Posts Tagged with ‘VC’

We have already seen tons of things people do on Twitter to help their business - marketing people selling staff, community managers engaging in various activities with their users, startups providing technical support, bloggers hunting for scoops and promoting their articles. But Jason Goldberg, CEO of the recently launched to the public SocialMedian has found a new (and kind of unexpected) way to use Twitter for business: he is attempting to raise investment right within the microblogging service.
True, it is [...]

At the risk of making enemies, I'm one of the only people I've seen so far today not jumping up and down with excitement at Seesmic's purchase of Twhirl. I like the idea of Seesmic, even if I'm a videophobe myself. And I love Twhirl, and use it every second that I'm online.
Here's my issue with all these exciting mergers and buyouts and why I can't hop up and down: you have a start-up that doesn't sell anything buying another [...]

There's been a story today that virtually every blog has been tiptoeing around but not addressing, except for Drama 2.0, but we know how much he likes to rub our noses in any possible popping of the bubble. The story, as Reuters tells it, is that venture capital into Web 2.0 start-ups is slowing down.
In the Dow Jones VentureSource report cited, they point out that VC for Web 2.0 companies only grew by 25% in 2007, from 143 to 178 [...]

I followed liveblogs of the iPhone SDK announcement today (thanks to TUAW and Engadget) just for fun, to see if any new social platforms would emerge or special Web 2.0 news would come out.
Was I the only one shocked with the closing of the media event? I should have known that Jobs had something up his sleeve all along with his announcement of iFund. Apple is going to partner with KPCB in venture capital business, and I, for one, [...]

I will never understand how VCs make their decisions. Some companies that get funding seem doomed to fail, and falling under that very confusing category is last week's news that doubleTwist was funded by Index Ventures.
In theory, doubleTwist has all the Web 2.0 buzzwords that should lead to success. It's tagline is “liberate your media” and the only text other than news on their entry page is “doubleTwist desktop enables you to easily share media with friends and sync with [...]

We here at Profy have spoken before of Vuze. A video content distribution company built upon the P2P-based platform Azureus, Vuze is akin to the iTunes TV shop in that it provides easy access to professionally-produced material both new and old – albeit with one great distinction: most of the stuff’s free.
Fairly recently, Vuze made a few headlines through the issuance of a petition to the FCC to investigate and halt ISPs’ practices of throttling bandwidth and network access [...]

We’ve covered the MyStrands social music service/network several times here at Profy. First in December of 2006. Then in late January, when we spoke of several enhancements made. Then in mid-March, when MyStrands tacked on a nifty mobile component to its repertoire. And, lastly, in early September, when we brought you word of the launch of MyStrands TV.
Now it’s safe to say the company (we presume it’s past the “startup” stage) is doing quite well for itself. [...]

Venture Capital has played such a key role in the wildfire spread of Web 2.0 startups and innovations this last year. As writers we often report on funding for this company or that, but I think we seldom think of what this money goes for, how it is offered or what a big role it plays in the technologies we find so useful and fascinating.
I have touched on the nature of VC in many posts and most recently [...]

I received my much anticipated invitation to Powerset's Powerlabs the other day, and was excited to finally get an inside peek one of the years most interesting startups. I have covered Powerset many times since my first article back in January. The brainchild of Barney Pell, Steve Newcomb and Lorenzo Thione held great potential in providing natural language search relevance for the Web. Powerlabs does indicate some significant developments toward natural search, but the larger issue to me is: "Where [...]