Entrepreneur Corner: Marketing truths and a primer on networking
Here’s a roundup of the latest posts from VentureBeat’s Entrepreneur Corner.
VC Roundtable: What makes a great founder? — OpenView Partners surveyed several venture capitalists, asking them to share their vision on what qualities make for a good founder and to weigh in on whether those founders should extract equity upon receiving funding. Hear thoughts from Phin Barnes, Brad Feld, Rob Go and Alex Taussig in this roundtable discussion.
6 social marketing truths executives must … Continue Reading
Week in review: Meet IBM’s first chip modeled on the human brain
Here’s our roundup of the week’s top tech business news. First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:
IBM produces first working chips modeled on the human brain — IBM has been shipping computers for more than 65 years, and it is finally on the verge of creating a true electronic brain.
Exclusive: How LinkedIn used Node.js and HTML5 to build a better, faster app — LinkedIn’s new mobile app is … Continue Reading
Flickr releases new real-time developer tools in time for Photo Hack Day
Just in time for the August 20-21 Photo Hack Day, Flickr has unleashed some new tools for providing real-time photo data to web apps.
That means you can soon look forward to apps that make more extensive — and immediate — use of what’s going on in your Flickr photo stream and those of your friends.
Back in June, the photo-sharing service allowed developers to access photos and favorites from a user’s contacts in their … Continue Reading
Twitter unveils Bootstrap, a toolkit for lightning-fast web app deployment
Today, Twitter gave developers a set of tools for getting web apps built and shipped as rapidly and cleanly as possible.
Called Bootstrap, the toolkit is a library of relatively simple but elegant HTML and CSS conventions for building web apps. In many ways, it’s similar to the CSS framework Blueprint.
Bootstrap doesn’t run on Twitter’s platform; the company just fostered its development and is now releasing it into the world.
As Twitter designer Mark … Continue Reading
HP drops TouchPad price to $99 in Canada. Is the U.S. far behind?
After Hewlett-Packard announced it was killing its webOS devices, many of us were left wondering what the company planned to do about the numerous TouchPad tablets still sitting on retail shelves.
An answer might be right around the corner if Best Buy’s Canadian retail stores are any indication. The 16 GB and 32 GB TouchPad models will go on sale in Canada for $99 and $149, respectively, according to a memo cited by PreCentral. That’s … Continue Reading
Stock market to HP: WTF?
“I don’t even want to look at the stock price today.”
That was the reaction I heard from a longtime Hewlett-Packard employee today, after HP announced yesterday it planned to shut down its webOS tablet business and then spin off its personal computer business.
It was as if HP chief executive Leo Apotheker decided to give up on some of HP’s most strategic battles and assets in order to focus on software and services.
Investors … Continue Reading
Amazon buys 12 new domains related to cloud video
Online retail giant Amazon recently purchased a dozen new domains related to “cloud video”, according to a report by Fusible.
It also reinforces the notion that the company is stepping up its efforts to become the top service for streaming video.
As VentureBeat has mentioned in the past, the online retail giant is quickly becoming the third major player in the realm of streaming video services behind Hulu and Netflix. However, Amazon is in a … Continue Reading
Joyent Node.js expert talks about Node in the enterprise and more
Developers these days are fascinated by Node, as we recently reaffirmed with a blockbuster post on how LinkedIn used Node to make its new mobile apps.
Our written interview with LinkedIn’s mobile development chief did so well that we thought we’d record a video interview with a true Node expert: Tom Hughes-Croucher, a Joyent employee who’s writing an upcoming O’Reilly book on getting started with Node.
Joyent employs several Node-focused employees, including Node.js creator Ryan … Continue Reading
Report: webOS ran twice as fast on an iPad 2 than on the TouchPad
One reason HP may have shuttered its webOS-based devices unit Thursday may be that its hardware was only half as fast as its major competitor.
A report from The Next Web says HP internally tested webOS on an Apple iPad 2 and found that the operating system ran over twice as fast on Apple’s hardware, suggesting HP didn’t build a good enough tablet to attract customers.
Additionally, an internal HP source reportedly said the TouchPad … Continue Reading
Biochemical developer Aurora Algae raises $22M
Aurora Algae, a developer of biofuels and biochemicals produced from processed algae, announced today that it has raised $22 million in its most recent round of funding.
The company is part of a small set of funded biologically-produced chemical companies that produce a diverse number of biochemical products, such as feed stock and transportation fuel. These types of companies have experienced a recent string of successful exits. Biofuel makers Solazyme, Amyris and KiOR all successfully … Continue Reading
Zurb pulls its annual all-nighter for Rebekah Children’s Services
This article is part of a series of posts about DEMO alumni and news of their progress. Zurb launched at DEMO in Spring 2010. Check out more at DEMO.
Yesterday, interaction design firm Zurb held its annual ZurbWired event, a day-long affair where all Zurb employees stay up for 24 hours to design a website and marketing materials for a nonprofit in need.
Zurb prides itself on being more than just “dudes in expensive chairs.” … Continue Reading
WordPress runs 15 percent of the web’s highest trafficked sites
Online publishing software company WordPress released some incredible growth statistics Friday, including that WordPress is running on top of 14.7 percent of the world’s top one million websites. Almost equally astounding is that 22 of 100 new active domains are running on WordPress.
One year ago, WordPress was used by 8.5 percent of the world’s top million sites, so it’s astounding how many domains are using it now. In July, WordPress-based sites passed the 50 … Continue Reading
Wirklich? Germany declares Facebook ‘Like’ button illegal
The German government on Friday declared the Facebook “Like” button, which appears on countless websites accessible all over the world, in violation of the country’s strict privacy rights — and thus illegal.
An official from the German state of Schleswig-Holstein’s data protection center, Thilo Weichert, said the privacy violation stems from the Like button’s ability to track a person’s movement across the web, according to a report by The Local.
In addition to violating German … Continue Reading
Guess which cities produce the most Android apps
The mobile application business is projected to reach $38 billion by 2015, but will the boom be global or will it be confined to a handful of innovation hotspots? A recent study of Android app creators that my company, AppsGeyser, conducted indicates that it will be both.
We drew the data from a sample of 10,000 apps that were created using appsgeyser.com between June and August, 2011. From that information, we collected the App makers’ … Continue Reading
Electric car maker Fisker Automotive raising $200M at $2.2B valuation
Electric car manufacturer Fisker Automotive is in the process of raising a $200 million funding round that would value the company at $2.2 billion, according to a report by Fortune.
It would be the company’s third funding round in six months. Fisker Automotive raised $190 million just five months ago to help fund the production of its electric cars. The company finished off a recent $100 million round in May, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield … Continue Reading
Retail giant GameStop testing a game streaming service
GameStop is the world’s biggest game retailer, with more than 6,000 physical stores around the world. But the company is preparing for the age of digital distribution by testing its own online game streaming service.
After all, the company doesn’t want to be “Netflixed” the way that Blockbuster Video and Hollywood Video were in movie rentals. To prevent being disrupted by online game distributors, it’s disrupting itself with its own streaming service, scheduled for a … Continue Reading
Tudou IPO exposes yet another China risk factor: the founder’s wife
Tudou Holdings Limited, a leading online video company in China, ended its initial public offering saga this week, limping onto Nasdaq (under the symbol TUDO) at a price equal to 16 times revenues in the 12 months through March 31. That valuation is about half the 31 times revenue rival Youku.com Inc. (NYSE: YOKU) received in its December 2010 initial public offering.
What a difference eight months can make. In between these two IPOs, investors … Continue Reading
Sprint planning to acquire Clearwire from cable companies
Sprint has entered discussions with cable companies about an investment deal that could result in the carrier acquiring wireless network partner Clearwire, reports Bloomberg.
Sprint currently owns the largest share of Clearwire, but the company would like to purchase shares owned by Comcast, Time Warner Cable Inc. and Brighthouse Networks. Such a move would allow the carrier to have complete control over Clearwire’s WiMax network, which it currently doesn’t have despite having the majority stake … Continue Reading
Droid Bionic internal docs point to Sept. launch for $299
Just days after a photos of Motorola’s upcoming Droid Bionic leaked, new details have emerged that point to the anticipated device’s launch in Sept. with a $299 price tag.
Interest in Motorola Android phones is especially high this week, as Google announced plans Monday to acquire Motorola Mobility — news that has shaken up the mobile industry and made many pundits wonder what this means for the Android OS. Google says Motorola will be run … Continue Reading
King of Code Finalist: James Khoo turns your phone into a personal security system
(The King of Code contest is sponsored by Windows Phone and is open to developers on any mobile platform.)
Imagine you’re driving home late at night. It’s very late and you’re exhausted. No one else knows where you are and the roads are dark. Suddenly a deer runs across your path and you swerve, crashing into the trunk of a tree and knocking yourself unconscious.
Under usual circumstances, you might not be discovered or … Continue Reading
