Facebook has seen its rapid assimilation of Earth’s population start to cool in recent years. The areas where it’s still exploding are, interestingly enough, some of the areas with the least access to technology: Africa, the Middle East, and India.

One measure of technological modernity is the smartphone. In the Western world, smartphone penetration hovers around 50 to 60 percent for most countries. However, in Africa, that number is much lower, around 17 to 19 percent across the continent. In India, smartphone penetration is just 9 percent. In the Middle East, a handful of countries’ smartphone adoption rates are at parity with their Western peers, but some, like Egypt, lag around 5 percent.

Even when you take away the smartphone aspect and look just at Internet access, you get a similar picture: a sharp divide between the digital haves and have-nots around the world.

So it’s especially interesting that Facebook is making these less-connected populations a focus of its ongoing growth, seeing the lack of access as an opportunity to be addressed rather than an insurmountable hurdle.

In a report released today by marketing intelligence firm eMarketer, we learn that while Facebook’s growth has slowed or is quickly slowing to the single digits in the most highly developed areas around the world, it’s still seeing continued momentum in parts of Asia-Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East. Check out these numbers for 2013 and projected figures for 2017:

In some of these areas, especially Africa, Internet access via a traditional desktop or laptop computer is less common than access via a mobile phone. This is one reason Facebook has put emphasis on its mobile-only users, those users who never use a “regular” computer to log onto Facebook.com. That group swelled to nearly 200 million users this year.

The company’s quarterly earnings report this month also emphasized the growing need for a global scope in order for Facebook to continue its planned world domination.

Image credit: Flickr user axel rouvin

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Picking the right hostel can make or break your travel experience, and WeHostels wants to make sure you pick the accommodation that is right for you.

WeHostels is a mobile app for booking hostels and cheap hotels. Today, the startup revealed its latest update, which makes the app more friendly to people traveling in Europe. It is now available in German, French, Spanish, and Portuguese as well as English, and updates prices accordingly in pounds and euros depending on your location. WeHostels also announced a partnership with German Ventures, which will provide capital as well as strategic and operational assistance to facilitate the company’s European expansion plans.

WeHostels is a useful solution for those backpackers and wandering souls who don’t like to plan ahead but also don’t want to wander the streets aimlessly or rely on guidebooks to find accommodations. Listings include more than 40,000 places in 800 cities. While traveling, you open the mobile app and search through available listings in your destination. Each listing contains additional practical information as well as photos, comments, pricing and an option to book.

Founder Diego Saez-Gil said the target market so far has been the U.S., but since launching in August, WeHostels has seen significant organic growth in Europe and Latin America, since those are major backpacker/budget-travel destinations. The startup is responding to this demand accordingly by refocusing attention toward international markets.

“In Europe, the travel market is huge for young people and we see a huge opportunity,” he said in an interview. “The larger vision for the company is to become the world’s largest mobile travel agency for young travelers, providing all the products and services that they need on-the-go. As a travel company, we have even more reasons to go global early. The big challenge with expanding internationally is that you have to understand the local culture when it comes to doing marketing, community management and customer support.”

Saez-Gil said American startups are increasingly looking abroad for expansion in the early stages. Companies like Uber, AirBnB, and HotelTonight have met with success outside of U.S. borders, and the infrastructure and web/mobile penetration numbers are growing quickly in international markets. WeHostels competitors include Priceline’s Booking.com, Hostelworld.com, Expedia’s Hotels.com, AirBnB, and Couchsurfing. WeHostel’s takes a mobile-first approach, which Saez-Gil said distinguishes it from competitors.

“Mobile growth is exponential in international markets and smartphones already outnumber PCs,” he said. “The travel industry is a huge market dominated by big players like Priceline, Expedia, and TripAdvisor, but it has been slow to innovate on mobile and provide great services to mobile users. We are the only company that is focused on mobile offerings for affordable accommodations.”

The company was founded after Saez-Gil traveled around Europe and continuously felt the need for a mobile service that could connect him with places to stay. Hostels can range from brightly-colored eccentric hubs where travelers come together to swap stories to seedy dark buildings filled with questionable sanitation and mysterious noises. He relied primarily on guidebooks and word-of-mouth to navigate, and he felt that there was a better alternative.

WeHostels first started out as a social network for cheap travel accommodation called InBed.me, which raised $1.2 million in seed financing. The company received high demand for a mobile offering and responded accordingly by going mobile-first. This decision paid off and WeHostels has grown its bookings by 778 percent since December. Along these same lines, today’s updates are also a result of user demand.

“Last year we saw the growth we were having on mobile queries, so we made a bold decision: let’s go mobile or go home,” Saez-Gil said. “Now we saw the potential of international markets so we made a new bold decision: let’s go global or go home.”

German Ventures will support WeHostels in adapting to international markets. WeHostels has plans to release iPad and Android apps this summer and will continue to add new currencies for South American and Asian countries as well. There are also plans to add more budget hotels into the listings and expand the Hot Trips feature which helps people hunt down housing during big events like SXSW, St.Patrick’s, and Coachella.

WeHostels is headquartered in New York with offices in Bogota or Munich.

Photo credit: WeHostels

Skype founders Taavet Hinrikus and Niklas Zennström have teamed with überinvestor Peter Thiel, Virgin magnate Sir Richard Branson, and a handful of heavyweights from around the world in a new $100 million initiative to help startups.

The gist of the campaign: The partners will give away $100,000,000 in free international money transfers to help EU startups boost their international game.

“This innovative idea for shaking up the financial services sector while helping startups in a practical way has caught the eye of many new businesses already — as well as established brands like Virgin,” said Branson in an emailed statement on the news.

The transfers will be doled out to 1,000 young companies and will help the startups by minimizing bank fees for international financial transactions, from payroll and accounts payable to funding deals and office expansions.

“I remember all too well how depressing it was to throw away the precious little resources we had in the early days of Skype,” said Hinrikus in a statement. ”We didn’t have investment and were struggling — every pound and euro needed to count. Working between London, Tallinn, and Stockholm meant we were constantly wasting money on banking fees. It was important to me to do something about this for other startups when I got a chance.”

Interested startups two years or less from their launch date can apply online to participate in the program on a first-come, first-served basis. Each company can claim one voucher valid for one year and worth up to $100,000 in transfer fees. Applications will close on May 10.

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Big Data and Predictive/Real-time Analytics startups: Are you looking to jumpstart development & accelerate market traction? Sign up for the SAP Startup Focus program to receive technology, support, resources and community to help you develop new applications on SAP HANA, a cutting edge database platform. Get started here, and enter promo code “VB2013″ on the form.

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In a column with an unsubtle title, “For Apple business, must stay business,” Chinese-government-controlled Global Times praised Apple for responding to Chinese state media criticism of its warranty policies with Tim Cook’s apology letter, posted yesterday.

But  the column ended with an equally unsubtle finale:

“It will be wise for Apple not to entangle itself into political debates.”

In another editorial on the same site, Global Times said that Apple deserves respect.

“As the world’s leading high-tech enterprise, Apple can adjust its attitude in a timely manner, showing its professionalism and flexibility. Its reaction is worth respect compared with other American companies,” the op-ed column said, while also managing to be remarkably candid in acknowledging that there are still issues for international companies doing business in China.

“China’s market economy has experienced soaring development, while its rules are not mature enough and laws not so sound. … The blame should not only lie in foreign companies, but also China’s business environment.”

This is good news for Apple, as China is its second largest market, and it’s a critical growing economy where Apple needs to succeed if it wants to do well globally. CEO Tim Cook’s quick response — only his second official company apology since taking the office — is a measure of how important the country is to Apple revenues.

Interestingly, the articles acknowledge a political tinge to the recent spanking Apple has been taking in China, saying that Chinese networking and mobile companies Huawei and ZTE “have long been restricted in the US markets under security and other accusations.” Just this January, Los Alamos National Laboratory tossed out Huawei network switches under suspicion that China’s military had infiltrated the company and installed backdoors into its equipment. And in December, the U.S. Congress Intelligence Committee said that Chinese networking equipment could not be trusted.

At the time, China had issued a vague threat, saying the U.S. should “do more that is beneficial to Sino-American economic and trade ties, rather than the contrary.”

However, point made, China may have been pacified by Apple’s apology. But it suggests that Apple stay on its toes:

Apple has won respect from Chinese consumers with its perseverance in developing leading technologies and styles. But the company is not impeccable. Like its continuing stride in exploring for technological breakthroughs, the company also needs to keep working hard to raise its service quality.

photo credit: lemagit via photopin cc

Today, Google and its hardware partners Acer, HP, and Samsung will begin selling Chromebooks in six new countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands. And in the U.S., Chromebooks will now be available at over 1,000 Best Buy stores nationally, which doubles the number of physical stores that Google’s  the-browser-is-the-operating-system laptops are sold in.

International pricing will be roughly similar to the U.S., with Canada getting Chromebooks at $250-330, and $300-350 in Australia. But expect to pay a little more in Europe — in France and Germany, they’ll start at around 300 euros, which is close to $400 U.S.

It’s not exactly $99 education pricing, but it’s still fairly cheap.

Google’s first international expansion with Chromebooks to the UK appears to have been a success. Google reported that Chromebook accounts for more than 10 percent of laptop sales in leading UK electronics retailers Currys and PC World.

Google recently released a high-end touchscreen Chromebook for $1,299, which is not being released internationally, and with HP the biggest Chromebook yet, a 14″ model.

Both Twilio and 500 Startups are dedicated to growing and connecting the international startup community. Twilio’s technology simplifies building global communication networks, and 500 Startups nurtures entrepreneurs from around the world. When their powers combine, they will provide financing and mentorship to applicant companies that make “creative use of the Twilio API.”

Twilio provides telephony infrastructure via the cloud. Using the technology, developers can add call, text, and VoIP capabilities to their web and mobile apps. The service is active on six continents (penguins don’t have much need for VoIP) and can power communication in 150 countries. Historically, setting up cross-border communication systems was not something the average startup could do. Twilio’s API helps make telephony services globally accessible.

“At Twilio, we think SMS and voice should work the same way,” said Twilio product manager Patrick Malatack in a statement last year. “There are no geopolitical boundaries for the web, and we want to ensure developers can work with the telecom network like they do other Internet services.”

500 Startups is a global seed fund and accelerator program founded by the colorful Dave McClure. McClure has been an extremely vocal advocate for startups in emerging markets and makes a significant number of investments in companies operating in Asia, Latin America, and Europe.

“I’m being Captain Obvious to say that that there is incredible innovation happening in Europe,” McClure said in a statement. “Entrepreneurs in those countries often have limited access to venture capital. We’re already investing actively all around the world, Europe included. So we’re pumped to be continuing with Twilio Fund Europe.”

Twilio Fund 2013 will provide seed funding as well as free Twilio credits. Applicants must be building or about to launch a service powered by Twilio’s web service APIs, privately held, less than five years old, and have received less than in funding.

The microfund was first formed with 500 Startups back in 2010. Over a dozen startups have received funding to date. The 2012 finalists were announced yesterday –  Babelverse, Call Loop, Healthsouk, Sessions, and Wedgies. The deadline for applying for the 2013 fund is May 1.

Photo credit: C.P.G.Grey/Flickr

Comparing what people find interesting is a fascinating cross-cultural exercise. When we want to learn more about any given topic, many of us go first to Wikipedia, which is why a report detailing the most viewed articles in 2012, broken down by language, is a revealing glimpse into different mindsets, values, and ways of life around the world.

The English-speaking world is drawn to technology, entertainment, and death. Facebook is the most-viewed page with 32.6 million views, and more than 25 million people looked up “Deaths in 2012.” Half of the top 10 centered on blockbuster films, an English-Irish boy band, and Fifty Shades of Grey.

Bad American television is apparently a significant point of interest to Europeans. Top pages in Spanish, German, French and Italian include How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Grey’s Anatomy, Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries, and Game of Thrones (although I consider Game of Thrones to be riveting television.) One Direction, the aforementioned English-Irish boy band, popped up on just about every European language list. I have yet to decide if my complete and total ignorance of this group is an embarrassing sign of age or a testament to maturity. Let’s go with the latter.

A majority of the highly viewed pages in Arabic are about historical, religious, and political figures, while the Russians are intrigued by Internet phenomena such as YouTube, social networks, and online porn. The Brazilians (and other Portuguese speakers) tend to look up information about sports, singers, and social networks.

The findings vary greatly across Asia by country. In Japan, the top three most popular pages are about actresses and female pop music groups. While the Chinese are primarily drawn to information about technology and business, they are also, it seems, intrigued by Japanese actresses. The Thais primarily use Wikipedia to look up geographical information, while the Vietnamese use the encyclopedia to learn about the birds and the bees. “List of sex positions” tops the most viewed pages, joined by “sex” and “genitals of women.” Naughty, naughty.

These findings were culled from the Wikimedia Toolserver, a collection of 13 servers that host the Wikimedia databases. View the full report.

Peace Corps Volunteers and entrepreneurs have a lot in common. To be successful, both must be idealistic, motivated, adventurous, resourceful, and adaptable. Both groups pinpoint needs and endeavor to address them, and both are no strangers to bad food.

Vijay Rajendran served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon from 2002 to 2004. Now a decade later, he has formed a startup called Hungry Globetrotter that gives people the opportunity to create authentic, delicious, ethnic meals in their own homes.

Hungry Globetrotter is a subscription service for food items that highlights an international destination every month. Users receive boxes designed around specific cuisines, with boutique ingredients that can be used to prepare home-cooked dinners. The packages come with recipes for a well-rounded meal, as well as a regional guide the tells the story behind the area and the products.

The first subscription box was called the South Indian Sampler. It contained a bottle of curry sauce and organic spices, among other things, that could be turned into a feast of madras curry, garam masala rice with vegetables and yogurt raita. Users must buy their own perishable items. October’s theme was Argentina, and included Gaucho Ranch Chimichurri sauce, balsamic pecan vinegar, paprika finishing salt, and gourmet quinoa. 

“I am someone who has lived my life pursuing good food everywhere,” Rajendran said. “I want to  introduce people to new brands, cuisines, flavors and cultures that they can experience through food. Culinary tourism is something people may only do a few times in their life and I want to empower them to have these experiences at home.”

After a youth spent living abroad, a stint as a venture capital consultant in New York, and a Peace Corps Volunteer specializing in micro finance in West Africa, Rajendran is trying to combat the standardization he sees in the American food industry. Most mainstream grocery stores are saturated with mediocre international options, while world food stores are few and far between outside of metropolitan areas,an can be overwhelming and expensive.

Another issue is a lack of knowledge. A home cook may want to create a Moroccan repast, but have no idea what ingredients to buy. The process of researching, purchasing, and preparing is time-consuming for a casual dinner in, and amateurs may be deterred from experimenting with cuisines they know nothing about. Rajendran said Hungry Globetrotter’s vision is about more than just foreign flavors. By encouraging people to roll up their sleeves and cook, it creates a global context and communal experience surrounding the food.

“When I was in Cameroon, I was thrown into a culture and a cuisine that I knew nothing about,” he said. “I became a part of the community through the people I connected with over meals. We would eat together and I would learn about traditions, rituals, festivals, agriculture, family life and so forth. Food became a medium for me to gather, socialize, and share. It gave me a way to genuinely explore their history and grasp a broader sense of culture.”

To this end, Hungry Globetrotter emphasizes content in addition to product. There is a smörgåsbord of food subsciprition services in the e-commerce space, such as Foodzie, Love With Food, Culture Kitchen, Global Grub, and GrubKit. Many of these sell international snacks and artisanal samples, or cater to niche markets. They are not geared towards full meal preparation which can potentially have an impact beyond exposure to new tastes.

“In American food culture, there is the over-communization of certain foods, people often don’t prepare foods at home, and obesity as an epidemic is troubling” he said. “There are studies that show that children who eat dinner at home eat more fruits and vegetables. We are not trying to be a health food company, but we know that something positive starts when people cook at home, and when that process is not a chore, but rather something exciting. The experience of preparing and enjoying home-cooked meals can address many elements of the food system that are broken today.

Hungry Globetrotter sent out its first box in September and is based in San Francisco. The November box will focus on Morocco and December will have a Japanese izakaya theme.

Startup Spotlight is a new weekly series that features a company with a unique idea or story to tell. If your company would like to be considered, please submit an application at http://venturebeat.com/news-tips/.

Boom provides an online financial platform for people without bank accounts. It primarily serves immigrant families and allows them to save, share, and spend their money globally, which is key for those with extended families abroad.

Boom’s mobile money service eliminates the need for traditional cash wire transfers by allowing members to use their phones to make low-cost, bank-grade payments using text messaging. Users can also make purchases and withdrawals at participating Boom vendors and ATMs. They simply load money to their account at participating retail locations, such as 7-Eleven, and then text the amount of money to transfer and the phone number of the recipient. Boom confirms the transaction and wires the funds.

Considering there are over 60 million people in the U.S. who do not have bank accounts but do have mobile phones, there is a huge market for this service. Furthermore, there’s also a strong demand among this segment of the population for a way to send money across borders.

“Boom Financial was founded to provide our customers, who are often used to a feeling of helplessness due to high fees, fear of robbery, and extreme inconvenience, bordering on hardship, gain a feeling of control over their finances,” said CEO Bill Barhydt.

In 2011, Boom (then m-Via) collaborated with the US State Department to create the International Diaspora Engagement Alliance to support diaspora communities in the United States, which underscores the company’s commitment to making life easier for immigrant communities. It raised its initial investment of $5 million in 2010.

This second round brings the total funding to $30 million. It was led by Digicel Group, a value mobile operator with an international presence, including in the Caribbean, Central America, and the South Pacific. Boom Finanical will channel the investment towards expanding its product team in the US, as well as increasing its sales and distribution in the US, Latin American, and Caribbean.

m-Via was founded in 2008 and currently has 30 employees, although it is looking to double the team this year. It is based in Palo Alto.

E.ventures has dedicated funds in the US, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Brazil, with local investment teams on the ground all over the world. The firm focuses on early-stage startups. With the unification, portfolio companies will be able to access financial and technological resources from all over the world, as well as see increased opportunities for international growth.

“The world has really become flat when it comes to entrepreneurship,” said cofounder Mathias Schilling in an interview with VentureBeat. “Before, China, Brazil, and Russia were standalone markets. With our global platform, it brings incredible synergies and benefits for the funds as well as the entrepreneurs. We can bring our companies to a global scale overnight and effect multi-city partnerships.”

While each market is different, these differences can be leveraged to complement each other. For example, a Russian engineering company may be able to implement its product faster in Brazil’s booming e-commerce scene, or a Chinese gaming company could generate greater revenue by distributing in Japan, where monetization is stronger.

BV Capital has invested in companies such as Groupon, Angie’s List, Shopping.com, and Sonos. Since 1997, it has invested nine funds totaling over $750 million in capital. It is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Beijing, Tokyo, and most recently, Sao Paulo. Read more on VentureBeat.

It seems like Facebook’s App Center is getting some global love. The social network’s marketplace is officially open to all users in the U.S. and seven other countries, and it will soon expand to seven more countries with new, translated apps.

In addition to the U.S., the App Center is available in Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K. It’s accessible from the black sidebar on the left-hand side of the iOS and Android Facebook apps, as well as on the left side of the news feed on desktops. Thus far, Diamond Dash, Angry Birds Friends, SoundCloud, and Spotify have all become some of the App Center’s most popular apps. All of these apps were created by companies outside the U.S.

Facebook announced the opening of the App Center in early June. It launched initially with 600 apps and points out that gaming company Kixeye reports “better than average revenue per users” for titles War Commander and Battle Pirates.

Facebook notes that over 80 percent of its monthly active users come from outside of the U.S. and Canada, so the company has plans to expand to even more countries in the coming weeks. These include Brazil, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, and Turkey. Developers who would like their apps to be launched in these markets are asked to submit translations to the App Center review team before July 13.

Thumbnail image via vrooom/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Amazon may be prepping two new tablets for its impending Kindle Fire revamp, both of which are said to have metal casing, instead of the traditional plastic.

Recently, it was reported that Amazon would release the Kindle Fire 2 on July 31 at $200. The tablet was originally released in November 2011, and is due for a revamp in the near future. But BGR reports that Amazon is actually prepping two new Kindle Fires — 10-inch and 7-inch models. These models, according to BGR’s source, will feature a metal casing, as opposed to the current plastic one.

Earlier reports suggest that the revamped tablet would have a camera and much request physical volume buttons. BGR believes that the 10-inch version will have a front-facing camera, but volume buttons have been left out of the details.

An international version of the Kindle fire is also rumored. Amazon announced earlier this month that the Amazon Appstore, where owners of the Android-based tablet can pick up apps, will be soon be available internationally. The Appstore serves both the Kindle Fire and the overall Android Market and will be opening in the U.K., France, Spain, Italy, and Germany this summer. More countries will follow soon after. The expansion leads many to think that an internationally sold Kindle Fire may not be far behind.

Amazon claims the Kindle Fire is the “bestselling, most gifted, and most wished for” product, though the company does release specific numbers. Executives will only say that it has sold “millions” of the device.

via BGR; Kindle Fire image via Courtbean/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Bonjour, Amazon App Store! The e-commerce company announced today that developers will soon be able to sell their apps in the UK, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany.

The Amazon App Store, which currently serves both the company’s own Kindle Fire tablet as well as the overall Android market, will open the store internationally this summer, and is already supplying tools to prepare developers for international expansion. Existing Android users abroad will be able to use the marketplace as soon as it opens, but the expansion hints at an international version of the Kindle Fire. Amazon reported net sales of $13.18 billion in the first quarter of 2012 but didn’t give many details on the Fire. That is, other than saying it is the company’s “bestselling, most gifted, and most wished” for product.

Developers should sign into the Mobile App Distribution Portal to prepare for the global move. Those already in Amazon’s developer program will by default have their apps available for sale in these new countries. Apps do not have to be sold in all six countries, however. Using the localized tools, you can choose which countries you’d like your app to appear in, as well as set prices for that country and other specifics.

Given Amazon’s recent move to in-app purchases, the company is also changing its revenue share terms. Developers with paid apps in any country will be paid 70 percent of the app’s list price. Prior to now, paid-app developers were given either 70 percent of the sales from that app or 20 percent of the list price, whichever raked in more cash. This change will begin July 1.

Amazon plans to make the marketplace available to more countries in the near future.

Kindle Fire image via Courtbean/Flickr

Design is determining the winners in everything mobile. The most successful players are focusing on one thing: How to make products, services, and devices as compelling and delightful as possible – visually, and experientially. MobileBeat 2012, July 10-11 in San Francisco , is assembling the most elite minds to debate how UI/UX is transforming every aspect of the mobile economy, and where the opportunities lie. Register here.

Startup Weekend, the household name in hackathons, has expanded its operations to a much wider international audience. Although the organization has for some time been conducting hackathons around the world, it is now opening offices in two non-U.S. locations: London and Mexico City.

Startup Weekend hackathons are what they sound like: weekend-long hack sessions that focus on creating interesting solutions to the hackers’ own problems. In San Francisco, this can amount to a lot of tech and apps, but in other parts of the world, the company has seen weekend warriors present game-changing ideas about farming innovation or other, less digital means of improving their communities.

The Seattle-based Startup Weekend team of 20 employees will be putting together more than 500 events in 2012, and around 65 percent of them will occur outside the United States.

“The most important thing we could be doing for society, our economies, and the world right now is helping more people become successful entrepreneurs,” Startup Weekend CEO Marc Nager said in a release this morning.

“We’ve had demand for more than 2,000 events this year in over 100 different countries. Regional operations will allow us to scale faster and continue to feed a fundamental shift in communities that are trying to create more vibrant startup ecosystems.”

The next steps for Startup Weekend include opening more offices in Brazil, India, and China to help communities in those areas increase the quantity and quality of entrepreneurship, thereby boosting the local quality of life and stimulating the local economies.

Startup Weekend success stories in the Western startup world so far include buyer-powered marketplace Zaarly and Eventup, an amazingly cool site that helps event-throwers find the perfect, unique venue.

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Big Data and Predictive/Real-time Analytics startups: Are you looking to jumpstart development & accelerate market traction? Sign up for the SAP Startup Focus program to receive technology, support, resources and community to help you develop new applications on SAP HANA, a cutting edge database platform. Get started here, and enter promo code “VB2013″ on the form.

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Groupon’s business stateside has been embroiled in an accounting scandal that cut the stock price in half. But its international operations are responsible for two-thirds of the company’s revenue. Yesterday the company announced that Marc Samwer, who along with his brothers notoriously creates clones of successful American startups, was stepping down as head of their international operations, to be replaced by the Austrian Veit Dengler.

Samwer took over at Groupon’s international operations in 2010, after it bought Citydeal, the Groupon clone he and his brothers created. During his tenure the U.K. arm of Groupon was censured by regulators after it posted a record high 50 violations of that country’s advertising codes, including deals on breast implants that didn’t work and products that simply didn’t exist.

In Germany, where Citydeal was based, Groupon has been accused of harsh labor practices and breach of contract, complaints that echoed those around a class action lawsuit here in America. And while Groupon vowed to improve in the wake of these customer and employee complaints, our own Rocky Argawal found the Groupon Promise isn’t as ironcald as it seems at first.

New international head Veit Dengler most recently ran computer maker Dell’s Eastern European and Russian operations. He will have his work cut out for him as Groupon tries reverse its losses and claw its way to profitability in this next quarter.

Ever since I became an academic six years ago, I have been one of the biggest critics of U.S. competitiveness policies. I documented, for example, that we had our data wrong when it came to India and China’s advantages in engineering education and R&D, that we didn’t understand how to build innovation centers, and that our assumptions about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship were wrong. I have been particularly vocal about America’s flawed immigration policies. I quantified the amazing contribution that skilled immigrants make in the technology industry and raised the alarm about the reverse brain drain that is in progress. I testified, assertively, to Congress, and have been badgering our political leaders to act on these important issues.

My father, a retired Indian diplomat, called me on several occasions to plead that I tone down my criticism. He worried that I would anger U.S. government officials and they would find some way to have me deported. Indeed, this would have been the case in many countries, where I could have ended up in a Gulag — or worse.

But what happens in America?

The Government gives me an official recognition — Outstanding American by Choice — for my “commitment to this country and to the common civic values that unite us as Americans.” When I received the call from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director, Alejandro Mayorkas, I had tears in my eyes. He told me that the government appreciated all of my efforts to make the country more competitive and that my criticisms of his department had motived his team to work harder to improve the system.

This is the greatness of America and why this country leads the world: Disagreement and debate are cherished. Challenging the norms, thinking outside the box, and questioning those in power is encouraged and celebrated. The louder you speak the more prominence and respect you are given. Society’s heroes aren’t merely revolutionaries or political figures, but opinionated, non-conformist entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.

This is what distinguishes American children from others and why they grow up to be innovators. From childhood, they are encouraged to pursue their dreams and to challenge authority. So they challenge their parents, then their teachers, and then their government. And they learn to work with each other and compete. There are no barriers to success. If you work hard, think smart, and persevere, you achieve success. And this success is celebrated. Reaping fortunes through entrepreneurial success even has a special label: it’s called the American Dream.

America’s unique strength is that it also welcomes foreigners. Yes there is some discrimination and there are a few hurdles to leap over. But once you surmount these, you are treated like everyone else. You are given the same respect and have the same opportunities. You can compete in any field. And this is what has been happening through American history: wave after wave of immigrants has landed on American shores, embodied its values, and helped birthright citizens to work harder and think smarter.

Today, America is in a slump. The ups and downs of the economy and rise of new global competitors are discouraging and often cause American’s to lose hope. But, as someone who came to the U.S. by choice, and who has studied the warts of this country and its competitors, I have no doubt that the U.S. will continue to prosper and lead the world.

It has to — no other country has the ingredients for long-term success.

Washington Post columnist Vivek Wadhwa is a visiting scholar at the School of Information at UC-Berkeley, director of research for the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, and senior research associate for the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School.

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Capital image via Blacknell/Flickr

Copyright 2012, WashingtonPost

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Facebook is aiming to boost international usage with the debut of a new “Facebook for Every Phone” app, which offers full access to the social network on over 2,500 mobile phones across the globe. The company’s mobile team announced the new app in a blog post today.

While the company is estimated to have 750 million active monthly users, some speculate that user growth in North America is slowing or even in decline. However, Facebook usage is growing in other countries, which could be why the company is focusing on this new app for feature phones.

The new Facebook for Every Phone app gives users access to the news feed, contact lists, messages and photo sharing. The photo sharing functionality is particularly robust — allowing users to upload, comment on and edit photos straight from their phones. Right now it’s only available on Java-enabled phones, but support for more devices will be provided in the future, the company said.

The app is also optimized to use a minimal amount of data to keep the Facebook experience inexpensive in areas where high-speed data plans are either expensive or not readily available.

To give people an added incentive to try it out, Facebook is working with 20 different wireless carriers in 13 different countries to provide free data consumption for the first 90 days that the app is in use. The company is hoping three months on the social network will be enough to keep people using it, despite the added cost.

If Facebook can provide an attractive communication experience that uses as much data as SMS and e-mail messages, it will have succeeded in making its social network indispensable to a whole new market of consumers.

Twitter’s trending list tracks keywords within tweets and promotes topics that appear at a high frequency at any given moment. The list has given users a useful way to keep up with the pulse of the platform, but when specialized to countries and cities it can be even more useful, as it lets users gauge local trends in and specific to their area.

With today’s addition of 13 countries and 6 cities, the microblogging platform will be expanding its trending list to Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Turkey, Venezuela and to the cities of Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis, Rio De Janeiro, Sydney, Toronto.

Additionally, the company said it plans on integrating Google Translate within its details pane, showing an automated translation for tweets in other languages. The feature is currently in use by a small percentage of users but will be rolled out site-wide within the next few weeks.

Over the past year, Twitter has seen monumental growth internationally. Back in March, real-time analytics firm Semiocast found that only 30% of tweets originated in the United States, with English accounting for less than 44% percent — a decrease from 50% just two months prior.

Website monitoring firm Pingdom looked for growth regions in June and noticed steep curves originating from countries in Latin America and Asia, particularly from Argentina, India, Japan, and South Korea.

With an estimated 190 million users in its back pocket, the site has come a long way from being the talk-of-the-town at the SXSW Conference in 2007. As countries around the world continue to get hit by the Twitter plague, there’s no telling how high that number will climb.