iSuppli Corporation Enters Strategic Agreement With Goldman Sachs

"iSuppli Corp., a global leader in technology value-chain market intelligence, is pleased to announce it has entered into a marketing and investment agreement with Goldman, Sachs & Co.'s Hudson Street Services, a platform that gives clients access to providers of unique tools and services.
Hudson Street will offer its clients a platform of services including many of iSuppli's market-intelligence reports and databases. Goldman Sachs' clients seeking independent, third-party information on technology value-chain issues will have access to iSuppli's industry-standard data sets and analysis.
'Since iSuppli's inception in 1999, the company's goal has been to improve technology value-chain performance by providing industry-leading market intelligence to all constituencies within the industry, from content providers, to suppliers of materials, to sellers of enabling technologies, to brand-name electronics OEMs,' said Derek Lidow, president and chief executive officer of iSuppli. 'Now we're expanding our reach to serve another important constituency in the industry: the financial community.'"

Salesforce.com's New Pitch to Startups

"Salesforce's San Mateo incubator is intended to be the first of many, from Silicon Valley to Tokyo, London, India, and possibly Singapore. Caryn Marooney of OutCast Communications, Salesforce's PR agency, notes that the first incubator is so popular that a second phase with more startups is scheduled to open in the same building in June."

"Workers stand on ladders carefully positioning a company sign above a row of cubicles. A woman walks by carrying a lava lamp destined for the office game room, already littered with beanbag chairs and big blue exercise balls. No, it's not the latest Silicon Valley startup. It's more than two dozen of them, crammed under one roof at the Valley's northern edge in San Mateo, Calif."

Hispanic social-networking sites prosper - Yahoo! News

"Indie rocker Eric Monterrosa checks his ElHood.com Web page at least three times a day, answering fans, surfing for other new Latin artists and keeping in touch with friends from his native Colombia.

ElHood is sort of a bilingual MySpace promoting the latest in Latin music, and for Miami-based Monterrosa, it has become a personal and professional lifeline. It is also the latest in a wave of Hispanic social-networking sites building links across the U.S., Latin America and Spain, all hoping to capture coveted advertising dollars.

"A lot of Latin artists are plugged in," Monterrosa said. "So if you want to find them it's easy. If you go to sites like MySpace, you have to go through all sorts of genres, types of music, and languages."

About 56 percent of Hispanics in the United States use the Internet, compared with 71 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 60 percent of non-Hispanic blacks, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. But the number of Hispanics online jumps to 67 percent among 18- to 27-year-olds — the group most likely to visit social-networking sites and one coveted by advertisers."

vFlyer Wiki | mobile

"This week we announced vFlyer Mobile, Mobile Flyers and SMS/Text Messaging flyer distribution. Now both sellers and buyers who are on the go can get more out of vFlyer!

Using vFlyer Mobile, users can access, view and distribute their flyers directly from their mobile phone or PDA as well as email or text message prospective buyers with links to their mobile flyers (either from their mobile phones or from the vFlyer service). Mobile flyers are simply mini-versions of your flyer designed specially for mobile phones and contain just summary infomration as well as photos, pricing, maps and directions, contact information."

Team: The founders of vFlyer share a common vision of creating a new face for online classified and simplifing the process of selling online. Aaron Sperling and Oliver Muoto, both serial entrepeneurs, originally met and worked together at Epicentric, a leading provider of portal software. Aaron Sperling was previously co-founder and CEO of Application Park, an on-demand platform for building business application which was acquired by Epicentric in 2001. Oliver Muoto co-founded Epicentric in 1998 and served as its original VP of Marketing before it was acquired by Vignette in 2003. Both entrepeneurs have a long history of building, advising and consulting to successful early-stage companies, and both are active online sellers.

Cracking GOOG's 'secret sauce' algorithm

"Rand Fishkin knows how valuable it is for a Web site to rank high in a Google search. But even this president of a search engine optimization firm was blown away by a proposal he received at a search engine optimization conference in London last month, where he was a panelist.
The topic -- Can a poker Web site rank high on a Google search using purely white hat tactics -- meaning no spamming, cloaking, link farms or other frowned-upon 'black hat' practices. Fishkin answered yes, provided the site also added other marketing techniques and attracted some media attention.
The rest of the panel scoffed. 'Don't bring a knife to a gunfight,' one chided. After all, this is the cutthroat online gambling sector."

MobiTV closes UK operations to focus on US mobile TV market - NMA

"While some industry onlookers have long suspected MobiTV may face a limited future as operators begin migrating to a broadcast TV model, Pyramid Research senior analyst Nick Holland said the company's exit from the British market does not spell the beginning of the end. "MobiTV may be finding it a little difficult to compete in the U.K. market, but their proposition is still compelling elsewhere," Holland told FierceMobileContent. "But they need to evolve, and they need to work with operators in terms of what they're thinking."

Boy gets toilet seat stuck on his head - Yahoo! News

"British firefighters said on Wednesday they had come to a boy's rescue after he got a toilet seat stuck on his head. "

How Big Can Amazon's Web Services Become? - Seeking Alpha

"Larry Dignan (ZDNet) submits: While Amazon (AMZN) delivered a blow-out quarter it remains quiet about detailing how much it is spending on the fast-growing EC2 and S3 Web services.
On the first quarter earnings conference call, Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck tried to pin down Amazon executives on the capital spending issue for 2007, but CEO Jeff Bezos didn't bite.
Regarding EC2 and S3 spending, Bezos noted 'we do not break it out.' 'We are seeing very strong demand for those services and expect to continue to roll out new capacity for them,' he said. 'We have been adding new capacity for those services and I expect that to continue indefinitely.'"

MOBIUS: Where next for Heidi Roizen? - Valleywag

"Most of the refugees from Mobius -- the venture capital firm which is winding down after making a loss on its $1.25bn bubble-era fund -- have found new homes. Rainmaker Gary Rieschel, the managing partner who raised funds for the tech investment firm, has gone off to Shanghai to run Ignition Partners' China fund. (He's a Mandarin speaker, and his wife is Chinese.) Brad Feld -- who took Mobius into one of its more promising portfolio companies, Feedburner -- is raising a new fund for the Foundry Group in Colorado. But what about Heidi Roizen,"

Tim Draper in Vietnam with models

"One of the latest global partnerships by “The Global VC Firm”/ DFJ in Vietnam, DFJ VinaCapital L.P. (DFJV), held an event yesterday in Ho Chi Minh City. Titled “Change the World”, the event celebrated Vietnamese entrepreneurship and marked the launch of local fund mgmt giant Vinacapital’s latest technology fund of US$50 million. (Disclosure: I currently intern in DFJV as an analyst although opinions expressed here are purely personal and not reflective of any corporate policies)
The effervescent Tim Draper was in attendance himself. As you can see, his wide smile reflected his pride as he posed alongside 6 Vietnamese girls with the DFJV logo emblazoned boldly across their chests. Tim’s Vietnamese trip followed his trip from Shanghai and he will be in Singapore, at this time of blogging, as he continues on his whistle-stop trip across Asia."

The Next Net: Google And Skype Invest in FON

"Google is investing along with Skype, Sequoia Capital, and Danny Rimer's Index Ventures in a Spanish startup called Fon, which wants to create a shared WiFi network among consumers (If you want to use other FON members' WiFi networks you can do so for free by opening up your own, or you can pay). Om has the details.
The Skype-FON connection makes a lot of sense. If you are into free/cheap Internet phone calls, you'd probably be into free/cheap WiFi access as well. So there are some cross-recruiting opportunities there. "

RED HERRING | Meru Networks Tests IPO Waters

"Business Wi-Fi startup Meru Networks will test Wall Street’s recent finicky appetite for telecom stock when it files for an initial public offering perhaps later this year.

In an exclusive interview with Red Herring, Meru’s CEO, Ihab Abu-Hakima, said the four-year-old Wi-Fi startup will follow the lead of six telecom companies that have gone public this year. Investor reaction to these companies has ranged from festive―BigBand Networks, Aruba Networks, and MetroPCS―to downright rude for Clearwire and Veraz Networks.

Meru also has a long list of private investors who have pumped $95 million into the Sunnyvale, California-based company. And they’re hoping that Meru’s reception is closer to that given rival Aruba. Its stock climbed almost 30 percent on its first day of trading a few weeks ago, and it has continued to trade near its first-day high ever since.

Now, is there room in that growth pattern for another Wi-Fi IPO? "

Match.com CEO to lead IAC new business venture | Reuters.com

"IAC/InterActiveCorp, Barry Diller's Internet conglomerate, said on Tuesday it would launch a venture to identify budding business concepts, headed by the chief of its Match.com online dating service.
Match CEO Jim Safka will take the helm of a new IAC venture based in San Francisco with the aim of incubating and developing new businesses.
IAC said it promoted Match Chief Operating Officer Thomas Enraght-Moony to the role of CEO in his place.
'Today's technology is enabling new media innovation at a faster pace than ever before,' IAC Chairman and CEO Diller said of the new venture in statement. 'We see many opportunities to build as well as buy.'"

Seeking Alpha Interactive Q&A with Co-Founder and CEO of Feedburner

"This interactive Q&A is with Dick Costolo, Co-Founder and CEO of Feedburner, the privately-held news feed and readership management provider. Feedburner has sponsored this interview, which works like this:
Dick briefly introduces himself and the issues he's focused on below.
Readers and contributors can immediately start to post questions and remarks using the comment box below (Note: you need to sign up for free registration and be logged in to do so).
Seeking Alpha editors will not filter or edit the questions and comments from readers, except to delete profane or hostile language.
Dick will respond to the questions and remarks beginning Wednesday, April 25th. Readers can track his answers and respond to them during that period, with the resulting dialogue remaining on the site. "

Time to Short the Market: High-tech jobs in CA rebound for first time since dot-com bust

"For the first time since the state lost tens of thousands of jobs after the dot-com collapse, California companies have added tech workers to their payrolls, according to a report that tracks nationwide employment in the industry.
The Cyberstates report unveiled today by the American Electronics Association said the state added 14,400 net jobs, an increase of 2 percent that boosted the tech industry total to 919,322 in 2005, according to the most current state data available.
California's gains mark 'the first net increase in jobs (here) since the tech bubble began to burst in 2000,'' the association said.
The 150-page report shows that the health of the industry at the state and national level is much improved since it hit bottom in 2004. "

Kleiner entering China with $360 mln fund - Reuters

"Top U.S. venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is entering the explosively growing Chinese market with a $360 million fund and a team of veteran local investors, the firm said on Monday.
The legendary venture firm best known as an early backer of Google Inc., Amazon.com, Netscape and Sun Microsystems has overcome its traditional reluctance to operate outside of its home base in Silicon Valley, Kleiner partner Ellen Pao said.
The company named Joe Zhou, formerly of Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund (SAIF), and TDF Capital partners Tina Ju, David Su and Forrest Zhong as partners in its new operation, known as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) China."

VC Investments Rise in 1Q - washingtonpost.com

"Venture capitalists invested $7.1 billion in the United States during the first three months of the year, lifting the industry to its biggest quarter in more than five years, according to figures to be released Tuesday.
The amount spread across 778 deals represented the most venture capital to pour into startups in a quarter since the final three months of 2001, based on data compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association."

Unstrung: The GOOG is Hiring for Hardware G Phone Managers

"The Google phone may not be in the shadows much longer as the search giant is now actively searching for program managers and others to help it with 'a new hardware product introduction.'
The company is advertising the job -- along with a number of other more explicitly mobile-related positions -- on its site. Unstrung was tipped off this week that the company may be bringing more people in to support its mobile efforts soon.
Rumors of a so-called 'Google Phone' have been floating round for months now. Unstrung reported in March that the company was said to have a 100-strong team working on a device in Mountain View, Calif. The gadget would be a BlackBerry-like device that would run Java -- and possibly Linux -- and support services such as voice over IP. These new openings are said to be for the next stage of that work. (See Google Spy: Big Team Picking Up Phone.)"

VC report | Green energy investment is booming | Seattle Times Newspaper

"Here's a case where green stands for money and the environment.
Venture capitalists pumped millions of dollars into alternative-energy companies during the first quarter, making the category one of the fastest-growing early-stage businesses, according to a quarterly venture-capital report released today by Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young.
The trend was especially evident in Washington state, where Seattle's Imperium Renewables raised $113 million in venture capital to complete a biodiesel refinery in Grays Harbor and begin work on three more.
That deal alone contributed to a blockbuster quarter for the state, which raised nearly $400 million in venture capital in the first quarter. At that level, Washington ranked as the third most active state in the country, behind California and Massachusetts."

BuyYourFriendADrink update: It works! | Crave : The gadget blog

"I'd initially been skeptical about BuyYourFriendADrink.com (BYFAD), the Web site that just opened today (see previous coverage) in which you can remotely order drinks for your friends that they can redeem at participating bars by showing the bartender a code in a text message. It's available at about 40 bars in New York City and the surrounding area, and the company plans to gradually expand to other urban areas over the course of the year."

Google Acquires Marratech, Enters Enterprise 3.0 Collaboration - Seeking Alpha

"Sramana Mitra submits: Google (GOOG) has just acquired a small Swedish Webex competitor, Marratech, entering the Enterprise 3.0 collaboration game.
Earlier, Cisco (CSCO) acquired Webex for $3.1 Billion, and postured to take on Microsoft (MSFT), a leader in the enterprise collaboration space.
I used to wonder for the longest time why Google wasn’t buying Webex. Well, now all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.
There’s one thing that Google has missed, however, which is that to play in the Enterprise space they need to worry about Security. "

Instant Ice - Very Cool

The scary math behind Web 2.0, 1B page views to an exit | CNET News.com

"1 billion or more, says Opus Capital partner Ken Elefant, which is why his firm doesn't invest in them.
'Most of them are features,' he said in an interview. 'Most of them can't be long-term sustainable businesses.'
Here's how Elefant comes up with his math. A web 2.0 company needs to be pulling in around $5 million in revenue a month to become an independent, viable publishing house. The average CPM is around $10. About half of the inventory on a given site remains unsold so the real CPM is closer to $5. Thus, you need 1,000 CPMs a month. A thousand impressions go into CPM."

Jared Kim’s Weblog

"Jared Kim’s Weblog
“For the true entrepreneur, reality is the superior teacher; and school is an excuse to delay failure.”"

fROM Valleywag:"For young entrepreneurs worth watching, try Jared Kim, who's building his second gaming-related company while on leave from college. I wouldn't be surprised to see the founders of Reddit, at least one of whom has already left Reddit's new parent company Conde Nast, start something else as well."

Why Is Adobe - Not DivX - Leading the Internet Video Market? - Seeking Alpha

"Mark Milliman submits: Everyday someone forwards me a link to another pixilated and grainy video on Google's (GOOG) YouTube. Most of the content are clips from previously copyrighted material, but the most annoying feature is the quality of the Flash-based video displayed. In this day in age of high-definition video, why must we accept postage stamped size, poor quality video? Because Adobe's (ADBE) Flash video leads the market in Internet-based video over Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), Real, and DivX (DIVX). "

Cleantech VC investment totals $903m in Q1 2007

"North American and European venture investment in the cleantech category totalled $903m in the first quarter of this year, representing a 16.5 per cent increase over the $775m invested in Q4 2006 and a 42 per cent increase over the $634 million invested in Q1 2006, according to Cleantech Venture Network researchers.
North American cleantech venture capital investment reached $731m, an increase of 19 per cent over Q4 2006 and 42 per cent over Q1 2006 investment. "

MetroPCS Climbs 19% in First Day of Trading: DealBook

"Shares of MetroPCS, whose all-you-can-talk business model provides low-cost cell phone service, bolted out of the gate Thursday in the first billion-dollar initial public offering of 2007.
After raising $1.15 billion by selling 50 million shares for $23 each, above the expected $19 to $21 range, stock in the Dallas-based company climbed $4.35, or 19 percent, at $27.35 on the first day of trading on the public markets.
Investors in the public markets leaped at the opportunity to capture the growth of MetroPCS, whose revenue climbed 49 percent in 2006 to $1.5 billion. Meanwhile, the company’s private investors, including Madison Dearborn Capital Partners and TA Associates found a lucrative exit point. "

Bezos reportedly buys mansion in Beverly Hills

"It's not quite The Beverly Hillbillies.
But Jeff Bezos, who made his fortune in Seattle with the online retailing giant Amazon.com, has reportedly paid close to $30 million for a seven bedroom, 11,900 square foot mansion in the posh neighborhood of Beverly Hills.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the sale of the Spanish style estate -- complete with tennis court, pool and six car garage -- is one of the most expensive residential real estate deals in Beverly Hills in the past few years. The Real Estalker blog notes that the property backs up to a home where actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes reside. (More photos here)."

Marshall Kirkpatrick » What Role Did Blogging Play in the Hitwise Acquisition?

"Experian has acquired Australia based website traffic analysts Hitwise for $240 million, it was announced today. That announcement really caught my eye because Hitwise has done an incredible job of using blogs and participating in social media to raise the company's profile. I can only assume that this has helped it raise revenues and thus contributed to its acquisition. What other traffic stats company puts out really interesting, timely data for free on a regular basis? What other companies write blog posts that hit the peak of Techmeme? What other traffic companies provide the fodder for thought provoking, informative posts on blogs like TechCrunch, Gigaom, Mashable and many, many more - on a regular basis? "

Techcrunch: StumbleUpon (may be) For Sale: $50 million

"Two sources have confirmed that the rapidly growing StumbleUpon recently approached at least one large Internet company to be acquired. The asking price was $50 million."

Bloomberg.com: GOOG acquisitions

"Google, owner of the most-popular Internet search engine, has about 15 people working on acquisitions that meet with dozens of companies a week, Ullah said. Mountain View, California-based Google responds to every e-mail pitching a company, while phone calls have a 10 percent response rate, he said. "

"``The crazy ones mean they ignore the usual restraints of investment levels required or design parameters or `Gee I need more servers than anyone ever thought was possible','' Ullah said. ``When you free yourselves from these constraints, you create crazy, cool things.''
Google wants companies that can build revenue streams from their users, instead of buying firms with a lot of users that don't bring in much in sales, Ullah said.
``We don't do traffic for traffic's sake,'' he said. ``It has to be highly monetizable.''
In the past Google has also used a technique called Monte Carlo analysis to size up a deal, where computer algorithms are used to answer questions."

Deal Journal: Accused Former Duke Lax Player Lands Morgan Stanley Job

"Evans now has landed one of the most prestigious jobs on Wall Street, Deal Journal has learned. Morgan Stanley has hired Evans, who graduated in May 2006, as part of its investment banking analyst program. Landing a plum job — which is paying well into the six-figure range these days — has to be a satisfying end to a bitter sequence of events for Evans since the rape allegations surfaced in March 2006.
The 24-year-old Maryland native had a job lined up at J.P. Morgan Chase’s investment bank that was rescinded in the wake of his May 2006 indictment, with the bank telling him it probably wasn’t the best time to be starting a new job. After he was cleared recently, J.P. Morgan came back to Evans and made a new offer, which he declined."

Is eBay’s Acquisition of Skype Paying Off? - Seeking Alpha

"So why focus on Skype?

I didn't buy eBay's initial rationale for buying Skype, which was roughly based on click to call functionality integrated with eBay's marketplace. Let's face it eBay's $2.6 billion acquisition of Skype in 2005 was pricey.

That doesn't mean it won't work over time, however. To gauge Skype's success it helps to picture it as a standalone entity. On that basis, Skype's business is just swell.

Skype had 196 million registered users at the end of the quarter, up 107 percent from a year ago. eBay sounds like it isn't in a hurry to monetize Skype either, which may be good for building a mass of users.

eBay said a bevy of new products from Skype are "intended to build community engagement and fuel Skype monetization over time." Was Skype worth the price? That's yet to be determined, but growth is headed in the right direction. Here are the sequential growth rates for the last five quarters for Skype.

Quarter ended March 31, 2006: 42 percent;
Quarter ended June 30, 2006: 26 percent;
Quarter ended Sept. 30, 2006: 13 percent;
Quarter ended Dec. 31, 2006: 31 percent;
Quarter ended March 31, 2007: 20 percent.
Not too shabby. I may have to shelve my initial skepticism about eBay's Skype purchase if this growth continues. I'm still a few $100 million in revenue from that point, but getting closer."

Nokia looks at acquisitions in software, Internet tech - MarketWatch

"The world's largest maker of mobile phones, is more likely to make acquisitions on the software and Internet-technology side than in hardware, Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said on a conference call Thursday. "

Analyst: "Gaming has been a disastrous endeavor for Microsoft"

"'Particularly from an investment perspective,' says Wall Streeter Roger Ehrenberg. Note, this doesn't mean the Xbox has been a disaster for gamers -- far from it (cough, cough Halo) -- but Ehrenberg makes a strong case that the Xbox has failed investors by hemorrhaging Microsoft's Home & Electronics profits. He also believes that when a console fails in Japan, as the 360 appears to have done, it cannot succeed in the world market (Caveat: NEC's PC Engine did very well in Japan, and Japan alone).

From the article: 'Microsoft needs to take a long, hard look at its gaming strategy - and, in fact, its entire H&E strategy. At what point, regardless of its virtually endless financial resources, does it say 'enough is enough.''"

Yardbarker.com Launches

"Yardbarker.com, the premier destination on the Internet for unfiltered sports commentary by fans and bloggers, has launched its redesigned web site with cutting edge features that allow fans to control the sports news that they consume daily. The company also completed a seed round of funding and named Russell Siegelman of Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers to its Board of Directors, it was announced today.
The new Yardbarker.com has an updated visual design and more data, including scores, rosters, stats and schedules for all major sports teams. The site also features new personalization functionality that allows users to customize the site to prominently display content about their favorite sports and teams. In addition, users of the site now have the ability to easily access great sports video from around the web. The new features were implemented based entirely on user feedback gathered during the site’s beta period. "

$300K for a Valley CEO: Jessica Guynn

"CEOs at U.S. venture-backed technology companies just keep raking in the dough. They are earning nearly $30,000 more a year in total compensation than they did a year ago, according to data compiled by Dow Jones called CompensationPro.
CEOs in Silicon Valley and the Northeast got the best deals.
Technology CEOs are earning a median $289,000 this year, up from $260,000 last year.
Total compensation, including salary and bonus, for CEOs of venture-backed health care companies rose to a median of $300,000, up from $284,000 last year.
High-tech CEOs also cleaned up in the equity department at 4.9 percent."

PC World - Web 2.0: Tellme Launches New Mobile Search

"Tellme Networks Inc., a provider of computerized, voice-driven directory assistance, launched a new mobile search service on Tuesday that allows users to ask for information and see the results pop up with maps and directions on the phone's screen.
Tellme, which agreed to be acquired by Microsoft Corp. last month, said the free service will be supported by advertising.
The formal launch by Tellme follows months of testing and comes on the heels of an announcement by computer Web search leader Google Inc. to set up an experiment using speech recognition on telephones."

Participation on Web 2.0 sites remains weak -study | Reuters.com

"Web 2.0, a catchphrase for the latest generation of Web sites where users contribute their own text, pictures and video content, is far less participatory than commonly assumed, a study showed on Tuesday.
A tiny 0.16 percent of visits to Google's top video-sharing site, YouTube, are by users seeking to upload video for others to watch, according to a study of online surfing data by Bill Tancer, an analyst with Web audience measurement firm Hitwise.
Similarly, only two-tenths of one percent of visits to Flickr, a popular photo-editing site owned by Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile , Research), are to upload new photos, the Hitwise study found. "

Vidoop: Passwords in a picture

"One of the companies presenting at the Web 2.0 Expo Launchpad sessions on Tuesday is the very strange security company, Vidoop. This firm makes a system that replaces passwords with pictures. It's quite ingenious, and much more secure than standard, hackable, or keyboard-loggable passwords. "

Other:

Goodbye Passwords. Vidoop Debuts New Authentication Technology at ... Business Wire (press release)Vidoop: Passwords in a picture, sponsored by Mercedes Webware/Cnet
Web 2.0: Picture Passwords Promise Better Security PC World

Photos: Vegas machines' new jackpot? iPods | CNET News.com

"Architecture, entertainment and vice. Everything about this city is famous for being over the top. You can now add vending machines to the list.
Can't sleep after bucking the roulette wheel? Forget the flat soda and stale chips. Patter downstairs and pick up an 80GB iPod for $349. Don't worry about scrounging for change. The machine only takes credit cards.
This iPod dispenser from Zoom Systems resides in the lobby of the Las Vegas Hilton. The hotel is a stone's throw from where the National Association of Broadcasters is holding its annual conference this week."

FunnyorDIE.com: Sequoia, Will Ferrell

"Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s production company Gary Sanchez Prods is launching a comedy site FunnyOrDie.com...the site has already received investment from Sequoia Capital, reports THR. "

"Funny or Die is the collaborative effort of people in Silicon Valley and in Hollywood to create a venue for accomplished as well as aspiring comics to try out new ideas, experiment and generally have fun. It is expermental and a work in progress and will most likely evolve to meet the needs of its performers and their audiences.

All uploaded videos are available for viewer rating and can be rated "funny" or "die". Those clips receiving enough "funny" votes will eventually be elevated to "Immortal" status where they will remain and not require further voting. Those clips receiving enough "die" votes will be removed from the main site and moved to the "Crypt" where they will remain unless they are voted out of the Crypt and back into circulation.

Occasionally Funny or Die will feature well known and accomplished comics and those clips will be given Immortal status while they are being featured.

Funny or Die is open for any comic to upload clips as long as they are original clips whose rights are owned by the submitter. Any material which violates other's copyrights will be removed.

We are open to and encourage comments and suggestions - if you have some, please email them to suggestions@funnyordie.com."

Behind Silicon Valleys I.P.O. Drought - DealBook

"As more venture capitalists and entrepreneurs are choosing mergers and acquisitions rather than initial public offerings as their exit of choice, the trend has some in Silicon Valley worried, says The San Jose Mercury News. According to industry tracker VentureOne, 40 venture-backed Silicon Valley start-ups were acquired in the first quarter of this year, compared with 53 in all of 1997. Meanwhile,the region was home to 417 companies in 2000, compared with the 280 I.P.Os last year.
Those who are expressing concern include former star tech banker Frank Quattrone and Paul Deninger, vice chairman of investment bank Jeffries & Company. Mr. Deninger said the trend will hamper innovation due to less competition to stand-alone companies."

Internet radio broadcasters dealt setback - CNN.com

"Many webcasters say the sharply higher royalty fees will put them out of business. Talk of the ruling dominated a one-day meeting of Internet radio broadcasters being held in Las Vegas alongside the annual conference of the National Association of Broadcasters, a group representing local radio and TV stations.
N. Mark Lam, the CEO of Live365 Inc., a privately held company that aggregates audio streams from thousands of radio stations and other small webcasters, said that under the new royalty rules, 'there is no industry.'
Lam, who joined the venture capital-backed company about two years ago, said Live365 just barely broke even last year and had about 4.5 million unique listeners every month."

The strangeness of Ram Charan - Forbes

"Thirty years ago this month, Ram Charan (pronounced 'Rahm Scha-RON') quit a tenured professorship at Boston University to devote himself full-time to consulting. Today he's alone at the top of his profession - not a consultant so much as a guru, a corporate sage, with unparalleled access to boardrooms across the globe and intimate, enduring relationships with an array of powerful CEOs. "

Green venture capital lures wealthy clients | Reuters.it

"Millionaires are piling seed capital into young firms developing green technologies, seeking better control over what happens to money they invest to help improve the environment.
Green venture capital -- a nascent corner of the growing market for socially responsible investments -- is flowing from multimillionaires rather than from strictly controlled institutional investors.
'Wealthy private clients face different rules. They can ask themselves: 'What is it that I really want to change in the world with the help of my money?',' said Wolfgang Hafenmayer at Munich-based BonVenture Management.
The tiny fund manager is exclusively financed by individual investors, putting their money into companies in German-speaking countries that help protect the environment or support socially weaker groups.
Often, the start-up companies it selects involve BonVenture's clients in their decisions, benefiting from the fact many of them are entrepreneurs.
In Europe, some 1.25 billion euros (850 million pounds) was raised for socially responsible venture capital as of 2006, benefiting areas such as pesticide-free insect control, hybrid cars and special schools for children."

Bloomberg.com: Kiteboarding VCs and Googlers

"William Tai, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, was kitesurfing under the Golden Gate Bridge when the wind died. The kite crashed and broke, and Tai, entangled in the lines, was dragged out to sea.
``I thought I was toast,'' Tai said of his close call in August. ``I couldn't kick my feet.''
Another boarder, John Gomes, saw Tai struggling and radioed the Coast Guard for a rescue. Only a few days later, Tai, 44, was back in the bay, indulging in an extreme sport that's captivating investors, entrepreneurs and executives in California's technology industry.
Google Inc. co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are kiteboarders. So are Ken Howery, managing partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund Management LLC, solar energy entrepreneur Lyndon Rive, and Aaron Gershenberg, a managing director at SVB Capital, the buyout arm of SVB Financial Group in Santa Clara. "

LanDesk: Corporate castoffs bring new life to VC

"Landesk was a software company trapped in a semiconductor body.
As an Intel subsidiary, the PC management software maker enjoyed moderate sales for about 12 years. But in 2002, the chip giant decided to spin it off as a separate company. And in 2006, Landesk Software was acquired by Avocent for $416 million.
'It was sort of 'Let my people go,'' explained Bart Schachter, an Intel era Landesk employee. Schacter is now a partner at Blueprint Ventures, a venture capital firm that is trying to build a franchise by creating start-ups out of corporate castoffs. "

Y Combinator: An assembly line for tech start-ups

"investor community, where packs of investors tend to fund start-ups together, is also cliquish.
But underscoring investor appetite for hot Web start-ups, both are reaching out beyond their tight social circles to forge professional and social connections with a new group in town: the growing fraternity of start-ups backed by Y Combinator, a 2-year-old company with offices in Cambridge, Mass., and Mountain View.
The brainchild of entrepreneur Paul Graham - who in 1998 sold his company Viaweb to Yahoo for about $50 million and whose subsequent books and essays have won him a following of programmers - Y Combinator provides seed financing, guidance and killer contacts to entrepreneurs.
That's not so unusual for a fund until you consider that Y Combinator, named after a mathematical construct, doesn't just back promising young companies; it helps create them.
Here's how it works: twice a year, Y Combinator invites 'hackers,' or programmers, to fill out an online application, outlining who they are and a business idea. One winning batch of teams is funded in winter and the other in summer. With Y Combinator's help, each becomes a real company - one that is expected to create its product within three months. The amount of money Y Combinator gives each group - $5,000, plus an additional $5,000 per founder - is a pittance for what it asks in return, which "

Analysis: Photobucket Accounts for 73% of MySpace's Photo Traffic | Digital Media Wire

"On Wednesday, April 11, MySpace blocked videos and slideshows hosted by Photobucket from appearing on the site due to an apparent violation of the MySpace terms of Service agreement. Did this blockage have any effect on Photobucket's traffic, and how much traffic do the two sites share?
The market share of visits to Photobucket was up 3.9% on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 versus an average of the previous 4 Wednesdays. As I wrote last week, Photobucket received 57% of its upstream traffic from MySpace in March 2007."

Google to Acquire DoubleClick

"Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today a definitive agreement to acquire DoubleClick Inc., a global leader in digital marketing technology and services, for $3.1 billion in cash from San Francisco-based private equity firm Hellman & Friedman along with JMI Equity and management. The acquisition will combine DoubleClick’s expertise in ad management technology for media buyers and sellers with Google’s leading advertising platform and publisher monetization services.
The combination of Google and DoubleClick will offer superior tools for targeting, serving and analyzing online ads of all types, significantly benefiting customers and consumers:
For users, the combined company will deliver an improved experience on the web, by increasing the relevancy and the quality of the ads they see.
For online publishers, the combination provides access to new advertisers, which creates a powerful opportunity to monetize their inventory more efficiently.
For agencies and advertisers, Google and DoubleClick will provide an easy and efficient way to manage both search and display ads in one place. They will be able to optimize their ad spending across different online media using a common set of metrics. "

Where Are The Web 2.0 IPOs? - Forbes.com

"Once a relic of the last stock boom, initial public offerings are back--and tech IPOs are really back. In first quarter of 2007 alone, nine venture-backed tech companies have floated stock, with three tech IPOs during the week before last.

But don't look for photos of Silicon Valley kids in flip-flops grinning after striking it rich on the Nasdaq. The tech companies that have gone public so far this year are, um, mature, if not a little staid--they sell things like networking gear and wireless Internet service.

Meanwhile, the most heavily hyped segment of the tech boom--the glitzy "Web 2.0" companies--has produced a grand total of zero stock offerings. What gives?"

Comcast Buys Fandango

"Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSK, CMCSA), the nation’s leading provider of cable, entertainment and communications products and services, today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Fandango, the nation’s premier destination for movie information, showtimes and ticketing, and one of the Web’s top entertainment sites. The company also announced plans to launch Fancast.com, a new national online destination that will enable consumers to search, discover, manage and enjoy their entertainment experience across many devices and channels, including television, computers, DVDs and wireless services.
Comcast has a major Internet presence, through Comcast.net, which is now a top 10 site with more than 2.5 billion page views, more than 80 million videos viewed and 15 million unique visitors per month. Comcast will leverage its experience as the nation’s largest buyer of video content, serving nearly 25 million cable customers and 11.5 million broadband customers, to expand its existing video-centric websites and create a new online destination, Fancast.com. "

IBM Develops Chip-Stacking Technique

"IBM has found a way to connect chips inside products ranging from cell phones to supercomputers, an advance that promises to prolong battery life in wireless devices and eventually speed data transfers between the processor and memory chips in computers, the company said Thursday.

The manufacturing technique outlined by IBM Corp. eliminates the long metal wires that are currently used to transfer information and electrical charge between chips.

The memory and processor chips are often spaced inches apart from each other, causing a lag in transmission as chipmakers multiply the number and voracity of calculating cores on their processors.

Slowdowns crop up when data-hungry processors cannot retrieve information fast enough from memory to perform their increasingly complex functions."

Red Herring: Vonage Could Kill VoIP Funding

"Vonage was ordered by a federal judge on Friday to halt adding new customers unless it can come up with a patent work-around, but the Internet phone company escaped being shut down altogether.

Even if Vonage survives its legal woes, its massive patent problems will shut off the flow of venture capital funds into the VoIP market, industry insiders said. In fact venture capitalists, who have pumped nearly $2 billion into VoIP, are concerned their current investments will go up in smoke.

“VCs are probably going to cut their losses and not fund VoIP companies anymore, but I think that would be a tragedy,” Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala said. “I would hate to see innovation stifled because of this.”

YOUNIVERSITY VENTURES

MISSION

We help talented teams with innovative products to take the next step. We provide mentorship, expertise, contacts, and access to capital.

Youniversity Ventures is focused on former and current students at Stanford University and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "

WHO


Jawed Karim


Jawed cofounded YouTube in 2005 to enable individuals worldwide to broadcast themselves. YouTube is one of the fastest-growing websites in the history of the Internet and is ranked among the top five most popular websites in the world. Prior to YouTube, Jawed was one of the earliest engineers at PayPal, now the world's largest online payment service, where he implemented its first real-time anti-fraud systems.
Jawed has a BS in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is currently a graduate student in computer science at Stanford University. Jawed is also a limited partner at Sequoia Capital.




Kevin Hartz

Kevin cofounded Eventbrite, a popular event registration service. Kevin was previously cofounder and CEO of Xoom Corporation, an international money transfer company providing service in over 30 countries. Xoom's investors include Peter Thiel, Sequoia Capital, and Stanford University. Kevin began his career as a product manager at Silicon Graphics and later cofounded ConnectGroup, a start-up providing high-speed Internet access to the hotel industry. ConnectGroup was acquired by Lodgenet in 1998. Kevin then joined Outlook Ventures, a venture capital firm focusing on seed and early stage technology companies.
Kevin holds a BA and BS from Stanford University, as well as an MA from Oxford University. He has been an active early stage investor and advisor to start-ups including PayPal, Geni.com, Friendster, Flixster.com, and Trulia. Kevin is also a limited partner at Sequoia Capital. You can see his full list of affiliations at http://www.kevinhartz.com/.

Bottler Cycler - Recycling and Waste Management for Bottles

BottleCycler is committed to supplying the 'away from home' recycling industry a reliable, OH&S sound and economic viable solution for glass container recycling. By reducing volume, eliminating contamination issues, reducing noise complaints and OH&S risks all parties involved will benefit from a succesful implementation of this revolutionairy recycling service, before recycling becomes a mandatory (= expensive) component of managing a hospitality outlet.

Sifry's Alerts: The State of the Live Web, April 2007

"About this Report, and the Obligatory Plug for Technorati

Technorati is known widely for its quarterly State of the Blogosphere reports, analyzing the trends around blogs and blogging. With this report, we expand on this tradition by introducing information and analysis relating to the broader range of social media on the Web -- what we and many others call the Live Web (another good definition). Technorati continues to grow well beyond its roots at the leading blog search engine; increasingly, we are the main aggregation point for all forms of social media on the Web, including blogs, of course, but also video, photos, audio such as podcasts and much more.

What makes this possible is the rise in the use of tags across all forms of social media and the increasing implementation of tags by the publishing platforms supporting each form of media. Increasingly, tags have become a lingua franca of Live Web, helping to categorize social media while also indicating where people’s attention might be at any given moment. But because each form of media is published from unique platforms with their own established communities, the audience found itself hopping from platform to platform to get a sense of what might be hot at any given moment. Which is why our social media aggregation service -- made manifest on our tagged media pages -- is growing at a torrid pace."

MarketWatch Columnist, Bambi Steps Down - WSJ.com

"A MarketWatch columnist who covers Silicon Valley and was allowed to invest in a Web concern resigned following scrutiny of whether she breached ethical guidelines.

Bambi Francisco resigned effective immediately from MarketWatch, a financial-news Web site operated by Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co. Aside from writing her column on Internet companies, Ms. Francisco regularly appeared in video reports for MarketWatch and wrote a blog for the site. She had made a personal investment in Vator.tv, a video platform designed to link entrepreneurs with venture capitalists.

In a statement, L. Gordon Crovitz, executive vice president of Dow Jones's consumer media group, said: "Dow Jones demands the highest journalism standards at our own publications and services, as reflected by our strict Code of Conduct. Our MarketWatch reporter Bambi Francisco started Vator.tv on her own time with our approval, under certain guidelines on permitted areas of coverage. Bambi has decided to pursue her enterprise full time."

In a column on MarketWatch yesterday, Ms. Francisco wrote: "With much regret, I'm leaving MarketWatch, my employer for eight years, as a full-time columnist and correspondent, though I hope to maintain ties." In an interview, she said, "I'm not hiding anything, I want to be transparent."

__________________________

Check out the first episode of vator reports - a show on innovation, based on the many innovative ideas and businesses Peter Thiel and I are seeing on the vator.tv site. In this episode, some companies highlighted are uShip - the eBay for shipping (and one of my favorite videos on vator!), SnipWiki - a site where engineers can create new software code by collaborating through a wiki, Lotus Video - a maker of vitamin vodkas, Swingstar Golf - an online golf trainer, Crushpad - a Web 2.0 approach to winemaking, and Dogster - a social network site for dogs, among many others. Enjoy the show. And if you go to vator.tv, let me know which video pitches Peter and I should highlight

How to Change the World: How to Get the Attention of a Venture Capitalist

A cogent list of the tips to get the attention of a venture capitalist:

Get an introduction by a partner-level lawyer.
Get an introduction by a professor of engineering
Get an introduction by the founder of a company in the venture capitalist’s portfolio.
Show success
Make sure your company is in the right space

What NOT to do:
Claim that you’re in a multi-billion dollar market
Brag about an MBA degree
Try to create the illusion of scarcity.

Family uses YoutTube, Myspace in efforts to free imprisoned son / They say evidence proves he didn't kill girlfriend in Nicaragua

"The family is appealing the conviction to a Nicaraguan appeals court, writing to U.S. lawmakers and the State Department, holding benefit concerts to raise money, and asserting Volz's innocence on such popular Web sites as MySpace and YouTube. The former has a 'Free Eric Volz' listing, with more than 2,000 'friends,' and a YouTube video titled 'An American Wrongly Imprisoned in Nicaragua' claims that at least 10 witnesses were with Volz 60 miles away in Managua at the time of the murder in the resort town of San Juan del Sur. Fueled by 'fierce anti-American' sentiment, there were 'fundamental violations of due process. ... Eric's future rests in your hands. Write your senator and congressmen. Send the video around,' the six minute, fifty-second film says. As of Thursday, the video had been seen by more than 56,000 people.
The Anthonys point out that the sole witness placing Volz at the murder scene is a petty thief named Nelson Lopez, one of three original suspects charged with rape and murder in the Jimenez case. Charges were later dropped against two of the suspects, including Lopez after he testified against Volz. "



This is the true story of American citizen, Eric Volz, who has been wrongfully imprisoned in Nicaragua for a murder he did not commit. For more information please visit http://www.friendsofericvolz.com or http://www.myspace.com/freeericvolz

New Tech startups: MerchantCircle, MyThings, TellFriends, ReadWare

"The San Francisco New Tech Meetup is on tonight at CNET's headquarters. There are four companies presenting, two of which I have covered before: MerchantCircle and MyThings. That leaves two newbies, both interesting plays that lack only for business models.

TellFriends is a nicely-designed site for social recommendations.

ReadWare is a 15-year-old company, with a new CEO (Pierre Wolff) and a fascinating technology: The company has a tool to perform contextual analysis of text."

Zinio

"Zinio by the numbers:
1,700+ magazine titles from 350 publishers
160+ textbook titles
40 million+ digital deliveries
5 million visits per quarter to our retail sites
3 million subscribers in most of the world’s countries
Database of one million magazine buyers available for cross marketing
Zinio sells 81% of the top 200 consumer magazines (print and digital) in the US "

YouTube - Google's Marissa Mayer's laugh compilation

Compliments of Valleywag and GooTube:

ExtendMedia Nets $12M - Telecom News Wire

"ExtendMedia has announced that it received $12 million in venture capital funding in a Series B round led by TVM Capital. Previous investors Atlas Venture and Venrock Associates also participated in the current round. This financing follows a previous $11 million Series A round, bringing funding to a total of $23 million. The additional funds will be used to accelerate sales, marketing and product development efforts to meet strong market demand for both direct-to-consumer and ad-supported digital content businesses. ExtendMedia's OpenCASE(TM) solutions help power digital media commerce for Hewlett-Packard, SHOWTIME, ClickStar, Cablevision, Bell Canada, Manitoba Telecom Services, and major third-party integrators.
'Content rights owners and distributors need deep, broad enterprise-class technology and infrastructure in order to bring compelling digital content services to market,' said Jim Geary, CEO of ExtendMedia. 'We're already uniquely capable of meeting the complex requirements of large media companies and wireline and wireless service providers. This capital infusion allows us to accelerate our technology innovation, expand our unique market positioning and most importantly, help make our customers' businesses even more successful.' "

Amazon.com: Venture Capital: The Definitive Guide for Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Practitioner

Venture Capital: The Definitive Guide for Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Practitioners (Hardcover) by Joel Cardis (Author), Sam Kirschner (Author), Stan Richelson (Author), Jason Kirschner (Author), Hildy Richelson (Author) "As an entrepreneur, you are living in extraordinary times..." (more) Key Phrases: dilution schedule, aggregate purchase price, full business plan, Silicon Valley, Fred Beste, Internet Capital Group (more...) (2 customer reviews)

21 Surefire Tips for a Successful Blog Launch

Digg: Mammoth traffic; tech-focused; savvy users
Delicious: Pretty big traffic; somewhat tech/design-focused; a lot of bloggers browse Delicious for “things to link to”
Netscape: Pretty big traffic; a mix of topics; less savvy users
Stumbleupon: Medium traffic; weird stuff/literary articles; normal users.
Yahoo MyWeb: Medium traffic; general interest; normal users
Reddit: Lower traffic; politics/random stuff; normal users.
Furl: Lower traffic; tech-focused/some random stuff; normal users
Newsvine: Lower traffic; politics and news; normal users.
Lookmarks: Low traffic; gets spammed a lot; less savvy users
Blinklist: Low traffic; gets spammed a lot; less savvy users

Airline's social networks connect frequent flyers

Frequent-flying business people aren't known to spend a lot of time on
MySpace. Royal Dutch Airlines has created a social network they do
like: one that helps them get in touch with other entrepreneurs doing
business in China and Africa.

Hitchsters.com - Share a taxi to/from the airport in NYC

"Hitchsters.com is a combination of a social networking and a ride matching site. It connects travelers scheduled on the same flight and heading to the same part of the city so they can share a taxi."

Compiler - Wired News: Vuze

"First it was Azureus. Then it was Zudeo. Now it's Vuze.
Azureus, the maker of the popular BitTorrent file-sharing client has relaunched its website, which was previously code-named Zudeo, and announced a content partnership with Showtime to distribute the network's shows.
Azureus is positioning Vuze as the best place on the web to get premium HD-quality video content. But after browsing around for a while, I have to say there just isn't much there that's compelling. The BBC content in HD and the Showtime stuff enhances the service -- I can buy Weeds at iTunes, but not The L Word."

STUFFITI.com - Cool Stuff. Hot Deals.

STUFFITI brings you cool new products and gadgets daily. What makes us different? Instead of just writing about stuff, we make sure you get a great deal on it too!

Bostonist: Venture Capital Internet Cabs

"Chanel 5's Cindy and Jeff have a blog. It's about traffic. Today it was about grabbing a Taxi. When Bostonist has a flight to catch we've been known to walk ourselves to the nearest hotel so that we can grab the flat rate to Logan because it's almost always cheaper than a ride with the meter running. As fast as the Big Dig has made an airport run, traffic usually slows us down enough to add a couple of dollars to the price. For 40 bucks from Cambridge hotels, less from downtown, the flat rate is enticing to our wallet (of course the silver line or blue line is the cheapest method – sometimes the T just doesn't instill us with confidence.) The service is available in 40 major US cities including Boston."