Blog millionaire Jason Calacanis offers best analysis of Yahoo / Microsoft deal
The baby-faced, fast-talking entrepreneur, who edited Silicon Alley Reporter during Web 1.0 and sold Engadget and some other blogs to AOL for more than $25 million in his Web 2.0 comeback, lacks only one thing to make him a star business pundit: An editor.
VentureBeat can help here. Jason, here’s my rewrite of your blog post today about why Yahoo’s search deal with Microsoft is a suicide move:
“Yahoo was once the No. 1 search site on… Continue Reading
Roundup: Twitter’s lack of youth, Google Local’s new dashboard, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Young adults not embracing Twitter (yet) – The microblogging service has found an older audience than Facebook’s early users.
Google Local gives small businesses their own web dashboard – The dashboard, designed to lure businesses to claim their profiles on Local, will deliver something akin to Google Analytics.
Later-stage valuations tumble – During the first quarter of 2009, the median valuation for a later-stage venture deal fell 43 percent compared to the same period last year, according… Continue Reading
Jason Calacanis’ “Project A” is surprisingly compelling Mahalo Answers
Today, Jason Calacanis launches Mahalo Answers — the latest project from Mahalo, his “human powered search engine”. Mahalo Answers is a possibly clever cross between Yahoo’s free-wheeling Q&A bonanza at Yahoo Answers, and Google’s highly researched pay-to-play Google Answers service, which was closed down two years ago.
A year and a half ago on Valleywag, a Nostradamus-esque Tim Faulkner (disclosure: I worked with Tim at the now-semi-defunct tech tabloid) somehow predicted this particular product. In a… Continue Reading
Roundup: Skype’s offer, Calacanis, Acoona, Zoho, Bluebet, Tafiti, WikiScanner, more
Here’s the latest action:
Skype trying to buy back customer love — Skype is sending out notes to users saying they’ll get a week’s worth of free service. The San Jose Internet phone company says it has 196 million users and reported earlier this year that it was profitable for the first time. As Jeff Nolan points out, its users now number 3 percent of the world’s population, and only just now profitable?
Jason Calacanis, the scrappy entrepreneur —… Continue Reading
Mahalo.com emerges as yet another search engine
updated
Mahalo.com, the latest company from entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, launched, with a stripped-down search engine designed to handle only the most popular requests in widely appealing categories.
Focused on areas such as travel, music, television, movies, cars, food, health, news and sports — and filtered with the help of a team of 40 employees in Santa Monica, Calif. — the limited results are meant to avoid the spam and other junk results that clog up the other… Continue Reading
YouTube myth debunked, Google phone, Endoxon, iPhone, Perkins’ memoir & more
The latest roundup of Silicon Valley tech stuff:
YouTube myth debunked; idea really came from HOTorNOT — Remember the Pez dispenser story eBay fabricated to drum up a catchy media story about its founding? Turns out, the same thing happened at YouTube. The founders, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen told us and many others that their idea for YouTube came during a party, and their frustration at not being able to upload videos of it. Now Time… Continue Reading
Metacafe sold?, Common Sense raises $, Calacanis joins Sequoia, AskCity & more
(Update: Apologies, we’d meant to put a questionmark in the headline, so we’ve fixed. We’re checking on this rumor, but now we’re getting more doubts about this supposed sale)
Here’s the latest in Silicon Valley tech world:
Video site MetaCafe to be sold for $200 million? — That’s what this site says. We reviewed Metacafe, which recently moved to Palo Alto, here.
Common Sense Media, a site where families can review movies, films, TV shows, games, raises $4.25… Continue Reading