Monday, July 31, 2006
Ziff Davis: We’re For Sale, Somebody Please… | paidContent.org
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Tech Confidential Blog: Social networking comes of age
Cell-Phone Sector Offers Technology Bright Spot
Sunday, July 30, 2006
YouTube CEO says IPO would be 'exciting' - MarketWatch
Sitting down for a chat with MarketWatch's Bambi Francisco, Hurley declined to say if anyone has approached the company to buy it out even as 100 million videos a day are watched."
Friday, July 28, 2006
Alien Technology joins growing list of scrapped IPOs - MarketWatch
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Private Equity Week: Worldview Technology Partners is calling it a day
One of Worldview's co-founders declined to comment and the firm's other partners did not respond to PE Week's messages seeking comment."
Entrepreneurship Blog: 65 VC & Angel Investor Blogs
Feld Thoughts
VC Adventure
McInblog
Burnham's Beat
Our Man in Nirvana
Venture Chronicles
Will Price
Early Stage VC
Who Has Time For this?
Beyond VC
Oxyfish
Jeff Clavier's Software Only
Venture Blog
Signum sine tinnitu - by Guy Kawasaki
SF Venture
Texas Startup Blog
Mark Pincus Blog
Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed
Way Too Early
Redeye VC
A VC
This is Going to be BIG
Union Square Ventures
Tim Oren's Due Diligence
From Istanbul To Sand Hill Road
The VC in Me...
Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained
TJ's Weblog
Now What?
Pure VC
Allen's Blog
Seeing Both Sides
Release1.0
The Perceptions and Reverie of a VC Investor and Entrepreneur
Genuine VC
Northwest VC
Geekfishing Blog
A Little Ludwig Goes A Long Way
VC Ball
Ego Ventures
Israeli VC on Sand Hill Road
Chritine.net
Venture Chicks
Venture Inside
VC Mike's Blog
Why VC?
VC Confidential
Florida Venture Blog by Dan Rua
The NVA Blog
Alsop Louie Partners
Seriously Clueless
Is this Israel?
The Post Money Value
Occam's Razor
NW Venture Voice
Cleantech Investing
Bill Gurley's Above the Crowd
Pascal's View
Ventureblogalist
Sacred Cow Dung
Class V
Paul Graham: Essays
Morten Lund
Life With Alarcity
Rodrigo A. Sepulveda Schulz
Agilent | Agilent Technologies signs agreement to acquire Xpedion Design Systems, a leading provider of RFIC simulation and verification software
The combined passion, technology and capabilities of these industry-leading companies will drive innovation and continue to solve the challenging problems faced by radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) designers.Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) and Xpedion Design Systems, Inc. today announced they have signed a definitive agreement for Agilent to acquire Xpedion, a privately held company that provides software for wireless and high-speed digital circuit and systems design in the communications industry. The transaction is subject to standard closing conditions. Financial details were not disclosed.
The combined passion, technology and capabilities of these industry-leading companies will drive innovation and continue to solve the challenging problems faced by radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) designers.Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) and Xpedion Design Systems, Inc. today announced they have signed a definitive agreement for Agilent to acquire Xpedion, a privately held company that provides software for wireless and high-speed digital circuit and systems design in the communications industry. The transaction is subject to standard closing conditions. Financial details were not disclosed.
The combined passion, technology and capabilities of these industry-leading co"
SI.com - Writers - Austin Murphy: Landis denies doping allegations - Thursday July 27, 2006 4:00PM
"Dr. Moosburger explained how it was done. "You put a standard testosterone patch that is used for male hormone-replacement therapy on your scrotum and leave it there for about six hours. The small dose is not sufficient to produce a positive urine result in the doping test, but the body actually recovers faster."
DriveCam Highlights Riskiest Driving Behaviors in Recognition of National Safety Month
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
HP to acquire Mercury for $4.5 billion - Yahoo! News
HP will pay $52 per share for Mercury in a deal that will combine that company's suite of application management software and services with HP's OpenView family of network and IT service management software, HP said in a statement."
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
AMD's Dangerous Dell Deal - Forbes.com
Google's new click fraud fighter emerges - MarketWatch
Starting Monday evening, Google's hundreds of thousands of AdWords advertising clients could learn the number of times Google believes their ads were the subject of click fraud.
The goal is for Google advertisers to get their first, real look at the scope of the click fraud problem and how it directly impacts them, according to Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google' business product manager, trust and safety. The truth, or at least how Google sees it, could be a powerful weapon in Google's favor, Ghosemajumder said. Internet search engines and their advertisers disagree about the amount of click fraud that occurs."
Limelight Takes the Spotlight [Fool.com: Commentary] July 25, 2006

"A new delivery boy: In June, Akamai and MIT together sued Limelight, which describes itself as 'the content network for digital media.' At issue are two MIT patents licensed exclusively to Akamai. One covers software that captures and copies data from a website so that it may be distributed across an unlimited number of servers. The other, according to The Boston Globe, is for a process for capturing photos and images to be used by content delivery networks (CDNs), which bring the Web geographically closer to users."
Limelight takes $130 mln from Goldman; eyes Akamai | Reuters.com
Vinod Khosla debunked: ethanol is NOT the answer | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse
Become a Billionaire in 3 Easy Steps
In fact, Khosla’s slide 78 shows very optimistic growth projections in all of the following areas: crop yield per acre, ethanol yield per ton, and acres of biomass planted. It shows cellulosic ethanol growing from 0 gallons produced in 2006 to 173 billion gallons produced in 2030. We will need that ethanol to get to our condos on the moon. Fortunately for us, he has cellulosic ethanol scaling up just as corn ethanol starts leveling off. The result is an exponential curve of ethanol production that he extends out to the year 2030 (slide 17, shown below), at which time he has the U.S. producing almost 200 billion gallons of ethanol (versus the current 4 billion gallons). Because after all, we all know that crops don’t fail, droughts don’t happen, and technology always delivers on its promises. That’s why I don’t worry about bird flu. I know a vaccine will be produced in plenty of time.
Red Herring 100 Asia

The 200 companies short-listed as finalists for the “Red Herring 100 Asia�:
24/7 Customer
India
Outsourcing
24X7 Learning
India
Software
51.com
China
Internet and services
51show
China
Internet and services
9You
China
Internet and services
abKey
Singapore
Computing
ACL Wireless
India
Communications
Actela
Korea
Security
Advanced Radio Engineering
India
Communications
Aidi Communications
Japan
Semiconductors
Aigo
China
Computing
Airoha
Taiwan
Semiconductor
Allyes AdNetwrok
China
Internet and services
Antig
Taiwan
Energy
AppLabs
India
Software
ASKnLearn
Singapore
Internet and services
Aurigo Software Technology
India
Business software
Avesthagen
India
Biosciences
Axstone
Korea
Communications
Baihe Online Technology
China
Internet and services
bbmao.com
China
Internet and services
Bluebird Soft
Korea
Computing
Britesoft Solutions
Malaysia
Software
BuzzCity
Singapore
Internet and services
CGen media
China
Entertainment and media
Cgogo
China
Internet and services
China Broadband Communications
China
Communications
China Data Group
China
Outsourcing
ChineseAll
China
Internet and services
Chipnuts
China
Semiconductor
CinemaChoice
China
Internet and services
ClearTrail Technologies
India
Communications
Clipcomm
Korea
Communications
ColorME
China
Internet and services
Comat Technologies
India
Software
Comsenz
China
Internet and services
Converge Labs
India
Communications
Coruscant Tec
India
Internet and services
Creative Mobile
Korea
Communications
CSDN
China
Internet and services
Daumsoft
Korea
Internet and services
dianping.com
China
Internet and services
DideoNET
Korea
Communications
Dratek
China
Internet and services
Drishtee Dot Com
India
Software and services
DynaScan
China
Entertainment and Media
EC Navi
Japan
Internet and services
eDuShi
China
Internet and services
eInfochips
India
Semiconductor
Encore Software
India
Software
Enovation
Australia
Business software
Ensoltek
Korea
Biosciences
ESQUBE
India
Communications
Euglena
Japan
Biosciences
Evalueserve
India
Outsourcing
eWarna
Malaysia
Internet and services
Exist Software Engineering
Philippines
Business software
gammaStar
China
Biosciences
Gbaopan.com
China
Storage
Geotude
Malaysia
Internet and services
GetData
Australia
Security
GigaDevice Semi
China
Semiconductor
Gmedia
China
Communications
GNI Ltd.
Japan
Biosciences
GoPets
Korea
Entertainment and media
Gpans
Korea
Security
Hansun Tech
China
Internet and services
HiChina
China
Internet and services
hoodong
China
Internet and services
Huanxin
China
Internet and services
Hurix Systems
India
Software and services
Hutchison MediPharma
China
Biosciences
I.T. UNITED
China
Services
i1
China
Business software
IamEmo
Australia
Communications
Icon Lab
Korea
Communications
Ideamov
China
Communications
Imagis
Korea
Semiconductor
IndiaIdeas.com
India
Internet and services
iNFOiSLIVE
China
Entertainment and media
Infozech
India
Communications
INKA
Korea
Entertainment and Media
Innoviti Embedded
India
Communications
Innoxius
Singapore
Communications
InstaColl
Intellicus Technologies
India
Business software
iSoftStone
China
Outsourcing
i-Sprint Innovations
Singapore
Security
iVista
India
Software and services
iWOW
Singapore
Communications
Jade Technologies
China
Semiconductors
Jataayu Software
India
Communications
KaiTone
China
Communications
LDK Solar Hi-Tech
China
Solar
Linguamatix
Malaysia
Internet and services
Madhouse
China
Internet and services
Majitek
Australia
Computing
MakeMyTrip
India
Internet and services
MassMedia Studios
Australia
Internet and services
Mauj Telecom
India
Communications
McubeWorks
Korea
Communications
MetricStream
India
Business software
Miartech
China
Semiconductor
midas
India
Communications
MindTree Consulting
India
Outsourcing
Mobile2win
India
Internet and services
MobilityOne
Malaysia
Internet and services
Mofile
China
Internet and services
Morpho, Inc
Japan
Software
Mostitech
Korea
Computing
MTEKSOFT
Korea
Computing
MyZus
India
Communications
Nano Carrier
Japan
Biotech
Nano Fusion
Japan
Energy
Naukri.com
India
Internet and services
Naviblog
Japan
Internet and services
Nayio Media
Korea
Internet and services
NeoAccel
India
Communications
NetAlter
India
Internet and services
Netinfinium Technologies
Malaysia
Communications
NetMagic Solutions
India
Outsourcing
Netpia
Korea
Internet and services
new rock tech
China
Communications
Newgen Software
India
Software
n-Logue Communications
India
Internet and services
Noah Education
China
Computing
Novatium Solutions
India
Computing
Oak Pacific Interactive
China
Internet and services
Ocimum Biosolutions
India
Biosciences
PayEase
China
Internet and services
Peering Portal
Korea
Software
Pentamicro
Korea
Semiconductor
People Interactive
India
Internet and services
Persistent Systems
India
Software
Personal Computer to Network
China
Software
Phi Microtech
Japan
Semiconductors
PI R&D
Japan
Electronics
Pinstorm
India
Internet and services
PIVoD Technologies
Australia
Entertainment and Media
POSDAQ
Korea
Internet and services
Powai Labs
India
Semiconductors
Pulse
Australia
Internet and services
RAMSWAY
Korea
Semiconductor
Rock Mobile
China
Communications/wireless
Shanghai Hintsoft
China
Internet and services
Shanghai Nanamimi
China
Internet and services
Shanghai Sunway
China
Biosciences
shenzhen horizon
China
Internet and services
SiBiono GeneTech
China
Biosciences
silk road
China
COmmunications
SIMmersion Holdings
Australia
Software
Singular ID
Singapore
Nanotech
SkyWave
Japan
Communications
SmartPay Jieyin
China
Internet and services
SoftJin
India
Semiconductors
SoftRun
Korea
Computing
SoGua
China
Internet and services
sss
China
Internet and services
Str8Up
China/USA
Internet and services
Sun Wah Linux
China
Software
SunTec Business Solutions
India
Software
Symbio
China
Outsourcing
Syscan Digital Systems
China
Internet and services
Taiwan Liposome Company
Taiwan
Biosciences
TechnoDex
Malaysia
Software
Teledata Informatics
India
Software
TELiBrahma
India
Communications-mobile
tenCube Pte. Ltd.
Singapore
Handsets
Teruten
Korea
Security
Thin Multimedia
Korea
Communications
tianji.com
China
Internet and services
Tmsuk
Japan
Computing
Tomato LSI
Korea
Semiconductors
Toodou
China
Internet and services
Toonz Animation
India
Entertainment and Media
Trinity
Japan
Security
Trusted Delivery
Singapore
Security
Ubicod
Korea
Media and entertainment
Ultra Chip
Taiwan
Semiconductors
Vembu
India
Computing-storage
veredus laboratories
Singapore
Biosciences
VietnamWorks
Vietnam
Internet and services
WaaWoo
Korea
Computing
WAPTX
China
Internet and services
Wayz Japan
Japan
Business software
Wealink
China
Internet and services
Winitech
Korea
Business software
WITS Interactive
India
Internet and services
Worksoft Creative Software
China
Services
WSO2
Sri Lanka
Business software
XCome
Taiwan
Communications
XPlus
China
Internet and services
xueda
China
Internet and services
xunlei
China
Internet and services
YASU Technologies
India
Business software
YeePay
China
Internet and services
YiCha Online
China
Internet and services
YourAmigo
Australia
Internet and services
zhongsou
China
Internet and services
Zio Interactive
Korea
Entertainment and media
A Little Money Goes A Long Way
Facebook to give away 10 mln iTunes music samplers | Reuters.com
Motorola to buy on-demand video firm Broadbus | Reuters.com
$25 million more for Zillow
Monday, July 24, 2006
SEQUANS Raises US $24 Million in Financing Led by Kennet Venture Partners
Kazaa, Skype, and now "The Venice Project"
Working under the code name 'The Venice Project,' Zennstrom and Friis have assembled teams of top software developers in about a half-dozen cities around the world, including New York, London, and Venice. The teams are currently in negotiations with TV networks, although it's not clear whether any agreements have been reached. A formal announcement of the new venture could come as early as this fall. "
Saturday, July 22, 2006
ESPN.com - OLY/TDF2006 - Julich Diary: The most amazing ride I've ever seen

"Floyd Landis' Stage 17 ride on Thursday was the most amazing ride I have ever seen in my life and will go down as one of the best rides of all time, and Landis will go down as one of cycling's gutsiest riders.
For him to bounce back like he did, after such a devastating blow to his confidence, it's nothing short of amazing, (a) to just have the mind-set to give it a shot at all, and (b) to maintain his advantage over the 200.5-kilometer stage and the brutal last climb (12 kilometers on an 8.5 percent gradient)."
Friday, July 21, 2006
Micro Persuasion: Wikipedia Gets Clustered Search Engine
InnoCentive

"InnoCentive® is an exciting web-based community matching top scientists to relevant R&D challenges facing leading companies from around the globe. We provide a powerful online forum enabling major companies to reward scientific innovation through financial incentives."
37Signals, 1 Big New Investor: Jeff Bezos
GigaOM : » Jeff Bezos Invests in 37Signals
Thursday, July 20, 2006
EETimes.com - Moto Q 'teardown' finds XScale inside
The chip, PXA270C5C312, is the same processor that iSuppli (El Segundo, Calif.) found in a recent analysis of the Blackberry 8700c, the firm said. "
GigaOM : » Skype, All Talk, Just Not Facts
Thanks to free calling, Whitman pointed out that by June there were 10 million users in North America."
RED HERRING | Obesity Fight Gets $45.2M Lift
Search engine optimization and Online marketing: Yahoo & Zillow Partner for Home Estimate Search
Redeye VC: After all is said and done, more is said than done
TechEffect: CinemaNow beats MovieLink to the punch
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Jobster reels in $18 million more in VC
The Seattle company has now raised $48 million, a significant amount for a two-year-old enterprise.
The new money comes on the heels of the launch of Jobster's new Web site, which went live Thursday. The site (www.jobster.com) now allows job seekers to search for an opening by job title and city.
The results are pulled from numerous sites, including Monster.com, craigslist and others."
Central Valley Business Times: MaxPreps
Investors include BEV Capital, DFJ Frontier, and lead investor Dolphin Equity Partners.
Salvatore Tirabassi of Dolphin Equity Partners and Mike Majors of BEV Capital will join MaxPreps' board of directors.
The money will be used to increase marketing and distribution, add new senior management and expand business development efforts, the company says."
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Yahoo stock falls on disappointing sales
In a release, Yahoo reported a 14 percent increase in adjusted net income, excluding stock-based compensation, for the quarter ended June 30."
The Technology Chronicles : What's old is a new investment again
'It's not five guys in a garage; it's 500 guys in a warehouse,' Rory O'Driscoll, a managing director at BA Venture Partners in Foster City, who has been studying such 'survivor' deals, told VentureWire."
EETimes.com - Matsushita backs analog/RF tool startup
Berkeley Design (Santa Clara, Calif.) claims that its Precision Circuit Analysis technology enables designers to verify analog/RF circuitry problems that otherwise would be impractical or infeasible. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. has made a strategic investment in analog/RF tool provider Berkeley Design Automation Inc., joining previous investors Woodside Fund and Bessemer Ventures to provide $6 million in Series B funding, Berkeley Design said Monday (July 17).
Berkeley Design (Santa Clara, Calif.) claims that its Precision Circuit Analysis technology enables designers to verify analog/RF circuitry problems that otherwise would be impractical or infeasible. "
United Press International -Analysts fret over new Internet 'bubble'
The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that some Silicon Valley observers believe speculative capital is once again chasing technically unsound ideas and that another shakeout like the disaster of 2000 could occur.
'The market has capacity for a certain number of successful winners,' Mike Hirshland, a general partner with Polaris Venture Partners, told the newspaper. 'Whether it's one, two or, if it's really exciting, three, is debatable ... but eight?' "
Advertising Age - MediaWorks - YouTube Rival Revver's Killer App Is Its Ad Model
The ad Revver attaches is a simple one-frame clickable spot tacked onto the tail of the video. Revver founder and CEO Steven Starr's unique idea for Revver is that the coding, or the proprietary technology that tracks data about each piece of content, resides on the file. So content creators who send their original work to Revver are sent back a "revverized" version that can be put anywhere on the net. The Diet Coke and Mentos ad, which debuted online about a month ago, actually resides on Mssrs. Voltz and Grobe's site, Eepybird, although it can also be accessed at Revver.com and many other places online.
RED HERRING | US Crackdown on Web Gambling
David Carruthers, chief executive of BETonSPORTS and a British citizen, was arrested on Sunday as he attempted to change flights in Dallas on a trip from the United Kingdom to Costa Rica"
RED HERRING | ShopWiki Scores $6.2 Million
Tiny New Chip Holds Big Promise
The Memory Spot device, roughly the size of a grain of rice, is based on CMOS low-power circuit technology and has a built-in antenna. The chips could be embedded in a sheet of paper or stuck to any surface, and could eventually be available as self-adhesive dots. "
Venture funds' big rebound
In the second quarter ended June 30, 50 venture capital firms raised $11.2 billion, the most since the first quarter of 2001 and well beyond the $6.8 billion raised in the first quarter of 2006, according to a report released Monday by Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association."
Monday, July 17, 2006
Reuters Mobile To Move To Ad-Supported in U.S.; New Mobile Site | paidContent.org
Technology | Reuters.co.in: Paymate
KPCB's third investment in India suggested that the private equity business was flourishing and that bigger deals could be on the way, industry officials said on Friday.
Sherpalo and KPCB together are investing more than $5 million in the three-month-old company that had been developing for nearly three years a software product to enable transactions on mobile phones, but is yet to launch it.
'The investment is upwards of $5 million,' said Sandeep Murthy, partner at Sherpalo Ventures and the Indian representative of KPCB, but declined to discuss details."
RED HERRING | Phone Firms Create Ruckus
The Sunnyvale, California-based startup, a Red Herring 100 company, is hoping to establish the credibility of its portfolio of products among rural phone companies looking to offer broadband and IPTV (Internet Protocol television) services in their markets."
uXcomm Gets $13.6M
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Friday, July 14, 2006
Winblad says dollars going to private equity 'frightening' - San Francisco Business Times:

"Ann Winblad criticized the amount of money flowing into private equity -- of which venture capital is just a small portion.
'It's a frightening number,' she said. "
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Kronos buying staffing company Unicru for $150 mln | Reuters.com
The all-cash deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of Kronos' fiscal 2006. The company said Unicru is expected to add total revenue of about $50 million in fiscal 2007.
Kronos expects the deal to add to earnings in fiscal 2008, it said."
Citrix Wins Microsoft Partner of the Year Award for Breakthrough Office Systems Software Deployment: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
Steven Syre Boston Capital - The Boston Globe: TH Lee Success
The rest of the Lee fund, which receives much less attention, is a very different story. A long list of solidly profitable and occasionally spectacular investments in the portfolio has lifted its return to limited partners over 28 percent, after fees on an annualized basis, according to investors familiar with the fund."
"But Lee investors who committed their money six years ago have to like the way the investment story has turned out."
CinemaNow Secures $20.3 Million

CinemaNow Inc., the leading Internet provider of premium on demand movies, today announced it has secured $20.3 million in Series E financing led by new investors EchoStar Communications Corporation and Index Holdings. Previous investors Transcosmos, Cisco Systems, Lionsgate and Menlo Ventures also participated in the financing, marking the company's largest single round to date.
"The strong financial backing from established leaders in the technology, entertainment and investment communities will allow us to accelerate our growth and maintain our leadership position in digital distribution," said Mark Amin, chairman of CinemaNow. Added Curt Marvis, CEO of CinemaNow, "By establishing strong commercial agreements as part of the financing with EchoStar and Index, leaders in satellite and mobile services respectively, CinemaNow will remain on the cutting edge of new and innovative models defining the next generation of home entertainment."
IndianExpress.com :: It’s raining venture capital funds for Indian, South Asian firms
RED HERRING | China VC Gold Rush Continues

"Beijing—Venture investment in China in the first half of 2006 nearly doubled to $772 million compared to the same period in 2005, according to a new report.
The report, released by Zero2IPO, a Beijing-based venture capital research firm, at the China Venture Capital Semi-Annual Forum 2006 on Tuesday, found that 121 Chinese firms received venture investments, an increase from the first half of 2005 by 49 percent.
The number of firms, however, also represents a 17 percent decline from the 147 firms that landed venture funding in the second half of last year. Still, total venture investment has risen 5.4 percent over the second half of 2005.
“Valuations are up, and the average deal size is now $6.2 million, up from $4.2 million last year—an increase of almost 50 percent,� said Zero2IPO CEO Gavin Ni.
But Mr. Ni called this trend a “low-grade fever,� not a clear valuation bubble."
Red Herring Asia - August

Join Asia’s Foremost Entrepreneurs and Venture Capital Experts in Celebrating Innovation and Winners of Red Herring 100 Asia Award
in Hong Kong, August 28-30, 2006
Summary:
On August 28-30, 2006, over 300 delegates will come together in Hong Kong to discover an exceptional array of entrepreneurs and leading experts from the best technology firms in Asia. Themed “Meet Asia’s Innovators�, Red Herring Asia 2006 will present the winners of the Red Herring 100 Asia award, selected by Red Herring editors from nearly 500 submissions. Each attendee at Red Herring Asia is personally invited to join this exclusive gathering. The program will feature high-level keynote sessions, panel discussions, corporate presentations by winners of Red Herring 100 Asia award, and insights by top-tier global venture capitalists and investors who will share their strategies and accomplishments in venture investment in Asia. Beyond networking opportunities with Asia’s most sought-after entrepreneurs, the conference provides deep insight into the Asian technology scene.
Conference Contact: Maggie Xiao at mxiao@redherring.com 650-585-3419
Media Contact: For Communications and Public Affairs, please contact Xenia von Wedel, Terpin Communications at Xenia@terpin.com, phone 415-595-2030
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
MobiTV Receives $70 Million Investment Led by Oak Investment Partners: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
Sequoia Capital China denies reports of switch to semiconductor investments - Forbes.com
Its founding managing partner Neil Shen told a conference in Beijing that reports of a change in direction for the venture capital firm over the next few years were mistaken.
'That is quite a misquote,' he said of the report, which cited Steven Ji, vice president of Sequoia Capital China, as predicting that its investments in semiconductors would increase and those in the Internet would decline. "
AsiaMedia :: WORLD: Porn from video-sharing
Such websites are meant to protect children in gated online communities, where all participants are screened, but parents say that scenes that make them blush are appearing.
The user-generated videos have become a phenomenal form of entertainment and appear on the websites of MySpace, YouTube, Yahoo, Google and, soon, also Microsoft Corp's MSN.
YouTube, the leading video site that helped catapult the genre with a public launch last December, attracted more than 20 million visitors in May this year. The company says it averages 50,000 new video uploads per day.
It all began several years ago with Napster, whose users shared online files, especially on music. An explosion of amateur online music-sharing took place -- and the trend spread to video-sharing.
The latest concern among parents is in contrast to the usual worry about pornography sites and paedophiles in chatrooms."
RED HERRING | Online Poker Rakes in $3.3B
A new study suggests that Internet poker, if properly regulated and taxed, could net the federal government a hefty $3.3 billion each year. According to the study’s author, Internet poker’s explosion in popularity merits serious consideration.
“It is the major draw in terms of Internet gaming,� said Judy Xanthopoulos. “It’s already responsible for most of the growth.� "
WSJ.com - Making a Buck Off Your Pet-Trick Videos
Revver allows Mr. Sell to pocket a portion of the revenue the site takes in from ads it attaches to his clips -- an amount that now earns him about $15 a day. 'My issue with YouTube is that even as the producer of the video, I can't get paid for it,' says the self-styled video auteur, who asks the women for permission to film them and also posts his clips on Idonothingallday.com."
More on revver.com, a DFJ portfolio company
Secure Computing to acquire CipherTrust | CNET News.com

"Secure Computing said Tuesday that it plans to acquire messaging security firm CipherTrust in a deal estimated at $273.6 million. The deal, which will give shareholders of privately held CipherTrust a 14 percent stake in the combined company, includes $185 million in cash, 10 million shares of Secure Computing stock, and a $10 million note that is contingent upon hitting certain performance goals. CipherTrust CEO Jay Chaudhry will become chief strategy officer as well as the vice chairman of Secure Computing's board when the deal closes, which is expected to be by Sept. 8. "
According to Business Week: The company said it expects the deal, which is seen closing by Sept. 8, to add about $15 million to $20 million in revenue in 2006, and roughly $80 million in revenue in 2007.
Our Take: The deal is dilutive to Secure Computing. SCUR is trading down 38% in after hours trading. CipherTrust, based in Atlanta raised their most recent $42 million round in March 2004 led by Battery Ventures and Greylock with participation from USVP and Moro-Moseley. Overall this seems to be a good deal for VC investors and CipherTrust employees. Look for further consolidation and funding in the security/appliance space.
RED HERRING | Engage Attracts $5 Million

"Engage.com, a next-generation dating site, said Tuesday it has raised a $5-million first round of funding.
The round, led by Advanced Technology Ventures, included seed investors Revolution Ventures, The Founders Fund, and Josh Kopelman, and brought Engage’s total funding to about $6 million.
Engage hopes to spark slowing growth in the online dating sector by adding a twist to the personals formula. The idea is to “bring social networking into dating, more closely mimicking how the world actually works,� said Steve Baloff, a general partner at ATV who has joined Engage’s board.
Social networking sites such as MySpace do serve as dating services for many users, but San Francisco-based Engage, which soft-launched last summer, is a bit more explicit. The company facilitates personal introductions to start relationships. "
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Watson by Intellext. Watson provides context search on the desktop.

"Intellext Inc., which spun-out of Northwestern University early last year, has released a new version of its intelligent search technology and sealed a grant to develop search products for government markets.
The company, which is backed by about $5 million from Palomar Ventures, Motorola Ventures, LaSalle Investments and University Fund, was formed in late 2002 inside Northwestern's DevLab by professors Jay Budzik and Kristian Hammond. Spun out in early 2005, Intellext released a first version of its flagship 'Watson' software in the fall of 2005, said Chief Executive Al Wasserberger.
Intellext's Watson, which can be downloaded in a free, ad-supported version or a subscription-based professional version, is designed to understand what a user is working and proactively search for useful information. The software acts like a sidebar, sitting along side an Internet browser, text document or even a slide show presentation, and intelligently search subjects as a user types. 'Technology like this is about finding information that you didn't know you should be looking for,' said Wasserberger."
MySpace gains top ranking of U.S. Web sites-Hitwise | Reuters.com
RED HERRING | Kontera’s In-Text Ads Get Cash
The year-old company, which has offices in San Francisco and Israel, is focused on in-text advertising, in which words in the body of the text on a page are turned into links to contextual ads.
The Kontera deal reflects heavy investor interest in the online advertising space, which Forrester estimates will be worth $26 billion by 2010, and an increasing willingness to explore advertising methods that some consumers may find invasive or annoying. "
How It Works
Kontera offers web site owners a JavaScript tag to include in the code of their pages, allowing it to analyze content in real time and pick out links judged to be the most appropriate keywords for advertising. That means ads are no longer relegated outside the main content of the page; when users hover their mouse over the links, ads appear.
Other articles:
Is Kontera the Next AdSense?
Indiawest Online: Khosla Ventures Launches Ethanol Plant Company

Khosla Ventures, a venture capital company founded by entrepreneur Vinod Khosla, has formed a joint venture with Western Milling, California's largest grain milling company, to operate 55-gallons-per year ethanol plants.
The first three plants in the joint venture, dubbed Cilion, are expected to be in California, according to Menlo Park, Calif.-based Khosla Ventures.
Cellfire Secures $10 Million Series B Led by Menlo Ventures
will tap this new financing to drive continued growth in the mobile marketing arena for its critically acclaimed mobile coupon service."
Cellfire(TM) is a free downloadable application that provides valuable coupons from a host of local and national retailers within the user's geographic region. It is the only mobile coupon service available today that provides money-saving deals for some of the most popular national venues. Current offers include rent-one-get-one-free from Hollywood Video,
a free appetizer at T.G.I. Friday's, as well as numerous discounts from retailers such as 1-800-flowers, Carlson Travel and other local retailers.
Thoughtput: News: Gear6 Secures $10 Million To Accelerate Storage And Deliver Real Time Performance
Friday, July 07, 2006
YouTube - sexy porn
More and more NC 17 type content popping up on youtube. This latest video is all the rage.
Bambi Francisco: Tribe at less than $5 million?
VC Ratings:Tribe.net
SearchOracle.com : Sizing up Oracle's open source tactics
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Tribe.net Being Bought by NBC | paidContent.org
Our analysis: the deal was done for probably less than $10M and investors, Mayfield, Knight Ridder, Washington Post who poured roughly $10m into the 20 some odd employee company made little, if any money back.
Traffic Rank for tribe.net: 1,761
Traffic Rank for hi5.com: 59
Traffic Rank for friendster.com: 47
Traffic Rank for xanga.com: 42
Traffic Rank for craigslist.org: 30
Traffic Rank for myspace.com: 5
Website stats: friendster and hi5 traffic trending back up since Jan 06
With increased functionality - video, file sharing, photo grabbing, community postings, ...- added to both social networking sites earlier this year, Hi5 and friendster are now seeing the results as their users are coming back in herds and spending more time on the sites, thus creating further value for adverstisers, and venture investors. Someone should reconsider the $10M offer and buy friendster now.
Is myspace traffic on the decline? Not a chance, according to Bambi Francisco:
News Corp. says that MySpace is adding 230,000 new members each day and has more than 90 million members. That's nearly 4 times the 23 million members MySpace had on July 19, 2005, the day News Corp.announced it was buying the social network.
MySpace is the fastest-growing property across the top Web brands, drawing 42 million unique visitors in May, up 329%, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
Monthly pageviews grew nearly 400% to 19.3 billion. Among the top Web properties, MySpace's pageviews are second to Yahoo's (YHOO : Yahoo! Inc.
FT.com / Companies / Media & internet - Hefty bill for online click fraud
The figures represent a blow to internet companies such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s MSN who earn most of their revenues from advertising.
The three have avoided putting a number on the incidence of click fraud but Outsell said it averaged 14.6 per cent of all clicks billed to advertisers, even after Google and others had filtered out those ones they believed to be invalid.
The 14.6 per cent equates to $800m of the $5.5bn US search engine market in 2005."
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Parature receives Series A funding
This oversubscribed round includes Vienna, Va.-based Valhalla Partners, and Menlo Park, Calif.-based Sierra Ventures, both private venture capital firms with strong track records of success in the information technology industry. With this event, Gene Riechers, General Partner and Co-founder, Valhalla Partners, and Vispi Daver, Principal, Sierra Ventures, have been named to Parature's board of directors. Parature plans to use the financing to further enhance its customer support and help desk solution, as well as boost sales and marketing efforts.
Intel Capital Invests in IGA WorldWide
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Yahoo rejects last.fm to the tune of $40 million - Valleywag
4 of Top 10 Sites on the web are chinese

Top Sites as listed on Alexa.com
- 4 chinese sites - baidu, sina, netease (163), qq.com
-------------------------------------------------------------
1. Yahoo! Personalized content and search options. Chatrooms, free e-mail, clubs, and pager. www.yahoo.com
2. Microsoft Network (MSN) Dialup access and content provider. www.msn.com
3. Google Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features include PageRank, caching and translation of results, and an option to find similar pages. The company's focus is developing search technology. www.google.com
4. Baidu.com å…¨ç�ƒæœ€å¤§ä¸æ–‡æ�œç´¢å¼•擎,å�‘人们æ��供简å�•ã€�å�¯ä¾�赖的信æ�¯èŽ·å�–æ–¹å¼�。 The leading Chinese language search engine, provides “simple and reliableâ€� search experience. www.baidu.com
5. Myspace Social Networking Site. www.myspace.com
6. 新浪新闻ä¸å¿ƒ 包括å�³æ—¥çš„国内外ä¸�å�Œç±»åž‹çš„æ–°é—»ä¸Žè¯„论,人物专题,图库。 www.sina.com.cn
7. 腾讯网(http://www.qq.com) 掌��时新闻资讯,体验全�娱�产� www.qq.com
8. Yahoo!カテゴリ 有料審査制�ディレクトリ。ウェブサービス�形�APIを公開。 www.yahoo.co.jp
9. EBay International person to person auction site, with products sorted into categories. www.ebay.com
10. 网易 ä¸å›½æœ€å¤§çš„网络社区和门户网站 www.163.com
MetaCafe lands $15m more for filtered video sharing
[TechCrunch.com]
Saturday, July 01, 2006
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