Roundup: Twitter’s inventor readies next big thing, Verizon supports texting bans, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Twitter co-founder to launch iphone payment service — The project, code-named Squirrel, will allow your iPhone to take credit card payments (though it won’t be the first service to do this), TechCrunch’s MG Siegler reports.
Verizon will support bans on text messaging while driving — One such law recently took effect in California.
European Commission fine against Intel expected Wednesday — IDG calls the case, which has been under investigation since 2000, “one of the most significant… Continue Reading
Roundup: IT spend trending down, Google’s next move, our many privacy issues, and more
Spending in IT trends downward — Growth in spending is slipping from 7 percent to 5 percent this year, according to a Goldman Sachs report summarized on CNET. Cost cutting measures are getting the most new investment, with server virtualization topping the list.
Google may start auto or music service — Having successfully predicted that Google would start Google Health and a virtual world, which turned out to be Lively, research firm Hitwise has turned back to its… Continue Reading
ICANN threatens to change the rules of the domain name game
You may be used to typing in top-level domains (TLDs) like .com, .net or .edu when heading to websites, but the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) hopes to change that with a decision to open new TLDs for registration, according to today’s Wall Street Journal.
Under the new rule, ICANN would let anyone with $50,000 to $100,000 register any TLD they want, so for example, our web address could become venture.beat, rather than… Continue Reading
Widget mashup service Mixmonsta wins Vator.tv/Demand Media competition
Widget mashup site Mixmonsta has won a startup competition organized by startup pitch site Vator.tv and well-funded domain purchaser Demand Media, with participation from blogs including VentureBeat.
Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania-based Mixmonsta lets users mash together songs, videos and other images from their computers and phones within its flash-widget interface. Then, users can send the mashup clips to friends by email or by phone (see sample, below). It has been showing some decent traction, with more than… Continue Reading
Demand Media sucks in $35M, continuing raise-and-acquire trend
Demand Media, one of the most heavily funded companies on the internet, has boosted its lifetime total to $355 million with a new $35 million investment reported by peHUB.
While the amount would be shockingly large for almost any other company, it’s a relatively small funding for Demand; for perspective, the new investment is about half what the company payed for the social media tool provider Pluck in a deal reported earlier this month.
Demand is better… Continue Reading
Demand Media raises $100M more for domain name land grab
Demand Media, the 18 month old company founded by former MySpace chairman Richard Rosenblatt, has gulped another $100 million chunk of venture funding for its domain name purchases.
The latest funding, led by Goldman Sachs, is the company’s third. The previous two, for $120 million and $100 million respectively, bring the total to a whopping $320 million.
Companies like Demand buy up lists of Web site names that users are likely to accidentally type into their browsers…. Continue Reading
Demand Media raises $100M for Web site land grab
Demand Media, the company pursuing the audacious strategy of buying up a bunch of generic Web sites that have no staff generating real content of their own — to throw advertising on them — has raised another $100 million.
In May, we reported it raised its first $120 million. Lately, though, the company appears to be buying content as well, including acquring Hillclimb Media, a producer of niche web sites.
The chief executive is Richard Rosenblatt, the… Continue Reading