VentureBeat

Once at each other’s throats, Google and Verizon Wireless may now be close to a deal that would give mobile subscribers a default starting point for all their searches, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Verizon’s reason for the move is a desire to simplify mobile browsing for users. Today, a user looking for something — new ringtones, news, or a mobile website — will have to go to a different application or search box for each. Letting Google take over and consolidate with one search box will provide a better experience.

But Google looks like the real winner in a potential deal. The company is top dog on the web, but hasn’t yet cornered the mobile search and advertising market, which is still in an early growth stage. Taking over search for Verizon will give Google a small extra stream of revenue for now, but in the long-term the deal could help it translate its dominant position into the mobile market.

That it’s highly interested in working with other companies, even erstwhile enemies, is evident from other recent moves. In February, it inked a deal with Nokia, the world’s biggest handset maker, to put Google search on all its new phones. It has also made tentative forays toward the iPhone, while continuing to develop its own Android mobile platform, which will go onto some phones (as well as other devices).

At some point, Verizon plans to place Google search on the home screen of its phones, according to the WSJ, a deal reminiscent of the way the Firefox web browser works. The idea is revealing of how confident carriers are becoming that heavy web usage on mobile devices is assured for the future — a future that is confirmed, in fact, by Google’s own data.

Medio, a heavily funded Seattle startup that currently handles Verizon’s search, will also be involved in the partnership, receiving a portion of the search revenues. That is likely good news for the company, which an inside source told us has had trouble getting enough search queries to sell ads into.

Here’s the latest action:
1. Medio’s roar turning to a squeal?
2. Sprint changing WiMax plans?
3. AOL rumored to be considering buying ad targeting network Quigo for $300 million
4. Bug Labs, for open-sourced electronic devices
5. Semantic search engine Hakia releases social networking tool
6. The amazing $200 Ubuntu Linux “green” PC at Wal-Mart
7. Cisco does its 125th buyout
8. Facebook’s stock has appreciated 33-fold, and then some
9. Internet Brands going public with growing losses, declining sales?
10. Shopstyle signs deal with In Style Magazine

Medio’s roar turning to a squeal? — We’re wondering what will happen to Seattle’s Medio, the company that provides mobile search technology to telecom giant Verizon, now that Google is reportedly close to signing a deal with the giant carrier to offer customers a GPhone. This which would carry a Google operating system, based on Linux and offering a host of Google applications including search. The Mercury News carried a profile story on Medio Tuesday, in which chief executive Brian Lent (pictured top left) boasts Medio has a broader reach than Google, citing its partnership with Verizon. The article appeared the day before the deal negotiations between Google and Verizon leaked. Obviously, Medio won’t get kicked off of Verizon’s phones overnight. The GPhone hasn’t even arrived yet. Still, the Merc piece is a notable read, explaining how Lent knew the Google co-founders at Stanford, but initially shrugged of the promise of search; he even turned down the No. 1 employee position at Yahoo. Verizon, in turn, may be flirting with Google for the following obvious: Apple iPhone has become a raging success, after Verizon turned down the chance to be the iPhone carrier partner. As Techdirt points out, Verizon and Google have a tough history, including the standoff over the 700 MHz spectrum debate and network neutrality. But the GPhone, that might paper over the differences.

Sprint Nextel changing WiMax plans? — Sprint may be rethinking its plans to offer high-speed wireless Internet service using WiMax technology, possibly merging its wireless broadband unit with start-up Clearwire, according to the WSJ.

AOL rumored to be considering buying ad targeting network Quigo for $300 million – But its just a rumor. Details from Kara Swisher.

Bug Labs, for open-sourced electronic devices — You’ve heard about all the open-source software. Well, New York’s Bug Labs is offering open source for hardware, drawing on outside developers to help fashion the building blocks of these personalized devices that will be easy enough for non-techies to assemble. It is backed by Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures and Robert Young, founder of open source company Red Hat. More about BugLabs here. It has similarities with Ponoko.

Semantic search engine Hakia releases social networking tool — Called Meet Others, it lets you meet people who typed in the same search query. Now that is geeky.

The amazing $200 Ubuntu Linux “green” PC at Wal-Mart — The price of this computer is truly in the basement. It runs OpenOffice software and comes pre-configured with links to all of Google’s online applications. See Wired story for more details. It stands in stark contrast to Nicholas Negroponte’s $100 laptop for the poor, began at a price of $100, but which now has crept upward to….$200. So apparently, there’s no need for the poor laptop any more. The developing world may as well order a Linux version straight from Wal-Mart.

Cisco does its 125th buyout –Cisco, the giant networking company, proves you can grow and prosper through non-stop acquisitions. It has paid $100M for Securent, a company that monitors access to a company’s data and communications regardless of vendor, platform, or operating system. Securent was founded in 2004 by Rajiv Gupta after raising capital from Greylock and Onset (via Alarmclock ).

Facebook’s stock has appreciated 33-fold, and then some – Many of us reported how the Microsoft deal to invest in Facebook at such a high value ($15 billion) makes Facebook’s private shares expensive. This, in turn, makes it tough to recruit motivated employees, because it means there’s little room for the stock to appreciate — at least for several years until Facebook starts making some money. NYT’s Miguel Helft has done a good job at exploring just how far the stock has risen.

Internet Brands going public with growing losses, declining sales? — We don’t get this one. The El Segundo, Calif., company has filed to raise $45 million in an IPO. But the company, whose sites include CarsDirect, WikiTravel, FlyerTalk.com among others, swung to a loss of $2.4 million in the first nine months of the year, and saw is revenues decline too. This, after buying 35 start-ups last year, enough to jolt any company. Buyer beware. It is backed by IdeaLab.

Shopstyle signs deal with In Style Magazine — ShopStyle, the fashion-focused shopping search engine that Sugar recently acquired, has announced a partnership with the popular In Style Magazine. Sugar has said its efforts to create a woman-centric network, a la Glam, was not working out, and has been looking into other means to generate revenue. Combining ShopStyle’s search with the editorial sensibilities of In Style’s fashionistas could prove lucrative for both companies. Under the terms of the deal, Sugar will receive a cut of revenues, as well as its CPCs.

Medio, a Seattle start-up that gives you search results tailored for your mobile phone, has raised $30 million in a second round of funding to keep up with the mobile search Jones’.

Founder Brian Lent worked side-by-side with the Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. So like the guys at Kosmix, who were close with the Google guys, Lent may feel he has some self-redemption to do. Lent reportedly also turned down the No. 1 employee position at Yahoo, as reported by the SeattlePI’s John Cook last year.

Medio finds itself in the middle of competitive but growing market: More people are using mobile phones to search for information. Google, Yahoo and Ask have all released upgrades to their mobile search offerings, but they are stuck trying to offer the same results they offer to your desktop. Medio, along with Jumptap and 4Info are tailoring search especially for your phone.

John Cook summed up what these guys are trying to do in his story about Medio:

Medio’s predictive analytics technology allows people to receive relevant search results on their mobile phones. That’s critical because consumers usually want very specific information in a mobile environment — the closest Starbucks, the Usher ring tone or the departure time for United Flight 386.

4Info is different, because it relies on texting — a user texts 4Info with search queries, and 4info sends back results. Jumptap and Medio offer you a search bar on your phone (visual below). And since Jumptap raised $22 million last month, of course Medio had to follow suit with even more.

The funding comes from Accel Partners, and returning investors Mohr Davidow Ventures, Frazier Technology Ventures and Trilogy Equity Partners.

Medio is in a race with Jumptap to sign deals with carriers — to earn the coveted spot as default search engine their phones. Both companies are developing advertising platforms to go with their search.

Medio recently poached Omar Tawakol from Revenue Science — interestingly, another Mohr Davidow portfolio company — to be its chief advertising officer, SeattlePI’s Cook reported recently.

Verizon and Vodafone are using Medio (WSJ sub required) for their search offerings.

Filling out its portfolio of online office applications, Google has acquired wiki company JotSpot for an undisclosed amount.

Co-founder Joe Kraus (pictured here) says he “couldn’t be more excited,” and we can understand, given his rocky ride several years ago at search engine Excite.

Kraus had been badly burned, and we could sense in Joe an intense, but quiet determination while building Jot that he was going to do this one right.

Way back in 1993, Kraus was 23 and a senior at Stanford, when he and five others co-founded Excite. Excite went public and was valued at $183 million in 1996, and was acquired AtHome in 1999 for $6.5 billion in stock. Pretty giddy times.

But then things went poof. ExciteAtHome imploded when the Bubble burst, after some major strategic and management blunders, let alone the market problems — many of them out of Kraus’ control. It shut down, and its assets sold for $10 million.

We don’t know how much Jot was sold for, and it’s probably not for much, but was almost assuredly for a profit — otherwise Kraus wouldn’t have sold. Kraus had raised more than $5 million from Redpoint and Mayfield.

It is also a victory because Jot was founded in late 2003, after other wiki companies like Socialtext. Socialtext is struggling.

We’d tried various wiki software programs, and ended up selecting Jot for our internal project to launch VentureBeat this year — and even paid for it — mainly because its user interface is intuitive and friendly.

From Joe’s blog:

Three years ago my friend Graham Spencer and I set out to start a new company….. We brainstormed scores of ideas, debated late into the night and ultimately exchanged a mountain of email and documents. We realized we needed a tool to help us organize our thoughts or we’d quickly become overwhelmed. So Graham set up a wiki. I was hooked because it immediately changed the way we worked together. Everything was kept in one place, not locked in email threads or on different computers. We could both make changes to the same document, without having to know HTML (well, without me having to know HTML). After twenty minutes of using a wiki, I was convinced that they were like the Internet in 1993 — useful, but trapped in the land of the nerds (which both Graham and I proudly inhabit). So we set out to start JotSpot as a way to bring the power of wikis to a much broader audience.