How to make friends and influence people (and convert them)
(Editor’s note: Adam Toren is co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com. He contributed this story to VentureBeat.)
You’ve heard, time and again, how critical engaging in social media is to your start up – but you probably haven’t heard it laid out this succinctly: “[Social media] represents a powerful and additional channel to first listen to customers… and in turn, build two-way paths of conversations…. we also earn a place within their network as a trustworthy resource.”
The thoughts… Continue Reading
Is social media worth your marketing dollars?
As social media has reached mainstream consciousness this year, businesses have been inundated with the message that they must immediately get on board or risk doom and calamity. The hyperbole (and the frenzied buzz it creates) is confusing and many businesses could use a practical guide on how to evaluate social media and how to engage – if it’s appropriate.
It’s amusing to think that “Word of Mouth” marketing (which, essentially, is what Facebook, Twitter and… Continue Reading
25 social media sites for entrepreneurs
If you’re an entrepreneur who has been seduced by social media tools such as Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook, you may realize the benefits of using these basic tools to finding and staying in touch with business partners, employers and customers, along with learning new information.
If you’re late to the party, though, we’ve listed a variety of basic social media tools for networking – as well as a number of social media sites designed just for… Continue Reading
How much is Twitter worth? $589 million, says SharesPost report
(Red notes a base-case scenario and blue represents upside.)
Twitter shares might be worth between $19 and $26, giving the company a valuation of up to $589 million, according to NeXt Up! research. The report is part of SharesPost, a private equity market allowing buyers and sellers to exchange shares of pre-IPO companies. NeXt Up! is a research firm co-founded by Michael Moe, a former senior managing director and director of global growth research at Merrill… Continue Reading
Retweet.com removes offending code after Tweetmeme plagiarism accusations
A small tiff erupted over the weekend between two competitors seeking control over the retweeting space. Retweeting, a way of sharing content on Twitter, provides valuable data for surfacing the most popular content over a certain time.
Tweetmeme, an aggregator that finds popular content on Twitter, accused a still-unlaunched competitor called Retweet.com of copying its code verbatim. Although Retweet.com hasn’t yet opened to the public, Tweetmeme’s founder Nick Halstead discovered some code through a commenter, who left… Continue Reading
Incorporating social media: There’s no magic bullet
Searching for help in determining how to incorporate social media into your business can be a frustrating process. A Google search for ‘social media consultant’ returns over 20 million results – and most of them offer very similar, one-size-fits-all suggestions based around the adoption of popular (and often faddish) tools and services.
Successful social marketing isn’t as simple as installing a set of apps and regular Facebook updates. There is no magic bullet. Determining the right… Continue Reading
Disaboom offers social networking for those with disabilities — if it can attract them
Social marketing is generally a matter of attracting like-minded people and aiming advertising at them. Getting at disparate and often amorphous groups who nevertheless still have something in common is quite a bit trickier, though — which explains the genesis of Disaboom.com, a new social-networking/marketing site aimed at bringing together people with disabilities, a group every bit as diverse as the general U.S. population.
(For a less ambitious, but perhaps more feasible, attempt to harness social… Continue Reading
Sermo links doctors to one another — and to investors
(UPDATED: See below.)
Cambridge, Mass.-based Sermo, an online social network with a twist, offers physicians the opportunity to ask for and offer advice free of charge. The catch: Well-heeled investors can pay to listen in.
Sermo, which just raised $26.7 million in a third funding round (details below), offers doctors the opportunity to share, discuss and vote on the importance of each others’ medical observations. The intriguing notion here is that doctors are likely to identify emerging trends… Continue Reading
Life sciences briefing: Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2007
(UPDATED at 3:10pm PT: See below.)
Featured companies: Agendia, EndoGastric Solutions, FlowCo, Gentris, MedManage Systems, ParagonDx, Presidio Pharmaceuticals, Xoova
Presidio Pharma raises $26M for viral treatments — San Francisco’s Presidio Pharmaceuticals, a biotech developing new antiviral drugs, raised $26 million in a second funding round. Investors included Panorama Capital, Baker Brothers Investments, Bay City Capital, Ventures West Capital, Nexus Medical Partners, Sagamore Bioventures, George Rathmann Fund and Peninsula Overview Partners.
Presidio’s lead drug candidates take aim at HIV, hepatitis… Continue Reading
Google, Genentech fund personal-genetics startup 23andMe
(UPDATED: see below.) 23andMe, a stealthy Mountain View, Calif., “personal genetics” startup, has raised a first round of funding from some heavy hitters — Google, Genentech and two blue-chip VC firms, Mohr Davidow Ventures and New Enterprise Associates.
That’s some significant megatonnage for a low-profile and potentially controversial startup, although it all starts to make sense once you realize that Google co-founder Sergey Brin is newly married to 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki. In addition, Genentech CEO Art… Continue Reading
Inpowr creates a social network for ME
There’s a social networking site for nearly every person, animal, and interest – but what about a social network for the person who matters most? That’s right, a social network for YOU, the proud recipient of Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.
Look in the mirror. Do you really know yourself? Could you be happier? Thanks to a new web site called Inpowr, which launched yesterday at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, you can… Continue Reading
Reunion, the un-glamorous social network that makes money
Reunion is a social networking company that looks decidedly old-fashioned, compared to glitzy (or garish, some would say) sites like MySpace.
And yet its simplicity, like that of Facebook, is apparently part of its success. It now has 28 million registered users, and is adding one million users a month — and by that measure, it ranks among the top five social networks (Facebook, by contrast has slightly more than 19 million registered users). That’s why… Continue Reading
MingleNow launches new bar/restaurant social networking site
Updated
MingleNow, the latest social networking company that has been in development for many months, launches a public testing version tomorrow (Monday).
MingleNow is best compared with Yelp, because it focuses on the social community around bars and restaurants.
Only MingleNow goes further. It wants to give people hanging out at bars and restaurants ways to interact with each other online too. If you frequent a bar, for example, you can put your profile up on the… Continue Reading