For the past week or so, rumors have been swirling around Skype, the Internet telephony company. Reuters has reported that the company has been in talks with both Facebook and Google, either for a partnership or for an outright acquisition. And if my sources are right, we will find out more details very soon.
How soon? People familiar with Skype indicate that some kind of news is forthcoming later this week, perhaps as soon as Monday. At present, corporate attorneys and other senior managers are burning the midnight oil this weekend, ahead of some kind of announcement. A Skype person replied to my email query by saying, “Thanks for reaching out – as a matter of practice - Skype does not comment on rumor or speculation.”
Sources also say that Microsoft has entered the mix and is interested in either partnering with, acquiring or investing in Skype. While they are late entrants to this game, Microsoft’s interest makes sense for several reasons:
Skype would givemMicrosoft a big boost in the hotly contested enterprise collaboration market places, thanks to Skype’s voice, video and sharing capabilities. It would be particularly useful for competing against Cisco and Google, two of its main rivals in the collaboration business.
It would give them a must-have application/service that can help with the adoption of the future versions of Windows Mobile operating system.
it would give Microsoft an outside chance of working with carriers, many of them looking to partner with Skype as they start to transition to LTE-based networks.
What is my take on all the rumors? First of all, this is not the first time we have heard them. While I clearly see value in these companies partnering with Skype, an acquisition doesn’t make much sense. But an investment from one of the three could give Skype the cash cushion as it waits out for its initial public offering, and could also be a way to buy out an antsy investor. And while a partnership would make sense for Facebook, it doesn’t need to acquire Skype — I’ve heard the two companies are about to make some kind of joint product announcement soon.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Investors Cough Up $1.6 Million To Dine With Grubwithus, The Brilliant Social Dining Service
The idea behind Grubwithus is an awesome yet simple one. You browse for a restaurant you’d like to go to in a certain city and buy a ticket for your meal at a set price. But the key is that others do this as well, all with the intention of meeting new people over dinner. And when you’re buying your ticket, you can see who your dinner buddies will be. Yes, it’s sort of like Groupon meets Meetup. And yes, it’s brilliant.
So it should be no surprise that a long list of prominent early-stage investors have decided they’d love to back Grubwithus. The service, which launched out of Y Combinator last year, has just raised a $1.6 million round. Who’s at the funding table? Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital, NEA, SV Angel, Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary, Vivi Nevo, Yuri Milner, Maynard Webb, Matt Cutts, Elad Gil, Paul Buchheit, Alexis Ohanian, Start Fund, and Y Combinator.
Alongside the funding, the company is also highlighting two different types of dinners: charity dinners and raffle dinners. And the first two they’re doing are with investors Andreessen Horowitz and NEA.
For the Andreessen Horowitz meal, which takes place a Tamarine in Palo Alto on May 18, you’ll have to bid to win a dinner with John O’Farrell and Scott Weiss (two of the general partners). The proceeds from the bidding will go towards Second Harvest Food Bank. The 10 highest bids will win seats at the table (and the bidding will close 24 hours before the event).
The NEA meal is a raffle one. Essentially, anytime you book a meal on Grubwithus you’ll get a ticket. These tickets can then be used to enter to win access to the NEA meal — the more tickets you have, the better chance you have of winning the random draw. If you do win, you’ll be asked to pay the $35 set fee for the meal at Reposado in Palo Alto.
Currently, Grubwithus operates in Chicago, San Francisco, New York, DC, and Los Angeles. Boston and Seattle will be opening very soon, co-founder Eddy Lu tells us. The biggest city remains Chicago, as that’s where the service first started, he says.
The team is currently 8 people, but with the new funding they’ll be looking to hire quickly. And they’ll need to, as Lu realizes the competitors and clones will come quickly. One such competitor is LetsLunch, which launched in January.
Lu also envisions expanding the idea of Grubwithus into other verticals and use cases.
That makes sense given the obvious business model. Grubwithus has actually been making revenues since day one, Lu notes. They take a percentage from the restaurants they work with.
“Restaurants love us because we want to create sustainable relationships with them and tell them to make sure they still make money using us,” he says. “Users also use Grubwithus for social utility, not financial utility, so it’s a bunch of high-quality users coming into these restaurants, not deal-hunting cheapskates,” he continues.
You can probably guess which services he’s alluding to with those statements.
So it should be no surprise that a long list of prominent early-stage investors have decided they’d love to back Grubwithus. The service, which launched out of Y Combinator last year, has just raised a $1.6 million round. Who’s at the funding table? Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital, NEA, SV Angel, Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary, Vivi Nevo, Yuri Milner, Maynard Webb, Matt Cutts, Elad Gil, Paul Buchheit, Alexis Ohanian, Start Fund, and Y Combinator.
Alongside the funding, the company is also highlighting two different types of dinners: charity dinners and raffle dinners. And the first two they’re doing are with investors Andreessen Horowitz and NEA.
For the Andreessen Horowitz meal, which takes place a Tamarine in Palo Alto on May 18, you’ll have to bid to win a dinner with John O’Farrell and Scott Weiss (two of the general partners). The proceeds from the bidding will go towards Second Harvest Food Bank. The 10 highest bids will win seats at the table (and the bidding will close 24 hours before the event).
The NEA meal is a raffle one. Essentially, anytime you book a meal on Grubwithus you’ll get a ticket. These tickets can then be used to enter to win access to the NEA meal — the more tickets you have, the better chance you have of winning the random draw. If you do win, you’ll be asked to pay the $35 set fee for the meal at Reposado in Palo Alto.
Currently, Grubwithus operates in Chicago, San Francisco, New York, DC, and Los Angeles. Boston and Seattle will be opening very soon, co-founder Eddy Lu tells us. The biggest city remains Chicago, as that’s where the service first started, he says.
The team is currently 8 people, but with the new funding they’ll be looking to hire quickly. And they’ll need to, as Lu realizes the competitors and clones will come quickly. One such competitor is LetsLunch, which launched in January.
Lu also envisions expanding the idea of Grubwithus into other verticals and use cases.
That makes sense given the obvious business model. Grubwithus has actually been making revenues since day one, Lu notes. They take a percentage from the restaurants they work with.
“Restaurants love us because we want to create sustainable relationships with them and tell them to make sure they still make money using us,” he says. “Users also use Grubwithus for social utility, not financial utility, so it’s a bunch of high-quality users coming into these restaurants, not deal-hunting cheapskates,” he continues.
You can probably guess which services he’s alluding to with those statements.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
MySpace For Sale: The Bidding Begins [REPORT]
A handful of venture capital firms and other companies are expected to make News Corp. offers for one of its most disappointing properties: MySpace.
News Corp. declared it was ready to sell MySpace in an earnings call in February. At that time, in spite of significant layoffs and a massive redesign, the company “recorded a $275 million pre-tax charge for the impairment of goodwill related to the Digital Media Group and an organizational restructuring at MySpace.”
Now, The Wall Street Journal, which shares a parent company with the faltering social network, is reporting that News Corp. is attempting to get at least $100 million out of the sale. It names Redscout Ventures, Thomas H. Lee Partners, and Criterion Capital Partners LLC, which also owns Bebo, as potential buyers.
News Corp. purchased MySpace in 2005 for $580 million. At that time, the year-and-a-half-old Facebook hadn’t even acquired the Facebook.com URL and recorded a net loss of $3.63 million for the year. Even as late as 2007, Facebook’s traffic was disappointing when compared to traffic on MySpace.
But all that changed quickly. MySpace users began abandoning ship for Facebook and, in late 2009, site traffic took a dive from which it never really recovered. By 2010, even relative upstart Twitter was getting more traffic than MySpace.
Even though the network has pivoted to become an entertainment destination (in a nod to the bands and filmmakers that have clung to the platform out of habit or necessity), MySpace is still losing ground in these creative industries.
We’ll continue to keep an ear to the ground for MySpace news. Do you think News Corp. will find a bidder to meet its $100 million asking price?
News Courtesy :mashable.com
News Corp. declared it was ready to sell MySpace in an earnings call in February. At that time, in spite of significant layoffs and a massive redesign, the company “recorded a $275 million pre-tax charge for the impairment of goodwill related to the Digital Media Group and an organizational restructuring at MySpace.”
Now, The Wall Street Journal, which shares a parent company with the faltering social network, is reporting that News Corp. is attempting to get at least $100 million out of the sale. It names Redscout Ventures, Thomas H. Lee Partners, and Criterion Capital Partners LLC, which also owns Bebo, as potential buyers.
News Corp. purchased MySpace in 2005 for $580 million. At that time, the year-and-a-half-old Facebook hadn’t even acquired the Facebook.com URL and recorded a net loss of $3.63 million for the year. Even as late as 2007, Facebook’s traffic was disappointing when compared to traffic on MySpace.
But all that changed quickly. MySpace users began abandoning ship for Facebook and, in late 2009, site traffic took a dive from which it never really recovered. By 2010, even relative upstart Twitter was getting more traffic than MySpace.
Even though the network has pivoted to become an entertainment destination (in a nod to the bands and filmmakers that have clung to the platform out of habit or necessity), MySpace is still losing ground in these creative industries.
We’ll continue to keep an ear to the ground for MySpace news. Do you think News Corp. will find a bidder to meet its $100 million asking price?
News Courtesy :mashable.com
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Online image albums with Social networking site
Hi dear
We are on a new start up. it is online image album like picasa and Filckr. but we are focusing on real time album sharing with Social Networking site like Facebook as well as Orkut and User can share with Email friends Like Gmail, Yahoo , Hotmail with privacy settings with more features. all other works are in progress.
We are on a new start up. it is online image album like picasa and Filckr. but we are focusing on real time album sharing with Social Networking site like Facebook as well as Orkut and User can share with Email friends Like Gmail, Yahoo , Hotmail with privacy settings with more features. all other works are in progress.
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