SoloPower, which is coming off several weeks of progress related to the plant. In January, the company raised $51 million in a fourth round of funding, then announced the Oregon Department of Energy granted it a $20 million loan. It also shows … Continue Reading
Is Google's Facebook competitor almost ready?
The press has been speculating since the middle of last year about a new social networking product from Google — its big attempt to compete with Facebook. Now, some recent upgrades to Google products suggest that the company is advancing with its social plans and may be laying the groundwork for the big launch.
The main news today was Google’s update of its social search service, a feature that has been relatively underwhelming until now … Continue Reading
Team behind IBM's Jeopardy overlord Watson stops by Reddit
The war is over, and humanity has ceded its crown as the master of trivia to IBM’s Watson supercomputer.
Now the team responsible for the humanity’s downfall in Jeopardy is ready to answer questions as to how — and why — they built and programmed Watson on news aggregator Reddit. The team posted a question-and-answer thread, called an “ask-me-anything,” that lets Reddit users comment with questions.
IBM is the latest of a series of companies … Continue Reading
Can Groupon take to the skies with its first airline deal?
From laser waxing to fusion barbecue, it seems there’s nothing Groupon can’t — or won’t — sell. But the email discount offers service could be on to a lucrative new market with its latest discount.
If you wanted to get on board Virgin America’s $70-off sale for new service between San Francisco or Los Angeles and Chicago, too bad. In typical Groupon fashion, the offer — the service’s first ever deal with an airline — … Continue Reading
On the GreenBeat: Abengoa to build bioethanol plant; Solar demand stronger than expected this quarter
Here’s the latest action we’re following today on the GreenBeat:
Abengoa to build biofuels plant in Kansas — Spanish multinational corporation Abegnoa said today it will build a 26.4 million-gallon capacity bioethanol plant in Hugoton, Kansas. It is the largest commercial bioethanol production plant using biomass to date and is being jointly developed with the Department of Energy, and will use maize straw and wheat as feedstock. The company is behind a solar thermal plant … Continue Reading
IBM researcher explains what Watson gets right and wrong (video)
IBM is basking in the glow of the victory of its Watson supercomputer over the Jeopardy TV show’s best human players.
But watching the supercomputer answer questions during the three nights of the Jeopardy shows was puzzling to a lot of viewers, who could see how awesome Watson could be at some questions and how terrible it was at others. John Prager, one of the 25 researchers who worked on Watson’s programming, was at IBM’s … Continue Reading
Can Redbox and Amazon take on Netflix’s streaming video service?
Kiosk DVD rental company Redbox will soon launch a subscription-based Internet streaming service, much like Netflix’s streaming video service, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Company president Mitch Lowe confirmed the news yesterday in an analyst meeting. Redbox previously announced that it would launch some sort of digital service, but it was unclear if consumers would have to pay for every movie they wanted to watch, or if it would be an all-you-can-eat buffet with a … Continue Reading
Y Combinator founder: There is no tech bubble
There isn’t a budding tech bubble like the one that caused a recession in the early 2000s because companies today are better than they were a decade ago, according to Y Combinator founder Paul Graham.
Graham posted an article on news aggregator Hacker News, a site frequented by entrepreneurs and investors and run by Y Combinator, in an apparent effort to quell fears of a looming bubble. He responded to a poll on the site … Continue Reading
Cloud storage provider Box.net's iPad app gets a makeover
Box.net chief executive Aaron Levie might have a soft spot for Android, but he has to go where the money is. So his company is unveiling a slew of new features for its iPad application today before it gets to work on pumping up its Android application.
The newest version of Box.net’s iPad application features a projection mode, which lets Box.net users connect their iPads to a display and project whatever is on their iPad … Continue Reading
Nokia Plan B: Journalists fooled by "one very bored engineer"
The buzz over Nokia’s potentially risky new partnership with Microsoft continued to rise this week, as the market worried talent would flee Nokia in droves and the company would continue its downward spiral and flailing attempts at innovation.
But then there came hope for doubters with news leaking that nine unnamed investors had created a swashbuckling new cabal–dubbed “Nokia Plan B”–to rally disgruntled shareholders, find a way to get themselves onto the company’s board and … Continue Reading
Intel looking for new MeeGo partners — good luck with that
Once the love child of Intel and Nokia, the MeeGo mobile operating system may be dead in the water now that Nokia has partnered with Microsoft to use its Windows Phone operating system in its phones.
But Intel isn’t ready to throw in the towel yet. CEO Paul Otellini said in a meeting with analysts this morning that Intel is seeking out new partners for MeeGo, Reuters reports.
Prepare yourself for a long search, Paul.… Continue Reading
