News & Analysis
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Groupon is a hungry shark. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.
In the world of e-commerce, Groupon is a shark: It must constantly move forward to survive. The company started out as a business offering local daily deals through email. It was briefly one of the fastest growing companies on record, but as the daily-deal market soured Groupon moved away from email and daily deals. Last quarter, less than half... -
Verizon doesn’t care about BlackBerry or Windows Phone — it just wants to beat the iPhone
It seems that Thorsten Heins and Steve Ballmer — the chief executives of BlackBerry and Microsoft, respectively — have a friend in Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead, who praised both companies‘ mobile efforts during an investor conference earlier today. Before Heins and Ballmer start struttin’ their stuff, however, they might want to consider why Mead is so excited about... -
Life after “Shark Tank” — The real story of how UniKey finally came to market
“Shark Tank”…? You have to be fucking kidding me. Even if he was too polite to say it, that’s what John Frankel was thinking five months ago when one of his limited partners called him to suggest he try to invest in UniKey – a company he’d just seen on the popular TV show. Frankel is a real VC after... -
The craftsman, the prop master, the boy, and the 3D printer
3D printers have a long way to go before we’ll be fabricating our own clothes, car parts, and assault weapons at home, although one man claims to have printed his own gun. For the most part, though, they’ve been used primarily by DIYers to create keepsakes and curiosities like this buddha frog, plastic “beer served here” sign,
Audi’s new “Star Trek” ad and 6 other sci-fi commercials
Audi’s newest car commercial pits old Spock vs new Spock, as actors Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto race each other to the country club to see who’s paying for lunch. (See? Celebrities are just like us!) On the surface, it’s a cute ploy that plays off next week’s release of the highly-anticipated CGI-delivery-system “Star Trek: Into Darkness.” But...
Meet New York’s first enterprise-focused accelerator, backed by the governor
NYC SeedStart has been operating an accelerator since 2010, graduating two classes. But but over the last year the program has been dormant, until now. With the help of $550,000 grant from the office of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and The New York City Regional Economic Development Council, the SeedStart accelerator has been revived with a...
The C in CEO should stand for “custodian of the vision”
Up until a couple years ago, I equated the job of CEO with serving the needs of various stakeholders (customers, employees, investors, etc.). Like most CEOs, I learned that it’s virtually impossible to serve all of these, at times, competing interests. Not only is it impossible to please everyone but many stakeholders are notoriously short-sighted and reactionary. They’re like a...
Let geeks choose their own ice cream
You’d be forgiven for thinking that we’ve reached peak #firstworldproblems after reading just some of the back-and-forth on Web browsers, mobile operating systems, and the ability to designate default applications for certain tasks. I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else, what with all my excitement about Google making it easier for iPhone users to stay within its...
Chromatik continues to make beautiful music with a $5.7 million (and growing) Series A
Since launching into private beta a year ago and landing the house band of “American Idol” as an early client, music practice and performance platform Chromatik has been punching above its weight class. The company continued this trend when it landed Grammy-winning artist Bruno Mars, Virgin Records co-chairman Jeff Ayeroff, and other music industry heavyweights as investors...
Klout Experts: Has Klout finally come up with something users will love?
Back in January I wrote about how LinkedIn was the patron saint of the also-ran social network with slower growth and fewer users, but hopefully a greater value proposition for each of them. I mentioned Path, Nextdoor, and Foursquare as examples, but I missed a big one: Klout. LinkedIn has always provided a clear monetizable utility, when it comes...
Movable Ink goes big on “live” email marketing with $11 million Series B
If you’d asked Vivek Sharma last year about the the future of his email marketing startup, Movable Ink, he’d have said the company was likely on track to sell itself to one of the larger companies in its market — Constant Contact, VerticalResponse, MailChimp, etc. But the last few months have changed his mind. Since hiring his first sales...
Media Rorschach: It’s in the footnotes
I’m what you might call a footnotes geek. As soon as I finish reading a book I head to the back to sift through source citations. I’m curious what materials authors have used to support their research. What’s more there’s inspiration to be found in the footnotes. You can stumble across a nugget about some obscure person who did something...
Atlas launches into beta to take the juggling act out of scheduling meetings
Calendaring can be tough for all of us. Moms regularly juggle multiple kids worth of activities. Students must manage homework, exams, and those all important frat parties. But for sales professionals, VCs, and others (ahem, journalists) who fill their days with meetings involving other equally busy people, the challenge of coordinating this madness gets an order of magnitude more difficult....
Box partners with GoodData to provide productivity and security solutions for enterprise
There’s big data, small data, and then there’s GoodData, a firm that makes it easier to digest all those numbers and statistics that are now (for better or worse) at a business’ fingertips. And starting today, the company is bundling its data analysis software with Box so businesses that already use Box’s...
The splintering of television
When cable TV began to appear inside millions of homes, it seemed liked a blessing – dozens of new channels beyond the old broadcast standbys, promising that there would always be something to watch. And there was, but it came with the tradeoff of quantity for quality. Soon enough, we came to accept cable TV as a mixed blessing,...
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Everything an outsider needs to know about LA
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Groupon is a hungry shark. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.
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Verizon doesn't care about BlackBerry
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Pulse iOS app adds new LinkedIn-centric features
Today’s update to Pulse’s iOS news aggregator app (which was recently bought by LinkedIn) adds new features to let users share stories to Evernote, Pocket, Instapaper and, of course, LinkedIn. [Source: Engadget]
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The real story of how UniKey came to market
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Facebook is taking on Cisco
Facebook’s Open Compute Project has announced it will develop an open source network switch. Currently, Cisco dominates the $22 billion a year Ethernet switch market, but Facebook’s software-driven solution could disrupt that. [Source: Open Compute Project via Business Insider]
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The craftsman, the prop master, the boy, and the 3D printer
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"How the Syrian Electronic Army Hacked The Onion"
The Onion’s tech blog details how they got hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army: “At this point the editorial staff began publishing articles inspired by the attack. The second article, ‘Syrian Electronic Army Has A Little Fun Before Inevitable Upcoming Deaths At Hands Of Rebels,’ angered the attacker who then began posting editorial emails on their Twitter account. Once we discovered this, we decided that we could not know for sure which accounts had been compromised and forced a password reset on every staff member’s Google Apps account.” [Source: The Onion Tech Blog]
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Audi's new "Star Trek" spot and 6 other sci-fi ads
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Meet New York’s first enterprise-focused accelerator, backed by the governor
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Tesla beats earnings and revenue expectations
In terms of popular opinion, Tesla Motors has had an up-and-down 2013. But as far as finances go, its latest earnings report shows the company performing well-beyond expectations, with adjusted earnings of $0.12 per share (analysts predicted $0.03 per share) on revenue of $562 million. This makes it Tesla’s first profitable quarter yet. [Source: Tesla Motors via Business Insider]
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Amy Hood is Microsoft's new CFO
Microsoft announced today that Amy Hood is its new CFO. Hood, the former CFO for the company’s Business Division, played a major role in the acquisitions of Skype and Yammer. [Source: Microsoft via Verge]
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The C in CEO should stand for “custodian of the vision”
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Next generation EA games will not be on Wii U
In another rough turn of even for Nintendo, EA has said that it does not plan to have its next-gen games running on the Wii U platform. This comes after news that previous generation Wii consoles sold better in Q1 than the new Wii U. [Source: BGR]
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Vimbly raises $540,000 from angel investors
Activity-booking platform Vimbly has announced that it has raised $540,000 from ten angel investors. Investors include professionals at Apax Partners, Deutsche Bank, and Macquarie Capital Advisors. [Source: Business Insider]
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Let geeks choose their own ice cream
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Yahoo to unveil new search tools
In his first interview since being hired in February, Yahoo’s senior vice president of search Laurie Mann was quoted as saying that the former search giant will have some new upgrades and tools unrolling in the near future. Some of these updates will be released alongside with Microsoft Corp. [Source: Bloomberg]
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AT&T puts Facebook Phone on sale for $.99
Perhaps due to poor sales, AT&T has announced a sale for the HTC One for just 99 cents. Of course, you have to sign a two-year contract as well. [Source: The Verge]
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Apple and Oracle top the list for highest paid CFOs
According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the two top paid CFOs are Apple’s Peter Oppenheimer and Oracle’s Safra Catz. Oppenheimer rakes in a $68.6 million package and Catz’s package comes to $51.7 million. [Source: Bloomberg]
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Webflakes launches today, announces $3M Series A
Webflakes is a website that aims to provide crowdsourced and translated multinational content on fashion, food, travel, etc. Today it launchd its website and announced that it raised $3 million in Series A funding. [Source: TechCrunch]
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Microsoft to open more “specialty stores”
Microsoft announced today that it is expanding its storefront program with four more ‘specialty stores’, that is, kiosks and small storefront-like spaces in shopping centers. To date, Microsoft has 34 stores open or coming soon in the US and Canada. [Source: CNET]
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Rain causes major problems at New York City’s Apple Store
After heavy rains and fears of flash flooding in the city, New York’s Apple Store is experience some water problems of its own. What started as a slow leak turned into a massive problem for the store’s employees. [Source: AppleInsider]
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Chromatik grabs $5.7 million in ongoing Series A
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Frazier Healthcare raises $281M
According to an SEC filing today, Frazier Healthcare has raised $281 million for its seventh venture fund. The company received the funding from 20 investors. [Source: GeekWire]
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Go Daddy nabs KKR exec as chief operating officer
Scott Wagner has worked as Go Daddy Group’s interim chief executive on the side while being a senior executive at an arm of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. Wagner is now leaving KKR to be full-time at Go Daddy as chief operating officer. [Source: New York Times]
