-------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Newsgator STATUS: Draft ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/03/2006 08:15:51 AM ----- BODY: Compettior to Bloglines, and then Yahoo and a host of others.... • NewsGator Seals $7M Series D From Insiders By Clancy Nolan 8/3/2006 NewsGator Technologies Inc., a developer of tools to help people receive syndicated news feeds directly to their Outlook folders and mobile devices, has raised $7 million in Series D financing, according to a regulatory filing. Existing investors Masthead Venture Partners and Mobius Venture Capital were listed as investors in the filing. The company declined to talk about the round, and representatives from the two venture capital firms did not immediately respond to requests for comment. NewsGator previously inked more than $10 million from the investors across three rounds. Founded in 2003, NewsGator retrieves real-simple syndication, or RSS, feeds and organizes and delivers them to subscribers, who are then able to customize the delivery, destination and presentation of those feeds based on their own preferences. The NewsGator Online platform is designed to work across multiple devices, including mobile phones, televisions and email clients such as Microsoft Outlook. The Denver-based company has added a host of features in the past few months, including a new version of its enterprise server aggregation platform. In late July, NewsGator also added an RSS plug-in for Yahoo Messenger that is designed to enable users to access audio and video podcasts through an IM interface. NewsGator has been acquisitive in the past year, buying up NetNewsWire, a news reader for the Mac OS X system, and acquiring Bradbury Software LLC, maker of the FeedDemon, a Windows-based desktop aggregator ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Skyrider gets $8M to launch new sort of search engine: of peer-to-peer STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/03/2006 09:06:23 AM ----- BODY:
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Skyrider, a Mountain View start-up, is developing technology that will be able to search peer-to-peer traffic, in order to help media and other companies become more profitable. The two-year old company has raised $8 million from Silicon Valley's top VC firm Sequoia Capital, along with Charles River Ventures. The company's product will be announced in fall, the company told us last night. (Here is their release.) ----- EXTENDED BODY: The company aims to "monetize" popular peer-to-peer networks, which have emerged to help circulate large files such as video. Since that's where the information is, that's where to do the best mining. And the company is working on a search platform that spans across P2P platforms. The company is led by chief executive Ed Kozel, who among other positions was former chief technology officer at Cisco. It was co-founded by Ori Cohen and Stas Khirman, the guys behind Narus (a company that inspects internet protocol packet information, and thus provides relevant experience) and previously, VDOnet (which in the mid-1990s, was already in the business of transmitting video over the Internet). They want to do three things: 1) Keyword-based search marketing (there are as many as tens of millions of unique users per day, conducting hundreds of millions of searches, the company says); 2) Unrestricted access to content (a P2P search can poll millions of network computers simultaneously at effectively no cost, they say); 3) New software and applications (once businesses reach P2P users, they can build upon the "decentralized, dynamic and community" nature of P2P technology, they say). ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Skyrider, Ori+Cohen, Ed+Kozel, Sequoia+Capital, Charles+River+Ventures, peer-to-peer ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Meebome may do fine without eBay STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/03/2006 11:03:49 AM ----- BODY:
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Meebo is reporting that about 7,500 Meebome instant messaging widgets were created within twelve hours of being launched yesterday. An unrelenting barrage of people hit our site yesterday and chatted with us via our Meebome button. Peoples' overwhelming response was one word: "Cool!" So cool, perhaps, that "Meebome" looked to eBay more like an "amoeba," the fast-growing penetrative parasite that takes over large bodies. Thus the Meebome on eBay has been taken down. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Roundup: Last Google Jet hearing, VC China wars, Capton, Vysr, Wablet, more URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/11/roundup_last_google_jet_hearing_vc_china_wars_capton_vysr_wablet_more.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/11/2006 08:19:02 AM Google co-founders have settled with the guy who spilled beans on the secretive Google Jet -- A final hearing is scheduled for Aug. 29. Details here in the Mercury News story today. Draper Fisher Jurvetson reappears in China -- After a rocky period in... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: BusinessWeek on Digg: Crash, Sizzle, Pop! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/03/2006 05:28:27 PM ----- BODY: Updated
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Here's an entertaining, if bubbly story about the Digg guy Kevin Rose and how he embodies the new Silicon Valley elite: ...Rose had given every last piece of himself to the project -- all his time, all his cash, and even his girlfriend, who fought with him after he poured his savings into Digg instead of a downpayment on a house. Today, Digg, Version 3, the one that would go beyond tech news to include politics, gossip, business, and videos, was going live. At 29, Rose was on his way either to a cool $60 million or to total failure... (Minor quibble: Story uses Alexa stats -- which are very unreliable -- to say Digg is nipping at the New York Times' popularity) (Update: More from Techdirt, on BusinessWeek's speculative reference to $200 million as the going value for Digg, citing "people in the know." TechDirt's Joe says: BusinessWeek has written the ultimate Web2.0 hype piece without the slightest hint of skepticism about the numbers that it throws around. Our sentiments exactly.) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: SearchEngines EMAIL: dhtml1@go.com IP: 64.59.48.226 URL: http://digg.com/users/SearchEngines/homepage DATE: 08/03/2006 10:22:28 PM It seems so-o inevitable that... Digg - YouTube and MySpace will ultimately partner oneday - and produce the ultimate Web 2.0 UGC site.......and will create their own unique Search Engine to match Google ....perhaps Murdoch will own them all ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Gary Bourgeault (thealphamarketer.com) EMAIL: gbourgeaul@comcast.net IP: 68.52.235.16 URL: http://thealphamarketer.com DATE: 08/03/2006 10:35:02 PM Good Story. Yet, it does sound almost a little too much like 2000 to me; at least it was written like that. The comment made that Digg is only a news "aggregator" was pretty stupid, as anyone that follows the "old" media knows, they are overall, news aggregators also. Even in the last couple of days companies are asking citizen journalists to make contributions that will be included in their broadcasts. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: D. Afarian (Mousepad.com) EMAIL: kesabsy@hotmail.com IP: 216.165.241.34 URL: http://www.Mousepad.com DATE: 08/04/2006 07:25:41 AM As far as news aggregators go, I saw a demo of a site that will launch called BlueGrind.com that will rock. I think it is going to be a free service??? This site will actually read in the news from I think it was Yahoo or Google in text format and convert it to audio MP3. So I can download it and take it with me to listen to only the news that I want while driving to work. Neat!! ----- PING: TITLE: The Business Week article on Digg, continued URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/07/the_business_week_article_on_digg_continued.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/07/2006 06:01:11 AM We got an email from an old gym friend. Our schedules have varied, and we haven't seen each other for months. He wanted to get in touch, he told us, because he'd just read Business Week's story on Digg: "...the story on Kevin Rose and it is inspiring ... ----- PING: TITLE: Crash URL: http://www.slantautos.info/crash/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Crash DATE: 08/09/2006 05:22:16 PM Includes archives of FEA models, animation results, plus information about the center and Crash is rated NC 17, and is bas... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Secretive hydrogen fuel company, Ion America , raises $103M STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/04/2006 06:27:41 AM ----- BODY:
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Ion America, the secretive Silicon Valley (Moffett Field) start-up apparently developing a fuel cell to produce hydrogen and electricity to power cars and trucks, has raised $103 million in its latest equity financing, its fourth round. That is a lot of money, and we are not surprised, because the hand of Silicon Valley firm New Enterprise Associates is behind this one -- and the firm, fresh from raising one of the largest venture funds ever, is getting aggressive in pushing investments in green technologies. (It is a hot sector right now, and it is one that can absorb a lot of cash, because presumably factories will be built down the line). Ion America filed a statement about the financing at the Securities & Exchange Commission, and VentureWire reported on it this morning (subscription required). ----- EXTENDED BODY: Investors in the company include NEA, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Mobius Venture Capital. The total funding is now $165 million. Until now, if you have asked some of these folks about Ion America, they have declined to acknowledge its existence -- though that may change now. There is clear evidence on the Web of what the company is doing. It has successfully passed field tests in Sunnyvale and at the Alternative Energy Lab at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga (see page five). Click on the image here to enlarge and see a diagram of what Ion America is up to. Ion America's fuel cell generates hydrogen and electricity. We have written about Ion America several times before, including a mention of management change. Kleiner Partner John Doerr, Mobius Managing Director Greg Galanos, and New Enterprise Associates General Partner Scott Sandell are board members. Sandell, you should now, is the guy who invested in SolFocus, a solar company in Palo Alto. He went in to SolFocus aggressively, and bid up the price several times higher than other bidders had offered -- which we will write about soon. Over the past few months, VentureWire notes, the Ion America has been granted patents for solid oxide regenerative fuel cell, the application of its fuel cell technology to airships, and the textured electrolyte component of its solid oxide fuel cell. (PS. Something that is bothering us, in describing the hydrogen angle of this company, is that Kleiner Perkins' John Doerr downplayed the feasibility of hydrogen as a major source of energy a few months ago. Since no one is talking about Ion America, it is difficult to know what they are really doing, and whether it jibes with Doerr's view on hydrogen or not). (Update: We double checked this with a few people, and there's no dis-connect in Doerr's stance. In downplaying hydrogen, Doerr was probably referring to compressed hydrogen, which is used as a storage medium in many fuel cell companies. This is the technology behind "the hydrogen economy" so often talked about in Washington, DC -- as a way to potentially power cars. It has its limitations, because it requires so much energy input to create hydrogen in the first place. Solid Oxide Fuel Cells such as Ion America's, however, can use any hydrocarbon as the fuel -- gasoline, ethanol, methane, propane, butane, etc. There's no need to store compressed hydrogen. Rather, hydrogen is produced as an output, and there is a ready market for it for "industrial uses," as the above diagram suggests. The experts we talked with say they agree with Doerr's skepticism about the hydrogen economy; indeed, the real dis-connect right now may be the one between investors and Washington policy.) ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Ion+America, Kleiner+Perkins, NEA, Scott+Sandell, Mobius, Greg+Galanos, John+Doerr ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: DS EMAIL: dsakarya@juno.com IP: 141.153.239.206 URL: DATE: 08/06/2006 09:53:59 PM Smoke & mirrors. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jim Pierobon EMAIL: jim.pierobon@yahoo.com IP: 68.55.18.178 URL: DATE: 08/07/2006 02:50:47 PM Thank you Matt for your reporting not only on these hefty VC deals but helping your readers parse the truth about the real potential, or lack thereof, of politicos and their "hydrogen economy." Very few, if any, independent minds take that seriously. There is so much that can be done more prudently with efficiency initiatives and established renewables that the hydrogen economy is beyond the broken-record phase. ----- PING: TITLE: Hydrogen URL: http://www.foodzen.info/hydrogen/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Hydrogen DATE: 08/08/2006 12:14:27 AM Anyone interested in helping us beta test can check out the leading H 2 websites in Only problem is that, according to their website, t... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Misc STATUS: Draft ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/04/2006 06:43:23 AM ----- BODY: ((New Enterprise Associates has held a $105 million first close of its newly formed India fund, VentureWire has learned, joining a growing number of top-tier funds devoting capital to Indian start-ups. Bangalore-based NEA IndoUS Ventures is targeting $150 million for a final close either later this year or in early 2007, according to a person close to the fund. While NEA has moved steadily into late stage deals, the India fund will stick to early-stage investments across a wide range of technologies - from semiconductors to communications. NEA will contribute about 20% of the targeted $150 million IndoUs fund, pulling capital from its twelfth and largest fund, which closed this summer with $2.5 billion.)) The rest of the capital will come from undisclosed limited partners, mostly investors in NEA's previous funds. Like many venture firms, NEA has been active in China and India over the past few years. The firm, which is based in Baltimore and has offices in Reston, Va., and Menlo Park, Calif., plans to commit as much as 10% of its $2.5 billion twelfth fund to those markets, said General Partner Mark Perry. Earlier this summer, the fund joined Greylock Partners and a handful of other institutional LPs in a $88 million first close for China-based Northern Light Partners LP. The firm has also invested in Cybernaut, a China-focused vehicle started by WebEx founder Min Zhu. "[India and China] are both going to be significant economic forces and it behooves us to think collectively about how to grow the economy," said Dick Kramlich, NEA co-founder and general partner. ((IndoUS Ventures will be managed by Silicon Valley-based entrepreneurs Vinod Dham and Vani Kola. Dham, known in technology circles for his groundbreaking work on Intel Corp.'s Pentium chip, has worked with NEA for years. The firm backed his semiconductor company Silicon Spice Inc., and scored when Broadcom bought it in 2000 for $1.2 billion. Dham switched to venture investing, launching NewPath Ventures LLC in 2001, whose $40 million pool of capital was earmarked for the creation of "crossborder" companies in the U.S. and India. NEA has invested alongside NewPath in companies such as Nevis Networks Inc. )) called CEO and COO to confirm. no answer. no vmail either. To: jpaczkowski@knightridder.com Sent: 8/3/2006 11:08 AM Subject: hot tip InFreeDA, the 411-Metro.com free phone directory assistance startup, is shutting down at noon today. Vacating the offices. Total shutdown. They were unable to get the second round of funding. WE called, and they said wasn't shutting down, just major reorgnaizaation.... Kola previously started financial compliance start-up Certus and RightWorks, the developer of a Web-based corporate procurement system that was acquired by Dallas-based i2 Technologies in 2001. Two India-based partners will likely join Dham and Kola to help deploy the fund. NEA is one of a growing number of U.S. firms setting up dedicated funds for India. This week Waltham, Mass.-based Matrix Partners announced Matrix India Fund, which closed in late July with $150 million. Matrix's Mumbai-based fund will focus primarily on consumer technology investments in Internet-related technology and mobile services. The two firms are among the only U.S. venture capital firms to strike on their own in India, without partnering with local firms there. Earlier this year, Sequoia Capital joined forces with Westbridge Capital Partners to source deals in the area. And Redwood Shores Calif.-based Woodside Fund joined with Helion Venture Partners, a new $120 million India fund started by Woodside Venture Partner Ashish Gupta, for deals in the subcontinent. http://professional.venturewire.com/story.asp?sid=IJKHOKNQJJI ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: adify STATUS: Draft ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/04/2006 06:58:47 AM ----- BODY: Newly formed Adify Corp. has sealed $8 million in Series A financing to help bolster sales and marketing of its online advertising platform, VentureWire has learned. Venrock Associates led the round with $4 million, and was joined by undisclosed individuals, said Chief Executive Lawrence Braitman. He declined to discuss the firm's stake in the round. Adify's advertising platform, released in June, is designed to create direct relationships between Web publishers and online advertisers, taking online ad networks out of the equation. Using the company's platform, publishers can create hosted "storefronts" where they provide information to advertisers. Adify provides the back-end infrastructure and a range of services, including management, billing, payment and various reporting functions. The San Bruno, Calif.-based company has also developed a vertically focused platform where advertisers and publishers can come together around specific sectors. The company has launched one such platform around bicycling, and plans to launch more platforms this fall, Braitman said. Adify was formed late last year by Braitman and Richard Thompson, co-founders of Web advertising management company Flycast Communications, and by Russell Fradin and Steven Heyman, both early executives at Flycast. Formed in 1996, Flycast inked venture rounds from Charles River Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners and was acquired by CMGI in 1999. http://www.adify.com ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Evernote raises $6 million to save all kinds of notes STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/04/2006 07:00:07 AM ----- BODY:
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EverNote, a Sunnyvale start-up that wants to let you save all aspects of your online and offline life, has raised $6 million from individuals, the company told us yesterday. There's increasing competition in this sector. So it wants to differ from the others by offering the kitchen sink, letting you save everything that goes on around you and to have it everywhere you go. By letting you save photo-shots, but also web pages, it wants to co-opt other players like ScanR, which lets you capture (via camera) and share images, and the ilk of Kaboodle, Google Notebook and Microsoft's OneNote and others which have services to let you save Web pages and other computer documents. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Evernote has developed imaging technology that recognizes handwriting in a "jpeg" file, for example, so that you can take a photo of scribbles on napkin, and save it for review later -- and thus be able to search it for certain words. And you'll be able to tag the file, so that you can search for those tags later too. We weren't able to really kick the tires. ScanR lets you take photos of your offline activities, from business cards to scribble on whiteboards, and then allows you to email them to your storage place of choice, and is doing much of the same "search" stuff that Evernote talks of. So we asked Evernote chief executive Tom Garland about this. He said the market is big enough for both companies. Evernote, though, provides a storage place so that you can save ScanR files and carry them with you. Evernote will also let you save everything on the Web directly from your browser. Garland said technology pundit Esther Dyson and PayPal co-founder Max Levchin have joined the company's board. This Fall, the company will release a mobile and a Web-based version of its software, which currently is a downloadable software for your computer. It is currently free. Garland wouldn't say what sort of traction the company has had, but confirmed the downloads so far have been in the "thousands," helped by a review by the WSJ's Walt Mossberg last year. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Evernote, Tom+Garland, Esther+Dyson, Max+Levchin ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Lee Courtney EMAIL: lee_courtney@acm.org IP: 147.11.45.219 URL: http://www.linkedin.com/in/leecourtney DATE: 08/04/2006 10:06:11 AM Will be interesting to see if this or other similar can be successfully applied to Gordon Bell's MyLifeBits project (http://research.microsoft.com/barc/MediaPresence/MyLifeBits.aspx). ----- PING: TITLE: Saving URL: http://www.easybankingzone.info/saving/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Saving DATE: 08/08/2006 01:29:28 AM on the last Sunday of October.History of daylight saving time and how we use it to save energy.Saving P... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Kapor starts new Foxmarks: cross between Google & Wikipedia STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/04/2006 08:07:30 AM ----- BODY:
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Mitch Kapor, co-founder of Lotus 1-2-3 and more recently of the personal info manager product Chandler, has started a new search start-up, called Foxmarks (no Web site yet). Mitch says merely that it will intersect search and social production -- think cross between Google and Wikipedia. Co-founder is Todd Agulnick.
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Kapor
Not much else is known, but Richard MacManus has the full scoop plus links to Mitch's blog post about it. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Mitch+Kapor, Foxmarks, Todd+Agulnick ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Woz drives to South Pole in a Hummer STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/04/2006 10:04:23 AM ----- BODY:
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Eric Savitz, of Barrons has a precious piece about Woz, who confided his summer plans to Savitz at the recent AlwaysOn conference.
The Woz said he plans to drive to the South Pole in a Hummer in 2007. He said that in passing, and it seemed so absurd that I had to find out more. So after his talk, I went up and asked. Woz explained that he was participating in an expedition planned for December 2007 in which a group will drive Hummers running on hydrogen powered fuel cells from McMurdo Station to the South Pole. Woz said his particular vehicle would be co-piloted by Buzz Aldrin, who walked on the moon in 1969. The expedition is to be filmed in 3D for the director James Cameorn. Woz said that the group has received important advice on the project from the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authroity, which has been running some hydrogen fuel-cell powered buses.
 Wait, wasn't Woz supposed to be running a publicly traded shell company, looking for new ideas? Or maybe this is it? ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Steve+Wozniak, Hummer, South+Pole ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Joe Tonis EMAIL: jrandom@mit.edu IP: 24.6.226.62 URL: DATE: 08/04/2006 02:38:03 PM Good for him, just try not to squash any penguins... ----- PING: TITLE: South URL: http://www.eventplanningplace.info/south/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: South DATE: 08/11/2006 05:39:26 AM For practical trip planning information, such as accommodations, maps and dining/shopping opportunities, visit... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Silicon Valley ad veterans launch start-up, Adify; raise $8million STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/04/2006 06:29:09 PM ----- BODY:
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Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. So it is with Larry Braitman and Richard Thompson, the guys who formed Flycast Communications a decade ago, to create an online advertising network that served smaller Web sites. It enjoyed a $500 million IPO and then, in the frothy year of 1999, was acquired by CMGI for $2.3 billion. They are trying it again with a new start-up, Adify, and are looking to aggressively undercut rivals.
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Braitman
Flycast had created the first "blind" advertising network, where a network of advertisers served ads to participating Web sites, and there was little negotiation. Times have changed, and now the pair are starting Adify with almost the opposite approach. ----- EXTENDED BODY: They've just raised $8 million, in a first round led by Venrock, and including individuals. This time, Adify's network allows transparency -- and thus may be more enticing for site owners and advertisers. The Belmont company allows advertisers to contact bloggers or other Web publishers directly. It gives advertisers a form -- run on the back-end by Adify -- where they can request a particular ad space on the site. It allows a publisher to negotiate ad rates, and to reject an advertiser if wanted. Adify is only taking 20 percent of what the advertiser pays to the publisher. That's considerably less than what many other ad companies charge, for example Adbrite, which takes 50 30 percent. For that 20 percent, the publisher gets a lot. It includes Adify's support for serving both graphic and text ads, all billing and collections (including eating any credit card fees), ad management, tracking and reporting. The site launched in June. We asked Larry yesterday whether he is purposefully undercutting competition. He said "that's where the market is headed, and potentially lower." Adify allows bloggers or like-minded sites to create their own network -- as FM Publishing has done with tech bloggers -- in order to make things simpler for advertisers who are looking for a one-stop shop. For example, Adify has formed a network for publishing sites covering the cycling industry. It is called Clip-Ins. This also creates a referral network: If one blog or Web site snags an advertiser on behalf of the network, that Web site gets a 10 percent commission for generating the deal. We asked Larry how he intends to develop the expertise to go after these particular niche networks, since ideally this demands a lot of pavement pounding to schmooze advertisers to advertise in those niches. He said he was not prepared to answer that question; it is still early. He has no intent to manage campaigns on behalf of advertisers, he said. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Adify, Venrock ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David Ulevitch EMAIL: david@ulevitch.com IP: 38.99.14.57 URL: http://david.ulevitch.com/ DATE: 08/04/2006 09:50:28 PM Where does it say anywhere that AdBrite takes 50% of the revshare? Also, most folks don't use the term "50 percent of the advertiser's spend" -- unless you're talking about something different than publisher revshare. -david ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 24.6.111.104 URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com DATE: 08/04/2006 11:46:28 PM I'll double check this, now that you ask. I remember, somewhat vividly, that Adbrite was taking a 50 percent cut, but just went to their site to check, and it's not plainly disclosed anywhere. I see a reference on Google to a page from last year, saying Adbrite was taking 25 percent, which is still higher than Adify, but lower than 50 percent...but the page is old. Stay tuned. Anyone else know? I'll check with the company, and presumably will have an answer on Monday. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/05/2006 07:54:21 AM I tried sending an email to adbrite's pr folks (pr@adbrite.com), from two different email accounts, and both bounced back. Don't know what is up over there, but now looks like answer won't come until Monday. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Adam EMAIL: adam.bruce@vidiac.com IP: 68.209.115.207 URL: http://www.vidiac.com DATE: 08/05/2006 02:58:37 PM We used them in 2005, and their commission rate was 25%. We since went to Tribal Fusion, Casale and others that take a 55% comp because they get higher quality and more volume...that is, even if Tribal pays a lower eCPM, you get more money because you have far fewer defaults and much more fullfilment.... AdBrite eCPM just wasn't as high as a Yahoo Publisher or Google AdWords campaign. Now I will say that as a Publisher I *LOVED* working with AdBrite, they have a fantastic idea, they just lack a strong enough portfolio of advertisers. Now that we're serving millions of page views a day though, we've moved to our own ad servers and sales force and are working our way off the Ad Networks. (when you do our Volume, AdNetwork commission rates quickly cover the cost of a whole department of headcount).... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Adam EMAIL: adam.bruce@vidiac.com IP: 68.209.115.207 URL: http://www.vidiac.com DATE: 08/05/2006 03:04:35 PM Oh, forgot to Ad, Adfly sounds like a god idea, but here is what *I* need, and if someone builds it I'll pay for it. I need an inexpensive ad server (like < $0.02CPM) (like AdSpeed.com) where I can manage geotargeting, frequency capping, etc etc,...AND...be able to pul from an intergrated Ad network. That is I want to be abel tuse a system three ways. 1.) Ad Server (I get my own ads, and billing) 2.) Ad server + Billing (Reasonable money handling fee) 3.) Ad Server + Ad Network (like Google Ad words only I can balance it out with other campaigns from other ad servers). So the ability to mix and match 1, 2 and 3 is key for us. We would probably only ever use 1 & 2, but for those people just starting out I can see them start with 3, then work up to 2, then finally get to 1. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/06/2006 11:02:30 PM Just heard back from the Adbrite folks. The current revenue split is 30 percent. Apologies. I've corrected. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Pat McCarthy EMAIL: pmccarthy@rightmedia.com IP: 208.49.251.250 URL: http://direct.rightmedia.com/ DATE: 08/08/2006 12:52:59 PM Adam, We've just released into private beta what you're looking for. It's called RMX Direct and it allows you directly work with and apply with eight ad networks on the Right Media Exchange, as well as add in your own deals like Adsense, etc. http://direct.rightmedia.com/ ----- PING: TITLE: Raise URL: http://www.careergrab.info/raise/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Raise DATE: 08/09/2006 04:46:11 AM CanWest Global Foundations charitable registration The book has its own web site from which complete specif... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: OpenDNS STATUS: Draft ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/04/2006 07:54:59 PM ----- BODY: but he (Halsey Minor) did fund it. Halsey Minor funds OpenDNS, a SF start-up that wants to eliminate the bad guys on the Web by blocking phishing sites and decreasing the chances of identity theft. It also corrects spelling errors in URLs on the fly and makes (at least my) Internet connections noticeably faster – introducing choice where choice did not previously exist. And it's free. J Right now, they make money through advertising, though that may change. the founder of CNET The company is run by 24 year-old do-gooder David Ulevitch. -------------- Top venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins invested in Menlo Park-based startup Aggregate Knowledge (our post on them is here). The closing occurred in June 2006, and Kleiner partner Randy Komisar has taken a board seat. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Roundup: The elitist Facebook copycat, NEA climbs wave to Bangalore, InFreeDA belly up? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/04/2006 07:58:42 PM ----- BODY:
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An elitist Facebook look-alike launches -- Hmmm, this new company, called Top20Network.com is only for Harvard, Princeton, Yale, U. of Pennsylvania, Duke, MIT, Stanford, Cal. Tech., Columbia, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Wash. U., Brown, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, U. of Chicago, Rice, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, and Emory. Keeps out riff-raff. Here's the release which floated in yesterday. The site locked us out, because we're not a student at one of those schools. Interesting logo: A tall building with what looks like a Deutsche Bank logo on it.
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Dham
NEA ventures to India -- New Enterprise Associates has raised $105 million for a new venture capital fund dedicated for India investments, joining the frantic rush by VCs to firmly plant their flags in that virgin territory for start-up investments. The fund will have offices in Bangalore, and is called NEA IndoUS. News began leaking in Indian papers a few days ago, when it emerged that NEA had tapped Silicon Valley's Vinod Dham -- known as "father of the pentium" chip -- for the effort. Vinod said he couldn't talk about it yet. Word is (VentureWire), NEA is targeting $150 million in total wants to make early-stage investments, but we'll believe that when we see it. NEA is swimming in cash, and is putting many millions of dollars to work per deal (which is hard to call early stage).
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Kola
Silicon Valley's Vani Kola is also part of the new fund. Vani's first start-up, RightWorks, was acquired in 2000 by Internet Capital Group (ICG) for $657 million. Vinod wouldn't tell us what will happen to his current firm, NewPath Ventures. InFreeDA, the 411-Metro.com phone service, belly up? -- Not quite. We got reports yesteday the free phone directory assistance startup was shutting down, and that offices had already been vacated. We'd we mentioned the company here in January, right after the company had gotten seed funding from Hummer Winblad. It had 15 full-time workers at the time, and was planning to employ a whopping 100 people by the end of this year -- making us scratch our head at the time. But could it really be closing so soon? One of our colleagues double checked for us, and turns out the firm couldn't raise a second round. So it is going through a major reorganization, not shutting down. News-reader NewsGator, raises $7M -- Newsgator, the competitor to Bloglines, Yahoo and a host of others competitors seeking to allow for easy RSS feed-reading (NewsGator permits it from wherever, including mobile phones, email platforms, etc), got the cash from existing investors Masthead Venture Partners and Mobius Venture Capital. That adds to more than $10 million previously raised. Simple Star, a SF start-up that does the back-end technology for photo slide-shows, strikes deal with Time Warner -- Simple Star already handles the photo slide-show technology for photo sites like Snapfish, Flickr, Shutterfly, and has a distribution deal with Walgreens. Now it has partnered with Time Warner, to offer the nation's first television program dedicated to slide-shows, it says. The company won more than $6 million from venture firm Venrock last year, and it is now looking to raise another round. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: NEA, InFreeDa, Top20Network, NewsGator, Simple+Star ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: DS EMAIL: dsjunk@gmail.com IP: 68.127.160.6 URL: DATE: 08/05/2006 03:32:02 PM Recall the starting point for the wonderchild of Web 1.0 social networks, The Globe? Not much different here. Does that still exist? It should. Now there's a plan I'd fund! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: johnny seed EMAIL: johnny_seed37@yahoo.com IP: 68.121.163.222 URL: DATE: 08/08/2006 05:33:09 PM Actually, InFreeDA is going belly up - they'll be dissolved this Friday, August 11. Wait and see... ----- PING: TITLE: Johns Hopkins URL: http://www.basketballstar.info/johns-hopkins/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Johns Hopkins DATE: 08/17/2006 05:55:12 PM Johns Hopkins has stood at the forefront of modern medicine, speeding the transfer of new knowledge ... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: AOL Research exposes data; we've got a little sick feeling STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/06/2006 05:47:47 AM ----- BODY: (AOL has responded, saying they screwed up, and have taken the data down. More at update here).
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Here are some excerpts from a post from Adam D'Angelo, over at CalTech, about AOL Research's efforts to engage with the research community. Does anyone else think they've gone over the line with this? AOL just released the logs of all searches done by 500,000 of their users over the course of three months earlier this year. That means that if you happened to be randomly chosen as one of these users, everything you searched for from March to May (2006) is now public information on the internet. ...The data is "anonymized", which to AOL means that each screenname was replaced with a unique number. "It is still a research question how much information needs to be anonymized to protect users," says Abdur from AOL. Here are some examples of what you can find in the data: Among user 545605's searches are "shore hills park mays landing nj", "frank william sindoni md", "ceramic ashtrays", "transfer money to china", and "capital gains on sale of house"....I'm leaving out the worst of it - searches for names of specific people, addresses, telephone numbers, illegal drugs, and more. There is no question that law enforcement, employers, or friends could figure out who some of these people are....I hope others can find more examples in the data, which is up for download over here (scroll down to the 500Kusers.tgz file). If you go to the site, there's a person even thanking AOL for this info in comments. We haven't looked at this very closely yet, and haven't talked with AOL. But so far, we're cringing. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: AOL+Research, privacy ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Search Engines WEB EMAIL: seoptimization@lycos.com IP: 172.136.133.245 URL: http://seoptimization.blog.com/ DATE: 08/06/2006 09:31:46 PM http://research.microsoft.com/ur/us/fundingopps/RFPs/Search_2006_RFP.aspx a few months ago - Microsoft lauched an analogous project ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: breakingranks EMAIL: elisa.cooper@breakingranks.net IP: 71.132.216.155 URL: DATE: 08/06/2006 10:59:48 PM I dare you to compare this to the HIPAA standard of "de-identified" information that health organizations are now using as the standard to release data. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: daniel EMAIL: dhparkpark@gmail.com IP: 165.123.181.171 URL: http://www.aolsearchdatabase.com DATE: 08/08/2006 12:29:20 AM if you don't want to download 2 gigs and grep your way through, here's a site that'll let you search from a database: http://www.aolsearchdatabase.com . ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bob EMAIL: hornet919owner@yahoo.com IP: 71.197.67.56 URL: DATE: 08/09/2006 08:13:38 PM search engine proxies have been around for a least a few years. Why dont people start using them? heres a free one. http://www.blackboxsearch.com ----- PING: TITLE: Does AOL’s search data compromise privacy? URL: http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2006/08/06/does-aols-search-data-compromise-privacy/ IP: 130.85.34.22 BLOG NAME: UMBC eBiquity DATE: 08/06/2006 05:41:47 PM ... ----- PING: TITLE: AOL Blows It: Releases Search Data on 500,000 Users! URL: http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/security/investigator/archives/aol-blows-it-releases-search-data-on-500000-users-10942 IP: 66.179.234.44 BLOG NAME: A Day in the Life of an Information Security Investigator DATE: 08/06/2006 10:38:41 PM AOL, what the %#$@$@ were you thinking? You provide a 440MB file of search queries from 500,000 of your customers for anyone to download? Your idea of 'de-identifying' the data is to replace the screen name with an arbitrary number?... ----- PING: TITLE: AOL discloses 650,000 AOL users' search data URL: http://www.fredshouse.net/2006/08/aol_discloses_650000_aol_users.html IP: 208.113.140.6 BLOG NAME: fredshouse DATE: 08/07/2006 01:23:21 AM Well this isn't going to help AOL's image. Over the weekend, AOL researchers posted a 400MB+ tarball of the raw search query data of some 650K AOL users over the period from March 1, 2006 to May 30, 2006. While... ----- PING: TITLE: AOL responds to data leak. They screwed up. URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/07/aol_responds_to_data_leak_they_screwed_up.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/07/2006 08:52:18 AM John Battelle has gotten an early response from AOL about the data leak that we posted about early yesterday. Here's the summary: This was a screw up, and we're angry and upset about it. It was an innocent enough attempt to reach out to the academic c... ----- PING: TITLE: AOL Just Did the Unthinkable - Boycott AOL? URL: http://www.zoliblog.com/blog/_archives/2006/8/6/2204969.html IP: 216.40.34.103 BLOG NAME: Zoli's Blog DATE: 08/07/2006 11:46:36 AM

(Updated)
Thank you, Google for resisting the DOJ's effort to obtain user search data. You put up a good fight to protect our privacy, and NickDouglas.jpgby Scott Beale/Laughing SquidHere's the Mercury News story on Valleywag author, Nick Douglas. When news broke that Nick Douglas, a.k.a. the writer behind the online gossip site Valleywag, was mugged last month in downtown San Francisco, it struck some as fitting. ``The muggers got to him first,'' joked Marc Canter, an entrepreneur and frequent victim of Valleywag's acerbic wit. ``His whole body demeanor asks to be punched.''... He's becoming known simply as "the Punk," and to be profiled by him is to "be punked." ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Valleywag, Nick+Douglas ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Louis Gray EMAIL: louisgray@mac.com IP: 24.6.250.255 URL: http://www.louisgray.com/live/ DATE: 08/06/2006 07:55:27 PM As odd and uncomfortable as it may be for the Silicon Valley elite to be featured in ValleyWag, it is de riguer in just about any other high-profile business, whether you're a professional athlete, or in Hollywood. Those folks have been used to rumors and gossip as part of their jobs. With money and prestige also comes a downside. As a reader, I find ValleyWag very amusing. He's not always covering everything I want, but there's enough substance to keep it as a must-follow site. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Wai Yip Tung EMAIL: wy@tungwaiyip.info IP: 63.251.108.100 URL: http://tungwaiyip.info/ DATE: 08/07/2006 11:53:04 AM I read it infrequently and find it mostly funny. When you are immersed in high flying business' optimistic stories all day long, it is just a good Dilbert fix. We have the guilty pleasure while he take all the risk to ridicule a company or personality. In anycase it is an entirely different beast from f*edcompany.com, which is just venomous. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nick Douglas EMAIL: nick@valleywag.com IP: 67.188.209.81 URL: http://valleywag.com DATE: 08/07/2006 05:49:32 PM Louis, pop me an e-mail if you know any areas Valleywag needs to cover. We're looking for a second writer, so soon we can double our coverage. Then maybe the NEW writer can get awkwardly profiled by the Mercury News. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: The VC bidding wars, and how SolFocus more than doubled its money STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/06/2006 06:13:52 AM ----- BODY:
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SolFocus is a start-up in Palo Alto developing technology that uses mirrors to concentrate the sun on solar cells, effectively squeezing more energy out of less silicon. Below is an account of the bidding war at SolFocus. It is part of a larger story about clean-tech investing in the Mercury News this morning: ----- EXTENDED BODY: San Francisco firm Nth Power has been active in clean technology investments for several years, and was among the many firms jockeying to invest in the company, valuing it in the single-digit or low teens of millions of dollars. Other firms were doing the same.
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Scott Sandell
But then Menlo Park's New Enterprise Associates swooped in last month, led by partner Scott Sandell. Sandell, one of the leaders of the big, generalist venture firm, offered to value the company at $70 million, or about seven times what some other firms had wanted to pay -- and that after only a brief review of the deal. NEA did not respond to several requests for comment. One existing investor was venture firm NGEN, which had given seed money a few months earlier. It got squeezed, because the money it had invested in that initial was converted to the value of last month's round, meaning that NGEN too was paying a high price to invest in SolFocus, even though it had put in months of sweat equity. "It went from being a great deal for NGEN to a good deal for NGEN," said Rob Koch, who is southern California-based NGEN's point person here in Silicon Valley. "Would we rather be on the sidelines?" he asks, rhetorically. "No. Without a doubt, we'd rather be in this deal at a higher valuation." The end result is that SolFocus, which had set out to raise only $12.5 million, finished with $32 million in the bank. That sounds good, right? Well, looked at another way, SolFocus is going to have to make a whole lot more money now to produce the returns demanded by eager investors. It is the latest aggressive move by NEA, and we expect to see more. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: SolFocus, Scott+Sandell, New+Enterprise+Associates, Nth+Power, NGEN, Rob+Koch ----- PING: TITLE: Boing raises $65M; The bulging pockets of New Enterprise Associates URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/17/boing_raises_65m_the_bulging_pockets_of_new_enterprise_associates.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/17/2006 11:47:10 AM Boingo, the southern California company that provides high-speed wireless access to hotel, airports and other public locales, has raised $65 million in a third round of funding. This is apparently a case of investment creep. Just last month, the compa... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Top VC firm Sequoia adds another partner, Chris Olsen STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/07/2006 05:18:44 AM ----- BODY:
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Sequoia Capital, Silicon Valley's top venture capital firm, has quietly added another partner, Chris Olsen. He jumps there from Technology Crossover Ventures. At TCV, he focused on investments in financial and other companies, serving on the boards of eBags, Oak Pacific Interactive Corp, Whitepages.com, and Claria, the controversial ad network company-turned-homepage-organizer. Chris will now focus on "software and services," according to his Sequoia profile. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Chris+Olsen ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: vc watcher EMAIL: abc@abc.com IP: 38.114.132.5 URL: DATE: 08/07/2006 02:30:35 PM i really doubt that he's a partner. according to linkedin, he just graduated from college a couple years ago. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 72.244.55.218 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/07/2006 02:34:49 PM You mean, general partner? I didn't say he was. As for "partner," that term can pretty much mean anything. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: The Business Week article on Digg, continued STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/07/2006 05:59:20 AM ----- BODY:
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We got an email from an old gym friend. Our schedules have varied, and we haven't seen each other for months. He wanted to get back in touch, he told us, because he'd just read Business Week's story on Digg: "...the story on Kevin Rose and it is inspiring me to think about my project again. I have thought of it before, but because it has been so hard for me to find the right job lately I've been thinking about it more and more...." He went on to ask for advice about how to get back into the game. Now, the Business Week article was pretty hyped, as we've mentioned. But it tells a tale that certainly inspires, and will create a new wave of dot-com jihadists wanting to make their $60 million in 18 months. We asked ourselves, what do we tell him? Follow your dreams, go for it! Or, do we splash cold water all over him? We've decided to counsel him on the middle way. Find an idea he is passionate about, read about it and talk about it as much as he can, stake out a small business around it, and grow it slowly. See what happens... ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Business+Week, Kevin+Rose, Digg ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dharmesh Shah EMAIL: dshah@onstartups.com IP: 24.62.63.245 URL: http://onstartups.com DATE: 08/07/2006 10:08:28 AM Just what I was afraid of. First, we have people extrapolating from a limited number of data points (like MySpace) to determine the value of the Web 2.0 lottery. Now, entrepreneurs are going to start using data points that are not even data points (the $60 million number is pure fabrication). ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kevin Burton EMAIL: burtonator@gmail.com IP: 69.233.233.245 URL: http://tailrank.com DATE: 08/07/2006 06:48:04 PM Don't do it for the money.... if you do you're going to burn out. Do something you LOVE and can't get enough of..... good things will happen.. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: SVEntrepreneurIntheMaking EMAIL: PlayboyGene@yahoo.com IP: 66.169.234.168 URL: DATE: 08/08/2006 01:07:44 PM Kevin, As a college student finishing up his senior year, that tidbit is helpful. I got to keep reminding myself. -Gene ----- PING: TITLE: Healthcare IPOs rock on -- are you in the wrong business? URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/09/healthcare_ipos_rock_on_are_you_in_the_wrong_business.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/09/2006 06:40:45 AM When was the last time a West Coast Internet/Web 2.0 company went public? Xtent, a Silicon Valley firm that develops a new kind of medical stent, has filed for a $103.5 million initial public offering of stock, and it would be the third largest IPO in... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Watch out for low flying pigeons in Silicon Valley STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/07/2006 07:23:13 AM ----- BODY: Gotta love this place, Silicon Valley. The latest is a flock of pigeons, outfitted with designer cell phone backpacks, taking to the sky over the region this week. They'll be equipped with sensors that collect pollution data, which will be related to a blog at www.pigeonblog.mapyourcity.net. The flights occur at 6:30pm. Tuesday and Saturday. At least we hope they'll fly. We're sure they've been tested out, but we're looking at the size of the backpack (click on image to enlarge), and wondering how much of a runway they'll need. Our colleague John Boudreau has a piece today in the Merc about this project, which is run by someone who admits they are "not trained as a scientist." The device apparently weighs 37 grams, which is lighter than a cell phone (we'd hope so). They're equipped with mobile phone circuit boards, sensors, GPS antennas... (Photo is courtesy of Beatriz Da Costa, who is helping run the project). ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: pigeons, Silicon+Valley ----- PING: TITLE: Lowest URL: http://www.webphoneservices.info/lowest/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Lowest DATE: 08/08/2006 11:46:12 PM Make sure youre getting the refunds you deserve from Low Price Guarantees!Every hotel reservation booked thr... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Google's grab for videos STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/07/2006 08:14:05 AM ----- BODY:
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Google Video is now paying MTV's parent, Viacom, for video content, according to this AP story. This is significant because Google is the biggest online advertising network, and if you follow the logic, it will therefore most likely to be able to "monetize" these videos. If so, would this spill over to the masses of other amateurs, where Google would steal them from upstarts like YouTube with the promise that Google may help them make some cash. You'd think so, but Google has yet to prove itself as a great "community" site, and so the jury will be out for a while. In a further reach for online video, Google Inc. will begin distributing clips from MTV Networks' shows to other Web sites through its budding video service in a model that offers content creators a new source of distribution and revenue. The deal announced Sunday will begin as a test later this month, offering 100 hours of programming from clips of "Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County," "SpongeBob SquarePants" and MTV's Video Music Awards. The partnership will expand video through Google's advertising network to a variety of sites and is likely to spawn further such deals, making video a far more integral element of online advertising... (Via Battelle) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Google+Video, YouTube ----- PING: TITLE: Clips URL: http://www.animefever.info/clips/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Clips DATE: 08/10/2006 09:06:18 AM Check these clips out today! Available to cable systems nationwide.Scrapbook slide clips and paperclips for your scr... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: AOL responds to data leak. They screwed up. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/07/2006 08:40:44 AM ----- BODY:
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John Battelle has gotten an early response from AOL about the data leak that we posted about early yesterday. Here's the summary: This was a screw up, and we're angry and upset about it. It was an innocent enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with new research tools, but it was obviously not appropriately vetted, and if it had been, it would have been stopped in an instant. Although there was no personally-identifiable data linked to these accounts, we're absolutely not defending this. It was a mistake, and we apologize. We've launched an internal investigation into what happened, and we are taking steps to ensure that this type of thing never happens again. Here was what was mistakenly released: * Search data for roughly 612,000 anonymized users over a three month period from March to May.... Sorry, but we still have that sick feeling. That's 612,000 burned people. And now we're checking out Google's recent release of data too, with more details here. Just another thanks to Adam D'Angelo, who was up at 2am when he first emailed us Sunday morning about all this, and then still up at 6am to answer questions. And AOL has taken the data down, all this in barely 24 hours on a slow weekend. Adam just graduated as undergrad and is taking some time off before grad school. What a way to take time off. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: AOL+Research, Adam+D'Angelo ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Search Engine WEB ♣ EMAIL: searchengines@searchengines.cjb.net IP: 64.59.48.226 URL: http://search-engines-web.com/ DATE: 08/08/2006 01:37:55 AM www.aolsearchdatabase.com/ if you do not wish to download the data - someone has created an online Search Service ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mal EMAIL: malcolmord@talktalk.net IP: 86.131.223.137 URL: http://www.vwdforum.com DATE: 08/09/2006 12:44:38 PM Great info thanks for letting me know ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: head EMAIL: stupidmarketinghead@yahoo.com IP: 69.107.106.185 URL: DATE: 08/12/2006 03:27:51 AM Yes.. also, try out the random feature here to see the AOL log. Some of the search are very interesting. Hours of fun because of AOL screwed up. http://data.aolsearchlogs.com/log/random.cgi ----- PING: TITLE: AOL Research exposes data; we've got a little sick feeling URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/06/aol_research_exposes_data_weve_got_a_little_sick_feeling.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/07/2006 09:00:10 AM (AOL has responded, saying they screwed up, and have taken the data down. More at update here). Here are some excerpts from a post from Adam D'Angelo, over at CalTech, about AOL Research's efforts to engage with the research community. Does anyone else... ----- PING: TITLE: AOL Just Did the Unthinkable - Boycott AOL? URL: http://www.zoliblog.com/blog/_archives/2006/8/6/2204969.html IP: 216.40.34.103 BLOG NAME: Zoli's Blog DATE: 08/07/2006 11:46:30 AM

(Updated)
Thank you, Google for resisting the DOJ's effort to obtain user search data. You put up a good fight to protect our privacy, and forbesbono.bmpBy NYTElevation Partners, the Silicon Valley private equity firm run by industry Roger McNamee and U2's Bono, among others, has acquired a minority position in Forbes Media LLC, publisher of Forbes magazine, the New York Times reported. Forbes Media includes Forbes.com and other business media properties. No financial terms were disclosed, but the NYT reported "some people said that the deal gave Elevation a stake of more than 40 percent at a cost of $250 million to $300 million." Steve Forbes told the NYT that Forbes' business model had been "blasted by the Web." So makes sense that a West Coast group like Elevation, which was founded as the first private equity firms to go after the new media content and entertainment sector, would be the one to buy into this. The NYT has a good discussion of the challenges for Forbes, and rightly points out that Elevation, despite its focus, doesn't have any experience with an outfit that has its origin in the print world. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Forbes.com, Forbes+Media, Bono, Elevation, Roger+McNamee ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mr.Rehab EMAIL: rehabsavedmylife@gmail.com IP: 86.124.88.157 URL: http://www.cirquelodge.com/ DATE: 08/07/2006 01:36:48 PM Leslie E. Bider, the former Chairman and CEO of Warner/Chappell Music, Inc has joined the Elevation Partners as an Executive-in-Residence in may. ----- PING: TITLE: HuffingtonPost.com raises $5 million, but East Coast money URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/07/huffingtonpostcom_raises_5_million_but_east_coast_money.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/08/2006 08:15:42 AM Updated HuffingtonPost.com, the online news site and group blog focused on politics, just announced that it has raised a $5 million round led by venture capital firm SoftBank Capital. East Coast's Alan Patricof's Greycroft Partners also invested in the... ----- PING: TITLE: Bono & McNamee chose Forbes for "tech central" over....Mercury News URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/11/bono_mcnamee_chose_forbes_for_tech_central_overmercury_news.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/11/2006 08:35:26 AM That's right. Earlier this year, when Mercury News parent Knight Ridder, the nation's second largest newspaper company, was on the block, we began hearing names of people who were interested. McClatchy eventually prevailed in the deal, and MediaNews s... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: HuffingtonPost.com raises $5 million, but East Coast money STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/07/2006 09:53:58 AM ----- BODY: Updated
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HuffingtonPost.com, the online news site and group blog focused on politics, just announced that it has raised a $5 million round led by venture capital firm SoftBank Capital. East Coast's Alan Patricof's Greycroft Partners also invested in the round. The media landscape is changing by the minute. Unlike business and tech, which is drawing interest by West Coast firms like Elevation, the politics stuff is attracting the East Coast folks, which makes sense. We have no idea how Huffington is going to return money on this very large investment, but there are some suggestions given in the press release (we're searching for a link), including -- surprise -- video: "The HuffingtonPost has just introduced video blogs and will soon be launching web video newscasts..." Update: More on back-story about how this came about: Eric Hippeau at Softbank Capital, former chief executive at Ziff Davis, was looking for a news investment. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: HuffingtonPost.com, SoftBank+Capital, Greycroft+Partners, Alan+Patricof ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: whenwego EMAIL: when@wego.com IP: 216.86.205.161 URL: DATE: 08/07/2006 04:05:52 PM Well, if you count visits and ad revenue, HuffPo is a bargain at $5M for 30% of the company... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ed Kohler EMAIL: edkohler@technologyevangelist.com IP: 65.25.241.97 URL: http://www.technologyevangelist.com DATE: 08/07/2006 08:35:28 PM I can't figure out why someone with her money and friends with money would go to a VC firm. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/07/2006 09:17:31 PM Ed, why is it so difficult to understand. If it is true she's only giving away 30 percent, she's not giving up control -- and at the same time, she's getting $5 million in cash, a great deal and something she could probably only do in this bubbly environment. Take the money! ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: STATUS: Draft ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/07/2006 04:41:27 PM ----- BODY: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: News Corp scores $900M from Google, a coup STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/07/2006 10:07:35 PM ----- BODY: Updated
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Google will pay the parent of social networking company MySpace.com at least $900 million in shared advertising revenue over the next three and a half years, and become the exclusive search engine for the site. This is significant because News Corp paid $580 million for Intermix Media, which owned MySpace, last year. This deal means that News Corp will have already gotten that much in revenue, and more, from the income its gets from Google. Then you add the $350 million in revenue MySpace is reportedly making per year, you realize NewsCorp may soon be getting close to the black on this deal already ($350M revenue does not mean profit, so we'll have to know more, as reader points out in comment). And to top it off, News Corp going forward will still own one the most promising sites on the Web and everything that comes with it. It is good for Google because it will apparently kill off any aspirations by MySpace to develop a search technology of its own (though we don't know if the terms actually rule that out). More importantly, it prevents MySpace from allying with Yahoo or Microsoft. The jury is out on whether Google will actually make money off this. It depends on whether MySpace users decide to use the search bar to buy things. Our hunch is they probably are only searching for friends, because that's all we've used the MySpace search for. (After all, everyone knows you can switch over to Google if you want to buy things. This just makes it easier to search Google from within the MySpace page, but according to the deal, "a majority" of the resulting search revenue is going to News Corp!). News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media unit will add Google search boxes to MySpace and other sites, likely by the end of the year. Google will provide search results and keyword ads targeted to people's search terms. Google will also get first rights to sell any display ads not sold by Fox directly. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: M EMAIL: blogcomm@gmail.com IP: 67.127.54.209 URL: DATE: 08/07/2006 10:12:31 PM Uh, I think you mean "billion," not "million." C'mon Matt, let's not get into the habit of readers actually thinking that bloggers NEED editors... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/07/2006 10:54:49 PM No, that wouldn't be good. Unedited bloggers unite! I've updated. Thanks. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ben Rattray EMAIL: brattray@gmail.com IP: 69.181.31.157 URL: DATE: 08/08/2006 01:09:24 AM Every report I've read said News Corp paid $580 million for MySpace, not $1.2 billion. Can you confirm either way? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: dave EMAIL: davidram@gmail.com IP: 192.115.17.82 URL: DATE: 08/08/2006 03:39:05 AM It was $580m and it was not for myspace - but for a Intermix media that owns myspace, among other properties. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/08/2006 05:12:56 AM Updated to make clearer. Thx. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Elan EMAIL: elan_nov@yahoo.com IP: 166.84.160.251 URL: DATE: 08/08/2006 08:02:28 AM Let's not confuse profits with revenues and let's not forget about Finance 101: a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. Fox's IRR will be the discounted value of $900MM + the present value of the future cash flows from MySpace, which will be based on MySpace's profitability...Not $900MM + $350MM as you point out. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dan EMAIL: fake@example.com IP: 216.205.224.64 URL: DATE: 08/08/2006 10:02:08 AM I thought all of Intermix, including MySpace was $580M. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/08/2006 10:22:28 AM Ok, the confusion stems from my link to the AP story, which used the $1.2 billion number (which includes the IGn deal), and so that is what I was referring to. I've updated it now, and hope it is finally clear. Sorry about that. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jon Gales EMAIL: jon@mobiletracker.net IP: 72.184.14.200 URL: http://www.mobiletracker.net DATE: 08/08/2006 11:08:48 AM 'It depends on whether MySpace users decide to use the search bar to buy things. Our hunch is they probably are only searching for friends, because that's all we've used the MySpace search for.' I'm sure the Google execs took a look at the current search volume and ad clicks... Currently it's powered by Overture. This is a minimum revenue guarantee too, so it's likely the real amount will be more (especially if MySpace keeps up some growth). Murdoch is looking really smart right now. Making all his money back in a few years. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dan EMAIL: dholman@mba2003.hbs.edu IP: 66.88.17.58 URL: DATE: 08/08/2006 03:38:41 PM So, what does this mean for other VC-backed upstarts like YouTube and Facebook? ----- PING: TITLE: News URL: http://www.efinancialplanning.info/news/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: News DATE: 08/12/2006 04:36:28 AM As well as ABC television show informationDaily news and full coverage of current issues. ItUs the top site for IT managers and tech ... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Wireless company Trapeze raises $30M -- stays on the trapeze STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/08/2006 05:24:54 AM ----- BODY:
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Trapeze Networks, the Pleasanton start-up that provides equipment to build WiFi local area networks, has raised $30 million in a fourth round of funding, apparently with the help of Juniper Networks. This is signficant because Trapeze early last year looked like it had "fallen off the trapeze," as Battery investor Tom Crotty put it to us. ----- EXTENDED BODY: At the time, Crotty was savoring the acquisition of Airespace, which was sold last year to Cisco for $450 million. A competitor to Trapeze, Airespace returned an early profit for Battery, and enabled Cisco to keep the lead in the so-called WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) sector. The networks are sold to help companies to help them connect all their equipment, from phones to computers. Another company Silicon Valley competitor, Aruba, seemed to be getting more traction, and some say it is now considering going public. VentureWire (sub required) wrote a story about the Juniper investment in Trapeze this morning. According to that report, Redpoint Ventures, Oak Investment, Motorola and Nortel Networks all participated. Founded in 2002, the company has raised a total of $97.5 million. The sector has been revived lately with all the action surrounding WiFi, specifically the ability to route phone calls through such networks, including the use of VoIP -- and thus saving companies money. Trapeze has been helped by this trend, and has worked with new networking players like DiVitas. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Trapeze, Cisco, Juniper+Networks, Aruba, Airespace, Oak, Motorola, Redpoint ----- PING: TITLE: Trapeze secures $30 million D round URL: http://www.wlanblog.com/?p=203 IP: 69.106.99.172 BLOG NAME: wlanblog.com DATE: 08/08/2006 09:08:15 AM Wow. Their $30 million dollar D round brings the grand total to $97 million in funding thus far. To be honest, I rarely if ever ran across Trapeze in competitive deals when I was at Cisco. I always wrote them off as a non-player despite their larger ... ----- PING: TITLE: Wireless URL: http://www.webphoneservices.info/wireless/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Wireless DATE: 08/20/2006 03:32:28 AM Here39;s a glimpse into how our friends in the Salt Lake City valley access their residentialThe Wireless Camera Hunter may ... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Top VC firm Kleiner Perkins adds Jessica Owens STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/08/2006 10:03:04 PM ----- BODY:
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Jessica Owns
We've been labeled "Kleinerologists," that is, students of Silicon Valley's top venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Living up to that label, we point out the firm has just added Jessica Owens to its team, to work on investments in pandemic preparedness and bio-defense. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jessica did research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which resulted in the discovery of genetic shift among "Hantavirus" strains. She also worked at Genentech, did corporate finance on the life science team at investment bank Robertson Stephens and diagnostic research at Thomas Weisel Partners. She has an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MS from the Department of Cancer Biology at Stanford University. Personnel moves like this are significant because it shows where the high-profile firm (it backed Google, Amazon, Netscape, Sun, to name just a few) is going. John Doerr, the firm's leader, says he's spending half his time on clean-tech, and half on investments in the pandemic/health area. The firm has made a series of hires in this health area, and Owens is just the latest example. We're wondering, if Larry and Sergey of Google were looking for cash now, instead of in 1999, whether they'd approach Kleiner. The firm has been relatively quiet on the whole Web 2.0 phenom. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Jessica+Owens, Kleiner+Perkins ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: niti bhan EMAIL: niti@nitibhan.com IP: 67.174.224.35 URL: http://www.nitibhan.com DATE: 08/08/2006 11:39:48 PM "The firm has been relatively quiet on the whole Web 2.0 phenom." Your choice of words, imho, answers your question - 'phenom'. From reading your blog regularly, it seems to me that Kleiner Perkins has shifted to a far longer term view of the world and thus, where technologies are going. 'Phenom's are, by virtue of their nature, short lived, whereas the pattern shown by clean-tech, green-tech, healthcare, particularly pandemics, point towards a more sustainable direction, or, in the worst case case scenario, utter disaster. Either way, KP will be ready and prepared. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiiconBeat.com DATE: 08/08/2006 11:44:22 PM that's fair. that wasn't intended to be critical. just an observation. you see sequoia investing in companies like YouTube, Meebo, and you're just not seeing Kliener as active. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: RYK EMAIL: rehan@india.com IP: 61.8.137.98 URL: http://bombaycurry.blogspot.com DATE: 08/09/2006 12:52:33 AM KPCB who? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Peter Mills EMAIL: pmills4471z@hotmail.com IP: 70.134.105.38 URL: DATE: 08/09/2006 12:54:47 AM too much time spent talking about kleiner perkins. remember go, onsale, @home, excite, and friendster? all kleiner perkins. not perfect batters by any means. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Houdini EMAIL: mw3eng@gmail.com IP: 65.214.154.131 URL: DATE: 08/09/2006 10:27:17 AM I think "Jessica will be a great pandemic" .... Now if someone could tell me about the results from recent less publicized results of recent CDC testing indicating that cross fertilizing of the dangerous H5N1 with mammalian viruses resulted in NO human transmissible variants ( ie H5N1 passive genetic mutation did not result in the predicted scary pandemic virus variant ... YET ). OK it still is possible, but it looks far less likely than the fearmongers indicate... ie more mutations are needed than trivially attainable in a short time. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Omar EMAIL: omarseyal@gmail.com IP: 12.162.30.178 URL: http://omarseyal.blogspot.com DATE: 08/09/2006 01:53:35 PM Did you mean to write "Jessica Owens" in the title of the post? ... or perhaps you meant "Jessica Pwns"? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/09/2006 02:16:35 PM Hmm, maybe I do need an editor. I've corrected. ----- PING: TITLE: Healthcare IPOs rock on -- are you in the wrong business? URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/09/healthcare_ipos_rock_on_are_you_in_the_wrong_business.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/09/2006 06:40:39 AM When was the last time a West Coast Internet/Web 2.0 company went public? Xtent, a Silicon Valley firm that develops a new kind of medical stent, has filed for a $103.5 million initial public offering of stock, and it would be the third largest IPO in... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Palm and Yelp partner on local mobile search for Treo STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/08/2006 10:38:29 PM ----- BODY:
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Yelp, the company that provides reviews of restaurants, bars and other locales in different cities, has teamed up with Palm to offer a useful local mobile search. We mention this because Yelp has profiled lots of San Francisco Bay Area locales, and this can be helpful for on-the-go yuppies with Treos. We tried it out, and it worked easily and simply in Fremont, when we were looking for pizza this evening. We went to Yelp Mobile (http://mobile.yelp.com) on our Treo 650 phone, put in our city and zip code, and chose pizza. First on the resulting list was Mission Pizza -- because it has thirteen raving reviews, and thus is the favored place in the region. Clearly marked, after the star-rating (1-5), number of reviews, address and phone number, was the mileage. Mission Pizza is 1.88 miles away, and isn't the closest. We zipped down and list, and the next pizza place is only a half mile away, but doesn't have great reviews. We were happy with this ordering. There's also a link to maps, which came up easily and without hitches. Nice execution. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Yelp, Palm, Treo ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Miss Megan EMAIL: 2megan@gmail.com IP: 24.215.238.20 URL: DATE: 08/09/2006 04:53:45 PM Tried it on my TREO and it works like a charm! Probably going to save me from picking a bad place when I'm traveling. Nice tip! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Huh? EMAIL: cmoldow@yahoo.com IP: 71.139.4.51 URL: DATE: 08/09/2006 09:50:02 PM Worked great when I tried Indian in Mtn View. Then I tried Indian in Westport, CT and it said I was only .8 miles away from the closest spot. Not sure what it is using as the location of my phone, but it does not seem to be working too well. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: wade EMAIL: wagh33@hotmail.com IP: 24.82.171.252 URL: DATE: 08/15/2006 12:16:55 PM I was wondering if there is such a thing as a wifi card that I can use on my tro 650. Thanks, W. ----- PING: TITLE: Local URL: http://www.basketballstar.info/local/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Local DATE: 08/14/2006 08:56:40 AM users Pat Tillman died in Afghanistan is raising new LOCAL NEWSThousands of local residents endured a warm, humid F... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Healthcare IPOs rock on -- are you in the wrong business? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/09/2006 06:39:14 AM ----- BODY:
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When was the last time a West Coast Internet/Web 2.0 company went public? Xtent, a Silicon Valley firm that develops a new kind of medical stent, has filed for a $103.5 million initial public offering of stock, and it would be the third largest IPO in life sciences this year, after Northstar of Seattle and Altus, of the East Coast. Silicon Valley venture firms, or at least firms with offices here, have invested in all of these, and are looking pretty smart. And comments to our last post that to appear to write off Kleiner Perkins' caution on Web 2.0 investing may be misplaced. When was last Web 2.0 IPO? ----- EXTENDED BODY: Xtent, of Menlo Park, seeks to raise up to $103 million in the IPO. Moreover, the company has not generated any revenue. It reported a net loss of $14 million in 2005, so it's not really that different from Web 2.0. ;-) Many of us chasing Web 2.0 may be in the right business. There are lots of little sales going on, as start-ups are gobbled up by folks like Yahoo, Google and News Corp. But being acquired has become like winning a lottery ticket. Think long and hard about where you want to work, because there's a lot of hype right now, and Silicon Valley is an echo chamber. Put another way, if you are not a tech geek, an awesome programmer or engineer, and you are in this game to work hard and make some good cash, you may be better off kicking the tires on a healthcare company -- check out its investors, read the literature -- because the less-sexy bet is often the better one. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Web+2.0, Xtent, echo+chamber, Silicon+Valley ----- PING: TITLE: Roundup: Google's adult videos, Microsoft's "YouTube of gaming" initiative, and more URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/14/roundup_googles_adult_videos_microsofts_youtube_of_gaming_initiative_and_more.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/14/2006 01:24:21 PM Here's the latest news important for Silicon Valley: Google Checkout problems -- Google's new feature, which lets you pay with a virtual wallet similar to PayPal, isn't working too smoothly, with people complaining of week-long delays for payments to b... ----- PING: TITLE: Rock URL: http://www.musiczen.info/rock/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Rock DATE: 08/17/2006 10:21:13 AM News, interviews, audio, photos, message board, classifieds, and guestbook.2006 Chris Rock EnterprisesSee Seven S... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: AOL to offer free personalized email domains, on day when user's identity is exposed STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/09/2006 08:54:48 AM ----- BODY:
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AOL today announced it is offering personalized email domains, which would be an interesting sell -- if it weren't for AOL's major screw-up on privacy lately. No thanks for now, AOL.
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Arnold (by NTY)
When AOL Research released the search entries of thousands of supposed anonymous users this past weekend, indie programmers went to work to parse the data and match it data with real people. Now the NYT has run a story about AOL Searcher No. 4417749, who it has discovered is a Georgian widow Thelma Arnold (see picture). You may think it is sick for the NYT to write the story -- for outing the poor person. We link to it only because the woman comes off maintaining her respect (she's revealed as a well-rounded, conscientious person). The NYT at least did a decent job of selecting who it was going to pick on. If this sort of disaster doesn't get out to the mainstream immediately, the privacy time-bomb will only get more dangerous. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: AOL+Research, Thelma+Arnold, AOL ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Emily Cyr EMAIL: emy_the_good_girl@hotmail.com IP: 74.106.100.237 URL: DATE: 08/10/2006 05:27:41 PM Put AOL to the garbage and use Vazigo.com to keep your privacy!! Just a little problem, this search engin it's only in french for the moment.. ----- PING: TITLE: Roundup: EFF files complaint against AOL, Wiki.com sold for $3M, Segway URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/14/roundup_eff_files_complaint_against_aol_wikicom_sold_for_3m_segway.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/15/2006 10:14:02 AM AOL, by EFFSan Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation files complaint against AOL -- The complaint accuses AOL of breaking a promise to protect its subscribers' privacy when it posted about 19 million search requests made by 660,000 subscribers dur... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Bix, the online karaoke/dance competition site, launches STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/09/2006 09:10:02 AM ----- BODY:
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Bix is a Palo Alto start-up that wants to feed off the popularity of American Idol. It has just launched. We mentioned it here when it was still in testing mode. It lets people compete in online karaoke, dance, and other contests. It kicks off with a $50,000 prize. The company says the idea is to let other companies sponsor these competitions, thereby building their brands within what Bix hopes will be a young, attractive user base. But as you may expect from a start-up, it launches this first $50,000 competition without a sponsor. One notable development at some of these recent Silicon Valley companies is how much experience they can draw on from local employees. In a press release (sorry, no link), the company boasts industry "veterans" from eBay, Symantec, AOL Netscape, BEA, Epinions, There.com, Intuit, Logitech, E*trade, A9 and Electronic Arts. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nick EMAIL: nick@eslink.org IP: 129.215.164.114 URL: DATE: 08/11/2006 03:03:42 AM Have you seen the rights grab these guys want? Bix can exploit anything you send in - photos, songs, video etc for as long as they want, and any way they want. I suggest anyone thinking of entering any of their competitions read their T&Cs VERY carefully... ----- PING: TITLE: Competition URL: http://www.emartialarts.info/competition/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Competition DATE: 08/15/2006 08:13:48 AM and Canada. Entries will be screened by ISC and the finalists will be reviewed by wellknown professional judges.Academic Decathlon practice tests, ne... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Local engineers find way to lower computer network costs: DC power STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/09/2006 10:01:58 AM ----- BODY:
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Data Center power
Engineers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and some technology company partners have demonstrated that DC power distribution in computer data centers can save up to 15 percent or more on energy consumption and cost. Better yet, it can be done with commonly available products. Could it be an example of what Silicon Valley venture capitalist Rob Day says here is the sort of business that could and should be done now? In other words, one that will help lower energy costs and do good by mitigating global warming? Rob says it again here this morning (he is practicing what he is preaching, judging from his latest investment). ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: DC+Power, Rob+Day ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kevin Burton EMAIL: burtonator@gmail.com IP: 67.120.92.166 URL: http://tailrank.com DATE: 08/10/2006 04:03:14 AM DC power is a bit like the rotary engine. A great idea but you pretty much have to have a GOOD reason to use it. This is Rackable System's claim to fame. They can fit more machines in a rack if they use DC and save power. The problem is that NO ONE has DC... you seriously limit your choice of hardware if you use DC. Its becoming a problem though so maybe more people will install DC power... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Thomas Edison EMAIL: te@ge.com IP: 67.161.39.16 URL: http://ge.com DATE: 08/10/2006 05:51:41 PM I've been saying this all along, DC is superior to AC. ----- PING: TITLE: Computer URL: http://www.accountingzone.info/computer/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Computer DATE: 08/13/2006 11:08:36 AM of video, 2.5 COMPUTER.COMCompaq offerings include Presario notebooks & laptops, desktops, monitors and computer accessories. Apple Video iPod 30G... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Is Bay Partners falling apart? Maybe, maybe not STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/09/2006 10:36:01 AM ----- BODY:
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There is a story by Private Equity Week today that says Bay Partners, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has invested in companies like Riya, Wallop and Xactly, has lost half its six partners. It says the firm's investors, the "limited partners," or large institutions and universities which provide the firm with its money, are taking a "wait-and-see" approach to the developments. The story suggests investors may pull their money. However, the story does not quote any LPs, so we aren't able to confirm this. In fact, a few weeks ago we'd asked one of the partners who remains about rumors of the departing partners. He said everything was fine. One source close to the firm told us last night that the departing partners were under-performers, and that is why they left -- it is the brutal reality of venture capital. In which case, limited partners may support these measures. So perhaps the LPs are fine with this. We just don't know. Nothing confirmed yet. Bay's 2001 vintage fund, which it began investing after the Internet bubble burst, is in the red, but it still is holding several investments on its books, and it is too early to tell how it will do. And the firm's appointed leader is still in place. So it may have had only one, or two strikes so far... stay tuned. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Bay+Partners ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kwoods EMAIL: kwoods@netboost.co IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/09/2006 11:58:44 AM Very interesting. Not surprising Neal is in denial about Noble's exit. I was in senior management and worked with Neal Dempsey from Bay and Mike Orsak from Worldview. Striking similarities in how companies were endangered by their capricious, manipulative actions. Companies poised for success found themselves in a hole; those already in a hole found it deepening. A welcome change: LPs are meeting directly with significant common shareholders of portfolio companies (entrepreneurs, CEOs, management) and the VC partnership every six or twelve months. They gain first-hand knowledge of partnership dynamics and the GPs performance and relationship with portfolio companies and management. Closer scrutiny of financial and professional performance. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/09/2006 12:10:10 PM Hey folks, I'm thinking seriously of removing comments that attack people with words like "capricious" and "manipulative," in particular when they have no backing. Comments are so much more powerful, and constructive, if they are rooted in fact. I'm all about us having a good discussion here, if it informs entrepreneurs and VCs about what practices or strategies are good and bad, but when the discussion degenerates into personal vendettas against people, it becomes pretty useless chatter. One or two facts emerged from the comments on the earlier post about WorldView: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/07/26/vc_firm_worldview_technology_partners_closes_shop_the_three_strikes_rule.html , but the personal junk made it almost impossible for people to weed out. Thanks. Let's make this a great site for discussion! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mojo EMAIL: mojo@intel.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/09/2006 12:45:11 PM I worked at NetBoost, a Bay Partners-funded company. It was a lucky profit for Bay as company would have gone under if Intel hadn't acquired us during the bubble. My colleagues had a negative experience for factual reasons hard to explain quickly. The usual tricks found in many other situations too: VC recaps, forced financings on coercive terms, washing out other shareholders, acceleration and guaranteed payouts for select executives and everyone else gets pennies, more. Some VCs do this more than others and it might seem they are being picked on when this is discussed. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: JB EMAIL: jb@gmail.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/09/2006 05:15:44 PM Succession at venture firms is seldom successful. Sequoia and KP seemed to have managed well one transition where IVP, Asset Mgt, Weiss,Peck&Greer failed. Vanguard Ventures has a storied history. The founder Mr Gill retired. Poor IRRs, difficulty raising their next fund aside (they've been at it for over a year now) makes it likely they won't make it. There's a story there about VCs unable to practice what they expect of their portfolio companies. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: CerealEnterpreneur EMAIL: cerealoats@hotmail.com IP: 71.130.227.50 URL: DATE: 08/10/2006 10:11:28 AM Matt, Kinda ironic that you are asking people to refrain from making personal comments; after all it was you sometime ago that blogged the Joanna Rees story sometime ago while making pointed remarks about "the need to know such information" for investors and entrepreneurs alike, wasn't it :-) ? While I agree with you on the point that people should generally refrain from making personal attacks, one would say there is also a need to know the general opinion/perception of people that have dealt with these venture folks.... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Some Concerned LPs EMAIL: lps@gmail.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/10/2006 01:01:33 PM Negative comments about a partner seem adequately balanced by the positive comments about partners from those same firms. Seems sufficient proof SiliconBeat articles and the comments they draw are balanced and fair. It'll be sad if SiliconBeat becomes a shill for venture firm/partner PR demanding supportive facts and alleging "personal vendetta" if comments are negative and assuming positive comments are fact, don't need supportive data, and (patently evident) self-serving agendas are to be ignored. Here are some voices saying: sunshine is the best disinfectant so please, no changes! SiliconValley (entrepreneurs, employees, limited partners) benefit from the valuable insights SiliconBeat and the comments provide into the world of venture capital ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/10/2006 01:19:15 PM Guys, perhaps I wasn't clear. Criticism is fine, but why not back it up with some real specifics so we can understand what you mean by "capricious" or "malicious"? If these actions endangered companies, can you tell us which companies, and how? I'm trying to say that those facts are much more helpful and constructive than vague blanket character assasination. And I hope you will see a difference between that, and the reporting referred to above about VSP and the Joanna Rees. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: AJ EMAIL: aj74@gmail.com IP: 66.122.34.11 URL: DATE: 08/10/2006 01:54:24 PM Matt, Can you find out the impact of lawsuit against Crescendo by its current LP Starling International Management for gross negligence and misrepresentation? It is a fact and the question is will it be strike 4 against the firm for its upcoming fund raise? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Some Concerned LPs EMAIL: lps@gmail.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/10/2006 02:14:18 PM Matt, prior comments to your articles on Worldview and Bay Partners from us and others contain the details you request: names of some companies endangered by a partner's actions, specific acts involved, outcome. E.g., cram-downs, wash-outs, engineered crises and ousters of founders/executives to force financing and recapitalizations, carve-outs and guaranteed payouts for compliant executives that in any society will be considered a bribe, etc. There are plenty more tricks used and they will emerge over time as more LPs note the effect of these practices and pull back their support to certain firms/partners that seem predisposed to these practices, and entrepreneurs and employees learn more about the track record of the firm/partner. Hopefully SiliconBeat will continue to provide the forum to discuss these though in some cases, as with VSP and maybe some other firms/partners, it might be the court of law. LPs for over two+ decades we like and continue to support firms where the GPs are partners to us and the startups, through the ups and downs of the economy. We stand by this and earlier comments. We'll not hesitate to pull back from those firms/partners that hurt our returns, screw up companies, and expect management fees to support inadequate, sub-standard performance. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/10/2006 02:22:14 PM Dear "Some Concerned LPs," I agree with a lot of that, and trust me, I think there needs to be more sunlight. For example, I've called and emailed Washington state, and Oak Investment, four times each, asking why Washington decided to invest in Oak despite the fact that the firm is the red on its recent funds. Not a single response. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Some Concerned LPs EMAIL: lps@gmail.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/10/2006 03:13:28 PM Matt: Reasuring to hear SiliconBeat will continue to provide the forum for comments about the venture world, critical as well as positive. The clubby VC world is opening up and over time, as public scrutiny increases with good journalism, you'll find LPs loosening up and talking to you. We'll also suggest you speak to the entreprenurs, founding employees/management, and early investors of startups. LPs are beginning to do that and find a high degree of correlation between their comments about GPs and firms and LPs' own observations, experience, and IRRs. Reliable early warning signals, excellent predictors of partner/fund/firm performance, and more valuable if the startups encountered business crises highlighting the GP's code of professional conduct. We wish we performed that background diligence earlier and regularly, as it'd have revealed what we found and know now: partner dysfunctionality at Worldview and the predatory conduct of one partner there that hurt our returns, risked the companies, and endangered the firm. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: RK EMAIL: rk_mazda@hotmail.com IP: 71.131.40.191 URL: DATE: 08/10/2006 06:10:18 PM Matt, Based on all the input you are getting on VC's, It is probably good idea to start a sort of rating system on each VC firm & partners. This will help entrepreneurs to stay clear of Enron grade of VC's... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/10/2006 06:35:57 PM RK, I've been thinking about that. If anyone out there would like to help me do this (I'm pretty, ahem, short-staffed), shoot me a note! Matt ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Some Concerned LPs EMAIL: lps@gmail.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/10/2006 08:13:49 PM A JD Powers-like rank-and-grade of the quality of partners and firms. What a good idea! It'll be useful to LPs and entrepreneurs while limiting Enron or Worldcom-like crimes of omission and commission in the venture world. Shareholders (employees, investors) of Worldview portfolio companies affected by a partner's actions and exploring legal recourse have our strong support. We'll share our information and experience, including the partner's misrepresentations and other breaches of fiduciary duties, with them for justice. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Startups.in EMAIL: mail@jdoe.net IP: 69.228.237.222 URL: http://Startups.in DATE: 08/13/2006 04:06:06 PM Probably this pointer can be of some help to get started. http://vcratings.thedealblogs.com/ NagB /at/ Startups.in ----- -------- AUTHOR: Michael Bazeley TITLE: Do you code? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/09/2006 12:30:54 PM ----- BODY: We interrupt this news blog...The Mercury News is looking for a programmer/web developer who can do ongoing, periodic contract work with us, everything from quickie jobs to more involved projects. The right person is familiar with XML and the usual LAMP stuff - ie: MySQL, PHP and, in this case, Python. Bonus points if they're familiar with Django and WordPress. We'd prefer someone in the SF Bay Area. There's a chance it could turn into full-time work down the road. If you, or someone you know, is interested, shoot an email to Mike Bazeley at code@mercextra.com. (Note: Please don't leave contact info in the comments section. Thanks.) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason Schramm EMAIL: jason.schramm@gmail.com IP: 68.38.123.176 URL: http://www.jasonblogs.com DATE: 08/09/2006 01:11:40 PM I'm very interested, unfortunately I'm not currently located in California. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Aaron Brazell EMAIL: aaron@technosailor.com IP: 68.55.221.250 URL: http://www.technosailor.com DATE: 08/09/2006 01:55:02 PM Heh. Will work for relocation expenses. :p ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: alan smithee EMAIL: loser@loser.com IP: 198.205.32.94 URL: DATE: 08/09/2006 03:39:46 PM so, if i can't follow simple directions, will you still hire me? ----- PING: TITLE: Code URL: http://www.onlinecollegegrad.info/code/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Code DATE: 08/13/2006 06:13:35 AM Go to " My plyalists choose your playlist and click " Copy to clipboard " button.Lawrence Lessigs views on how the a... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Harvard pulls plug on ITU Ventures STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/09/2006 04:48:15 PM ----- BODY:
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Continuing the story on venture capital woes, we've just found out that Harvard University has pulled the plug on another venture fund, this time ITU Ventures III. The firm raised its $120 million third fund last year to invest in technology companies. But Harvard saw three people leave, and decided it was "strike three." Harvard, the lead investor in the fund, has sent an email to other investors about its decision to pull out, and so some of these others also seem to be pulling out. We may be sitting at the center of the venture capital universe here in Silicon Valley, but elite East Coast universities such as Harvard and Yale make many of the life and death decisions about venture firms. The pressure by big investors on venture firms is largely an unwritten story. If you are pitching a VC, and his eyes look shifty, don't take it personally. Realize he may be under even more pressure than you are! We reached co-founder Chad Brownstein, who said the firm itself will remain open, but that he couldn't comment on the status of the third fund for confidentiality reasons. "Everyone's happy," he said. "The firm is doing great, we're moving along." ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- PING: TITLE: Crescendo's two strikes, and why it matters URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/16/crescendos_two_strikes_and_why_it_matters.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/16/2006 08:28:28 PM Crescendo Ventures is another struggling Silicon Valley venture firm. Some are asking whether Crescendo should bother even trying to raise a new fund of money to invest. In our assessment, the firm has got two strikes against it. The third pitch is co... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Viacom scoops up Atom for $200M -- finally STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/09/2006 06:39:14 PM ----- BODY:
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Viacom, the giant media company that was left chomping at the bit when rival News Corp gobbled up MySpace, is instead buying the lower-profile San Francisco company, Atom Entertainment. (Update: Here is the Mercury News story about the deal.) Atom will become part of Viacom's MTV Networks. Atom is a holding of four online properties for casual games, short films and video (Atom films, Shockwave.com, etc), formerly known as AtomShockwave. It was formed in 2001, with the merger of Atom and Shockwave. And there is a lesson here. The company fired 120 of its employees back in the gloomy days of 2001, and closed most of its offices. The remaining 50 employees fought on. The cycles change, just as the sun will always come up, and now finally someone is interested in them. Finally there is an "exit" for these guys. The backers of these companies included Intel Capital, J.P. Morgan Entertainment Partners, Macromedia Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Transcosmos. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kelly Smith EMAIL: kelly@curiousoffice.com IP: 67.160.84.56 URL: http://www.curiousoffice.com DATE: 08/09/2006 11:12:30 PM Great job Mika! Persistance pays! ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Top VC firm Sequoia adds Carter, Harrison -- going late stage STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/10/2006 06:19:26 AM ----- BODY:
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Carter
Sequoia Capital remains one of the best, if not the best performing Silicon Valley venture firm. It was an early backer of Google, Yahoo and many more big hits. So we are "Sequoia-ologists," students of Sequoia's every move -- just as we are Kleinerologists. Thus, we report that Sequoia Capital has added two new partners from Boston-based investment firm Summit Partners: Scott Carter, who prior to Summit was an ibanker at JPMorgan and staffer at the U.S. Senate, and Alexander Harrison, who prior to Summit, was also an ibanker, doing research at Goldman, Sachs & Co. covering communication chip companies. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Both Carter and Harrison will focus on software and services investments.
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Harrison
There is a common thread in these recent hires. Between Sequoia's recent addition of former UBS ibanker Chris Olsen, and Kleiner Perkins' addition of Jessica Owens , a former ibanker at Robertson Stephens, they all are investment bankers. So what does that tell us? Well, VentureWire reported (subscription required) this morning that Carter and Harrison were brought on to help find deals for Sequoia's $861M later stage fund, Capital Growth Fund III -- and the firm's largest ever. Investing in more mature companies requires different skills. It requires more focus on deal-structuring and term-setting -- traits of bankers. These new young hires are not former entrepreneurs, which is a trait many early stage VC firms search for. Are these firms going later stage, or are they trying to do both? Kleiner Perkins' focus on "pandemic" investments even resulted in Kleiner's investment in public companies. Late-stage is a nice place to be, financially -- if you do well. The firm has to put more money to work (because investments in more mature companies demand it), which means investors will give the firm more money to invest. And ideally, it means larger fees and profits in the venture capitalists' pockets. Which is why this area is hot right now, and why even U2's Bono trying his hand over at Elevation Partners. At least this time the firms are hiring people to help. Remember, Sequoia's first go-round with this strategy didn't work out too well. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Sequoia, Alexander+Harrison, Scott+Carter, Jessica+Owens, Chris+Olsen, Kleiner+Perkins ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Traveller EMAIL: traveller@manidatravel.com IP: 86.124.102.41 URL: http://www.manidatravel.com/tlbdir/index.php DATE: 08/10/2006 10:57:10 AM Great acquisitions for Sequoia, Carter and Harrison will be very important for the firm's future business for sure. ----- PING: TITLE: Best URL: http://www.computersandhardware.info/best/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Best DATE: 08/13/2006 07:15:42 PM Best Buys online source for electronics, televisions, DVD players, home audio, car audio, computers, French defenders rarely fi... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Web stats are broken -- so you'd better have brass knuckles STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/10/2006 10:30:30 AM ----- BODY:
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Juggling statistics
Statistics on the Internet is like water for a flower. You need them for much of the Web to survive. But independent third-party tracking of traffic to Web sites, and of user clicks on Web page links, is deeply flawed, developments this week at Google and elsewhere underscored. There doesn't seem to be any remedy in sight. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Web sites that rely on advertising -- including some the most poplar, such as Google, Yahoo, MySpace and YouTube -- get paid based on the amount of traffic to their site and the number click-throughs on their ads. Without accurate data, advertisers have no idea how much they should be paying. The only reason the system isn't breaking down, and advertisers aren't pulling out, is because they have no choice but to play. They are taking informed guesses, based on the shoddy statistics available. And Google et al. are using every strategy they can find to deal with this problem. We were reading TechCrunch's wobbly efforts to pinpoint whether traffic to bookmarking company Del.icio.us is climbing, flattening, or plunging. In the end, TechCrunch had to give up. One seeming reliable statistics vendor Comscore is trumped by another, Hitwise. (Update: Here's a good description of why many of these services are different.) We're wondering what lesson young entrepreneurs will take from this. Some, no doubt, will decide they should be pretty brazen about how they report statistics. There is only upside to fudging the stats slightly. And you won't get caught if no one can double check, right? And if the other guy is padding his traffic numbers, well, you'd better do it too. This could get dangerous. As it is, even without the stat problem, success on the Internet has depended on good ol' "nasty grassroots, viral campaigns, brass knuckling marketing," says David Stern, a venture capitalists of Clearstone Ventures, who has learned a lot from watching successful start-ups while at Idealab, and from watching MySpace. Which brings us to Bebo, the social networking company that is trying to make some inroads on MySpace. Bebo's monthly visitor stats basically flat here in the U.S. over the past couple year, according to proprietary (and thus no link) statistics from Magestic Research and comScore. We don't want to pick on Bebo, but in February the site told us it had overtaken MySpace in the UK. So we were surprised to see an announcement this week that Bebo had -- surprise -- just overtaken MySpace in the UK "for the first time." Looks like Bebo is just taking the statistics that suits its marketing purposes (but to be fair, we don't know the background to how the recent announcement came about). Indeed, this may be fair game -- given that statistics are dead, and you've got to do what you've got to do -- as long as you don't go over that fuzzy line, wherever it is. And that's where Google is fighting. The giant search engine gets billions of revenues from people clicking on ads on its main search results and on Google ads carried by large publishers. Reliable stats mean everything. The problem is, Google can't prove that certain clicks aren't fradulent -- or, being tapped in by ambitious content owners or others who have an incentive to game the system and make more money than they should. John Battelle, a search expert has a good post here about how Google's tactic is to turn the tables: Pointing to flaws of studies that purport to show click-fraud is a problem. After all, if statistics aren't any good, you can't prove it one way or the other. In other words, we're back to square one. What are we saying? If you're an Internet start-up, you'd better think about how to play hardball. You don't want to cross the line. If you do, you'll get called on it sooner or later. But numbers can affect your buzz, and your revenue. Make sure you've got someone on staff who is as tough as nails, and who is prepared to do some aggressive marketing. Unfortunately, statistics uncertainty appears to impact the small start-up sites the most. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Google, Bebo, Comscore, Hitwise ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Max Kalehoff EMAIL: maxkalehoff@gmail.com IP: 69.86.86.88 URL: http://www.attentionmax.com DATE: 08/11/2006 07:34:44 AM Matt, There's another trend going on that seems to spawn many misleading memes: the growing popularity of free, amateur measurement tools. I'm talking tools like Alexa and Google Trends, among others. They're interesting, fun, illustrative and sometimes offer good directional insights. Combine their lack of rigour with amateur analysts (like a lot of talkative bloggers) and you wind up with a ton of analyses that are misguided (albeit some good ones, too). Cheers, Max Kalehoff of Nielsen BuzzMetrics (the guy who you went sailing with on Bounty, which used to be my home) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Andy EMAIL: andyrankin@gmail.com IP: 66.80.247.210 URL: DATE: 08/11/2006 01:03:13 PM I think you're combining two different issues. One problem is getting accurate information from third parties (Alexa, Hitwise, Comscore, etc.) about traffic to specific sites. This is because these third parties are at best making calculations and estimates based on a fraction of the traffic. Only the site owners, who can deploy a variety of analytics tools, can get particularly accurate data - and often they're not willing to share this raw info. The Google problem of click fraud is something totally different. Click fraud isn't an issue of incorrect statistics - the clicks are happening, the question is if they are being made by valid visitors or not. I think you get can pretty accurate stats about your own site, it's getting accurate stats about other sites that's next to impossible - and you're right that there doesn't seem to be any good solutions coming down the pipe. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bryan EMAIL: bmoffett@npr.org IP: 205.153.36.171 URL: DATE: 08/11/2006 03:00:44 PM It's tough to even get accurate stats about your *own* site. Ever see a company switch from a log-based metrics tool to tag-based one? Reported traffic can be cut in half - or much worse. I've had to talk clients thought that change. It's not easy explaining why 2/3 of their traffic never really existed. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 72.244.55.218 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/11/2006 03:06:22 PM Sure, internally you may have a better idea of real stats (although even there stats are not perfect), but part of my point is that a lot of buzz, and money can be made from the uncertainty out on the part of outsiders and advertisers (yes, on two different issues, traffic and click-fraud). ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sarah EMAIL: sarah@wetjello.com IP: 82.35.68.1 URL: http://wetjello.com/blog DATE: 08/17/2006 05:25:59 AM Matt - great post and some interesting commentary here. Just a courtesy message to let you know I linked your post here: http://wetjello.com/blog/2006/08/comscore-stats-indicate-increasing.html at the Wetjello blog which covers anything and everything associated with online video. Comments are welcome and encouraged! ----- PING: TITLE: Siliconbeat “beats” webanalytics industry URL: http://webmeasurement.wordpress.com/2006/08/10/siliconbeat-beats-webanalytics-industry/ IP: 72.232.101.6 BLOG NAME: Webanalyticsbook.com DATE: 08/10/2006 02:07:20 PM Today Matt Marshall at Siliconbeat wrote in his blog that webanalytics is back to square one. He points out that Hitwise, Comscore and Alexa show different numbers. Here the graphs that he was writing about: I. Comscore - Unique visitors and tota... ----- PING: TITLE: Web Metrics: Measuring Blog Popularity URL: http://mkaz.com/archives/122/web-metrics-followup IP: 64.62.241.2 BLOG NAME: mkaz.com DATE: 08/10/2006 11:27:36 PM I found your entry interesting do I've added a Trackback to it on my weblog :) ----- PING: TITLE: Web Analytics Back to Square One URL: http://dating.corante.com/archives/2006/08/11/web_analytics_back_to_square_one.php IP: 69.50.217.200 BLOG NAME: Online Dating Insider DATE: 08/11/2006 07:43:18 AM Here's a Silicon Beat article stating webanalytics is back to square one. Found via Webanalyticsbook. Technorati Tags: web+analytics... ----- PING: TITLE: Web URL: http://www.marketingflash.info/web/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Web DATE: 08/13/2006 01:27:30 AM Last Modified: Sat, May 6 01:39:29 UTC 2006 For other contact information, see the Debian contact page . Bridging the paper to digital di... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Digg's Kevin Rose can't afford a couch STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/10/2006 03:31:05 PM ----- BODY:
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The founder of the news Web site Digg reveals more details about the BusinessWeek article, on This Week in Tech (click on the player). The BW piece claimed Rose had made $60M in 18 months, but Rose said BW got it all wrong. He is not a multi-millionaire, nor a millionaire, not even a "thousand-aire," he said, adding that he can't even afford a couch. He said BW worked up estimates of his worth, but that "it's just paper fake money." The BW article also said his company was breaking even. "Digg isn't even breaking even, they got that wrong too." BW photographers had him drinking a beer, among other things, for a shot they told him would be inside the magazine. He had no idea he'd be on the cover. Working for a big media outfit, we can understand how the different parts of the big machine can get out of whack sometimes; it has happened to us, where deadlines, misunderstandings, and cover design needs really butcher a story at the last minute. This Digg story is a particularly bad example. It is really too bad, because we know the reporting team over there, and we'd been thinking this year what a great job they've been doing, and how they really get it. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Steven Kempton EMAIL: steven@searchniche.com IP: 222.155.101.134 URL: http://searchniche.blogs.com DATE: 08/11/2006 02:29:44 PM "Working for a big media outfit, we can understand how the different parts of the big machine can get out of whack sometimes;" - Matt, that is reaching a bit isn't it? There is no doubt they ran the article and cover to sell more magazines, not because of any misunderstandings. Lots of other media outlets do this and BW is just joining in. They shouldn't now claim that they misunderstood some issues and that caused the cover and article to appear the way it did. I mean look at the headline, "How this kid made $60 million in 15 months". That's not a misunderstanding driven by deadlines or cover design - thats a sales pitch... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 72.244.55.218 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/11/2006 02:51:01 PM Steven, You're correct. It was a monster of a story, and I didn't mean to excuse it. What I meant is that each person in the system has their job, and pressures, and things can get out of line if each person along the way isn't intensily vigilant. The reporter needs to be able to assert the right to veto an edit, or if the editor insists on it, then the reporter should be able to pull their name from the story. But from personal experience I've seen how last minute changes are made, and I'm out to dinner or something, and an editor, photographer, designer or page layout person, someone two or three steps removed from me, makes a call on something that just isn't right -- and I'm not around to set them straight. And they are doing it, yes, to get maximum play, but they are also really misreading something -- such as an estimate of someone's worth, and incorrectly turning it into a fact, etc. (The headline writer wants to write the juciest headline, because that is their job, but they do generally want to be honest; and yes, the designer wants to have a jazzy picture, because is their job, and the editor wants to have a snappy summary of how much someone is worth, because that is their job.) I don't think we disagree on this. I'm just saying I understand how it happens. I'm also saying it there were some really bad decisions made. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alex Le EMAIL: nworld3d@yahoo.com IP: 71.201.61.142 URL: http://www.alexle.net DATE: 08/12/2006 10:55:54 PM What a fascinating article and the truth behind it. I myself haven't read the article yet but I was pretty amazed to read about the Digg guy. So it turns out to be just another FUD. Too bad. Actually I don't know how much money Digg can make by selling Adsense or TShirts on the site. And most of the revenue will go into servers cost -- that's for sure. I don't know if Digg have raised any money or not but a google search for "Digg raise money" didn't return any good answer. So I guess Digg are pretty self-support financially. So I would say that the $60 mil is paper-money calculated by the BW writers to show how much the potentials of a popular web2.0 service worths. Anyway, it's really fascinating. My dad sometimes said that don't be lieve in the books you read. That's so true. I love the old man's wisdom. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Steven Kempton EMAIL: steven@searchniche.com IP: 222.155.101.134 URL: http://searchniche.blogs.com DATE: 08/14/2006 01:49:37 AM Thanks for the reply to my comment Matt. I can see what you mean a little clearer now. Definitely looks like a lot of mistakes were made but also very hard in a situation like you describe. ----- PING: TITLE: Rosie URL: http://www.ecruisefinder.info/rosie/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Rosie DATE: 08/13/2006 07:44:56 AM She stands approximately 18.5 inches tall, but can certainly pull more than her own weight in the ring! 10108 Telephone 212 703 7390 Info... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Hubpages helps you publish and make money; raises $2 million STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/10/2006 05:25:59 PM ----- BODY:
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Hubpages, a start-up based in Berkeley, has created a site that lets you publish your content -- and seeks to help you make money with it by cross-tagging your content with other authors on the platform. These days, it is easy to fall into the mode: "Omygod, not another Web 2.0 blog-like company." But this company brings to the table yet another twist, and merits a look. If you are a non-technical person who doesn't want to worry about running a Web site, and don't know the latest tricks about how to drive traffic to your site, Hubpages may be the place for you. ----- EXTENDED BODY: It takes care of all the tech bells and whistles that propel your pages as high as possible on search engine results, say when someone searches Google for the topic you are writing about. In part, Hubpages is betting on the power of the masses. By collecting hundreds or thousands of writers on its platform, and creating links between them, the whole site grows in significance in the eyes of Google and other search engines. It was quick and easy to use, when we tried it out a week ago. It has AJAX "capsule" boxes for comments and photos that you can move around. Once you have written something, called a "hub," Hubpages runs Google Adsense advertising on it. Here is a snippet of someone's hub. (click below to enlarge) You will see the page looks quite nice. You are confined in color schema and photo resizing options, etc, but the company is young, and CEO Paul Edmondson says it will build a more sophisticated design and more options over time. It also has room, in our view, to make the hub creation process even more intutiive than it is now. In this example, the person writes about Jazz, and you'll see ads about jazz. She gets a 50 percent cut of the revenue that comes from the ads; Hubpages takes the rest. Hubpages may change this soon, though, and provide a bigger cut to more popular authors (more below). Keep an eye on point #4 here, for latest policy. Hubpages also has partnerships with sites like Amazon, where links to relevant products are embedded in your site, and you again get half the referral revenue from the deal (when someone buys something through your page). Upon creating an account, it helps you create an Adsense account with Google. There's also no download, so this is all online. Hubpages asks you to tag your pages of content, according to its topic. It creates unique URLs for each tag, and also for each person's profile and the hubs they have written. People can subscribe to your writings via RSS. Hubpages then creates a way for people to elect whether your hub is interesting or not. Each hub is awarded a "hubscore" and it can float to the top of the overall site if it is ranked highly enough -- sort of like Digg. Click on the picture below to see a snippet of the homepage. Paul first told us about Hubpages several months back. It has just launched. The $2 million in backing comes from Hummer Winblad, and partner Mitchell Kerztman is on the board. For a similar site, with similar business model, see Gather.com. There is also Squidoo, however that site more radically focused on being a search engine destination. It encourages people to create snippets of writing about specific topics that can be found by search engines. It then shares the profits with you (see FAQ #9/10), not the revenues. Hubpages is a good idea. Our fear is that it is late to the game. Most people who want to be online have already found a way to do so. If these guys execute, and keep making refinements so it becomes a gee-whiz site, they have a chance. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Hubpages, Paul+Edmondson, Hummer+Winblad, Mitchell+Kerztman ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: larry EMAIL: larry@1031exchangefacts.info IP: 75.0.176.65 URL: http://www.1031exchangefacts.info DATE: 08/11/2006 11:39:16 AM Are you guys serious buying into YET ANOTHER business where the model is to survive on half of the commissions they earn from other companies? Aside from the total lack of understanding about the concept of margin, don't you think adsense and amazon affiliate fees are pretty played out at this point, even if you're going to keep ALL of them? Product, not business. NEXT! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Anders Abrahamsson EMAIL: anders@sustainopreneurship.biz IP: 194.47.120.103 URL: http://www.hubpages.com/_comments/profile/andersabrahamsson DATE: 08/11/2006 02:16:15 PM Larry: Given the low startup costs through bootstrapping, their break-even will come closer. And it IS a product, with features of easy design-making developed by the team. The revenue source I am convinced will be extended over time with more business partners joining. Fon? Skype? You name it. It fits in the instant-web-and-communicate-with-the-world sphere, with its easy-to-go web publishing features. And the premier value is the authors. If the authors are valued, it will bring enough value in financial terms to the company for further development - that is my conviction. Peace, Anders -- Anders Abrahamsson | RE:LOVE THE WORLD Sustainopreneurship* Facilitator *Sustainopreneurship = Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Sustainability - Blog: http://www.sustainopreneurship.biz - Hub: http://hub.sustainopreneurship.biz ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 72.244.55.218 URL: http://www.Siliconbeat.com DATE: 08/11/2006 02:54:52 PM Should have mentioned this company only has three people -- so yes, low burn rate. Larry, not sure what you mean by not understanding margin. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Todd Allen EMAIL: todd.allen@vocel.com IP: 216.33.203.233 URL: http://www.vocel.com DATE: 08/11/2006 04:40:34 PM I'm curious how long it will take the spammers/sploggers to ruin this. If it truly creates traffic for sites, I'd give it about two months. Good luck to them though! Todd ----- PING: TITLE: Making Money Online URL: http://www.radiorave.info/making-money-online/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Making Money Online DATE: 08/13/2006 12:43:39 PM The best way to make money from your online marketing. with this FREE Internet Business, thanks to the all newWhen I first st... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Roundup: Last Google Jet hearing, VC China wars, Capton, Vysr, Wablet, more STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/11/2006 07:28:17 AM ----- BODY:
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Google co-founders have settled with the guy who spilled beans on the secretive Google Jet -- A final hearing is scheduled for Aug. 29. Details here in the Mercury News story today. Draper Fisher Jurvetson reappears in China -- After a rocky period in China, Silicon Valley venture firm DFJ has reasserted itself: Its newest affiliate fund, DFJ DragonFund China, has raised $80 million. Sequoia Capital's china fund invests in Beijing insurance aggregator China Concord Alliance -- Speaking of Silicon Valley firms in China, this is Sequoia's tenth investment in China. Sequoia, you'll remember, picked off one of DFJ's partners, and has moved rapidly there. Capton, an RFID sensor developer for liquor bottles, raises $5 million -- This technology, simply put, will determine whether bartenders are stealing. The money comes from San Francisco firm Quest Ventures and individuals. It is being used in about 100 locations. Vysr, a secretive consumer Internet software company, has raised $865,000 -- There is no Web site, and we don't know anything else, other than backers include Sand Hill Group, and it is being run by engineer Guda Venkatesh, co-founder of Teltier, a mobile application company. Earlier, he worked at Bell Labs. He's an expert in "instant messaging" and "presence and availability management."
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Secretive Wablet, a San Francisco/Phillipines company, wants to compete with Meebo -- The secretive company is now taking invitations for closed alpha. It has its work cut out for it. Meebo, the Web-based service that lets you instant message to any account from pretty much any computer, has come out with some popular features. BitTorrent developing new cache protocol for P2P -- The San Francisco-based BitTorrent, which offers the most popular technology for distributing large files over the Internet, is working with British company Cachelogic to develop a new "Cache Discovery Protocol" -- which lets Internet service providers cache data for the most popular files being transferred, thus helping to clear the clogged tubes Sen. Stevens was complaining about. Wonder how cache competitors like Itiva will respond. Yahoo developed way to customize your search engine -- Details here. It responds to recent refinements offered by Rollyo, which does something similar. These features let you search certain sites of your choice as you move around the Web.
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Bruce Leak
Carrier IQ, which tracks data about a mobile phone user's experience, has raised $10M -- The Mountain View start-up is the latest gig of WebTV co-founder Bruce Leak. Carrier IQ's analytics software is embedded in your phone, and collects data on just about every level, including service and network layer, radio frequency, Internet protocol and even downloaded software -- and delivering it to the carriers. Backers include Accel Partners, Charles River Ventures and Mohr, Davidow. The year-long battle to get comments removed from eBay, and a Rapleaf opening? -- Here is an eye-opening story about how your reputation can be damaged because of comments on eBay, and how there is no conflict resolution process: EBay will not remove feedback unless it receives a court order finding that the disputed feedback is “slanderous, libelous, defamatory or otherwise illegal.'’ The story was written earlier this week by Merc colleague Elise Ackerman, and spurred Jeff Nolan to suggest this problem may be something start-up RapLeaf should try to resolve. Rapleap lets you carry your online reputation across multiple sites, and because it is open, may be more conducive to conceivably third-party resolution. For now, though eBay is fighting Rapleaf. The good news of Sprint Nextel's WiMax -- This story broke a few days ago. We want to make sure you saw it, because Sprint's adoption of WiMax could finally give life to the expensive investments by Intel and others to push this technology. Wimax offers high-speed internet for miles. Now Sprint is investing $3 billion to roll it out. It is significant because start-ups could offer all kinds of independent cellphone and others services by tapping into the network. Mike at Techdirt tears up the convoluted analysis by the WSJ about what all this means for Net Neutrality. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: China, DFJ, Sequoia+Capital, Capton, Vysr, Wablet, Yahoo+Search, Sprint, WiMax, Intel, eBay, BitTorrent, Cachelogic ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jesse P EMAIL: jesse.pujji@ampush.com IP: 69.226.148.102 URL: DATE: 08/12/2006 01:19:57 AM The last piece about Sprint is particularly interesting given previous mention of McCaw's company--Clearwire. I was part of an investor group that passed on clearwire about a year ago, one of the main reasons being we noticed that Sprint/Nextel merger afforded Spring with a considerable amount of 2.5GHz (WiMax) spectrum. ----- PING: TITLE: Jets URL: http://www.aviationzone.info/jets/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Jets DATE: 08/15/2006 08:15:48 PM Figuring the Jets wouldHistorical information, fixtures, and merchandising for Australias first rugby league club. 2006 undrafted r... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Bono & McNamee chose Forbes for "tech central" over....Mercury News STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/11/2006 07:55:12 AM ----- BODY:
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That's right. Earlier this year, when Mercury News parent Knight Ridder, the nation's second largest newspaper company, was on the block, we began hearing names of people who were interested. McClatchy eventually prevailed in the deal, and MediaNews subsequently has bought the Mercury News from McClatchy. But at one point, word got to us little folk in the trenches: Big Silicon Valley buyout firm Elevation Partners, led by Roger McNamee and U2's Bono, among others, had considered buying the Mercury News from KR, to turn it into a "tech central" of news. They didn't want the rest of the chain, though. Needless to say, they passed on the deal. So we aren't surprised that Elevation has just made a major investment in Forbes. They will pursue their vision there instead. McNamee wouldn't comment on the original Merc plans. But here's what McNamee did say about Forbes, when he talked with our colleague Michelle Quinn recently. Comparing Forbes with other possibilities, yet not singling out KR, he said: "They [Forbes] didn't hold the web property hostage to the mothership." McNamee is thinking big on this one. Reuters, Dow Jones & al -- be warned. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Bono, Elevation, McNamee, Forbes, Mercury+News, Knight+Ridder ----- PING: TITLE: Mercury URL: http://www.slantautos.info/mercury/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Mercury DATE: 08/16/2006 11:25:49 AM In both freshwater and salt for everyone from weekend warriors to people whose livelihoodMercury Insurance the l... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Solar revolution continues in California, China STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/11/2006 08:57:13 AM ----- BODY:
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Things are ramping up for solar. First, PG&E, the huge Northern California utility, says it will increase its use of solar power nearly fivefold. The project is one of the biggest solar-thermal investments in the United States. It will build a 100-megawatt solar-thermal plant, which will use both the sun and steam to produce energy, and several plants will follow, reports Merc colleague Sarah Tribble. Second, if you are an entrepreneur and you've run out of ideas, check out this story: China is set to spend $200 billion on renewable energy over the next 15 years. Say that number over again. Go East, young man. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Solar ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: solar power EMAIL: m@yourgreendream.com IP: 58.106.0.223 URL: http://www.yourgreendream.com/ DATE: 08/11/2006 07:16:31 PM It seems every country is dramatically increasing their green energy in the coming years. Every second article has a doubling or tripling etc of the exisiting. I think things are going to change dramically in the next few years. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Carl Boehme EMAIL: carl@pcs-digital.com IP: 71.33.7.148 URL: DATE: 08/12/2006 07:08:05 AM Why waste money on solar when relicensing the two shutdown nuclear plants (Rancho Seco 913Mw and San Onofre 425Mw) would provide over 1300Mw of clean and safe 24 hr/day electricity for electricity hungry California. Come on folks; solar and wind are distributed energy sources. Hydro-gravity is too but at least water can be pumped back to upper pools with surplus electricity for reuse. Nuclear and hydrocarbon is concentrated. Both are dirty but reliable. Nuclear produces waste that must be stored or recycled, while hydrocarbon produces air polutants CO2 and in the case of coal CO2 plus nitrous oxides that cause respritory ailments. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alan Gartner EMAIL: agartner@energyconnectinc.com IP: 68.164.89.166 URL: DATE: 08/13/2006 11:10:54 PM For those of you who haven't toured a solar panel plant, one common part of the plant is a substation serving that plant. The point is it takes a lot of energy to build solar panels. So much so that more than half of the lifetime of the panel is used just paying back that energy used to create it! This mania about solar is digging the hole deeper and faster. We have solutions, but the brain snatchers have taken over our minds. Hydro, nuclear and clean coal are here and available. Drilling for natural gas on public lands is a good solution. The rest are research and development projects that jeopardize solving our energy crisis. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mark Wendman EMAIL: mw3eng@gmail.com IP: 65.214.154.131 URL: http://mark-nano.blogspot.com/2006/07/eicke-webers-calisolar-improved.html DATE: 08/14/2006 10:25:22 AM Alan, there is some merit to what you describe, but your observations are mostly warranted for high temperature processes mostly used with conventional hitemp diffused doping silicon wafer cells. You are ignoring the promise found in many thin film and other novel manufacturing processes & materials, that are now just coming into some prominence. Take the case of Nanosolar, (not in any way advocating Nanosolar btw) but there the energy requirements for a specific output of photovoltaic cells, the requiried manufacturing energy - I'd hazard a guess there are substantial improvements in time to net energy balance and more.... The Nanosolar roll to roll CIGS ink cells are not energy hogs in the manufacturing plant. By contrast, older tech is older for a reason. Innovation holds the potential to change tradeoffs substantially. This is why folks who are trying to develop new cell technology, always mention $1 /watt as a cost goal in manufacturing / selling price. They may not get there if attempted with too little manufacturing discipline, but folks are trying, and trying hard. To give up, before you thoughtfully and diligently tried, is foolish. None the less, PGE's thermal solar power plant expansion is significant. In truly large scale, the solar heated working fluid paradigm can work well. LUZ has shown with the dual tube in tube evacuated gap, the resulting low loss thermal insulating configuration of their solar collectors is very advantageous. It is pretty simple engineering and there is no complicated technology as in novel photovoltaics requiring substantive innovation. Maintenance is pretty easy too, a boon for larger powerplant scale installations. While it is not a photovoltaic, LUZ is in some sense more practical for large power generation, and NOW. It is possible with their 30% efficiency to conceive of building much larger plants than PGE is committing to, and with success. Restarting the old nuclear power plants is not something to ignore. They should not remain idle, but the restart is both hugely capital intensive to bring equipment and plant up to operating condition. In the case of the damaged Browns Ferry Plant - the restart is almost arduous and hugely costly, on a scale that far exceeds cost of a LUZ type plant, with the nuclear having all the safety and other risks - and LUZ being a slam dunk simple mechanical engineering thermal system...and LUZ being perfectly safe... Here in California and other sunny climes, the LUZ technology is very very useful, but my guess not so attractive to VCs since the firm is independent and not in early startup stage. It would be nice if someone with a large amount of capital had the foresight to buy LUZ with intention to do a massive buildout in some southwest desert area for large scale on grid power generation. That is both low risk, and would change everything...as the success has NO technical hurdles at all.. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Neil Young EMAIL: nyoung@gmail.com IP: 143.183.121.1 URL: DATE: 08/15/2006 10:11:16 AM For the posting by Alan Gartner, I would guess that he did not live in the area when Rancho Seco still had a license. The plant operator could not keep the plant running for more than a month or two before a problem would occur. Fixing the problem would result in big $$$ repairs, and the plant out of operation for months. Since the local utility had to purchase replacement power, they finally decided to put the issue to voters to shutdown the plant. I remember the opponents campaigning against the remaining open as "Rancho Mistako". For San Onofre, reportedly being built on top of an earthquake fault may not be a problem, until it becomes a really big problem. So, considering the billions spent on just those two plants, the solar solution seems more attractive, potentially even lower cost. Plus puts all that desert land to some use, and no worries about anyone "stealing" the fuel for nefarious uses. ----- PING: TITLE: China URL: http://www.foodzen.info/china/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: China DATE: 08/17/2006 07:45:12 PM Chen Guidi, who wrote the award winning AnFeatures map and brief descriptions of the geography, people, government, economy, communica... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: STATUS: Draft ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/11/2006 09:27:15 AM ----- BODY: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: khosal STATUS: Draft ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/11/2006 11:28:35 AM ----- BODY: Khosla: The single biggest thing we can do to help climate change is a carbon tax (worldwide) or a "cap & trade" system, but I don't think it is politically feasible in the US today. Its time will hopefully come soon, probably in the next decade. First, what am I invested in? One corn ethanol venture, one corn plus cellulosic ethanol venture, three cellulosic (only) ethanol ventures (all very different approaches), three non-ethanol liquid fuel ventures (next generation fuels to replace ethanol we hope), two gasification ventures (one for coal to natural gas and one for biomass), one solar, one high efficiency lighting (LED - very high risk project), one new high efficiency engine venture, one sugarcane venture, one low impact very low cost housing venture ($5000 homes), a few microfinance institutions and a few others. Battery technologies are among my highest priorities. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Going ape over MySpace; Browster's new release STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/13/2006 07:44:51 AM ----- BODY:
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Start-ups, and the venture capitalists who back them, are going ape over the MySpace ecosystem. They've seen how MySpace helped push YouTube and Photobucket into leaders. Now MySpace is even bigger, and its users can annoint new winners: The only thing a start-up needs is to have MySpace users rave about its features, and its growth will skyrocket. "Without MySpace, I sincerely doubt that Photobucket would be where it is today," Pete Cashmore, an industry consultant, told us. He said MySpace referrals were responsible for 56 percent of Photobucket's traffic in June. Here is our story about this in the Mercury News today, including a partial list of the companies that are targeting MySpace. The story also mentions how MySpace is taking away the punch bowl, forcing awkward upgrades that make it difficult to link to third-party sites. MySpace is clearly having difficulty figuring out its policy -- it is on the fence about how much to encourage other companies serving the ecoystem, or to discourage it. If a YouTube runs off with business that could have been MySpace's, that's not a great thing. A MySpace spokeswoman at first said she'd respond to our request for comment immediately. But after not hearing from her, we pinged her again. She then forwarded us to a PR firm, and said a response was again coming shortly. Again, nothing.
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Browster, of San Francisco is the latest company to go after the MySpace community. The San Francisco start-up owns a tool that makes it possible to see pages behind links without actually clicking on the links. You simply hover over the link, and Browster displays the page. The company has focused first on search engine results. You do a search on Google, and instead of having to click on the results, you can hover over them, speeding up the search... ----- EXTENDED BODY: Problem was, despite its coolness factor, fewer people than expected took the time to download the company's initial version to try it out. So now it is taking a different tack. Today, it unveils Browster 2.0. It includes a tool especially for MySpace that allows users to see quick and easy profile summaries of their friends -- stripping out much of the garish graphics, automatic music players and other things that make many of them difficult to read. Here are two images to show the difference (click them to enlarge). The first image above is of an original page, somewhat ugly. The image below is what happens when Browster pops it up; it shows simply the "about me," "music" and "more pics" sections. We should note, however, that Browster has made its browsing on Google and other search engines much easier. Instead of just popping up a thumbnail picture of the search result page, Browster now pops open the page within a full browser. (Again, Browster's thesis is that clicking through on links wastes time). So if the page is about a Spanish travel site, you can surf around within that page or site -- including clicking on links, if you want -- until you are done with that site. Then, if you scroll your mouse out of the pop-up browser, the Browster browser closes -- leaving you back on the Google search results page. Google likes this because it doesn't make you leave Google. In fact, with your Browster browser open, you can continue searching through the Google results by clicking a navigation button to take you to the next page in the results. Browster will try to make money by taking a cut of the revenue from advertising within certain areas of the pop-up browser. For example, if someone performs a Yahoo search from a special toolbar within the browser, Yahoo will give Browster a cut from the resulting advertising revenue. For our Merc story, linked to above, we corresponded with Josh Kopelman, of First Round Capital, one of the more active investors in Web 2.0. He's made several investments into companies with a MySpace angle: Browster, RockYou and Snapvine. Another private investor in Browster, John Zeisler, has supported and encouraged Browster's bet on MySpace: "We said, 'Let's apply it to MySpace,'" he told us. "Let's see if that'll be a catalyst for further widespread adoption." Zeisler, who also works part time with WaldenVC, a San Francisco venture firm, added: "There are many more MySpace opportunities out there." Other links: --Pete Cashmore had an early post about the MySpace ecosystem. --MySpace spokeswoman did say during our brief phone conversation that this BW article from a few weeks ago carries the only statement so far by MySpace about its support of the ecosystem. It reads as if it was lawyered. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: MySpace, Browster, Josh+Kopelman, John+Zeisler, PhotoBucket, YouTube, MySpace+ecosystem ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Anon EMAIL: yllona@yahoo.com IP: 68.4.35.110 URL: DATE: 08/13/2006 03:28:42 PM CoolIris is another tool that allows previews of links and images when the user hovers over the link: http://www.cooliris.com/ I've been using it for several months now, and find it very useful as I read most blogs and web sites via RSS in my browser (Safari 2.x). CoolIris aslo works with FireFox and Internet Browser. In addition, tools like CoolIris can offer additional advantages to the visually impaired (currently it does a nice job of clarification/magnification) . I look forward to integration with screen readers. Of course, that pre-supposes that the source web sites are constructed in accordance with WCAG or other accessibility guidelines. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Anon EMAIL: yllona@yahoo.com IP: 68.4.35.110 URL: DATE: 08/13/2006 03:39:40 PM Correction: In the post above, the sentence should read "CoolIris also works with FireFox and Internet Explorer". Apologies. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: nik EMAIL: nik@nik.com.au IP: 58.6.39.191 URL: DATE: 08/13/2006 08:10:30 PM Sceptical, I don't see browster being more than a feature. There are free plugins that do similar (though you can argue differences): http://ackroyd.de/googlepreview/ ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: dannyc EMAIL: amchild1970@yahoo.com IP: 24.19.172.228 URL: DATE: 08/13/2006 08:32:15 PM I, too, have been using Cooliris (and have tried Browster). I don't know now how others feel, but I like Cooliris more than Browster. Browster seems too more "complex" for its own good(servers, ads, icons, an exe. file, etc.). Cooliris, on the other hand, is add-on and does the job and does it well. There's a certain elegance to effective simplicity. I also like the fact that Cooliris works on Mac. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dave Yeager EMAIL: fake@ddress.com IP: 71.198.77.132 URL: DATE: 08/13/2006 11:24:58 PM I don't think it is fair to make it sound like MySpace made Photobucket possible. I think it cuts both ways. Photobucket has played a material role in the growth of MySpace. MySpace is smart and gets this. It's why they haven't closed the site down to outside links like Photobucket. Thoughts? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Search Engine WEB EMAIL: dhtm1@go.com IP: 70.107.253.21 URL: http://searchengines.wordpress.com/ DATE: 08/13/2006 11:59:48 PM Browster is an interesting and enjoyable tool for workloaded Power Searchers and Researchers. It is resource demanding, but most techies have powerful systems. There will probably be many innovative, AJAX-type browser helpers flooding the markets in the upcoming years. Searching will truly be an awesome and productive experience ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: jeff reynolds EMAIL: jeffrol@aol.com IP: 24.5.17.181 URL: DATE: 08/14/2006 06:40:39 AM I have tried Browster and CoolIris, and CoolIris is a much more elegant solution, and it works on a MAC. Browster does not appear to have a business model, rev share from a thin amount of potential revenue generated in this model does not scale.If its Kopelman investment, it raises a red flag for me. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/14/2006 06:50:05 AM Why the "red flag" on Kopelman? Can you explain? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sandra B EMAIL: sandrabull@gmail.com IP: 213.8.83.40 URL: DATE: 08/14/2006 07:03:27 AM Great post, thanks. I have been using the Girafa toolbar for a long time now*[http://www.girafa.com] which is the greatest browser helper when searching the web. (try using the "visualize" button on their toolbar - it is magic. I will definetely give a try to Browster and Coollris, and will look forwrd to any new technologies that will make my life on the web easier. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jay EMAIL: dfasdfjk@hotmail.com IP: 71.116.67.193 URL: DATE: 08/14/2006 08:11:09 AM It's a cool feature, but I think if it ever becomes popular, the MySpace execs will definitely block it because it strips out the Ad Banner on the top of each user profile page. It's totally against the MySpace policy and rev. model. As for the question of why MySpace hasn't closed down the Photobuck links-- I think they want to, but they know it's a bit too late for that. Too many users are using it (and happy with the Photobucket service), and blocking it will be a total PR disaster. People will be screaming "Oh, look, the corporate machine FOX is trying to kill the little guy..." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Scott Milener EMAIL: milener@browster.com IP: 71.153.234.113 URL: http://www.browster.com DATE: 08/14/2006 09:19:12 AM Matt, thanks for writing aobut Browster! We really appreciate the kind words. We plan to continue with interesting 'personalized' or 'enhanced' viewing beyond what you see on a click through as a a second option for web users as they surf. Look for more soon! Scott Milener CEO Browster ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Scott Milener EMAIL: milener@browster.com IP: 71.153.234.113 URL: http://www.browster.com DATE: 08/14/2006 09:25:11 AM Jay, Browster does not strip out the Ad of the MySpace view. In fact you can see it in Matt's post, above, the little Chipmunk, click-here Ad. Also, Browster will do two other good things for MySpace (1) increase page views as users tend to look at about 2x the number of pages in Browster as without, (2) Browster decreases the load on MySpace servers causing a positive impact on their site performance and decreased costs. Thanks, Scott ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ifmyspace EMAIL: ifmyspace@gmail.com IP: 59.50.210.245 URL: http://www.ifmyspace.com DATE: 08/16/2006 04:15:11 PM Browster2.0 is a great idea. I love myspace and hope it can help me on it! ----- PING: TITLE: Will MySpace Eat Its Young? URL: http://entreprenology.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/08/will_myspace_ea.html IP: 204.9.178.8 BLOG NAME: Menlo Creek Musings DATE: 08/13/2006 03:59:18 PM This post is labelled Work. For the 4 of the 5 readers of this blog who hate work-related posts, I'm sorry...bear with me! Take deep diaphramatic breaths and it will be over in a second or go read Sandhill Slave ----- PING: TITLE: Clearstone's David Stern: "Will MySpace eat Its young?" URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/14/clearstones_david_stern_will_myspace_eat_its_young.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/14/2006 11:59:25 AM David Stern is a venture partner at Clearstone Venture Partners. We asked him to contribute a "guest post" on the MySpace ecosystem, given his background as founder of M Networks, which operated within that other great ecosystem: eBay's. His firm is i... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: MeeVee wants to be your TV Guide: Raises $8 million more STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/14/2006 06:26:23 AM ----- BODY:
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MeeVee, a Silicon Valley company (Burlingame) that lets you search for TV programs and other video programming online, and then lets you organize it in a personal planner, has raised $8 million in a third round of funding. The company has now raised a total of at least $20 million within two years, which is a very large amount of cash. This suggests it may be filling its coffers to make some acquisitions, to become your main online TV guide. The Bay Area Equity Fund, which is affiliated with J.P. Morgan, led the round. Word of a funding was first mentioned on Techcrunch, and was confirmed by VentureWire (sub required). Previous investors Labrador Ventures, Rothschild Ventures and WaldenVC also participated, according to the report. In January, we reported MeeVee raised a $6.5 million in a secnd round. It had raised $5.5M in 2004 A settings page lets you tell MeeVee which cable and other video services you get, so MeeVee wants to help you sort the various viewing options you have; and of course, you can share it all with friends. It is difficult to know how much traction the company has gained. MeeVee has syndicated and licensed its television search and personalization service to newspaper portals and cable operators. One newly announced customer is Hearst Newspapers, where MeeVee is on the sites of Hearst-owned Houston Chronicle and the San Francisco Chronicle. The company is also trying to make money through advertising revenue. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: MeeVee, Bay+Area+Equity+Fund ----- PING: TITLE: Television URL: http://www.televisionfanatic.info/television/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Television DATE: 08/17/2006 07:25:11 PM LikeTelevision is best viewed with a LikeTelevision. AOL Television provides the updates you want for the shows you love to watchWatc... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Fanpop launches; cross between Digg and Yahoo Groups STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/14/2006 07:07:57 AM ----- BODY:
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Fanpop is a new San Francisco start-up that is probably best described as a cross between a Digg and Yahoo Groups. Its idea is simple: Users submit their favorite links from around the Web. The links are organized according to topic, called a "spot." See examples of new spots in the image below. Users then vote on their favorite links within the spot, and the best links rise to the top.
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This general area of user generated content and links, from YouTube to Squiddoo to HubPages is getting pretty crowded, so throwing something out there on the cheap, and seeing what happens is better than raising a few million only to find it doesn't go anywhere. The trick is how to scrounge up enough users from day one to make it buzzy enough that a community will form, and stay loyal. Fanpop launched August 1. We talked with Dave Lu (scroll down for brief bio), the leader of the four-person team, over the weekend. The group hasn't raised any venture money, but did start with less than $100,000 from a few friends, so it is indeed great example of bootstrapping. Fanpop is approaching the Digg model from the other end: starting broadly, allowing ranked links according to any topic under sun (Digg started focused on tech only). Fanpop is also different in that it offers forums around each spot, and that is why we liken it to Yahoo Groups. It doesn't limit itself to news, but rather wants to archive the Web more broadly, and allow any types of files, including video, photos and podcasts. Finally, it lets you share all this information with others. So to be accurate, Delicious would be the third cross in this company's mix. Dave tells us the company has been making money from the start. A user who is looking for content on the San Francisco Giants will see ads for Giants tickets and someone who is searching for links around cigars will get ads for humidors, Lu explained. That's the advantage of presenting content by topic. Dave worked at eBay, and did affiliate marketing, and so this is his area. We do like the simplicity of the site, which was developed on Ruby on Rails. "Feeds, tags, wikis, all these words are foreign to the general population," Dave added. "We wanted to make the site fun and simple but robust with practical features." ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Userplane, instant messaging company, snapped up by AOL STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/14/2006 08:16:07 AM ----- BODY:
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AOL just said it has acquired Userplane, a five-year old start-up that made chat and instant messaging tools to be used within Web sites. Why should you care? Well, it is another example of a company that launched a product, kept a shoestring budget and never raised a penny, according to Silicon Valley angel investor Jeff Clavier, who advised the company but who never invested. Just when the Los Angeles-based company started getting serious traction (several million people are using it at more than 100,000 Web sites, including MySpace), it began thinking about raising venture money go into rocket mode, but then AOL came along and scooped it up. The amount was undisclosed. Userplane was built with Flash, and so is easily integrated into most sites. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Userplane, AOL, Jeff+Clavier ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: NetVibes, the slick "homepage" company, raises $15 million STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/14/2006 09:01:40 AM ----- BODY: Updated
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NetVibes, the Paris based company that lets you personalize your home page with cool little modules that you can drag across the screen, has raised $15 million in more financing. If you go there and play, you will see what people mean when they talk of the wonders of "ajax" technology. Holy smokes, though: This is a lot of money for a company that hasn't found a business model. It is one of the largest round of venture backing for a European Web 2.0 company. The company raised a seed round in March. This latest round was led by Accel Partners, and included Index Ventures, which helped seed the company. ----- EXTENDED BODY: The extremely rapid adoption of NetVibes has enthused investors. This company has moved beyond the bubbly crowd of 50,000 or so experimentalists, and now says it has five million users. The numbers are going up almost a million a month, said a source close to the company. It is up from 2 million this spring. (Though we haven't been able to confirm these numbers). It has made more headway that the dozen or more other companies that are trying to do something similar. Microsoft's Live.com is its biggest challenger. That giant had more than a year's head-start over NetVibes, which was started by former journalist Tariq Krim. Live.com has about 300 modules you can select for your homepage, compared to NetVibes' 200. NetVibes' advantage is that it is agnostic, though. Recently, for example, it added the Web-based IM feature Meebo, allowing IM across platforms. Pageflakes, backed by Benchmark, is the other serious contender in this area. There is one little problem, of course. The company hasn't found a way to make money. Its interface is so clean, it is like Google's empty homepage. How do you interfere with users who have become accustomed to this? For now, we're told the company isn't yet focused on making cash, but is looking mainly to build the best user-experience. Other seed investors in March included Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, European telecom guru Martin Varsavsky and Kelkoo founder and former Index Ventures investor, Pierre Chappaz, who has since joined the company. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: NetVibes, Accel, Index+Ventures, Live.com, PageFlakes, Tariq+Krim, Marc+Andreessen, Martin+Varsavsky, Pierre+Chappaz ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Leon Bollerup EMAIL: ceo@orcaa.com IP: 83.93.6.52 URL: http://www.orcadesktop.com DATE: 08/15/2006 08:40:34 AM Hey I find it funny how the Web 2.0 marked is still going for the gold - my question is - dosent the world have enough of "clones", i mean google, live.com, my yahoo, pageflakes, netvibes and so on. Team ORCA will within short launch a new portal like the others but with 3 exceptions. A) You can add programs, games, utils. from ORCA Application storage - see www.orcaa.com B) Services from the "VIKI Portal" will be included freely - http://start.he.dk C) A Free online desktop along with a Free "Web Media Center" will be offerd. D) A Linux distro (OrcZilla) will be offerd to those who want to experiment with system without a harddrive and boot directly to the online interface (the same as being created for the MIT OLPC project (www.laptop.org) Our entention is to provide this service add/popup free. - I am only let wonder who of the first giants will follow. Kind Regards Leon Bollerup CEO, Team ORCA www.orcadesktop.com ps. For at small siliconbeat.com only demo of ORCA's little toy - check out www.orcadesktop.com/proton - this is a version 8 build of the 13 test cores. ----- PING: TITLE: Companies URL: http://www.marketingflash.info/companies/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Companies DATE: 08/17/2006 08:29:12 PM Includes insurance agent locator, news, service information, and online claims system. [English/German]Insur... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Clearstone's David Stern: "Will MySpace eat its young?" STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/14/2006 11:57:33 AM ----- BODY:
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David Stern
David Stern is a venture partner at Clearstone Venture Partners. We asked him to contribute a "guest post" on the MySpace ecosystem, given his background as founder of M Networks, which operated within that other great ecosystem: eBay's. His firm is investing in consumer-oriented Internet companies. Here's his bio. Matt writes about VCs "going ape over" MySpace. At Clearstone, we're undoubtedly investing in companies that have MySpace "widgets," because almost every consumer facing internet company these days has a widget tactic as a central part of its customer acquisition strategy. But it got me thinking about the MySpace ecosystem generally, especially having had experience with M Networks and a very powerful ecosystem fostered by eBay (yes, "scalded" is a good term to describe the experience!). ----- EXTENDED BODY: Two related questions popped up as I thought about this: (1) What kind of ecosystem is MySpace really building?; and (2) Can any company that is a part of this ecosystem ever make a venture return? The eBay ecosystem provides some very good precedents. If you think about eBay as a commerce driven platform or marketplace, they've had a very clear mandate and ability to foster an ecosystem through an aggressive outreach to development partners that support their mandate, e.g. building a community around transactions. If you think of MySpace, which is fundamentally a communications platform, the mandate around fostering an ecosystem is very different and arguably unidentifiable from the outside if you look at its results, e.g. the companies currently leveraging MySpace. Everything that eBay does in their ecosystem and developer networks supports transactions and growing eBay revenues. And they do this in a very measured way, with very stringent rules that certainly can limit a company's growth potential. Much like the sun, companies are drawn to it, but get too close to it, and you can get burned. The eBay ecosystem is littered with companies, though, that have thrived for a time, but which were reined in any time they got too much traction or too close to the eBay customer. I can recall on many occasions when an M Networks partner company CEO voiced their concern over eBay's investments in similar companies, eBay's development of similar products or services or eBay's mysteriously breaking API's that forced a feeder company to scramble. Having been an early backer of PayPal, our firm should know. I don't believe MySpace has shown investors a clear view of whether a company in it or dependent on it can every make a venture return. Perhaps that will change as new Fox management takes over at MySpace, but to date, our companies and certainly companies that I've spent time with who have been dealing with MySpace, aren't seeing a clear strategy. And again, it's not like we aren't seeing one or two of these new companies per week! (I believe "MySpace Widget" should be added to the list of obligatory buzzwords for pitching a venture firm!) But again, the reason these companies are out there is a result purely of user acquisition economics. I believe every consumer company has to be looking to MySpace to acquire customers if their users are in the MySpace demographic, especially because to date it has been fairly easy and very successful. As an investor, there are a lot of risks looking at MySpace "enablers" given the state of the ecosystem. There are enough other risks in funding a company that one should not have to worry whether MySpace will embrace or curtail success of its feeder companies. Today, there are no commonalities among companies leveraging MySpace, except for demographic targeted and using it as a customer acquisition strategy. If MySpace starts creating a more aggressive developer program around either monetization or community building themes (which arguably they have no need to do), it will be very interesting to see whether any company that is playing the "monetization tool for MySpace" game can deliver a venture return given the squeeze MySpace will put on it. As a result, I'm very cautious about any company that is playing off its success or plan to siphon off 1-4M MySpace users, but VERY receptive to anyone who along with that, has tactically proven in the past that they have the online marketing chops to use MySpace as one arrow in their quiver of online marketing tactics along with many others, e.g. leveraging affiliate networks, creating viral campaigns, etc. If you are one of those trying to build a global consumer internet company on the back of some battle-hardened tactical marketing talent, I'd love to hear your vision. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: David+Stern, Clearstone, MySpace, eBay, M+Networks, MySpace+Ecosystem ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: dave mcclure EMAIL: dave@500hats.com IP: 24.5.188.31 URL: http://500hats.typepad.com DATE: 08/15/2006 07:08:10 AM >>..Everything that eBay does in their ecosystem and developer networks supports transactions and growing eBay revenues mmm, that's a bit of an overstatement. certainly, prior to being acquired by eBay, those of us at PayPal did not particularly feel like eBay mgmt was being focused on "supporting the ecosystem" while they were shoving Billpoint down their users' gullets. only after it was apparent that PayPal was kicking their own solution's butt did they decide to acquire the company, and then IMMEDIATELY in Q3 & Q4 of '02 after the acquisition, eBay marketplace transaction volume took off and the stock went on a tear for the next 2 years. however, over the past few years eBay mgmt has certainly shown a fondness for PROFIT growth over REVENUE growth, and has apparently made the decision to optimize for profit in the short-term. this was made evident in their decision to raise pricing twice in the past 2 years, at the same time their own data indicates that growth has been slowing on the marketplace on both US domestic and international fronts. while i respect David's experience & insights, i would not say that eBay has always shown particularly brilliant judgement in how to support growth in its own market. imo, the paypal opportunity is still larger outside the eBay marketplace than on it. it will be interesting to see if Meg ever decides that 3% of the entire retail merchandising market is a bigger pie than 7-9% of the [much smaller] auction market. - dave mcclure [full disclosure: i used to work for PayPal, an eBay competitor^h^h^h^h^h company] ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David EMAIL: dstern@clearstone.com IP: 68.127.160.6 URL: http://www.entreprenology.typepad.com DATE: 08/15/2006 08:51:52 AM Dave: That's a good point and clearly you should know! The arguably important point I was making though was not that eBay has always suported one or the other or that eBay has been brilliant at all in managing its ecosystem, but rather that at least you know going in after years of analysis that eBay is going to rule companies in their ecosystem in a consistent way. (One where the likelihood that anyone touching their customer could grow to generate a venture return is highly unlikely without a fight) We are certainly familiar with the PayPal saga. The more important point that I was trying to make was that at this point, there are hundreds of companies trying to ride MySpace at this time because MySpace has let them in most cases, probably because they are not core revenue generators Fox plans on unleashing on the community. But I doubt MySpace isn't right now coming up with a strategic framework for beginning to rule their ecosystem much like eBay did, and in a much more consistent manner. So for a venture firm having gone through the eBay-PayPal experience, and personally having had a company struggle within the eBay ecosystem, Clearstone and perhaps other venture firms, would be wise to look to the past when trying to figure out how to sort out the often irrational excitement surrounding any company putting its emphasis on MySpace widgets. Venture returns in these types of companies are highly dependent on the answer to whether the parent really lets the child grow up or not. In eBay's case, there were a lot of "nots". This all doesn't mean you can't build a great company, just that perhaps they aren't venture type investments. Despite the fact we live and work in a venture-centric world here, it isn't necessarily a bad thing! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dave McClure EMAIL: dave@500hats.com IP: 66.174.92.167 URL: http://500hats.typepad.com DATE: 08/15/2006 10:18:32 AM okay, i agree that's on target analysis. much as i'm impressed with my ex-paypal peeps over at YouTube kicking butt, i've also been impressed that MySpace videos is doing reasonably well themselves. i've met the folks down there, and they're a lot more clueful than you'd imagine most large portals / acquisitions to be. i'd agree that MySpace will likely start to extract every possible piece of value from its ecosystem, especially with Ross Levinson (super bright guy) & Rupert running chaperone. still, for folks that run fast & hard & innovate, i do think there are plenty of opportunities to "draft" off the MySpace ecosystem... just as PayPal did with eBay. in fact, i'd say YouTube could inspire its own group of ecosystem wannabes. watch this space ;) - dmc ----- PING: TITLE: Will MySpace Eat Its Young? URL: http://entreprenology.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/08/will_myspace_ea.html IP: 204.9.178.8 BLOG NAME: Menlo Creek Musings DATE: 08/14/2006 12:36:44 PM This post is labelled Work. For the 4 of the 5 readers of this blog who hate work-related posts, I'm sorry...bear with me! Take deep diaphramatic breaths and it will be over in a second or go read Sandhill Slave ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Roundup: Google's adult videos, Microsoft's "YouTube of gaming" initiative, and more STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/14/2006 01:10:19 PM ----- BODY: Here's the latest news important for Silicon Valley: Google Checkout problems -- Google's new feature, which lets you pay with a virtual wallet similar to PayPal, isn't working too smoothly, with people complaining of week-long delays for payments to be cleared. This isn't good for the early days of a major product, because people try it once, and get turned off. Alternatively, they hear about the negative experiences and don't bother with it.
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Adult
Google has something else to check out: new adult material -- Google Video apparently is allowing you to upload adult videos, something Blogoscoped first saw. We're not surprised by this. Not long ago, there was a report about how Google was asking job applicants argue reasons why pornography could be excused, while smoking should not. (Don't worry, it had us head-scratching too.) It seems they wanted to go in this direction. There is little evidence of hard porn, though, based on our quick perusal. We have watched Yahoo chief executive Terry Semel get pounded on the pornography issue by irate shareholders at shareholder meetings. Wonder what the reaction will be to this move, even if it is only a little nudity at this point. Now Google video is on homepage; huh, coincidence? -- At the same time adult videos are allowed, a tab for videos is appearing on Google's homepage. Google has removed shopping comparison engine, Froogle, and instead put that service in a pull-down menu under "more." Yes, we think this is a coincidence. Hitwise has provided a graphic to show what has happened to the traffic for both (click to enlarge): ----- EXTENDED BODY:
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Microsoft wants to be the "YouTube of video games" -- It wants to let just about anybody create games for the Xbox 360 video game console, saying it will release a game development tool for $99 for this purpose. Microsoft releases Live Writer, a desktop blogging application -- Here are the details. It offers What-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG), which is what you are familiar with if you use, say Word -- where what you see on your screen is how it will look once published. (You'd think this would be standard, but it is not on some blogging platforms, which have a geek legacy). Thermage, the anti-wrinkle surgery company of Hayward, has filed to go public -- It uses heat from radiofrequency technology to tighten skin and underlying tissues. It does this by targeting collagen, the protein which provides strength to skin but the natural production of which falls off with age (see the results of Thermage here). The company wants to raise $86 million. This is the second IPO of a health care company backed by Silicon Valley venture firm Morgenthaler Ventures . We mentioned Xtent last week. Vontu, a San Francisco provider of data loss prevention software, raises $10 million -- The round is part of a planned $15 million fourth round, according to a regulatory filing cited by PE Week. Investors include GM Asset Management and existing investors Benchmark Capital, U.S. Venture Partners and Venrock Associates. Blurb, online self-publishing book company, raises $7.16 million -- The San Francisco company has secured $7.16 million of a planned $13 million second round of funding, according to another regulatory filing. Investors included existing investors Canaan Partners and Anthem Venture Partners. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Google+Checkout, Google+Adult+Video, Microsoft, Thermage, Vontu, Blurb, Windows+Live+Writer ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mitchel EMAIL: m_harad@yahoo.com IP: 209.128.93.189 URL: http://www.timeforcreditrepair.info DATE: 08/14/2006 01:55:33 PM Guys-- I'm hearing from a few of my online retailer buddies that their google checkout volume is going through the roof, while PayPal is down slightly. One guy is majorly scrambling to improve integration because he was so caught off guard by the surge. How does this anecdotal evidence jive with what you're hearing? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Harshal Vaidya EMAIL: harshalvaidya@yahoo.com IP: 151.191.175.196 URL: http://www.lakhpatipage.com DATE: 08/14/2006 02:32:21 PM I think this was expected from Google. Compared to YouTube, Google Video has been a loser. I tend to go to YouTube more often than even bother about Google Video. They had to do something to stay in the game. Porn is one hit win game. And they are getting into it. I hope they put some parental controls etc on the content which will be offensive for minors. ----- PING: TITLE: Microsoft URL: http://www.computersandhardware.info/microsoft/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Microsoft DATE: 08/19/2006 10:01:26 PM Terms of Use: Privacy Statement: Sponsored By : Server=TK2TERRAWEB21Microsoft Office Clip Art and Media Over 140,000 clip art graphics, ... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Oracle to announce their own branded version of Linux? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/14/2006 11:06:57 PM ----- BODY:
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We've heard rumors that Silicon Valley software giant Oracle is about to announce their own branded version of the Linux operating system, based on the Red Hat distro. It could come as soon as tomorrow. Jeff Nolan, who works for SAP, an Oracle competitor, has also heard the rumor, and is understated in his post this evening. If true, this is a big deal. It will put Oracle in direct competition with Red Hat, and also scare the other major player, Novell. And it will shake up the entire world of open source, as Oracle invites developers to play on their platform instead of on all the others. It would put pressure on the stock price of Red Hat and Novell, and thus allow Oracle to consume them just as they have digested dozens of other players lately. And as Jeff politely puts it, it is a problem for SAP as well. (Update: Oracle didn't respond to a request for comment. So we rely on Jeff, who dissects Oracle's every move closer than just about anyone. He says: Oracle’s investor relations group is now saying that the announcement will be pushed out possibly past OpenWorld in October. Will keep you updated as I hear more, but they are now saying not to expect anything at LinuxWorld. What does this mean? Probably not a lot other than there is a lot of “chatter” but the signal to noise ratio is low. It may be that this is something that Larry wants but the rest of the management team is less sure about.) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Oracle, Linux, Red+Hat, Novell ----- PING: TITLE: Linux URL: http://www.parishiltonempire.info/linux/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Linux DATE: 08/18/2006 12:13:15 AM Click here to find out how to inform your users Put kernel status information on your website. It is a list of wikis, mailing li... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Latest Google stuff: Local coupons, Google games, Google WiFi STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/15/2006 07:25:53 AM ----- BODY: Updated Here are the latest Google offerings to check out:
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BattleShip Google Earth
1) A list of Google related games, thanks to Blogoscoped. 2) Google has unveiled a way to search for local coupons. Let's say you want a car wash, and you are in area code 94303. Well, type in "car wash 94303" into Google Maps, and it will search for local coupons that fit the request. Here is the Mercury News story about it. (Note, we just tried the 94303 example, and Google doesn't have anything yet, so maybe this is early days). In any case, this offering is part of a Google deal with Valpak, the company that sends you those bulging blue envelopes full of coupons. Google will be offering its online component. Great, now we will try to get rid of all that paper waste coming to our mailbox from Valpak! 3) How good is Google's Mountain View WiFi service? Our expert reviewer Mike Langberg has tried it out, and says the service is ok, but there is downside: It doesn't offer tech support for those who can't figure out its geeky requirements. (Update, one more:) 4) Google Blogger has released an update. Much needed. We don't see anything extraordinary, but there is a long list of changes. Details are here. Or tour here. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Craig EMAIL: craig@oodle.com IP: 207.47.2.114 URL: http://blog.oodle.com DATE: 08/15/2006 10:20:29 AM If you'd like to see what online coupons look like for "car wash 94043" check out Oodle -- http://sf.oodle.com/service/coupon/?q=car+wash&loc=zip_94043%3Aregion%3A94043 ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mike EMAIL: mike.hogan@zixxo.com IP: 69.181.101.137 URL: http://www.zixxo.com DATE: 08/16/2006 12:23:56 PM I'm glad to see Google validate the market for local online coupons. Coupons loaded into Google go into a walled garden where advertisers can then sign-up for Adwords to promote them. With ZiXXo, coupons are syndicated throughout the web. They can even be embedded into maps, local search, online yellow pages, local newspaper websites, everything. ----- PING: TITLE: google local coupons -- will this work? URL: http://www.fredshouse.net/2006/08/google_local_coupons_will_this.html IP: 208.113.140.6 BLOG NAME: fredshouse DATE: 08/15/2006 01:52:30 PM So Google is doing a coupon printing service for local businesses, through Google Maps/Local. I guess this is interesting, although I am not sure how well it will work out. It relies on businesses to set up coupons on... ----- PING: TITLE: Local URL: http://www.epethelp.info/local/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Local DATE: 08/19/2006 10:44:24 PM Individual hotels are also listed. Department of Housing and Urban DevelopmentA directory of local h... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Network Applicance's Warmenhoven: "Witch Hunt" in Silicon Valley STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/15/2006 09:10:34 AM ----- BODY:
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Here is an eye-opening interview between Business Week and Daniel Warmenhoven, who is chief executive of a major Silicon Valley company, Network Appliance. In it, Warmenhoven says the SEC's investigations of companies for improper accounting and disclosure of stock-options grants has become a "Witch Hunt." This whole scandal has become a concern for many innocent employees who got back-dated stock option grants from their companies even though they had nothing to do with the company's decision to do the back-dating, so we know Warmenhoven is speaking to friendly troups here. Frankly, though, we're surprised that Warmenhoven wants us to just sweep it under the rug and forget about it. He says the SEC's role is to build investor confidence. Well, isn't this investigation designed to do just that?: To make sure companies abide by laws, and disclose what is required to be disclosed? What do other people think of the whole interview? We're confused by the logic in the second answer below. If the problem has gone away, then companies won't be found doing anything wrong, right? Let us know.

BW: What's your overall sense of the stock options scandal? W: I think it's become a witch hunt. ----- EXTENDED BODY: I think the government is looking to find some egregious examples [of wrongdoing] and to publicly hang people for them. That's fine. But where does it stop? I'm not saying the past practices were all good. But I thought the SEC's role was to build investor confidence. What they're doing right now is destroying it, and I don't see the purpose. They're penalizing today's shareholders for events that occurred five years ago. But who is this protecting, exactly? With Enron, every shareholder in the company lost money. The same with Qwest, and with MCI-Worldcom. But I don't know who the injured party is here. BW: The victim was the investor, who was not getting accurate information about the options their companies were doling out. And in the case of backdating (in which shares are granted at prices below the market price on the day of the grant, guaranteeing the recipient paper profits), insiders were getting a better deal on shares than the company's public investors could get. W: First of all, backdating options wasn't illegal. You just had to make sure you disclosed it and properly expensed them. And the laws have changed since [then]. Now, [because new regulations compel companies to expense all options, not just special cases like backdated "in the money"options], the basic fraud issue has by definition gone away. And let's not forget that most companies' options vest over four years, so most of the guys who got these grants in 1999 and 2000 never got a chance to cash out anyway (since most tech stocks are trading far below even the backdated prices).
----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Daniel+Warmenhoven, Network+Appliance, stock-option-scandal ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: RoughJustice EMAIL: rj@gmail.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/15/2006 03:18:00 PM Dan is right in that the SEC and AGs are chasing the horse that left the barn (several years ago). The only ones that get penalised are those currently managing the companies (often not the ones involved in the crimes) and current shareholders (ditto). However, as Dan also says, the SEC/AGs hands are forced and they don't have a choice. They can't remain silent or wish this would pass. They will catch some of the originals involved (e.g., Comverse, Mercury, etc.) There will be some collateral damage. Overall this will (sometimes) resemble a witch-hunt to those who kept their nose clean but if the larger lesson--don't do this again for the consequences are severe--is kept in mind, the cost is temporary and inconsequential in the larger picture and I'd even say, worth what it provides by way of improved transparency. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 24.6.111.104 URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com DATE: 08/15/2006 06:47:13 PM RoughJustice: Seems like you want it both ways. You're agreeing with Warmenhoven that this is a witch hunt, but you're also saying this SEC investigation is worth it. But Warmenhoven seems to be saying the whole problem has been made redundant, so not sure if this jibes. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: RoughJustice EMAIL: rj@gmail.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/15/2006 09:03:06 PM Matt: to be concise, I agree with the gist of Dan's points as revealed in his interview. Most of those that were involved in these issues are gone and it is the new management/shareholders that are facing the music. So in a large sense, the horse left the barn a while ago (except in a few cases). I go a bit further than Dan is in saying something like this may well be worth the cost as it will result in improved transparency and a sense of accountability and even fear amongst directors and executives. His comments in the interview indicate he sees only 10% of the cases egregious enough to merit SEC/AG action and the cost (to others uninvolved in these crimes) isn't worth the benefit as the problem is now a non-issue through new regulations re: disclosures. ----- PING: TITLE: Valley URL: http://www.erealestateagents.info/valley/ IP: 67.15.76.52 BLOG NAME: Valley DATE: 08/18/2006 08:16:19 PM Having read Score:9.5I39;ve written several times about the "Uncanny Valley" theory the idea that as Our video game graphics aren39;t up to it ... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: other STATUS: Draft ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/15/2006 10:05:54 AM ----- BODY: Om: 30Boxes, the web calendar that totally rocks, just keeps getting better. They just introduced a mobile version of the site, so now you can get your calendar apps right on your favorite mobile phone, something we can all appreciate when we are late for appointments or don’t have all the information handy. But there is more than just the mobile version which improves 30Boxes. Chip Cuccio has created a very nice downloadable app - just for Macs — that opens up 30Boxes in a window as if it were a desktop application. Chip has produced some others for gcal and netvibes and is also working on a broader platform called webkit. You can get the same result with the tiny “full webtop” link at the top of your calendar, but this app gives you an icon on your desktop and dock. via ----- NYT piece about collective delusion ---- piece by friedman about israel investment ---- see Jeff on this story: Coming off my earlier post about Khosla’s oil company tax initiative, I thought I would post something that supports renewable energy without prejudice. I found what has to be one of the more interesting cases in favor of renewable energy, and on top of that from a very unlikely place… Iraq. Commanders have done the math and realized that, if they could use renewable forms of energy at bases in western Iraq, fewer truckloads of fuel would be required, and more combat troops out there could be chasing hostile forces. As a result, the commanders are calling for immediate shipments of solar panels, wind turbine generators and fuel cell generators. --- ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Roundup: EFF files complaint against AOL, Wiki.com sold for $3M, Segway STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/15/2006 10:10:45 AM ----- BODY:
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AOL, by EFF
San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation files complaint against AOL -- The complaint accuses AOL of breaking a promise to protect its subscribers' privacy when it posted about 19 million search requests made by 660,000 subscribers during a three-month period ending in May. They were publicly accessible for ten days. Even though AOL said it was "anonymized" data, people often search on their names and other aspects of their lives, and they can sometimes be easily pinpointed, as mentioned. Moreover, you combine that with their searches of pornographic or other embarrassing material (we are now seeing some disgusting revelations, and have chosen for now not to point to them), it becomes explosive and can wreck peoples' lives. It is probably already doing so. Wiki.com sold for $3 million -- This might be evidence of a bubble, if not for the fact that the buyer is domain name speculator John Gotts. Segway releases new edition -- This high-tech scooter company is remarkable for its marketing. It manages to swing a full story in the New York Times for what appears to be a relatively minor upgrade. Though some would argue with us. Basically, you can now lean forward to move it, and not use your arms. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Segway, EFF, AOL, Wiki.com ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: What is up with YouTube? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/15/2006 12:15:47 PM ----- BODY: Updated Check out YouTube. All you see is the image below (click to enlarge). We are trying to find out what is going on. It has been down since last night, and still is, as of this post. Update: 6:00pm: The site is back up. An unplanned database-related issue caused the outage, according to the company. Update: 11pm: The site is back down Update: 8/16, 3:30am: The site is back up . . . . . . .. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Pran EMAIL: pkurup@gmail.com IP: 64.221.191.180 URL: DATE: 08/15/2006 12:39:59 PM I have seen this before. I suspect its some technical problem. Perhaps some kind of major upgrade. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason Schramm EMAIL: jason.schramm@gmail.com IP: 68.38.123.176 URL: http://www.jasonblogs.com DATE: 08/15/2006 02:02:16 PM It looks like they updated the mainpage. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Technorati quietly raises $3 million more STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/16/2006 07:22:20 AM ----- BODY:
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Silicon Valley blog search engine Technorati, fresh from a facelift, has raised $3 million more -- after they'd already announced $7.6 million in third-round funding last month. We contacted the company early yesterday about this, but they have chosen not to confirm this to anyone, as far as we can tell -- including us. So why did Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Mobius Venture Capital return with more? Don't know, but one reason, of course, is that competitor Feedster announced a round of capital right after Technorati did. And then there was Sphere, which also raised cash. It's good to have bragging rights. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Technorati, Mobius, DFJ ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: When you raise >$100M, bank on an IPO, and fail: The cases of Alien, Vonage STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/16/2006 08:30:58 AM ----- BODY:
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Alien, the Morgan Hill company that makes low-cost radio identification tags (RFIDs), withdrew its plans to go public, after Wall Street rejected it. We've mentioned this before, but Mike Langberg has followed up on this story, and it is an eye-opener -- and the story carries lessons for other private technology companies in this hyped valley right now. Alien seemed to bet the farm on pulling off an IPO. Now it is already in retrenchment mode, having laid off an unspecified number of its 240 employees last week. The question is, how did it get itself into that position? Well, it had raised more than $200 million from private investors. More on that a second.
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Money-losing Vonage is an example of a company that must surely regret its IPO, Mike adds, noting that this is all probably good because it is a sign that Wall Street is sane. However, keep in mind that most significant Vonage insider shareholders own shares priced at $5.87 or lower, which they bought when the company was still private. The company's stock is now trading at around $6.54, so major pain will only really begin with another drop of 67 cents. These insiders are locked up for three more months before they can sell their shares, so yes, they may eventually regret this. But as we asked before, did Vonage really have a choice? Not really, after it -- like Alien -- had raised hundreds of millions of private cash. It needed desparately to return money for its big private investors. When no buyers showed up, it had to do an IPO. Had it slowed down from the beginning, not expanded so quickly, and tried to reach profitability earlier, there might have been less pain for all its investors and employees. We're just looking for lessons. If you're a private company right now, and are facing investors who want to pump you full of cash -- because they have raise a huge venture fund, and say they "need to put our money to work" -- don't do it. It is hard to do in these easy-money times, but think seriously about a slower strategy. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Alien, Vonage ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: RK EMAIL: rk_mazda@hotmail.com IP: 149.199.62.254 URL: DATE: 08/16/2006 08:53:28 AM As I predicted about Alien and Passive RFID market in my past postings few months back, there will be no takers in IPO market. Not surprised. I think Alien will have diffcult time surviving now, there largest customer Gillette/P&G, will have issues finding there 5 cent tag as they had Alien locked in 5 cent tag price by placing an long term 100 Million plus tag order. reality is tag cost to build today is 25 - 30 cents depending on type of packaging. Well to bad VC's will loose few bucks! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mark Wendman EMAIL: mw3eng@gmail.com IP: 65.214.154.131 URL: http://mark-nano.blogspot.com/ DATE: 08/16/2006 09:29:39 AM A wise, superbly talented and experienced VC recently summarized his biggest successes as being partly characterized by $1m or less initial investments. (Silicon Beat had a nice post about this) While a small initial investment will typically not get one to positive cash flow, it is often a superb litmus test of the motivation and skills of the founders. Are they Entrepreneurs, or Spendthrifts? Are the Founders skilled sufficently or not?? Can they sell sufficiently or just go through part of the motions... [sell early, sell profitably and sell often, comes to mind] The main aspect ignored by some investors who think More money is THE solution (I have heard certain folks say too often - YOU Could Never Compete Against XXX, because YOU don't have the CAPITAL [yet], even if the technology and people were there), is that motivation + skill + EQ (Entrepreneurial Quotient) trumps a whole lot of misspent cash in many notable instances. The history of tech startups is truly littered with overfunded missteps, where either a key technical issue was overlooked and vainly hoped to be solvable without the necessary hard changes, or management business missteps being optimistically overlooked until too late. A fascinating study really and many many useful lessons to learn from, to hopefully avoid repeating. A useful proverb or two includes - "Trust But Verify"[honestly], and "Only the Paranoid Survive" (Ed .."with a grain of salt and a bit of humor for balance") Before one SCALES (ie possibly becomes a spendthrift) it is quite useful to look closely at the early dynamics. Is the "roll up your sleeves and get it done attitude" sufficently present? Are there always expensive pushouts / excuses that conveniently delay the critical business and technical milestones being completed? Is the big MO [momentum] evident, or is there a whole lot of second guessing by know it alls...Which is a larger effect? And a pet peeve of mine - is physical stature of key folks used a a false crutch for warm and fuzzies about credibility and realism in the effort and skills? IE you might be executing technically, but if you frequently say - it could never be a real business (about possible alternative markets for example) are you a credible Entrepreneur? You might be making lots of progress in the complicated technical milestones, but always pushing out cost effective results, intimating that cost effective results needs more capital? There are different hints of some of these in both firms missteps. Capital is not a panacea unless the right management execution is present - credentials or no credentials of key staff. You cannot eat credentials for profits, nor market / revenue growth. Both firms can have potentially viable businesses, but I suspect a degree of either call it entitlement or complacency is present in both endeavors. Bears learning some lessons from if you want to invest as successfully as desired. More money, can in some instances mean just bigger losses. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: PragmaticEntrepreneur EMAIL: pe@gmail.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/16/2006 10:25:04 AM Incentives matter. VCs are compensated through management fees and carried interest. If your company is poised for success, they want to increase their ownership % in your company. These days they want to do it enough to make up for all their losses which are a lot. Putting more money means more management fees and also more carried interest for them. As the saying goes, in for a pound, in for ten. This pattern is especially egregious these days with big funds and poor IRRs of earlier funds. VCs on the board will encourage higher spending, etc. to force a financing; they will bring in new management that will be compensated highly; all to increase their ownership and make their returns look better (in the face of their numerous other failures). If your company isn't doing well the VCs will look for a quick exit. A firesale or a simple shutdown and sale of IP. The best VCs are those that help a company take flight on a single or few rounds. Google, Yahoo, Cisco, etc. did it on a singe round. Sequoia excels in this as does KP, though there are exceptions (Webvan, Infinera, etc.) The worst VCs are those that look to invest a lot of money and force/encourage/support companies that want that. Check 3ParData, OnStor, Force10, Infinera and the amounts raised already. $300M raised already for each company and an ever receding timeline for profitability. Explains why LPs at Worldview, an investor in all of those highly capitalized companies, pulled out their support. Use the ViraMetric to evaluate a company. Total up revenues over the years for a company and see if it is >, =, < the amount of capital raised for that company. What a story it tells! ----- PING: TITLE: Boing raises $65M; The bulging pockets of New Enterprise Associates URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/17/boing_raises_65m_the_bulging_pockets_of_new_enterprise_associates.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/17/2006 11:46:49 AM Boingo, the southern California company that provides high-speed wireless access to hotel, airports and other public locales, has raised $65 million in a third round of funding. This is apparently a case of investment creep. Just last month, the compa... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: MySpaces surpasses YouTube in video STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/16/2006 08:50:25 AM ----- BODY:
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Yes, YouTube rocketed to Top 50-site status for the first time last month, and the traffic strain may have had something to do with its outage woes. So everyone was reporting yesterday. Under reported, though, is that MySpace not only doubled its traffic in July from June, but apparently surged passed YouTube in the process. ComScore MEdia Metrix reported YouTube had 16 million visitors in July, a 20 percent increase versus June. But MySpace Videos hit 20 million visitors, double its traffic in June. Big incumbent Yahoo Video has 21.1 million visitors, up 28 percent from June -- a growth rate that also exceeds YouTube's. Is this just the numbers dance again, or does this represent a blow to YouTube's claim as hottest video site on the Web? We need to know more. Are some people switching from YouTube to MySpace, a new trend that comes despite the nice growth of new viewers for both sites? Don't know. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, here are all the reasons YouTube, with its video-only focuses, will remain a contender, and why Google Video will not -- at least when it comes to being a node of community buzz. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sean P EMAIL: seanpete1@gmail.com IP: 86.144.99.110 URL: DATE: 08/16/2006 09:52:19 AM The link to "here are all the reasons" You Tube seems broken. Or am I just technically illiterate? By the way, love the blog and keep it coming. Sean ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com DATE: 08/16/2006 10:09:34 AM Thanks, you are right. Fixed. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: wabongo EMAIL: wabongo@gmail.com IP: 75.26.24.222 URL: http://www.myzine.com DATE: 08/16/2006 05:15:47 PM There are still huge opportunities in the online video space, like for new comers ie www.myzine.com ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Even with Neven Vision, Google is "one step behind Riya" STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/16/2006 09:15:48 AM ----- BODY: Updated
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Google has acquired Neven Vision to help the search engine develop technology that recognizes objects within images, the company said yesterday. Google said it will make its Picasa photo-organizing feature even better when you are searching for photos -- it may make it easier to tag them and organize. Google had looked at buying Silicon Valley start-up Riya many months ago, for this same function. But Riya's leader, CEO Munjal Shah, apparently looked inside himself and found the guts for an even bigger play: shrugging off Google, and building up an image search engine that could rank as competitor to Google itself, at least when it comes to photos. Google does not do a search engine for images by appearance alone. "We have already moved on to Riya 2.0," he wrote to us, in response to the Neven news. "Google is still one step behind Riya." (Update: We put the quotation marks in the headline, to indicate the one-step advantage claim is Munjal's. Now, we have word from Bryan Quinn, the guy who runs photo site SpyMedia, and so knows something about photos. He disagrees. He says he has tested both technologies and says Neven's is better than Riya's.) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Riya, Neven+Vision, Google, Mujal+Shah ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Bryan EMAIL: bquinn@spymedia.com IP: 71.202.54.19 URL: http://www.spymedia.com DATE: 08/16/2006 09:56:38 AM I have used Riya's and Neven's technology, and there's no comparison. Neven's technology simply works better. As for search? Google already has millions of users, while Riya is a company that still do this day is only cool to the "techcrunch crowd." Until Riya is able to attractive mainstream users, I can't see them competing with this combo. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Cody EMAIL: codyb@gmail.com IP: 75.6.253.89 URL: DATE: 08/16/2006 10:29:04 AM Matt: Why does Google even need a PR outlet...you are it...there are so many great companies in the valley and yet you just happen to write about them on a day to day basis. Cody ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: cody EMAIL: codyB@gmail.com IP: 75.6.253.89 URL: DATE: 08/16/2006 10:29:59 AM Matt: Going forward just call Siliconbeat the following: Googlebeat Cody ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: pix expert EMAIL: zmediainbox@yahoo.com IP: 71.146.162.221 URL: DATE: 08/16/2006 10:40:11 AM Google is the kind of company that: 1) does good due diligence on acquisitions 2) can afford to buy the first best So where does that leave Riya, but out in the cold. I tried it and consider it a toy. Whomever funded this deal is in for a cold shock. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 24.6.111.104 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/16/2006 12:51:11 PM Cody, that is fair in some ways. But I'd be surprised if the proportion of Google stories to overall stories hasn't gone down significantly since 2005. Here's why. For much of 2004 and 2005, I did think that Google was driving much of the valley's innovation -- in part because it had rekindled imagination and hope, as Marc Pincus, the-CEO of Tribe, said at the time. In my own mind, I was quite conscious of it. Now, in 2006, I am quite conscious that Google is no longer driving it. You will continue to see the proportion of Google stories decline at SiliconBeat. That said, they will also keep floating in, on occasion, as we see fit. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: DB EMAIL: db@yahoo.com IP: 24.6.179.241 URL: DATE: 08/16/2006 05:53:00 PM What makes Neven better than Riya? the accuracy or the user interface? ----- PING: TITLE: Questions about Riya and Google URL: http://munjal.typepad.com/recognizing_deven/2006/08/questions_about.html IP: 204.9.178.8 BLOG NAME: Recognizing Deven DATE: 08/17/2006 05:16:17 PM So many of you have left comments asking for the full back story on Google and Riya and why didn't they buy us vs. Neven Vision. I'm so sorry but for legal reasons I can't talk about it. We have ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Crescendo's two strikes, and why it matters STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/16/2006 12:40:25 PM ----- BODY:
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Crescendo Ventures is another struggling Silicon Valley venture firm. Some are asking whether Crescendo should bother even trying to raise a new fund of money to invest. In our assessment, the firm has got two strikes against it. The third pitch is coming straight down the middle...and Crescendo had better connect. Here is the significance: Investors, known as limited partners, are pumping huge amounts of money into venture firms again, but are finally parsing out the ones who don't deserve it. We are far enough along since the Internet bubble burst in 2000 for those limited partners (LPs) -- many of them universities and pension funds -- to decide which firms aren't doing well enough to justify getting more cash. Initially, LPs forgave poorly performing VC firms, excusing them because of the disastrous post-Bubble times. Apparently, no more. This matters for entrepreneurs because nervous venture firms can make hasty decisions -- which may not be in the best interest of the entrepreneur's start-up. There are several other venture firms in death-watch status right now. So think carefully about who you take money from. ----- EXTENDED BODY:
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David Spreng
Crescendo doesn't have a very big name in Silicon Valley; no big brand-name hits. It was focused -- tragically in retrospect -- on telecommunications during the Internet boom, and got killed when the market turned downward. The firm's most visible partner is David Spreng, who claims hits in Callidus, Ejasent and Indigo Medical (we've corrected the Forbes reference to Indigo Systems, which is wrong; see comments for more). Crescendo was mentioned in the comments of a piece we did two weeks ago about WorldView, another Silicon Valley venture firm. There, we talked about the three strikes rule, and why we thought Worldview had struck out. The comments pointed out that Crescendo had only seen one of its companies see a positive, but trivial return on investment since March 2000. Another comment said Crescendo was being sued by a limited partner. We did some tire-kicking a couple of weeks ago, and we confirmed both. David Spreng wouldn't comment for our piece, other than to say "We are not looking backwards, we're looking forward," he said in a phone call. "We have an incredibly great team, and fantastic portfolio results which will speak for themselves over the next several quarters." The lawsuit, though, is a sideshow: The limited partner who sued end up losing $5.5 million in legal fees, because it was thrown out, we're told. It is worth noting, though, that Crescendo apparently took the money from that LP without ever meeting the guy. The LP simply wired over the money, after a five minute discussion (update: after he was found by an investment manager helping Crescendo raise the cash). Dan Primack, who wrote a piece about Crescendo yesterday, referred to "dumb" money, and he may have a point in this particular case. Unfortunately, we don't know who the firm's other LPs are, and the firm won't tell us. We spoke to well-placed source, close to the firm, and can confirm most of what Dan Primack said in his piece (Dan was armed with the firm's quarterly report!), though with a few minor corrections. Yes, the firm drew a line in the sand in 2001. It sought redemption from its LPs and pledged it would switch to invest in "digital infrastructure" companies, away from the graveyard that was telecom. Mid-way through its $650 million fourth fund, Crescendo made the switch. Since then, Crescendo has divided its performance results into two eras: the terrible one before 2001, and then a much better one after 2002. Crescendo argues that the second half of Fund IV is performing in the top ten percent of firms (taking industry data from folks like Cambridge, Thomson, and comparing it to other firms that raised funds in 2002). Crescendo has invested in 19 companies since 2002 (Dan said 16), and six of them have been written up (Dan mentioned only 2), and 12 others are being carried on its books at "cost," or at the original value at which Crescendo invested. This "at cost" means its investments in companies may be healthy, but the companies haven't raised more money or been sold -- and so there has been no objective external event needed mark them up. Dan implies that "cost" is not a very good thing, when in fact it doesn't say much at all. This practice of carrying investments at cost is industry standard. Finally, there was one sale, of Sastina, but didn't bring a very big return. So let's review the bad stuff: Crescendo's first part of Fund IV did terribly, and the firm's Fund III, which the firm began investing in 1998 and 1999 is underwater -- which is really difficult to justify because those were supposed to be good years. Those are the two strikes. And we don't see any balls. Moving along, here's why we haven't seen the third strike: The firm does have a promising company or two, like Pure Digital, which we mentioned here, and Credant, a company that offers security for mobile phones. BroadSoft is apparently considering an IPO and SOISIC has talked with ARM and Soitec about a possible acquisition. Second, the firm's leader, Spreng, is still at the helm. Third, the firm brought it more experienced partners early on, like Ian Jenks to address a perceived lack of operating experience. If some of its companies get sold for a profit by the end of this year, Crescendo's hide may well be saved, and will begin fund-raising again in earnest later this year. More significant to entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley is if Crescendo, desperate to save itself, will be forced to swing wildly for the fences on its last pitch. When the pressure is great, bad decisions can be made. A firm can push one of its companies to sell out, when waiting might be preferable for the company. Crescendo's is a situation many firms are finding themselves in. They may or may not do the right thing. But if you're juggling which firm to take cash from, take it from someone who doesn't have two strikes. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Crescendo, David+Spreng, Pure+Digital, Credant ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dan Primack EMAIL: daniel.primack@thomson.com IP: 24.91.115.205 URL: DATE: 08/16/2006 02:34:23 PM Uh oh, someone's double-checking my work. It's about damn time:) Anyway: Matt, you are right that some of my numbers are off. Indeed, its active Fund IV portfolio includes 19 companies invested in since the early 2002 "line in the sand" (including Compellent Technologies, which first got Crescendo $$ in July 2002). Of these, six are being carried above-value (none of its pre-2002 ones are above-value), with two under-value and the rest at-value. For context, the post-2002 portfolio is being carried 18.8% higher than its initial value. Also, it's worth noting that not all Crescendo IV companies are valued based on a financing round or exit. Credent and Tropic Networks -- the former is up, the latter is down -- are valued on "General Partners' assessment of fair market value." I do take issue, however, with the suggestion that I'm implying anything negative about holding companies at cost. No such thing. All I'm saying is it is a meaningless number, and that the post-2002 portfolio is mostly comprised of such meaninglessness. Yup, some of the companies might be good. Some might not be. Either way, at-cost only represents what Crescendo was willing to pay, and its track record so far is no ringing endorsement of its valuation judgment. As I wrote, it's all about positive realizations. They will need a lot of those (more than just Pure Digital) before smart LPs will take a serious look at Fund V. As for the dumb ones, all bets are off. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Fact-driven EMAIL: Factdriven@gmail.com IP: 66.122.34.11 URL: DATE: 08/16/2006 06:28:34 PM Matt, Please check the facts before you publish claims made by Spreng. David Spreng can not take credit for Indigo Systems, Ejasent or Callidus. Indigo Systems was never a Crescendo portfolio company. Spreng was no where near that company. He was on the Boards of Ejasent and Callidus when both companies experienced their liquidity event. However, only at the very end since both investments were made by other GPs who left Crescendo prior to those exits. Therefore, how can he claim those investments? Dan, You should also check your facts. Spreng claims an upgrade of investment team by end of 2002, a team with stronger operational history. However, lets look at the facts. The team members that left Crescendo around 2002 and 2003 were: 1)Doug Robertson, founding exec at successful startup Entera and exec at Level 3 and Motorola. 2)Lorraine Fox, experienced exec at Oracle and Sun 3)Richard Grogan-Crane, exec at Oracle and founder of startups 4)Subra Narayan, exec at Nortel and startup Interwave 5)Chris Chu, engineer at VLSI, IBM, National Semi 6)Roeland Boonstoppel, mostly VC experience Now lets look at the GPs that stayed on after 2002: 1)Tony Daffer, worked for NAI, Crescendo predecessor since college in 1993. Left firm in 2005 2)Jeff Hinck, prior to Crescendo was at McKinsey for couple of years. Left firm in 2004. 3)John Borchers, worked 3 years after college at a software company and joined Crescendo in 1997 4)David Spreng, only has banking and VC experience 5)Jeff Tollefson, only has banking and VC experience 6)Ian Jenks, exec at JDS Lets tally the results. Of the 6 that left, 5 have deep operational background. Of the 6 that stayed, only 1 has credible operational background. Does this look like an upgrade towards a stronger operational team? David Spreng is a prolific revisionist. He will twist history to fit his agenda. If Crescendo does experience the exits claimed by him, the LPs should look deeply into who sourced and are responsible for those investments. David has a tendency to take credit for the good ones and assign the bad apples to ex-GPs, chalk them up as done by individuals without strong operational background. Please, get real! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/16/2006 07:03:36 PM Thanks for the feedback, factdriven. Where would we be without readers. I mean that seriously. This blogging is kept to a higher standard, in my belief, because it is open for criticism from outsiders. Please keep it coming! On to the substance: Check out my post again. It says "Indigo Medical," not Indigo Systems. The Forbes piece was wrong. I corrected this about an hour after I posted, and before you commented, so maybe you just missed it. You are right that Indigo *Systems* was not a Crescendo investment. Spreng invested Indigo *Medical* before the Crescendo days. The company was bought by J&J in 1996. In fact, I double checked this again when I saw your comment, and found a VC Journal mentioning this, back when Spreng was with IAI Ventures. (Article: "IAI Markets Fourth VC Partnership," June 1, 1996) As for Ejasent and Callidus, your point is valid. I'm told Lorraine Fox brought those deals to the Crescendo, but that Spreng took the board seats and saw the companies through the exits. Partnerships are teams (at least they are supposed to be!), but you're right that Lorraine should get bulk of credit in actually sourcing the deal. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Cosine EMAIL: cosine@cosinenetworks.net IP: 209.155.146.2 URL: DATE: 08/16/2006 08:00:33 PM I can vouch that David Spreng was at Cosine in the early days, and he should get full credit for that investment. However, I wish he had not been there. His lack of operational experience drove us into the ground. He knew nothing about networking. He did not know when to pull out the founding CEO; and when he did, he had no idea how to equip the team to be successful. As a member of the Cosine management, I was very frustrated with his overall ignorance about our operational needs. He was clearly dumb money. Funny that his LPs are dumb money. Like LP, like GP. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 24.6.111.104 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/16/2006 08:26:03 PM To be clear: We're told that Lorraine was on the board of Ejasent and Callidus during early days (1999-2002 and 1998-2002, respectively) before David took them over. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Take Spreng off Forbes' Midas List EMAIL: lfox@stanfordalumni.org IP: 69.181.31.94 URL: DATE: 08/16/2006 10:12:10 PM Since none of the deals attributed to Spreng are his deals, Forbes should eliminate him from the Midas List. Is his track record even in positive territory? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/17/2006 05:04:50 AM Folks, I'm giving more thought to creating a login system for comments, so that I can help distinguish between people who are willing to stand by their identity and those who aren't. I haven't decided whether I want to require full disclose of true names on comments, or whether to require them to simply disclose their names to us so that at least *we* are assured. That latter might be difficult to execute though, because it would require us to do heavy verification. We'll think about it more. Let us know if you have thoughts. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Pragma EMAIL: pragma@tcv.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/17/2006 08:06:47 AM Matt: I can see why you might be considering a login process for posting comments in SiliconBeat. It has its advantages, no doubt, and will weed out noise. The costs seem disproportionate to the benefits. Consider that speaking out about VC practices is unheard of in Silicon Valley and for a reason: the VCs wield a lot of influence and can, and have, put an end to the careers of many promising entrepreneurs and executives. What's worse, it is usually the poor quality and poor performing VCs that resort to such conduct. SiliconBeat is the first and only forumfor public discourse on practices that affect the tech business in the Valley. The signal/noise ratio is very high (for both the articles and the comments) and barring the occasional slip in articles or comments, it is at no risk of being swamped with trash. Requiring identification before commenting will further inhibit those wanting to say something but already apprehensive for good reasons. Requiring ID without complete verification isn't worth the effect, and if you push for verification or full identify disclosures, the sources for articles and comments will wither away. You are a professional journalist and know well how important confidentiality, anonymity, etc. are in the exchange of information. The Valley squares that because of the peculiar power VCs wield over entrepreneurs, employees and shareholders. If your concern is that some of the comments are unfounded or extreme, why the VCs or their PR agencies are always free to respond. SiliconBeat provides a forum for them too, as far as I can tell. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/17/2006 08:28:44 AM That's why I'm weighing this carefully. Thanks for feedback. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jeb EMAIL: jeb@tcrvp.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/17/2006 08:34:52 AM SiliconBeat is a nice, welcome contrast to Forbes, as far as tech is concerned. A year from now comments here (and perhaps polls) will seem more grounded and valuable (to entrepreneurs and LPs) than PR stunts like the Forbes Midas List which is a joke. The VCs pay their PR agencies to get on the list, and use that as PR to wow unsuspecting entrepreneurs and LPs. Consider that Forbes recently listed Crescendo/Spreng and Worldview/Wei, Orsak as having the Midas Touch. That PR stunt didn't wash over LPS as those firms/partners had their oxygen cut off by the LPS who saw IRRs in black and white and votede with their dollars. I speak with intimate familiarity, having worked at a firm that paid through its nose to have two partners on the Midas List and is now closing down. And one of those partners was in constant screaming battles with everyone else, drove away other GPs, and legion are the startups suffering from his "Midas Touch." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Concerned Observer EMAIL: concerned@observer.com IP: 68.237.116.214 URL: DATE: 08/17/2006 09:03:00 AM To see the performance of a number of venture funds, see the public Calpers disclosure on their VC investments at: http://www.calpers.ca.gov/index.jsp?bc=/investments/assets/equities/aim/private-equity-review/aim-perform-review/aim-detail.xml&FundOfFunds=2 Of particular interest is how they list the current value of the fund as a percentage of the investment in column 9. Some notable current fund values: 0.50x - BlueStream Ventures, L.P. 0.30x - Convergence Ventures II, L.P. 0.50x - New Enterprise Associates 9, LP 0.30x - Prism Venture Partners III, L.P. With these funds, you put in $100 and 7-10 years later you get back $30 to $50. It's a wonder that any of them can ever raise additional funds. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Pragma EMAIL: pragma@tcv.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/17/2006 09:15:27 AM Thank you for the pointer to the Calpers table, Concerned Observer. It is precisely this exchange of information, in a blog focused on Silicon Valley business and associated with the Valley's premier daily, that makes SiliconBeat so relevant to entrepreneurs, employees, VCs and LPs. Imagine the value to an entrepreneur about to evaluate different VCs bidding to invest in his company. Some VCs may not like this kind of disclosure but the genie is of the bottle and I hope Matt keeps it that way in SiliconBeat. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Fact-driven EMAIL: fd@gmail.com IP: 67.188.85.128 URL: DATE: 08/17/2006 09:52:15 AM Spreng taking over Ejasent and Callidus from Fox and "saw the company through the exits" is wishful thinking on his part and his PR firm. A true measure of a VC's contribution to his portfolio companies is how many entrepreneurs re-up with the VC on his/her next startups. I can't think of any entrepreneurs who have resigned with Spreng. However, there is at least 1 startup, Palo Alto Networks, founded by an entrepreneur who was previously funded by Spreng at OneSecure but did not resign with Spreng second time around. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: CB EMAIL: cb@nextone.com IP: 24.6.179.241 URL: DATE: 08/17/2006 10:40:21 AM Amazing that Spreng can blame other GP's for Crescendo's dismal record. Isn't he the sole keyman? Everyone knows that the buck stops at his desk. Any investment at Crescendo needs to clear through him, and he has the final veto to block deals. If the LPs need proof, they should ask for partnership agreements and carried interest docs. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Elan Nov EMAIL: elan_nov@yahoo.com IP: 24.215.164.106 URL: DATE: 08/17/2006 09:09:15 PM It'd be nice to hear Dave's side of the story. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Pragma EMAIL: pragma@tcv.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/18/2006 02:16:28 AM >be nice to hear Dave's side of the story. As I said in an earlier post, SiliconBeat is and provides a forum for the VCs too. They are free to respond if they feel the comments are not factual, and extreme or critical in an unsupported manner. Expecting them to engage in a dialog is an exercise in foolishness. If you've worked with them you'll know they consider themselves above questions even to LPs. Witness how LPs who questioned Mayfield or Sequoia or Accel, to name just three, were kicked out of the funds. If I remember right Matt attempted to dialog with Worldview/Crescendo/Bay and found them largely unresponsive. SiliconBeat is playing a constructive role in leveling the field and exposing dictatorships, and that promises to usher in a better tomorrow for all: LPs, entrepreneurs, employees nad other shareholders/investors, and in turn the VCs. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: Mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SilicnBeat.com DATE: 08/18/2006 04:55:04 AM Pragma. Yes, I'm ready to talk with Worldvew, Bay or Crescendo and to have a sensible conversation with them. It is difficult when you don't have their cooperation. Side note: Regarding the latest peace on NEA, which I posted yesterday, that firm's Mark Perry got back to me, and talked on the record. I'm still in correspondence with him about a few things, but it really helped clear things up -- and I'd like to update the post as a result, to reflect his views on the matter. That it makes a huge difference. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Thomas EMAIL: fhyd@tdgsg.com IP: 166.220.54.155 URL: DATE: 08/18/2006 07:56:43 AM Is it common for VCs to write-off bad investments in the portfolio and only count the good ones? Are there other VC firms aside from Crescendo doing this? This type of gerrymandering seems unfair. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/18/2006 08:07:02 AM Yes, that's the way it works. And it is legitimate. By writing them off, it simply means the investment doesn't help their results any. It's like if you had three chickens hatch, out of six eggs. Be definition, those three bad eggs are thown out, and you've only produced three chickens ;) But the analogy isn't perfect, because it still takes VCs money to produce those bad eggs, and so the money is lost. It counts toward their performance results. Now, by "drawing a line in the sand", and telling your investors that you'd like to treat the results of the first half of the fund differently because of exceptional post-bubble circumstances, why that's to the investors to decide whether they will go for or not. That's why Spreng is having a little trouble, since he initially tried to raise another fund several years ago, and didn't have much luck. I think we'll be hearing more from Primack on Monday, and I'll post a link. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Pragma EMAIL: pragma@tcv.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/18/2006 08:41:41 AM Matt, good to hear Mark Perry at NEA is in dialog with you. I'm sure it will help impove the signal/noise ratio, especially with comments from readers. A couple data points: 1) Calpers, per the chart you refer to, committed a small and a large amount to two NEA funds. The small amount saw a negative return; what's more important is the larger commitment is seeing (so far) a neutral to positive return. Which is good for NEA and the LPs, and explains their success in raising the new mega fund (when Worldview or Crescendo failed at much smaller amounts.) 2) Crescendo, per your update, faced a lawsuit from an LP after accepting an investment from the LP sight unseen. This was arranged by an "investment manager helping Crescendo raise the cash." In the earlier discussion on Worldview Jane Morris from Veritage Group piped up to speak for Crescendo and Spreng. Funny, the Veritage Group's business is investment management in helping VCs raise cash. Won't anyone be surprised if Jane/Veritage was the "investment manager" in the above Crescendo saga? Talk of self-serving interests and integrity! 3) We also saw a few self-serving postings in the earlier discussion on Worldview/Orsak wherein some executives piped up to support him. They shut up when their hidden agenda--their independence is very questionable as they need more financing from Orsak--was exposed. Can't wait to see Worldview, Crescendo, Bay and their likes engage in this forum. What a treat it'd be to check out their Midas Touch credentials, hear from their (ex)colleagues, LPs, entrepreneurs and employees of portfolio companies, and discuss publicly their predatory, rapacious acts of commission and omission that led to the death of many companies! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: DSW EMAIL: dai893@gmail.com IP: 24.6.179.241 URL: DATE: 08/20/2006 03:38:27 PM I question the legitimacy and accountability of Crescendo's accounting practice. Changing rules mid-fund is absolutely irresponsible. If every firm is allowed to gerrymander its portfolio, all funds will be in the top decile. Every firm has the right to market themselves to potential LPs; however, going to this egregious extreme is only a disservice to the LP and GP community and only invites federal regulation involvement. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: aVC EMAIL: abc123xyzvc@yahoo.com IP: 24.23.250.155 URL: DATE: 08/21/2006 05:45:03 PM Would it be possible to solicit an explanation from Forbes on the inaccuracies of their "Midas List"? From the sounds of it, it's more inaccurate than not. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/21/2006 10:04:05 PM Have contacted Forbes for a response. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: JB EMAIL: jb@gmail.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/22/2006 08:40:24 AM Matt: if Forbes gets back to you here are a couple queries that might be handy for you: a) what explains their listing Crescendo/Spreng as one with a Midas Touch (to quote from Spreng's blurb in his bio) "since 2003 (8th among VCs in 2005)" when it is so transparently clear his record for that same period was just dismal, which his LPs can confirm if the public records aren't enough? b) what explains their listing Worldview/Orsak as having the Midas Touch when he had one IPO that bombed (Cosine), numerous closures, a few sales (for less than money raised), and disaster wherever he glanced or whatever he touched (Cemaphore, Accelerant, Mirapoint)? Public shouting matches with fellow GPs (forcing them out of the firm) and fights with entrepreneurs, management and LPS. LPs voted against him, he has stepped down as a GP at Worldview and wasn't part of raising the new fund (which the firm couldn't, as we know now), and he has ZERO successes to show. Quite a Midas Touch there! ----- PING: TITLE: Boing raises $65M; The bulging pockets of New Enterprise Associates URL: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/08/17/boing_raises_65m_the_bulging_pockets_of_new_enterprise_associates.html IP: 63.247.138.14 BLOG NAME: SiliconBeat DATE: 08/17/2006 11:47:03 AM Boingo, the southern California company that provides high-speed wireless access to hotel, airports and other public locales, has raised $65 million in a third round of funding. This is apparently a case of investment creep. Just last month, the compa... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Roundup: The VC Carwash, Popsugar, Khosla's latest, Facebook opens, Decentral.TV, Blotter STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/17/2006 08:35:28 AM ----- BODY:
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Siteler Wash, a high-end car wash start-up, get's $1.5 million -- Dave Whorton, a former protege of Kleiner Perkins' John Doerr, and partner at TPG Ventures, is now at his own firm Tugboat Ventures, and has invested $1.5M in Mountain View start-up Siteler Wash to wash Mercedes and Porsches of executives. Siteler schedules car washes with large companies -- on-site while execs work. Siteler charges $9 for a basic car wash and up to $300 for a full detailing. We won't pour any cold water over Whorton's tugboat -- yet ;) -- it might prove a good idea. (AlarmClock) PopSugar, a network of four blogs targeting young, hip woman, adds a social network component -- It says it is getting 13 million monthly page views and 1.5 million unique visitors. It is a San Francisco based company. (Techcrunch) Kergy is the latest Silicon Valley start-up in alternative energy field -- It is a Menlo Park start-up, which has raised $3.3 million in a first round of funding from the great Silicon Valley clean energy proselytizer Vinod Khosla and his team at Khosla Ventures (No website; just a regulatory filing, cited by PE Week) Decentral.tv, a stealthy start-up raises $2.3 million for social networking on television -- This is a four-month-old start-up, based in San Rafael, that founder Daniel Graf says will push something called "interactive broadcast broadband communities." Vague, but let's see what happens. The first round was led by DFJ, though BW may have mixed things up by calling board member Howard Hartenbaum a DFJ partner (he's actually with Draper Richards). It is true, though, that Hartenbaum was the first guy to get to Skype in the early days. (BW article here, which also has a few more details on Celiro, the quiet mobile company which we first mentioned here). Facebook opens APIs -- The popular college social networking site, which long pursued a policy of closed order -- compared to the more open, experimental MySpace -- has taken on a new face. It has opened up its platform so that outside developers can build products that integrate with it easier. Its release of a so-called open application programming interface (API) already has a bunch of action happening. Details here.
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Dapper launches blog rater -- Dapper is run by Jon Aizen, who lived in San Francisco until a couple of years ago, and is now in Tel Aviv, has unveiled a new service that gauges blog popularity. The service, which requires you to put a piece of code on your blog, is called Blotter. The new Google Talk features -- file sharing, voicemail and music status -- are finally open to everyone. We reported about these a couple of weeks ago, when they were being tested. (Details here) MuleSource, an open source software for "middleware", raises $4 million from Hummer and Morgenthaler -- The software, which specializes in integrating existing computer applications, and thus called "middleware," is the latest open source play. It launches in September, but does face competition. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Sitiler+Wash, Popsugar, Khosla's latest, Facebook opens, Decentral.TV, Blotter, Mulesource, GoogleTalk ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: EG EMAIL: egrauer@hspnews.com IP: 65.125.55.106 URL: DATE: 08/17/2006 09:21:09 AM There is a rather unfortunate typo in your link to AlarmClock. Just a heads up! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/17/2006 09:30:50 AM Uh, yes, that made me blush. Fixed within ten minutes, hopefully before anyone else noticed. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chris Tolles EMAIL: tolles@xkey.com IP: 69.12.142.30 URL: http://www.topix.net DATE: 08/17/2006 02:48:41 PM You should talk to the Sitelerwash founder Tom Yeh -- He pitched me on this in '99 Very persuasive guy. Pretty sharp, too. I think you'd find his viison of what you can do with a relationship with a car's owner fascinating -- it's a bit of a long shot to get to world domination through washing cars, but evidently the VC was as impressed as I was at Tom's pitch. ----- PING: TITLE: Create an API for any Site URL: http://www.craigburton.com/2006/08/18#a9498 IP: 64.71.134.138 BLOG NAME: Craig Burton weblog DATE: 08/18/2006 10:00:58 PM I will have to play with this a little too see if I like it. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Boingo raises $65M; The bulging pockets of New Enterprise Associates STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/17/2006 11:45:06 AM ----- BODY:
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Boingo, the southern California company that provides high-speed wireless access to hotel, airports and other public locales, has raised $65 million in a third round of funding. This is apparently a case of investment creep. Just last month, the company had filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission saying it had raised $26M of a planned $60M round (scroll down). But the amount has jumped by $5 million. So what's the big deal with a $5 million here, or $5 million there?
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New Enterprise Associates, one of the main investors in this company, is no pushover firm. It has a stellar decades-long track-record, with many hits under its belt. Scroll through its Website, and you will examples of this, with partners like "Kittu" Kolluri, who know how to build companies (Neoteris). We don't know enough about Boingo to second-guess this latest investment. The CEO is even saying that an IPO is in the cards, according to interviews we've seen, so things may be going quite well. BUT, we couldn't help noticing this is the latest in a string of cases where NEA has helped push huge amounts of cash into companies with business models that make you wonder... ----- EXTENDED BODY: NEA.jpgIn past stories, we've mentioned 1) SugarCRM, which initially appeared to be a low-burn open source customer relations management (CRM) software start-up, but that raised $18.77 million last year from a group of investors led by NEA, barely a year after being founded, 2) the bidding war over solar company SolFocus, which had planned to raise only $12.5M this year, but ended up with $32M, at a valuation at least five times higher than expected, once NEA got involved, 3) Alien, a radio ID company which pulled its IPO and is now laying people off, but after raising hundreds of millions, in part from NEA, and 4) Vonage, the VoIP provider which also raised hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it from NEA, which went public, but is now its stock tanking.
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NEA's Kramlich
NEA has long been among the largest of venture firms, and tends to invest more money than most into companies it backs. Recently, it raised the second largest fund in history, which puts even more pressure on it. Now take a look at the performance of NEA's two recent funds, via a link (you will have to scroll down) supplied by a commenter on our post yesterday about Crescendo Ventures. You will see that NEA is showing a negative 13.1 internal rate of return on its 1999 fund, a poor result which is to expected because funds raised in that year were right when the bubble was about to burst. The latter fund on the list, raised in 2000, is showing a positive 5.4 percent internal rate of return, which is pretty good for that rough year. A lot of this return is still "on paper," meaning it is only on NEA's internal books because some of its companies haven't been sold yet. But it suggests the firm is on target to return to its investors a net 5.4 percent each year since 2000. As for NEA's 2004 and 2006 funds, things are way too early to tell. So in all, the firm isn't doing too badly. And consider Vonage, where NEA invested in the company early, buying shares first at around 40 cents a piece, then again at 80 cents, and then again at $2.60 and a bunch more at $5.87. So NEA is still in the black on this investment, despite the fact that Vonage plunged badly after going public, to around $6.65 today.
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SMIC chart
So we will be the last to criticize NEA for its record. It is doing its job, and returning money to investors, at least so far. It is a firm that makes big bold bets, led by the boldest of them all, leader Dick Kramlich, whose own partners think he's crazy. He flew to China in 2002 and began investing $120M into Chinese chip company SMIC right before it went public. At first, It returned a profit for NEA (this almost a first, after centuries of white men losing their shirts over there). This is the glorious side of capitalism, which makes men strive, and should be commended. And yet tragically, the stock has tanked ever since, and we're not sure if NEA ever got its money out. We've put in calls and emailed the NEA folks over past few days, to talk this over each of these cases, but missed them -- because of vacation schedules and such. We hope to connect with them soon. We're left sitting here, wondering if the pump and dump is becoming a pattern? In fact, these may be just high-profile exceptions, and quite coincidental. So we could be misguided. But if it is a pattern, the downside, of course, is the pain it takes to get there (as Vonage, SMIC and Alien have shown). Growing too big too quickly is a theme that surfaces during bubbly times such as this. Be warned. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: New+Enterprise+Associates, Boingo, Vonage, Alien, SugarCRM, SMIC, Dick+Kramlich ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Todd Allen EMAIL: todd@toddallen.org IP: 216.33.203.233 URL: http://www.toddallen.org DATE: 08/17/2006 12:58:30 PM Speaking of big investments, they are also heavily involved with Motricity, who seems to be raising money every two months. (Now at 150-180 million) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Fan Tom EMAIL: withyou@expedia.com IP: 71.105.116.59 URL: DATE: 08/18/2006 01:12:26 PM NEA is on it's way to being a "has been" -- the $2.2 billion fund is just too big and will ruin the firm... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: CLEAN FRI STATUS: Draft ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/18/2006 05:37:29 AM ----- BODY: lot of good links from Rob day: http://cleantechvc.blogspot.com/2006/08/hycrete-kergy-and-other-news.html --- http://english.people.com.cn/200608/15/eng20060815_293103.html Doll Capital Management (DCM), a leading US-based venture capital firm, is trying to expand its footprint to traditional industries with its new US$500 million DCM V fund. "We are looking for opportunities in education, energy and medical institutions in China this year, continuing the investment emphasis on early stage technology companies," Hurst Lin, general partner of DCM, told China Daily in an exclusive interview. He was previously co-founder and chief operating officer of SINA Corporation and joined DCM early this year. VC firms typically pour their money into the information technology sector, Internet firms and telecom companies. But many are now turning to Web 2.0 technologies such as Blog, Instant Messenger (IM) and Social Network Software (SNS). "We are also interested in Web 2.0 technology, but the current entry cost is too high, raising more uncertainties for profits," Lin said. "Some traditional sectors, which are neglected by most VC firms, have more potential opportunities for us." According to him, there are two types of opportunities in traditional sectors: industries facing bottle-necks such as the energy sector where technologies for new and clean energy are badly needed; and sectors where efficiency could be boosted with applications, such as databases in educational institutions. "But the decisive factor is still the price," Lin added. "What we most care about is the premium between the buying and selling price --- San Diego-based BioRenewable Projects is testing “anaerobic digestion,” where dung from cows is mixed with food garbage to initiate an anaerobic digestion by bacteria that produces methane and carbon dioxide, which can be “cleaned up” and used to fuel industrial vehicles. Anaerobic digestion is the breakdown of organic matter by anaerobic organisms in environments lacking oxygen. The six-employee startup, co-founded recently by San Diegan Jerry Foster http://www.sdbj.com/industry_article.asp?aID=67930262.84317802.1349036.5246638.4361215.478&aID2=103763 --- http://www.evworld.com/rssnews.cfm?section=communique&rssid=12776 t remote U.S. military bases in Iraq, one of the most oil-rich countries in the world, American commanders are pleading for solar panels and wind generators to save the lives of troops forced to protect lengthy and vulnerable supply lines that wind through the country and feed the military's voracious fuel appetite. The urgent request for renewable energy systems was submitted July 25 by U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, who commands U.S. forces in western Iraq's restive Anbar province. The document pointed to the vulnerability of American supply lines to insurgent attack by ambush or roadside bombs, and said reducing the military's dependence on fuel for power generation could reduce the number of road-bound convoys. Electricity to power everything from computers to air conditioners on U.S. bases is by means of monstrous diesel-fueled generators kept running 24 hours a day. Feeding those generators -- and fueling the many vehicles used to patrol Iraq's roadways -- requires fuel convoys that originate as far away as Kuwait. The document said the majority of the supply convoys on Iraq's roads are carrying fuel. "Without this solution [renewable energy systems], personnel loss rates are likely to continue at their current rate. Continued casualty accumulation exhibits potential to jeopardize mission success," the request said. Coming as it does from ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Feeds2Be: Either you create an RSS feed, or you will be "scraped" STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/18/2006 07:46:38 AM ----- BODY:
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If your site doesn't do RSS, well, prepare for it to be "scraped." The barbarians are breaking down your gates. This is not entirely new, but the sheer number of operators who are doing this is eye-opening. We heard about the latest operation, Feeds2Bee, via Steve Rubel, who writes a great blog called MicroPersuasion, about the impact of social media on pubic relations, and who seems to find everything first (his name, btw, is pronounced like Rub-elle, with accent on the end), including spotting SiliconBeat when we first launched in late 2004. Here's what Steve says about Feeds2Be: ----- EXTENDED BODY:
An emerging category of tools has popped up that create RSS feeds for those sites that don't have any. Feeds2Be is powered by humans. They offer a directory of feeds. If it's not in the directory you can alert them and they will build a feed for the site you submit. Feed43 takes a different approach by creating them through HTML scraping.
There are a handful of other folks who are doing this, because the demand is so great. The majority of sites don't offer any sort of RSS syndicaton, but normal users are now wanting it. Feeds2Be is different because it does it by hand. Not that there's much you can do about Feeds2Be and Feed43. If they were wrapping adsense around your content, sure, that would be actionable. Or if they were offering full-text feeds, that may also be challengeable. But if they're offering your content in excerpts and creating links to the full content, that's fair use. So you may want to get up to speed yourself. We talked with Dor Shemer, who runs Feeds2Be. He doesn't plan to run this as a company, merely as a service, for free. He currently doesn't plan to make any money from it, though that could change if the right opportunity comes along. He does it on his spare time, and is feeling a little overwhelmed keeping up with all the requests he's getting. He's looking for people to help. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Steve+Rubel, Feeds2Be, Dor+Shemer ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tony M. EMAIL: tony@blogwerx.com IP: 69.241.192.59 URL: http://www.blogwerx.com DATE: 08/18/2006 09:56:10 AM Interesting, I find that scraping and plagiarism are huge within the blogosphere. Thus, I developed a solution that would pin-point duplicate content from a blog that had been plagiarised. What I am finding is that the community as a whole doesnt seem to see it as an real issue. Thus, Blogwerx and its first offering Sentinel will focus more so, when a blog post has been written, it will pin-point who is discussing your blog post utilizing some of its textual content. Is the blogs content placed on another blog? If it is then Sentinel would find it and pin-point it as duplicate content. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mark EMAIL: mark@markwoodman.com IP: 64.140.44.1 URL: http://inkblots.markwoodman.com DATE: 08/18/2006 09:56:14 AM Interesting, but does it work? Feeds2Be failed to discover your own feeds at http://www.siliconbeat.com . ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Dor Shemer EMAIL: contact@feeds2.be IP: 84.94.4.117 URL: http://feeds2.be DATE: 08/18/2006 11:26:54 AM Mark, Feeds2Be is not designed to be an RSS index or search engine, at least not for this current beta phase. The search features searches for feeds created by the site itself, and does not return a pre-existing feed. Therefore searching for siliconbeat should get you no results, as the site already has its own feed. However, searching for a site whose feed was created by Feeds2Be will have a result. I see this is a common misunderstanding among new users, which is why this feature will probably change in the next version. Dor, Feeds2Be administrator ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: nick gogerty EMAIL: nick@inclue.com IP: 71.133.63.46 URL: http://www.feedgit.com DATE: 08/18/2006 02:41:14 PM Creating webfeeds without spam, may be easier at www.feedgit.com ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Marshall EMAIL: marshall@techcrunch.com IP: 24.6.66.9 URL: http://techcrunch.com DATE: 08/22/2006 12:25:29 AM I like FeedFire.com, see also Wotzwot and Feedtier. Dappit.com too. This is a really useful class of tools, I think. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Question: Is Metcalfe's Law relevant? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/18/2006 07:51:11 AM ----- BODY: Metcalfe's Law says the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users of the system. Now folks are debating whether it can be applied to Web 2.0, with the critics saying it is dangerous, and the defenders saying it is valid. We were supposed to meet with Mike Hirshland, of Polaris Ventures today, but we ended up having to cancel. But he gave me the heads-up on a blog post, where the pros and cons are discussed, including a guest post by Bob Metcalfe, also a partner at Polaris, who coined the law.
The blogosphere has started bubbling some interesting discussion of how Metcalfe's Law applies to current Web 2.0 dynamics like social networking. Some IEEE types, Brad Feld, Niel Robertson, a PhD. student named Fred Stutzman, my partner Sim Simeonov, myself and a few others have posted on this in the last few weeks.
 We didn't think there are any laws on the Internet. But we point to the debate here, because it if it is relevant to Web 2.0, we'd like to hear about it. Is there anyone who thinks there's enough credence to Metcalfe's law to base decisions on? VCs, what would you think if an entrepreneur mentioned Metcalfe's law in his/her pitch? Would you keep listening, or show them the door? And entrepreneurs, has this debate given you any insights? ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Metcalfe's+Law, Mike+Hirshland, Bob+Metcalfe, Polaris+Ventures ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Fred Stutzman EMAIL: fred@metalab.unc.edu IP: 71.65.206.202 URL: http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/ DATE: 08/18/2006 09:03:20 AM My original post (referenced above) on how to more accurately use network effects to value social software is located here - http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2006/07/network-effect-multiplier-or-metcalfes.html I think there's a lot of value in using Metcalfe, but the logic has to be updated for the present situation - using someting I call the "Network Effect Multiplier". The network effect multiplier refers to the combination of the core economic value of a piece social software, more or less combined with the degree of value taken from the social experience. Hope this sheds some light on the discussion. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mike Hirshland EMAIL: mhirshland@polarisventures.com IP: 208.54.35.189 URL: http://www.vcmike.wordpress.com DATE: 08/18/2006 12:18:26 PM Fred, I think you are on to something. Yes, there is some value in a social network whose point is networking for networking's sake (more value in some contexts, like teens looking for a date or people looking to network professionally). But there probably will be more value where a web service offers a core proposition -- photos, travel, calendars, what have you -- and then layers in social features. I agree that is where you get a multiplier effect. But I also would add Bob's point -- that the value won't increase as much if you add lots and lots of users but don't offer tools to find others with affinity or shared interests. Where you have all 3 of these -- a core value proposition, social tools, and tools to enable discovery/networking of others with shared interests -- is where I think Web 2.0 and social networking starts to get interesting. And, I think there is a new crop of startups doing just this... ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Richard Bennett EMAIL: richard@bennett.com IP: 66.7.225.34 URL: http://bennett.com/blog DATE: 08/18/2006 02:15:37 PM Metcalfe's law is wrong. The value of a network is the square of the number of smart people on it minus the number of morons, idiots, flamers, and posers. This is Bennett's law of networks: v = (s^2) - (m + i + f + p) For many networks, v is a negative number, hence we have to introduce a filter that makes a virtual network out of a real network and reduces m + i + f + p to a term less than s squared. Metcalfe's Law suffers from the techno-uptopian idealism commonly expressed in tech cricles but never really believed. ----- PING: TITLE: Metcalfe’s Law 2.0 is Web 2.0 URL: http://nsputnik.com/?p=93 IP: 70.84.119.226 BLOG NAME: n.sputnik/Nick Dynice DATE: 08/21/2006 12:10:07 PM A couple weeks ago I wrote about how Metcalf’s Law appears to not be correct when the network becomes too populated. Recently, people have been saying in no longer makes sense or questioning wheather the law still makes sense in the face of Web 2.0.... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Second life holds convention in SF -- so users can get...a life STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/18/2006 08:24:49 AM ----- BODY:
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The increasingly popular virtual world site, Second Life, which lets online users fly, build homes or simply have sex, is holding a convention this weekend in SF. There are some 400 people expected at the event. We find irony in an off-line conference for people who prefer escapism. The site has hundreds of thousands of users. But we don't want to belittle it. Second Life has, surprisingly, become a sophisticated economy with "hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of transactions conducted each week." As we've mentioned before, users in Second Life create most of the content, and make money by selling it to others willing to buy it. Check out this chart of daily blog mentions about Second Life (found via Rubel). . . . ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: hunter EMAIL: hunterwalk@gmail.com IP: 65.57.245.11 URL: http://elapsedtime.blogspot.com DATE: 08/18/2006 12:29:08 PM One of the interesting themes will be the trend of real life brands getting involved. In just the last few months, American Apparel, X-Men 3, NPR, Major League Baseball, Universal Records, BBC, and Starwood Hotels have all launched events or created a presence in Second Life. (disclosure: ex-Second Life employee and general fan) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Harshal Vaidya EMAIL: harshalvaidya@yahoo.com IP: 151.191.175.194 URL: http://www.lakhpatipage.com DATE: 08/18/2006 01:02:19 PM Main reason for secondlife's popularity is that people want to do whatever they couldn't do in real life. Involvement of these brands and other entities will convert that virgin virtual environment into the same environment like real life which they want to escape. I guess no real life things should be allowed in there. Dunno whether you guys would agree. ----- PING: TITLE: 虚拟世界网站Second life举办现实聚会 URL: http://blog.csdn.net/tl_ang/archive/2006/08/22/1106033.aspx IP: 211.100.21.184 BLOG NAME: 实践 DATE: 08/22/2006 02:01:07 AM Second Life是一个渐渐火起来的虚拟世界网站，让用户逃避现实，在网上成家立业，或者过性生活，正是这样一个网站，本周末在旧金山举办一次大会。 ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Roundup -- Digg Video, Top-videos site, Yahoo Photos, Zune, YouTube STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/18/2006 08:52:52 AM ----- BODY: Digg adds video thumbnails -- We were waiting for Digg to do this, because of all the other sites popping up with Digg-like features to rank items like videos, such as Fanpop. See Digg Videos here.
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Digg's video section now features preview thumbnails of YouTube and Google Video content. Why don't they go ahead and embed the full video right on the Digg article page? (Via Blogoscoped) "WorldTV Internet TV Charts" wants to be the meta-video site -- Its site, WorldTV.com, tracks the most popular online video clips across four sites (Google Video, YouTube, Digg Videos, and Videosift). Ironic, perhaps, but the results seem oddly uniform. Lots of "girl" videos. Yahoo Photos has facelift -- See Yahoo Photos here. There's photo-tagging and sharing features, much like Flickr, which Yahoo has acquired. Even as the sites become more similar, they remain seperate and there are no plans to merge them. Yahoo Photos is also offering you drag-and-drop now, and has also opened its APIs to developers Video site YouTube is making "significant revenues" -- That's what chief executive Chad Hurley said at Digital Hollywood in San Jose. This is relevant because the perceived problem for YouTube until now has been inability to make money. Word is, YouTube is burning through serious cash for video hosting costs, and whispers about the problem continue because the company has refused to comment on it.
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Zune
Gizmodo has an exclusive on Mirosoft's music player, the Zune -- It shows a picture and describes it in detail. It mentions the scroll wheel isn't a wheel, however, and so "kinda sucks." But until we try it, we'll wait and see. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Zune, Digg+Video, Yahoo+Photos, WorldTV+Internet+TV, YouTube ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: The Tesla Roadster taken for a spin; and its "gut-wrenching" VC roadshow STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/18/2006 12:31:24 PM ----- BODY:
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Matt Nauman of the Mercury News is the first newspaper reporter to test the sexy Tesla Roadster, the Silicon Valley all-electric vehicle . He took the $100,000-priced Tesla for a spin at the Pebble Beach Concourse Tour yesterday, a comfy but ambling drive through the Montery Peninsula down to Big Sur -- all just south of Silicon Valley. Here is his review -- and he likes it -- even if he didn't get to put the pedal to the metal. It felt like sailboat. A lot of stories about Tesla have come from technology beat reporters, and not auto reporters like Matt, who are accustomed to giving grueling product reviews. Even Matt didn't get to take it for a real spin. Some have said this is equivalent to a computer company introducing a new product and not inviting technology reporters. So, aided with some questions supplied us by experts, we decided to ask a couple more tough auto-centric/performance questions of the Tesla spokesman Mike Harrigan. He answered them pretty well. SiliconBeat: You report an exceptional four-second 0-60 mph performance time. Fine, but this a battery car. How does the car perform during the second or third time you try 0-60? Harrigan: When it is fully charged, it will keep doing it in four seconds. When the battery is down a little bit, it becomes a problem, but only when it is half way down. Something like the 40th or 50th time -- and that may not be a big enough number. ----- EXTENDED BODY: SiliconBeat: How do cold or extreme climates affect battery performance? Harrigan: In extreme cold, as in below zero, the battery needs to heat before you use it. It has a built-in system that let's you do that. It takes about 15 or 20 minutes. In extreme hot weather, we have a way to chill it. There's a loop that cools the battery while you're driving it -- for optimum battery life. SiliconBeat: What are the car experts saying about the Tesla? Harrigan: We're starting to get credibility with people. They're looking under the hood, and they're saying it's real. [At Tesla], we have people with backgrounds in the auto industry working alongside Silicon Valley engineers. We took the car down to Santa Monica. There was an event, arranged with the Petersen Museum, which has one of the biggest car collections in the world. The executive director, Dick Messer, came by and said he wants to buy on. SIliconBeat: How do popular accessories (air conditioning, electric seats/windows/navigation systems, etc.) affect battery performance? Harrigan: Our mileage statistics include all of those...If you leave the lights on by accident, the battery would run down in three months. There's manual adjustment for seats. There's cruise-control, power breaks and optional navigation system. It can't run without air-conditioning, otherwise it will get too hot. SiliconBeat: How long will a battery pack last? How does its performance curve decrease over its useful life? What is the battery pack's replacement cost? Harrigan: The expected battery life is 5 years or 100,000 miles. We consider the battery's end of life is when it reaches 80 percent of original capacity when recharged. The batteries are quite expensive. Today they cost $20,000. Over the next four or five years, we expect prices to come down substantially -- to the $12,000 range. They're coming down 8 percent a year recently. The cells we use in the battery packet are used in lots of different things, like laptops and power tools. SiliconBeat: What has changed in battery technology that would make them viable in a volume market today? Harrigan: Until lithium ion came to market, the power-to-weight ratio of older batteries was not high enough. Our pack weighs 900 pounds. With old nickel metal hydride batteries, you'd be talking about 3,000 pounds of batteries. Lithium ion batteries get 250 miles, and that exceeds their daily requirements. Previous electric vehicles sometimes went as few as 40 miles. SiliconBeat: Electric vehicles are often touted for their environmental friendliness. However, studies often show high amounts of energy used to create many of the driveline (and battery) components, and the difficulty in disposal and recycling... Harrigan: In the energy used, there's certainly a net win. Sure, you can ask, "Are these batteries polluting when you throw it away?" They are made of lithium ion, and you can throw them away in a land-fill. But there's lot's of recovery material, too. They're built to be recycled. That's been built into the cost of car. They'll be recycled. You can ask: "Isn't recharging batteries taking electricity generated from dirty coal power plants?" They're more efficient than gasoline, where only 18 percent of the thermal energy is actually converted to power, with the rest thrown into atmosphere in the form of heat. The worst coal plants have a 45 percent conversion rate. SiliconBeat: Any added danger due to the materials in the battery packs? Harrigan: With a battery pack with 50 kilowatt hours of energy into it, there's a lot you want to do to ensure a safe situation. The battery pack sits inside of metal closure that's sealed. They have a computer that does nothing other than monitors safety conditions. If you're in car, and something happens -- you get submerged in water, or there's an impact -- the battery gets disconnected. It's like a big circuit-breaker, that would shut off in an earthquake or flood. The computer monitors flooding, fire, smoke, crashes, upside-down..... SiliconBeat: How does the Tesla perform in government crash tests (front-, side- and offset impact)? Harrigan: We're in the process of performing them right now. Six of them will be crashed, two of them durability tested. We've only done one of them so far. It passed fine. SiliconBeat: Does the Tesla have front and side air bags? Harrigan: Yes. The company just had $50 million of venture capital poured into it, a lot of it to ensure we have these systems and that the car could pass safety inspections. SiliconBeat: In addition to driveline expertise, does your company have mechanical engineering and mass production expertise? Harrigan: The company has 60 to 70 engineers. (It has 80 total employees in San Carlos, 20 in the UK.) Of our engineering organization, probably half of them are mechanical engineers. And of those, half of them directly out of the auto indsutry. SiliconBeat: How did venture capitalists treat you when you were looking for cash? Harrigan: It was a pretty gut-wrenching round. There were a lot of firms we talked with, a lot of different terms. One prominent firm wanted to do deal, but wouldn't give us the valuation we wanted. We weren't benefiting from all this good publicity lately. With the product being launched, and the positive response we've gotten, it would be a lot easier for us to raise venture capital right now. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: jim forbes EMAIL: jim.forbed@gmail.com IP: 70.218.81.90 URL: http://www.forbesontech.typepad.com DATE: 08/18/2006 03:28:07 PM the Los Angeles Times Pulitzer prize winning auto writer.reviewer, Dan neil did a eview several weeks ago. Neil is one of the best writers in the country today. Jim Forbes ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Matt Marshall EMAIL: mmarshall@mercurynews.com IP: 63.80.159.129 URL: http://www.SiliconBeat.com DATE: 08/19/2006 10:09:07 AM Fair enough, I will have to look for the link. I was taking Matt Nauman's word on this, though I know he was referring specifically to being first newspaper guy to "test" the car, which is distinct from simply "reviewing" it. Also, I'd been waiting myself several weeks for Matt's test drive (I knew it was coming) before publishing this interview, so yes, there may have been a few more reviews since then. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jim Forbes EMAIL: jim.forbes@gmail.com IP: 207.200.116.11 URL: http://www.forbesontech.typepad.com DATE: 08/19/2006 12:24:10 PM Dan Neil is one of two reviewers/writers at the LA Times. The other is a woman who covers motorcyles. Neil is phenomenal and a real joy to read. His Pulitzer was a first for an auto writer/reviewer and was well deserved. best, jim Forbes ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mike Rogero EMAIL: mike@rogero.com IP: 61.49.33.61 URL: DATE: 08/20/2006 09:46:19 PM Note, the SNS newsletter covered this car and their CEO two months ago, well before the mainstream press took a look at it! Looks like another scoop by Mark Anderson! It was a good article by Matt, but personally I like that I knew about this car long before this article came out. Great job Mark. Mike Rogero Beijing, China ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: rsd EMAIL: sphinxmachina@hotpop.coma IP: 61.95.174.98 URL: http://codernama.blogspot.com DATE: 08/21/2006 08:20:17 AM Mike, Matt: Nice interview. Excellent, relevant quesitons. Well done indeed. RSD. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Farecast, the airfare predictor, launches nationwide STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/20/2006 09:00:00 PM ----- BODY:
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Farecast, the start-up that predicts whether airfares are about to go up or down, has launched nationwide. We wrote about this useful service in late June, when the company launched a test version covering flights originating from Seattle or Boston. As of Monday, it covers 1,800 markets, including 55 origination cites -- including San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose -- for our readers in Silicon Valley. Farecast, backed with $7 million from Greylock and others, shows whether the lowest fares for the trip are rising or falling over the next seven days. It takes into account past experience, and lets you know the degree of certainty it has in its prediction. Take, for example, a search for San Francisco to Kauai. You will get a page that looks like the one below (click to enlarge, for partial screenshot). It advises you to buy, because it predicts with 80 percent certainty that prices will increase over the next seven days; It also shows prices are at a two-month low. Airline tickets are one of the big-ticket expenses we face every year, and which we seem to have the least knowledge about. If we delay our ticket-buying plans by a week, we've found ourselves paying $300 more-- or sometimes less -- than had we booked the week before. Farecast helps crack this opaque process, using historical patterns as its prime guide. Farecast has unveiled an additional feature: A way for you to subscribe to regular alerts (via an RSS feed) that tracks the going fare for your chosen route, plus predictions. Advertising is contextually driven. If you are flying to Chicago, Farecast will show ads about Chicago hotels or rental car companies. Farecast's VP of Marketing Mike Fridgen said hundreds of thousands of people have already accessed the site. Some 50,000 people clicked its "add my city" button since the company launched two months ago. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Farecast, Mike+Fridgen, Greylock+Partners ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Friendster raises $10 million more; Facebook valued at $500M? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/21/2006 06:32:42 AM ----- BODY:
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Friendster, the early social-networking company that got overtaken by companies like MySpace and Facebook, isn't giving up. Its traffic is recovering, even if it is still behind the leaders. And its backers are steadfast: Kleiner Perkins and Benchmark, the two Silicon Valley venture firms that originally invested in the company, are joining DAG Ventures, to invest $10 million more into the company, according to the WSJ today. In the piece, the company doesn't reveal much new in terms of strategy. As already signaled, it intends to focus on adults in their 20s and 30s instead of competing to attract younger audiences. The investment comes after a recapitalize it with $3.1 million investment earlier this year. Also of note: The WSJ story says: "Facebook, of Palo Alto, raised $25 million in a third round of financing in April that valued the company at $500 million, according to a person familiar with the matter." ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Friendster, DAG+Ventures, Kleiner+Perkins, Benchmark+Capital ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: In the Know EMAIL: ahsan.malik@gmail.com IP: 66.80.15.236 URL: DATE: 08/21/2006 10:47:47 AM Facebook's valuation was actually more like $750MM. Which implies that the investors are looking for an exit valuation of ~$3-4Bn. Could that be what's behind their opening up to corporations and high schools in a stab to grab as many users as MySpace? In the process they've begun to piss off their core constituency (college kids). Valuation-driven business strategy NEVER succeeds.... ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Techcrunch Party VII -- the bare essentials STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/21/2006 10:21:49 AM ----- BODY: Updated
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Seven hundred guests went to the Techcrunch party Friday evening. The event was held at the headquarters of venture capital firm August Capital, on Sand Hill Road -- ground zero of Silicon Valley's money world. Most of the evening, engineers, VCs, chief executives and marketing types schmoozed over wine and snacks. The police showed up at midnight to shut the place down, although we are uncertain why. There are few residents in the area. Perhaps they caught wind of this character below, who had walked around in the nude earlier? (Photo courtesy of Thomas Hawk). Does anyone know if he picked up the $200 bounty for the stunt? Here are some Flickr photos labeled Techcrunch7.
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Sidenote: It is the only party we've been to where there there's a line for the Men's bathroom, and none for the women's. Updated: Bryan Quinn, of SpyMedia, confirms the streaker photo was purchased by "Silicon Valley Guy" late last night for $200. This "streaker" also managed to have someone film it as well (for some, this will be disappointingly tame). We were just talking with a friend who checked out some of the party's coverage after not being able to make it. He observed that something has changed in the valley, with the advent of all this alternative media. It has become a bit like Los Angeles. People are running around with cameras, camcorders, microphones, and there is this buzz factor you pick up by being seen with certain people.
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Valleywag and Scoble are two of the culprits, but there are many more. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Techcrunch ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jim Forbes EMAIL: jim.forbes@gmail.com IP: 68.111.169.15 URL: http://www.forbesontech.typepad.com DATE: 08/21/2006 04:45:35 PM What do you mean the Valley is "becoming like Los Angeles?" It's been worse than Los Angeles for at least decade.There are more publicists in the Valley than there are in LA, there are more self-serving "news" outlets in the Valley than in LA. But at least LA can and does laugh at itself. The Valley doesn't seem to be able to do that very well. best, Jim Forbes (an old retired reporter who worked in LA and "The Valley.") ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: hollyster EMAIL: hollyster@gmail.com IP: 64.236.139.249 URL: http://monkeynotions.com/blog DATE: 08/21/2006 06:07:53 PM I *totally* think it's like Hollywood: Venture Capitalists = Studio Execs Funded Startups = A Listers Non Funded Startups = B Listers Folks looking for a startup = Groupies And yes, there was a line to the men's restroom... in the video below (at the end): http://monkeynotions.com/blog/2006/08/20/taste-of-techcrunch/ Maybe we *are* starting to laugh at ourselves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGGYPJUV4CA ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Feed Crier, Kiko -- the innovative beat goes on, without spending millions STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/21/2006 10:43:07 PM ----- BODY: Feed Crier is a new service that lets you subscribe to blogs or other content within your instant messager (IM). Feed Crier intends to be your instant news reader. Right now, it lets you subscribe to any RSS feed using your AOL instant messenger account, but author Adam Kalsey says he plans to expand the service to other IM services. This way, you can stay on top of job listings from Craigslist as they come in -- or breaking news, or favorite blogs, whatever. We find Kalsey's start-up philosophy noteworthy. He co-founded Emeryville-based Pheedo, but left last fall. He then started Tagyu, we wrote about here last year, a service that auto-suggested tags, and which we wondered was really a stand-alone product. Well, Kalsey started wondering too, and he soon pulled the plug and moved on to the next thing. He is based in Sacramento, and says he's working on these projects on the side. It's easy to take an idea and execute on it, and see if it sticks, he says. If it doesn't, you can move on -- that way, you haven't invested millions, or even thousands of dollars.
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Kalsey
Kalsey is offering Feed Crier for free, but charges $4 for a premium version which lets you subscribe to more feeds. He is also selling a branded version, where say, the Mercury News can offer the service to its readers directly without the Feed Crier name being associated with it. We asked him whether he thought this project is a full-fledged business, and he said it is too early to tell. Techcrunch mentions competitors, including Peter Brown's immedi.at, Eduard Sherstnev's Zaptxt and the most "sophisticated of them all," Rasasa, from the Netherlands -- so we will see if Kalsey has staying power. kiko.jpgHere, we also note the story of Kiko, an online calendar service that apparently got killed by Google's calendar. (Yet another competitor, 37Signals, scorns the notion that competition from Google was the problem, because 37Signals' own calendar has survived; but that is a different story). But the point is that advisor Paul Graham, via his incubator Y Combinator, is funding the next project of the Kiko founders:
There's another encouraging point here for the new generation of web startups. Failure is not a disaster when you're very light. The total amount raised by Kiko in its existence would be about six months' salary for a first-rate developer. There's a good chance they'll recover most of it by selling their code. They only had one employee besides themselves. So this is not an expensive, acrimonious flameout like used to happen during the Bubble. They tried hard; they made something good; they just happened to get hit by a stray bullet. Ok, so try again. Y Combinator funded their new idea yesterday.
Our emphasis. Kiko is going for $50,000 on eBay, as has been noted elsewhere. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Kiko, Feed+Crier, Adam+Kalsey, Paul+Graham ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Guba cuts prices on legal movies; can it make money? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/22/2006 06:30:24 AM ----- BODY:
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Guba, the private San Francisco video site, is making serious headway in signing up Hollywood content and offering it in fresh ways. Yesterday, for example, Guba announced it had slashed prices for library of hit movies and TV programs, allowing users -- albeit for a "limited time" -- to buy downloadable movies for $9.99 on the same day the movie is released on DVD. Users can buy catalog movie titles for $4.99 and TV shows for 49 cents. Guba swears it is the only company offering discounted pricing right now -- so is undercutting other places like Movielink and CinemaNow. Guba is offering rental options as well. It's too early to see how Guba will do, with existing players likely to respond, and new giants (Apple, Amazon, etc) in the process of entering. But 33-year-old Tom McInerney is not wasting time. We will commend him on his Porsche again, if this is what makes him go so fast. Of course, a new player like Guba will need a little publicity boost to get ahead -- so we'll have to see what "limited time" means, and whether it can make money off these lower prices. And it's not one of these rip-off deals, where the library is bare. Over the past couple of months, Guba has signed with Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and Sony to deliver their content. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: YouTube showcases Paris in new homepage ad; and check out "PodTube" STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/22/2006 07:26:44 AM ----- BODY: Updated
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Paris
YouTube, trying to make more money, has introduced a major advertisement on its homepage. It kicks off with Paris Hilton's debut album, Paris, released today. YouTube is beginning to look more like Google. The ad is on the right-hand side, and the ad will rise and fall on the page, depending on how relevant the ad is with YouTube's users. In this case, the YouTube community will do more heavy lifting than Google's. Users rate the ad, share it and comment on it -- which determine the ad's placement. The Merc story today is here. At the top of this first Paris video you will see that it is sponsoed by Fox Broadcasting Company's "Prison Break," the second season of which premiered Monday. It is what YouTube is calling its "participatory video ad" concept. Additionally, YouTube has created a "brand channel" concept, which in this case means that it has created a special seperate channel for Paris, at http://youtube.com/ParisHilton This is the latest in YouTube's efforts to boost its advertising, which already includes banner ads, promotions and various sponsorships.
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While we're mentioning YouTube, check out Djodjodesign's PodTube, which allows you to download YouTube videos on to your Video iPod. If this develops and the iPod can easily download YouTube vidoes, then why would Apple need to buy YouTube, which is what some people are suggesting over at GigaOm? It would be sort of like eBay's acquisition of Skype. There's no real integration play here, because iPod users can view YouTube vidoes for free -- without any acquisition -- just as eBay's users can use Skype for free anyway. The only reason for an acquisition by Apple of YouTube would be to tap into YouTube's revenue growth early -- which could be substantial if YouTube can exploit more Paris Hiltons. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: YouTube, Paris+Hilton, PodTube ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Cisco buys Arroyo -- a back-end TiVo -- and is now really in your living-room STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/22/2006 09:27:06 AM ----- BODY:
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San Jose router giant Cisco has acquired Arroyo for $92 million, to help Cisco serve videos to you in your home. It is the latest in a surge of investments by Cisco to control access to your living-room video viewing. We've written about Arroyo several times before: It is kind of like a giant TiVo located in the cable operator's network, as opposed to being in the home -- effectively giving consumers access to thousands of hours of programming without needing to schedule recording. The two main guys leading Cisco's ruckus in the living-room are pictured below. They are Ned Hooper, who is head of Cisco's biz dev, at left, and his right-hand man, Charles Carmel, standing in back. (Courtesy of Merc photographer Karen Borchers, who took the photo back in June, when we wrote this post. and linked to a bigger story about the Cisco campaign to takeover your living-room).
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Cisco's Ned Hooper, Charles Carmel
Arroyo has raised around $27 million in VC funding from firms like Foundation Capital, Comcast Interactive Capital, DCM-Doll Capital Management, Matrix Partners and Time Warner Investments. Here is the Mercury News story about the today's Arroyo deal and what it means. We mentioned back in July that Cisco was looking at the Arroyo, once Motorola snapped up a related video server company, Broadbus. Mountain View's Kasenna, which raised $15 million more than two years ago, is also offering a similar technology. Update: There's a snap analysis in comments, about how much investors made on this deal. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Arroyo, Cisco, Broadbus, Motroloa, Kasenna ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: sunlite EMAIL: sunlite@gmail.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/22/2006 10:48:07 AM Setting aside for the moment the strategic questions re: technology and Cisco's plans, it's worth considering the financial returns for the investors and employees in light of the recent discussion on Crescendo and Worldview's travails. Arroyo raised $25M+. Series A (including angels) about $13M closed around Jan'04, Series B $12M in Mar'05. After three+ years of work, the exit was for $72M total. Those are the (rough) facts. This part is a bit speculative though tied with the above facts and general investor terms, it has some basis as well. With a $72M exit Arroyo's Series B investors get approx 2X over 14 months and Series A gets approx 3X-4X over 36+ months, which is a decent return. After investors liquidation preferences and such it's unclear what employees got but it doesn't look like gazillions. There were some changes at the CEO level before they brought in the current CEO to position the company for an exit. Worth keeping an eye out for CEO's carve-outs as it is a little-reported (mal)practice that VCs and compliant executives engage in at the cost of other shareholders. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: sunlite EMAIL: sunlite@gmail.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/22/2006 10:57:13 AM Errata: Exit was $92M, not $72M. Rest of logic/analysis applies. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: NumberCruncher EMAIL: sunlite@gmail.com IP: 63.192.132.250 URL: DATE: 08/22/2006 05:13:58 PM Some fun financial analysis on this deal. Exit less money in, which is returned to investors first, is ($92M minus $27M) which leaves $65M for distribution. Assume Series B got 1.5X returns on their $12M investment. That leaves $65M-$18M = $47M for others. Assume Series A got 2.25X on their $15M investment. That leaves $47M-$34M = $13M for common shareholders (founders, management, employees, consultants, etc.) Here's the "fun" part. The CEO and his select crony executives get their pound of flesh carved out for them before anyone else. Assume that takes out $5M. $13M-$5M is $8M for the remaining 40+ individuals including founders, other executives, employees and other common shareholders. Looks like the investors made a decent return, the CEO (and other compliant executives that got carve-outs) can laugh to the bank, and the employees and founders have to continue working for a living. Now you can understand why some CEOs pipe up to support VCs (who in return dish out carve-outs). Note: the numbers get bleaker if you assume the Series B demanded a 2X and the Series A a 3X return on their investments, which is customary. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: grunge -- delusion STATUS: Draft ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/22/2006 01:07:50 PM ----- BODY: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/30/MNGEUK86BI1.DTL&hw=hubpages&sn=001&sc=1000 Grunge, w/ great quote from stanford profe about obsession, and collective delusion... ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Rejecting VCs, gaming company iWin raises $5M from angels STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/22/2006 01:16:25 PM ----- BODY: Updated
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iWin, a San Francisco online gaming company that offers puzzle, card and game-show online games, has raised $5 million in a third round of funding from angel investors and individuals. Among iWin's more popular games is Jewel Quest, which has seen hundreds of thousands of downloads. Chief exec CJ Wolf said his team is experienced enough to decide it wasn't worth taking venture capital at this point. Venture capitalists were likely to want a large ownership of the company, for a lower price than the iWin team wanted, he said. "The object was to stay away from the whole VC community," he said. "We didn't see the added value of bringing on a VC" -- although that might change down the road as the company grows, he said. PE Week reported on a regulatory filing a few days ago that suggested the money was raised from venture firms Clarity Partners, Nazem and Ridgewood. That was wrong, Wolf said. Those investors had backed an earlier company called iWin back in 1999, but that was a different company. CJ Wolf founded Next Game in 2001, and acquired the iwin.com domain in 2003, and then took over the name. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: iWin, CJ+Wolf ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Betram STATUS: Draft ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/22/2006 02:09:56 PM ----- BODY: Bertram Capital has raised $250 million for its debut venture fund. The Palo Alto firm, led by Jeff Drazan, formerly of Sierra Ventures and his brother Ken, will be investing in later stag growth equity fund just two months after it started soliciting commitments. The newly formed Bertram Capital attracted 16 investors to its fund, including lead investors Lehman Brothers, which contributed $35 million. The firm received 60% of its capital from investors of Sierra Ventures, the former firm of Bertram founder Jeff Drazan. Bertram was set up last year by Drazan and his brother, Ken, who founded drug company Arginox Pharmaceuticals Inc. Bertram has since hired four vice presidents: Michael Chang, Ryan Craig, Jared Ruger and Joe Tou. It also recruited controller Ingrid Swenson, who formerly worked with Mayfield. Drazan announced he was leaving Sierra Ventures last year, but vowed to stay with the firm until it finished deploying the capital in its eighth fund. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Israel STATUS: Draft ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/22/2006 02:15:38 PM ----- BODY: piece by friedman about israel investment ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Roundup -- Facebook's notes, Box.net, and other news STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/22/2006 03:30:25 PM ----- BODY:
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Facebook continues to loosen up its once-rigid ways, and is now even letting its users blog -- Well, not quite. It is letting them add "notes," the preferred term, to their profile page, including text, photos, tags, and comments -- something Liz over at GigaOm got an early look at. Members can also pull in the content from other blogs, too. You can tag the notes with another user's name, so the notes are delivered to them too. Notes can be posted by mobile phone. Techcrunch notes you are unable to embed videos, though, or to write in javascript for other programming needs Amazon is about to get unveil video download store -- See details here and here. Storage company Box.Net raises $1.5M -- The Berkeley online file storage service, which signaled in May it was ready to raise cash, has already raised $1.5 million in a first round of funding, according to a regulatory filing. It was led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. We wrote about Box.net's immigration to Silicon Valley here. Don't be fooled into buying a .mobi url for your mobile users -- Techdirt suggests it is somewhat of a scam. Palm will unveil the latest version of its Treo smart phone next month -- Palm, the Silicon Valley smart-phone manufacturer, said last month the new version will operate Vodafone's high-speed third generation (3G) network and be powered by Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Why are the terms of the Google book deal with the University of California secret? -- UC is backed in part by taxpayers, but Jeff Ubois (of Berkeley) notes the terms of the Google deal were arrived at with no public input:
The University of California’s secret agreement with Google for book digitization promises to improve access to parts of its library collections, but the contractual restrictions UC has accepted may enrich Google’s shareholders at public expense...
 (Via Dave Winer) In other news: --San Jose's wireless phone chip-maker GCT Semiconductor takes $5 million, much of it from Japanese phone carrier, DoCoMo. IT serves new 3G networks, such as cellular/WiFi convergence. --SiBeam, of Sunnyvale, a developer of high-speed wireless communication platforms, has raised $21 million in a second round of funding. Foundation Capital led the deal, and was joined by exisiting backers New Enterprise Associates and U.S. Venture Partners. --Matisse Networks, a Mountain View provider of "optical burst switching" technology, has raised $7.5 million of a $17.13 million second round, according to PE Week, citing a regulatory filing. Backers include Menlo Ventures, Walden International and Woodside Fund. --Software company Salesforce has acquired San Francisco's Kieden, a start-up that lets Salesforce users track their Google AdWords campaigns. ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: Facebook, Box.net, Amazon, Palm, .mobi, GCT, Salesforce, Kieden, Matisse, SiBeam ----- -------- AUTHOR: Matt Marshall TITLE: Arrington, blogging for bucks, and SV media circus continued STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ ALLOW PINGS: 1 DATE: 08/22/2006 03:44:01 PM ----- BODY:
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Interesting story about Techcrunch author Michael Arrington at Business 2.0 today. This is amusing, because a woman exclaimed to us at the Techcrunch party the other night that it was the first time she'd ever seen Michael in a shirt and slacks when the shirt was tucked in. Now here he is in a power suit and cigar. Too bad, though, that the Silicon Valley media circus continues in its bubbly ways (Valleywag takes note). Wonder how they checked the "1.5 million regular" reader reference? There's no attribution. Biz 2.0 just states it as fact, similar to BW's $60 million fact for Digg's Kevin Rose. You put all that aside, though, and Michael has worked hard, and we could see this was going to be big a while back. He has done a tremendous job; congrats are in order. Just hopes he keeps grounded -- but more importantly, holds to our scheduled lunch meeting in a couple of days ;)
[Michael] Arrington, a 36-year-old entrepreneur behind a long list of unrecognizable startups, has suddenly become one of the rising stars of Silicon Valley. Why? The answer lies in TechCrunch, Arrington's blog about new technologies and companies. In the year since he launched the site, he's become a go-to person for VCs and tech execs looking to leak corporate tidbits or announce news. More than 1.5 million readers regularly check out his site. Michael Arrington's TechCrunch has seen a 10-fold rise in revenue since the start of this year. But here's what gives Arrington real distinction: He's pulling in $60,000 in ad revenue every month. That's 10 times what the site was making earlier this year, which was when Arrington, convinced of the potentially monstrous riches ahead, quit his day job as president of a startup to blog full-time...
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