Michael is a writer for VentureBeat. He studied political economy and globalization at UC Berkeley. You can reach him at msinanian@venturebeat.com or follow him on Twitter at @michaelsinan.

stories by Michael Sinanian

Pinterest ditches Palo Alto ‘burbs for city-slicking San Francisco

In yet another case of San Francisco “stealing the show” from Silicon Valley, visual interest site Pinterest has just moved its headquarters from Palo Alto to San Francisco’s South-of-Market (SoMa) neighborhood.

It was only in May that venture firm Benchmark …

Gumroad raises $7 million to help people sell anything they create

Micropayments startup Gumroad, a three-person team, has just sealed a $7 million funding deal.

The round is led by Kleiner Perkins with partner Mike Abbott joining Gumroad’s board. CrunchFund and Raymond Tonsing are in the round as well.

This comes …

42Floors’ new “Showroom” turns startup offices into seductive hiring tools

42Floors emerged from Y Combinator’s Winter 2012 class back in March as an office space search and discovery service with the mission of helping companies find their dream office.

The company launched with some strong rhetoric about technologically upending the …

42Floors: hacking commercial real estate so you can find a dream office

Zillow, Redfin, Trulia: all familiar names to anyone who’s looked for a home lately. But where in this digital landscape would you go to look for office space?

Starting today, 42Floors is finally the answer to that question. It’s a …

Grubwithus debuts iPhone app to book meals on-the-go

Grubwithus, the social-dining startup that helps people meet over meals in real-life, has launched an official iPhone app. The free mobile app is a promising step toward a future service that allows people to spontaneously book meals amongst themselves anytime, …

On heels of new funding and global expansion, car service Uber launches in D.C. today

Car service Uber, which started just 18 months ago, debuts in Washington D.C. today, hot on the heels of its recently-closed Series B funding round and its official global expansion, which started with Paris earlier this month and will continue …

From smartphones to televisions, how Apple will avoid the fate of RCA

The economics of the consumer electronics industry dictate that on a long enough timescale, all products will become low-margin commodities. The companies that make products household names are destined to fade from the public’s memory. Will Apple suffer the same …

Review: Quora’s new iPhone app is great for casual and experienced users

Quora, the much buzzed-about social question-and-answer service, has released an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, ending a long period of relative quiet from the company since it opened to the public over a year ago.

Quora users have …

Why lyrics are the consumer web’s next big thing, again

The next big thing for the consumer web could actually come from one of its oldest content verticals: lyrics. Services like RapGenius and TuneWiki are spearheading a new way of publishing and making money from song lyrics.

Lyrics are …

Grubwithus founders want you to get out and meet people

Two lonely entrepreneurs in Chicago, far from their homes in Los Angeles, hacked together a site in 2010 that let people sign up to meet them over lunch or dinner.

Their novel idea was an instant hit, and now, one …

Could Google make Web-based books free?

Books have long stood apart from the rest of the media world, run by an oddball clutch of publishers, distributors and retailers whose practices have little in common with other traditional media formats, let alone new media. But as books …

NewsBasis: Death to the bad PR pitch!

NewsBasis, the startup aiming to make communication between journalists and the companies they cover smooth as butter, is launching a new media-relations service today that hopes to bring publicity to small companies which can’t afford a professional PR firm’s monthly …