VentureBeat

Song recognition application, Shazam, gets boost from Kleiner Perkins

Updated

Music is a ridiculously difficult area to make money in. Everyone wants be a part of it — which means there are thousands of entrepreneurs eager to conquer the industry. There’s no rock unturned.

But Shazam looks like one of those rare music-industry breakouts. It’s an… Continue Reading

Exclusive offer: Showcase your company at Web 2.0 Summit After-Party

Want to get your startup company or idea in front of the technology and investor bigwigs attending the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco next week?

Well, we’ve got an opportunity for an early-stage startup company to do that, at the conference’s Web After Dark party… Continue Reading

Get your (discounted) Mobile 2.0 conference tickets here

Are you an executive or developer trying to make sense of the fragmented but fast-growing mobile industry?

If so, you should seriously consider attending the Mobile 2.0 conference that kicks off tomorrow. The main theme this year is how to deliver applications and services across mobile… Continue Reading

Hi5 stagnates, and so it does the predictable: bets the farm on games

The social networking company hi5 used to be a big player among networks. There was a time four years ago when it was in the running for leadership position.

Since then it has lost momentum. It is stronger abroad than it is in the U.S. However,… Continue Reading

Glam steals Yahoo’s head of display advertising, Josh Jacobs

Glam, the fast growing content and ad network for women, has hired away Josh Jacobs, a top advertising executive from Yahoo.

The move is significant because Jacobs was Yahoo’s top executive for online display advertising. Yahoo is the biggest player in display advertising, a category that… Continue Reading

Only 17 venture capital firms raise money in Q3 — fewest in 15 years

Venture capitalists are a breed in decline.

Just 17 venture capital firms raised new funds in the third quarter of 2009, the smallest number of firms in any quarter since the third quarter of 1994, according to new data released by Thomson Reuters and the National… Continue Reading

DEMO rocked! Now the party starts again

It’s been two weeks since the end of DEMO. I’m awestruck by the experience, both by all of the incredibly talented people that convened there in San Diego, and by the traction 70 entrepreneurs were able to get during those short few days.

Thank you to… Continue Reading

Is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce corrupt? And why it matters

It’s been a remarkable few days for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the 3 million-member business federation that says it spends more money on lobbying than any other organization in the U.S.

When the Chamber recently took a strong stance against federal policy and other legislative… Continue Reading

U.S. private equity fundraising plunges 70 percent

We’ve been writing for a while about the crunch in the venture capital industry.

Well, the latest data shows that U.S. private equity firms (including venture capital firms, but also other firms that invest private money, such as buyout firms) raised only $25.2 billion in the… Continue Reading

Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO

About six months ago, critics pummeled Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

He’d made questionable management decisions, or so it appeared from the outside. He’d fumbled the site’s redesign and botched the company’s terms of service agreement — moves that whipped up negative publicity and user… Continue Reading

Benchmark hires MySQL’s Marten Mickos as Entrepreneur-in-Residence

Benchmark Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capital firms, has hired former MySQL chief executive Marten Mickos as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence.

Mickos built MySQL, the popular open-source database company, into a significant international company before selling it to Sun Microsystems last year for $1 billion.

Benchmark was… Continue Reading

VentureBeat is looking for a Chief Technology Officer

VentureBeat continues to roll. Our next big move: We’re looking to hire a chief technology officer.

The specs are listed below. We’re looking for someone who does more than fulfill the technical requirements of this job. We’re searching for someone who can think really, really big.

That… Continue Reading

Change the world! Launch your Smart Grid company at GreenBeat 2009

To avoid environmental catastrophe within the next century, we, as a world, desperately need to cut carbon emissions.

If you’re an entrepreneur, this is the calling of a lifetime — there’s massive economic opportunity here. That’s why VentureBeat is hosting GreenBeat 2009, the seminal conference on… Continue Reading

Latest speaker at GreenBeat 2009: Cisco’s Smart Grid guru, Laura Ipsen

I’m pleased to announce that Laura Ipsen, VP and General Manager for Cisco Systems‘ Smart Grid Business Unit, will be joining us as a speaker at GreenBeat 2009.

Over the next several days, you’ll be hearing more announcements about our exciting lineup for GreenBeat 2009, the… Continue Reading

VentureBeat’s policy on embargoes: We’ll take ‘em

In the news business, there’s something called an embargo. That’s when a company, usually through a public relations person, gets an agreement from a writer not to publish a story until a certain time. The writer is then allowed access to people and information to… Continue Reading

VentureBeat Profiles, a directory of info and buzz about companies

I’m pleased to introduce a site called VentureBeat Profiles, which lists comprehensive information about tens of thousands of companies and executives.

We just launched the site this morning. It offers all kinds of ways to find, discover and share information about companies.

The site lets VentureBeat’s users, as… Continue Reading

Facebook: Twitter is “in the rear-view mirror”

Twitter may still be the media darling of the day, getting all kinds of attention amid its huge user growth earlier this year. But Facebook, once considered Twitter’s most fierce competitor because it also wants to let users post bite-sized updates online about their thoughts,… Continue Reading

Looking for more experts for our “Conversations on Innovation” series

We hope you’ve noticed the series of posts we’ve been running called “Conversations on Innovation.” Every few days or so, we publish another piece about the most cutting-edge technology of the day, from human interface technology to the cloud and (coming up next) electronic health… Continue Reading

T-Mobile on desperate rampage: Bids on Orange in UK, now Sprint in US?

Deutsche Telekom, the large German-based carrier that is struggling to compete in the U.S. market with its T-Mobile subsidiary, is mulling a bid on Sprint, according to the British newspaper Telegraph.

“Sources said Deutsche Telekom could submit a bid for Sprint,” the report says, adding that… Continue Reading

Photo site Shutterfly goes mobile — acquires Tiny Pictures for $1.3M

Shutterfly, a company that lets you create photo albums online, has acquired mobile photo-sharing company Tiny Pictures for $1.3 million.

Shutterfly will expand its mobile offerings by using Tiny Pictures’ expertise in mobile, according to John Poisson, chief executive of Tiny Pictures, who confirmed the acquisition… Continue Reading