Last October we wrote about how Facebook’s breakaway growth combined with a declining advertising market was forcing the company back to the capital markets.
The company has been all over the place with on record comments about fundraising since that post.
In November Founder Mark Zuckerberg firmly said “No” in response to the question ““Do you need money?”
But in December Zuckerberg told me the company was open to raising more capital, but only at the previous $15 billion valuation:
We discussed Facebook fundraising issues and valuation. He said some of the speculation was true and some wasn’t. he confirmed that Facebook’s $15 billion valuation round was still open and that CFO Gideon Yu was open to new investors at that price. But he denied that Facebook was pitching for new money at a lower valuation. “We’re not actively going around trying to raise money from a lot of different people. It’s more just a follow on to that [previous round].”
All you Twitter addicts stuck in traffic, some good news. You might not have to risk your life any longer sending out one-handed Tweets on your Blackberry or iPhone, while trying to hide the fact that you are doing so under the dashboard. If you have OnStar in your car, you may soon be able to send and receive hands-free Tweets through OnStar’s voice-activated calling system. Andru Edwards at Gear Live discovered the potential feature. Your voice messages will be converted into text and sent to all of your Twitter followers. (Don’t worry if the translation is not perfect, everyone will think you are just using Twitter’s abbreviated style). It is not clear, however, whether or not the system tells you if you are over the 140-character limit.
I can just see it now. Instead of listening to the radio, people will start listening to everyone they are following on Twitter (your Twitter stream can be read to you by the OnStar system). Then you are lost, and instead of using teh OnStar GPS, you ask your followers for directions. And they each give you a different way to go.
This is definitely a sign of the Armageddon. → Read More
Given the US economy is tanking right now, I wonder if there is not a wider trend for European startups to start thinking about Asia as a more viable place to make deals and potential exits. Certainly TechCrunch has been speculating on whether China is now the place to look to, for instance. So with that in mind news reaches me that Jimdo, a German startup with an easy to use online-website creator with social features, has announced an exclusive agreement with KDDI Web Communications, a subsidiary of Japan’s 2nd largest telecommunication corporation KDDI, to launch a Japanese Jimdo version. The site will offer Jimdo’s website creator for business clients on a hosting platform. Jimdo wisely paid particular attention to internationalising its product and Japanese is the eighth language it’s incorporated and the second East Asian localisation. Jimdo’s partner in China, the consulting firm Web2Asia, has managed the Chinese portal and provided local support for Chinese users since July 2007. The aim is to get 300,000 new Japanese users within the first twelve months. And it’s a ripe market. Although Internet adoption rates in Japan exceed 70% only about 12% of all businesses have their own web domains according to KDDI itself. Jimdo co-founders Matthias Henze, Christian Springub and Fridtjof Detzner must be pretty pleased right now to have landed such a big fish having built the company in on an old farmhouse. They had a consulting firm NorthClick which built the Jimdo platform, but, in the familiar classic story of many web startups, frequent requests from friends gave the founders the idea to offer free “Jimdo-Pages”. The Samwer Brothers invested in the web startup and the rest as they say is history. → Read More
Is O2 about to enable MMS for iPhones well before the next release of the handset, rumoured to be in June? Word reaches us from a reader that, having made “several phone calls to different sections of the company” O2 will “officially” switch on MMS services for the iPhone within the next few weeks. To be clear this applies to O2 customers, within the UK only – and it’s only rumour, so be warned. Of course he could have been talking to anyone, but it’s interesting that customer service reps are saying “a few weeks” when we already know that that the iPhone 3.0 platform, which supports MMS, won’t be available until the summer, or around June. So either Apple is planning a small update between now and then (unlikely) or O2 will enable MMS somehow at their end. They also found out that: MMS messages will be taken out of your original allowance (i.e. if you signed up to the £35 contract you had 500 messages), the MMS messages will be deduced from the allowance as 4 messages per message (so if you have a £35 contract you will get 125 MMS messages). If you have the unlimited text bolt on this WILL NOT give you additional MMS messages, you can only use your bolt on for standard SMS messages. O2 did not comment on whether they would be providing a MMS bolt on of any kind, they also did not comment on how much additional MMS messages would be if you over run your allowed amount. Pay and Go iPhone users will be charged out of their current balance, and that I could be around 35p per MMS message sent. He drew a blank on tethering – allowing customers to connect a laptop to the Internet via the iPhone. I’ll put a call into O2 and see what they have to say about this… → Read More
We featured Bandai’s weird beer can simulator yesterday, mentioning the company started behaving strangely a few weeks ago. Now Banpresto, a subsidiary company of the Japanese toy giant, adds another odd gadget to the mix: A mini shaking hip that’s powered by USB [JP]. Yes, Thanko is innocent this time.
Video after the jump. → Read More
Here’s a reasonably priced iPod-compatible quick battery charger from Energizer. Buy.com is selling it for $9.99, while most similar iPod/iPhone battery backup solutions are going for more than double that amount. → Read More
Whoa, now here’s a patent that’s actually worth discussing. (The majority of patents are boring, that’s the implication.) Apple filed a patent last September (but just now made public) that would turn give your iPhone or MacBook the ability to determine your identity, thereby increasing its security. That is, the device would have a built-in scanner, biometric or otherwise, that would determine if you’re really you, if that makes any sense at all. You touch the iPhone’s screen and it recognizes your fingerprint; hello, world! You place your palm on your MacBook’s palm rest and trackpad and the computer recognizes you; no password needed anymore! → Read More
TheFunded, a website that rates venture funds based on first hand experiences from readers, is shutting down on April 2, according to a notice posted on the site today.
This very well may be an April Fools joke, although founder Adeo Ressi has not returned our email requesting comment. The fact that the service isn’t shutting down immediately also suggests this is fake.
The site has been controversial from the start, and many investors have never been pleased with TheFunded. Last August the company was involved in a lawsuit brought by a venture capitalist trying to track the identity of an anonymous commenter.
TheFunded recently opened a new section of the site listing banned investors – that part of the site is no longer live.
We’ll update when Ressi confirms its real or a joke. The last part of the message, below, is so rife with sarcasm that I’m leaning towards it being fake.
The message: → Read More
Earlier this week YouTube launched a new feature for non-profit organizations called “Call to Action”, allowing these organizations to place special overlay ads on their videos free of charge. These overlays can direct viewers to the non-profits’ homepage, where users can elect to donate money, sign up for mailing lists, and interact with other members in the community. And unlike typical ads on YouTube (which video uploaders don’t generally have control over), non-profits can specifiy exactly which page they’d like to redirect to.
To pilot test the feature, YouTube placed a video supporting charity:water on its homepage last Sunday, featuring an overlay encouraging YouTube users to donate money to the cause. In that one day, charity:water received a whopping $10,000 from YouTube viewers. Granted, the fact that the video was featured on the homepage clearly had a huge impact on the turnout, but the success of the new Call-to-Action ads is likely going to be a boon for many non-profits. → Read More
Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, has joined the board of directors of Starbucks, her first public company board position.
Sandberg, who’s generally shy of press (she’s done just one video interview since she joined Facebook a year ago), is going to be getting a lot of credit in the future for driving revenue growth at Facebook. Prior to Facebook she was the VP Online Operations and Sales at Google and one of their first 300 employees. She was also previously with McKinsey & Company, the Chief of Staff for the United States Treasury Department under President Bill Clinton, and an economist with the World Bank where she worked on eradicating leprosy in India. And she’s not yet 40.
The Starbucks job comes with a $280,000 annual salary. But, absurdly, the job doesn’t get her free coffee. → Read More
RebelVox is a voice communications platform that aims to makes your voicemail function more like email. The technology is not yet available for consumers, but it will soon be shopped around to developers who may want to incorporate it in other apps. RebelVox’s technology will allow you to leave a voicemail for someone without actually making a call to the person. RebelVox’s mobile app will let you make a voice recording that is delivered as a message to your contact both through a mobile application and their email account. Your contact will be able to respond via another voicemail message, text message or email. You will be able to pick up a voice message from a friend while they are leaving it and speak to them live as well. RebelVox also has linking software built for the PC and Mac which will allow users to control the messages through their computer as well as their mobile phone. RebelVox’s technology can be woven seamlessly into most email accounts, including Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL and Outlook.
Basically, RebelVox wants to let consumers interact with voicemail much like they would an email. Currently packaged as software, RebelVox is still exploring how it wants to sell the licensed (and patented) software and how much it would like to sell it for. The company’s co-founder, Tom Katis, says that RebelVox is in talks with both mobile phone companies and third party mobile application. The service contains features similar to Google Voice, SpinVox, and PhoneTag, especially the ability to control the interface through your computer. RebelVox is certainly no replacement for Google Voice, but offers some features that could be a nice add-on, such as the ability to send voice messages without making a call. → Read More
DiiFii, an energetic man-child of indeterminate age, reviews GTA: Chinatown Wars on the Nintendo DS with even more arm flailing and karate chopping than usual, which is quite an accomplishment in and of itself. → Read More
No LaVie (pictured), Hello Kitty, full flat or any other NEC computers for Non-Japanese anymore. The Tokyo-based tech giant will completely wind down its PC operations outside Nippon within the year and focus on the Japanese market instead. → Read More
Few things are are captivating as the various machinations of European politics, what with the countless measures, motions, proposals and whatnot. The latest one to interest us: the passage of a report that rejects the use of so-called “three strike” anti-piracy schemes, like the one currently being considered by France. The report, which passed the European Parliament (which sounds a lot more important than it really is, if I remember correctly—see the “democracy deficit”), says that while securing the Internet is cool and all, Europe shouldn’t do so at the expense of its citizens’ rights and freedom. → Read More
Refurbished, schmeburbished. Pick up a free BlackBerry Bold and slap the $5-per-month insurance on it if the idea of not having a brand new phone makes you queasy. The phone normally runs for $299 new or $199 refurbished with a two-year contract. Looks like the deal’s good for new AT&T customers today only. FREE BlackBerry Bold(TM) Refurb Package [AT&T via BGR] → Read More
Pretty good deal over at Amazon on a 20-inch TV for the rumpus room. The Samsung T200HD normally sells for almost $250, but a $50 mail-in rebate good until March 31st brings the price to $194.99. The TV itself has two HDMI inputs, DVI and VGA inputs, and a 1680×1050 resolution. Samsung T200HD 20-inch Touch of Color LCD HDTV [Amazon.com via dealnews] → Read More
Are you a Digital Collaborator? A Media Mover? Or maybe you’re a fearsome Ambivalent Networker? No idea what these phrases mean? (Good!) They refer to the level of technological integration in a person’s life. Someone’s who’s a Roving Node is really adept at using one piece of technology in their life—this is the type of person who e-mails all day long, and knows how to do nothing else. At the highest rung of this ladder, the Ambivalent Networkers, there is plenty of doubt about the wisdom of relying upon technology so fiercely. They’re sad clowns. → Read More
If you love your Canon EOS 5D Mark II with EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM – and I mean really love it – why not get yourself a miniature replica of it that doubles as a 4GB USB drive? → Read More
Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the children? We all had a good, nervous chuckle when Japan’s Mouse Computer released a netbook with an optical drive but remained calm, knowing that it’d never come to the US. Now it appears, however, that an ASUS Eee with a built-in optical drive will be hitting the market next month. → Read More
Online streaming music startups are in one very sorry place. On demand streaming rates range from .4 cents to 1 cent per stream – this is what the startups pay to the labels every time they play a song for a user. Add bandwidth and storage costs on top of that, which aren’t trivial for services that want to stream music quickly on demand. The result is hundreds of millions of dollars flowing from venture funds to startups to labels. Little of it makes its way to artists, and advertising revenues only cover a tiny portion of the fees.
The labels don’t care if the startups make money, lose money or go out of business. All they want is to make enough money to extend the ultimate surrender date as long as possible. That’s when we’ll finally see the economic reality dictated by the Internet impose itself irrevocably on the music industry. Unless draconian laws are created and enforced that put people in jail, or worse, for file sharing. And even that probably won’t work.
Anyway, these crazy economics are making the music startups skittish. MySpace Music, the biggest player in this space, may be spending $2 million or more per week to the music labels based on their own statistics that they’re streaming over a billion songs a week. Their streaming rate is likely to be the best in the industry, and it almost certainly isn’t lower than .4 cents per song. There is no way that they’re making that much in advertising revenue.
The hope is that downloads, ticket sales, merchandise and ring tones will make up the difference, but what we’re hearing is that very little incremental revenue is being made from these other revenue sources.
That means there’s no chance for these startups to work until the labels reduce, significantly, the streaming rates they’re charging. Or agree to radically different business models. There’s no sign that is happening any time soon.
These crazy economics are making startups do odd things. I emailed one startup recently to suggest a post here on TechCrunch noting that they seem to be doing well – recent setbacks with partners didn’t hurt traffic as much as it may have, and I wanted to note that. The startup flat out asked me not to post, because they didn’t want positive press to impact their negotiations with labels. They had to present as desperate a situation as possible.
Read that again: streaming music startups don’t want more people using their service, because they lose money from every one of them, and the perceived success from having more users makes it harder for them to plead with the labels to give them better deals. → Read More
