Dave McClure: hottest investments, favorite start-ups, biggest screwups, and clueless founders

August 24, 2012 10:12 AM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

Dave McClure is one of the most prominent angel investors in Silicon Valley -- and possibly the world. His accelerator, 500 Startups, will fund its 500th company sometime this year. And no, in answer to "all the stupid questions," 500 Startups will not shut its doors after reaching that number.

He may also take the prize for most F-bombs per sentence of any investor.

Gold, silver, and bronze: the real winners of the Social Olympics

August 12, 2012 9:00 AM Christina Farr
Christina Farr

Editor's Pick This year's Olympics earned the nickname "Socialympics." It has inspired huge waves of tweets, brought down the reputation of old media giants, and earned athletes millions of new followers.

Google’s latest acquisition unveils new research on brands, fans, and Facebook

August 6, 2012 6:00 AM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

Wildfire, the social media marketing company Google unexpectedly acquired last week, has just released a big ol' body of research dealing with the finer points of fandom -- online fans for big brands, that is.

Wildfire and Buddy Media’s biggest competitor says it won’t be bought

July 31, 2012 3:13 PM Christina Farr
Christina Farr

Damn, it’s a good time to be a social marketing software company.

While the tech world reeled from the announcement that Google is acquiring Facebook-focused marketing firm Wildfire, I caught up with the founders of PromoJam, a Los Angeles-based competitor, …

Google acquires Wildfire, the Facebook-focused marketing startup

July 31, 2012 11:36 AM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

Wildfire, the social media startup that’s making huge strides in online marketing — Facebook marketing in particular — has just been snapped up by Google for an undisclosed price.

(Web rumors peg the deal at $250 million; however, a Google …

One woman’s vision to make social marketing less of a cesspool: Wildfire 2.0

July 20, 2012 9:00 AM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

“Social media has a positive impact on marketing. It democratizes it. It’s not just about who’s got the biggest budget, but who really understands their consumer.”

I’m talking to Victoria Ransom (pictured above) about one of my least favorite things …

Facebook’s mobile ad strategy is a risk for Facebook and its advertisers (analysis)

February 29, 2012 3:47 PM Sarah Mitroff
Sarah Mitroff

Facebook’s mobile ads, announced today, are an attempt to patch one of the biggest holes in the company’s revenue model.

Until today, the company didn’t have any way to make money from its mobile apps due to the lack of …