VentureBeat

Auren Hoffman is one of the Silicon Valley’s most connected people. For a while, he made his living with his Rolodex, hooking people up through his firm Stonebrick.

Last year, he started a company called RapLeaf, designed to keep track of your reputation for reliability as you buy and sell things online. It works across Web sites, and so takes eBay’s reputation system and extends it universally (our story here).

So it is ironic that Hoffman has been attempting to tidy up his own online reputation, by signing onto Wikipedia under the name “MLK Hamilton” to make changes to his profile there.

Someone first noticed that “MLK Hamilton,” the alias of the person making changes to Hoffman’s Wikipedia entry, seemed a strong coincidence, given that Hoffman lists Martin Luther King and Alexander Hamilton as two of his personal heroes. When, in turn, that person noted the coincidence at Wikipedia, another anonymous person, with the same IP address of MLK Hamilton, came along and removed the reference. Was Hoffman secretly trying to clean up his online profile and then, additionally, trying to protect himself when he was found out? Valleywag, Silicon Valley’s gossip site, began asking questions, though didn’t get confirmation from Hoffman himself.

We called up Hoffman, and he told VentureBeat that he had gone in to change his profile because a friend, Jonathan Abram (of Friendster fame) had added “silly” things to his profile like how his San Francisco loft is decorated with pictures of prominent Rebublican politicians, and that he was a good dancer. Hoffman said he is not a good dancer, and that pictures on his wall aren’t relevant. Since Abrams had added the entries as a prank, Hoffman said, he felt justified using pranksterish means to make the changes. “I didn’t change anything relevant,” he told VentureBeat. “I didn’t put anything up there that makes me sound good.” When we asked whether his actions might contradict the spirit his own efforts to create a reliable online reputation company, he said he didn’t think so.

Another reported deletion request was about his connection to a public relations firm that took Pentagon money to bribe Iraqi journalists.

(Update: There appears to be a settlement).

A U.S. district court judge has issued a preliminary ruling favoring Iconix in a suit alleging two of its former employees committed intellectual property theft in forming photo slideshow site, RockYou.

Iconix apparently nailed them by archiving their IM conversations.

PE Week’s Alexander Haislip has done the reporting (link is here, but it is subscription only), and digs up the details from the complaint. Here’s our earlier story on RockYou, about its business model, and why high-profile venture firm Sequoia Capital led a $1.5 million investment into the company, along with Lightspeed and other investors. The firms have been mired in the suit too, according to the report, which suggests they knew about the complaint before investing.

From our earlier story, you’ll see the company has seen controversy before, including allegations of hate-mongering, but the company responded to that. The site is filled with raunchy profiles such as the one at left.

Lance Tokuda and Jia Shen, the two co-founders made the mistake of corresponding via IM about their plans, and the complaint publishes archives Iconix claims is proof they planned RockYou while still at Iconix:

Tokuda’s IM name is “phdlance” and Shen’s is “mekateK” in the following alleged IM exchange:

phdlance: basically, a funny slideshow with email distribution support could make us viral

mekateK: huh… oh rms… thats [sic] scary. I can’t tell what ur [sic] talkin [sic] about… rms [rockmyspace] or ico[Iconix]… hehe

Apologies, but you’ll have to subscribe to PE Week if you want to read the rest of the juicy gossip, about the other archived conversations, including why they approached local entrepreneur Auren Hoffman, for example, who knew an exec at News Corp., which had a big acquisition budget — and who offered them a $5 million valuation straight up.

That, or we’ll get a copy of the complaint and post it here.

Update: Here are links to the complaint, to the IM conversation, and to the judge’s order, which comes courtesy of Venkat at Spamnotes. Let us know what you think. The evidence clearly suggests they plotted RockYou while on Iconix’s time — not good.

Other related links below in comments.

Also, check out attorney Todd Rumberger’s advice about what to consider when leaving a company to start a new one, and how to not get sued. Most people assume California is liberal in letting employees leave, but that’s not true in certain cases.

(Updated with clarification from ePlanet)

Myspace loose with email confirmation — Did you know that someone can sign up as you on MySpace, using your email address?

If you’re not already using MySpace under the email account, then someone can come along and use it to create an account there, and assume your identity. Auren Hoffman, owner of online reputation company RapLeaf, demonstrates this, using the example of signing up ValleyWag’s Nick Douglas.

EPlanet Ventures raises $550 million venture capital fund — This is the global firm, run by Asad Jamal, which used to be affiliated with Draper Fisher Jurvetson. But the two firms split last year, after differences, mentioned here. (Clarification: EPlanet Ventures has since told us it has not fully finished raising the fund. It would not say how much it has already raised, or when it would make an announcement.)

Google acquires replica SpaceShipOne — The ship (pictured here) won the X Prize, and a copy is being installed at Google’s campus.

Chris Anderson, who penned “Long Tail” now pitching “Economy of Abundance” concept:

The basic idea is that incredible advances in technology have driven the cost of things like transistors, storage, bandwidth, to zero. And when the elements that make up a business are sufficiently abundant as to approach free, companies appropriately should view their businesses differently than when resources were scarce (the Economy of Scarcity). They should use those resources with abandon, without concern for waste.

(via David Hornik)