Roundup: Facebook users triple in Japan, MySpace selects citizen journalists and more
Here’s the latest action:
ComScore: Facebook users triple in Japan during the last year – But Mixi.jp is still number one, with 12.7 million visitors compared to Facebook’s 538,000.
MySpace and NBC select citizen journalists — They’ve chosen Matt Britten and Sara Pat Badgley to cover the Democratic and Republican Conventions, respectively, as part of the companies’ Decision08 contest. Britten and Badgley’s videos and blog posts will appear on MySpace, and possibly on the MSNBC TV channel and… Continue Reading
All three Democratic presidential candidates support VC tax
You will probably see Silicon Valley’s Sand Hill Road, center of the nation’s venture capital industry, turn to the right during the next elections.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has just become the last of the main three Democratic presidential candidates to announce her support for ending a tax break that has enabled venture capitalists and other investors to enjoy taxes of 15 percent on their profits, instead of the income tax level of 35 percent.
We’ve covered… Continue Reading
Buyout firm Blackstone files for brazen $4 billion IPO
The Blackstone Group, one of the most successful buyout firms, has filed for a $4 billion IPO (see filing).
VentureBeat is about money and innovation, and focuses on venture capital, and so doesn’t cover the buyout world much. The buyout industry is on fire, because public companies are seeking shelter from the demanding public market — lured by sexy, lucrative offers by these big buyout firms that have few public reporting requirements. Firms such as Blackstone… Continue Reading
Peanut Butter redux, expensive Sonsini, Hoffman burned, Infinera & much more
(Updated) roundup of the high-stakes game going on in Silicon Valley:
Brad Garlinghouse’s Peanut Butter memo — The Yahoo executive complained about the company’s “proclivity to repeatedly hire leaders from outside.” This is noteworthy, because he himself was hired from the outside. Before Yahoo, he’d served as chief executive at DialPad, and drove that company into the ground. We reached out to Brad Monday night, and hope to get comment soon.
Larry Sonsini can’t be at fault — Fortune… Continue Reading