Saying 2011 was a rocky road for Netflix would be an understatement, as it split its DVD and streaming offerings into two businesses, then reneged. They also hiked their prices, only to experience a veritable customer revolt, and CEO Reed Hastings was forced to publicly say that they’d made a huge mistake.
Today, Netflix has released its fourth quarter earnings from 2011, and it looks like there’s at least a sliver of good news, as the company beat Wall Street’s forecasts of $0.54 a share and $857 million in revenues, rising instead to $0.73 per share and $876 million in revenues. → Read More
It seems like ages ago that HP announced that webOS would continue to live on as an open source project, probably because they’ve been awfully quiet on the subject since the big reveal in December.
Well, consider that silence officially broken. HP took to their webOS developer relations blog to tell what faithful users still remain all about how their open-source rollout is going to work, and the whole process has begun with the release of their Enyo application framework. → Read More
Modern day video editors can be daunting. While it’s better than the literal cut-and-paste practices of yesteryear, opening a new video editor can feel like stepping into the cockpit of a spaceship. Unless you’re trained to fly spaceships, in which case this analogy is broken (and also, you’re awesome.)
Looking to distill video editing down to its simplest form — a game like experience, they say — is Game Your Video, a new iOS app from Global Delight. → Read More
While there were some big IPOs in 2011, Zynga and Groupon among them, overall it was a disappointing year for IPOs. Will 2012 be any different? As the first tech IPO of the new year, Guidewire Software certainly hopes so. Back in September, the insurance software company joined MobiTV, Angie’s List, Brightcove, and Jive, filing its S-1, announcing plans to raise up to $100 million and to sell approximately 7.5 million shares at $10 to $12 per share, in advance of its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. → Read More
Bunchball has been touting the benefits of its gamification tools for years, and many of its recent efforts are focused on enterprise customers. Now the company has published a white paper arguing that that gamification is a key way to motivate “Generation Y.”
As evidence, the paper points to a recent study by MTV saying that millennials (the Bunchball report uses both terms interchangeably) understand their lives through a “game-like metaphor” — in fact, half of the survey respondents said “people my age see real life as a video game.” How does that apply in the workplace? → Read More
4 months after it launched its Twitter-style asymmetrical Subscribe feature, Facebook and its Journalist Program Manager Vadim Lavrusik’s efforts to weaken Twitter’s stranglehold on breaking news are paying off. The company just announced that thousands of journalists now use Subscribe, including 50 reporters from The New York Times and 90 from the Washington Post. If Facebook can get your favorite journalists publishing through Subscribe, you’ll have less need for Twitter. Next I hear it’s setting its sights on getting celebrities and entertainment tastemakers onboard.
Additionally, Facebook released some best practices for how journalists can maximize the engagement (Likes, comments, and shares) on their posts. → Read More
Those of our readers old enough to remember the 90s will almost certainly recall cassette tapes fondly. The clacky little tapes and their creaky cases have more or less disappeared from the world, and no surprise: they were fragile, limited, and sounded pretty bad.
But they were also hugely empowering, and helped produce in an age of comparative consumer powerlessness the same feeling we take for granted today: that we should be able to copy, lend, and duplicate the content we’ve bought. Cassette is a documentary looking for a few bucks on Kickstarter that hopes to highlight cassette culture then and now. → Read More
While the topic didn’t make its way into President Obama’s Sate of the Union speech last night, Mr. Obama’s former transition team co-chair, John Podesta, thinks creating a “Digital Library of Congress” comprised of “the vast holdings of the federal government” deserves executive level attention. He’s calling the initiative, “Yes We Scan”
My suggestion to him: get Google to do it for free in return for a reprieve from the government’s never-ending antitrust investigations. I am only half-joking. → Read More
BeachMint — an ecommerce startup that lets customers subscribe to receive products hand-picked by celebrities each month — has quickly become one of the hottest companies in Los Angeles.
Today the company is announcing that it’s raised a $35 million funding round with some big-name investors: the round is being led by Accel Partners, with participation from Goldman Sachs, New World Ventures, NYC-based and Millennium Technology Value Partners, with existing investors participating as well. Accel’s Greg Waldorf will be joining BeachMint’s board. This brings BeachMint’s total funding to a whopping $75 million.
This is obviously a big raise, and it comes only seven months after the company raised $23.5 million at a rumored $150 million valuation. Why are they raising so much? The short answer: they’re growing like crazy and are planning to go international — and they’ll be fending off plenty of competition. → Read More
It happened once before, in August, but that was due to a stock market collapse that left both Exxon and Apple well below their usual share price. This time, however, it would seem that Apple’s Q1 earnings call yesterday has led to a fresh spike on the stock market and what do you know?
Apple is once again the most valuable publicly traded company in the world, with a market cap of $414.83 billion. → Read More
Normally, Palo Alto companies buy European ones, but sometimes there are exceptions. Case in point: today OverBlog, a leading blog platform in Europe with over 32 million uniques according to comScore, is announcing it has acquired Timekiwi, a tool that helps you make a timeline using your social media postings.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but OverBlog says Timekiwi will be integrated into its platform by summer 2012. → Read More
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop was all to eager to show off the Lumia 900 at this year’s CES, but he unforunately kept to himself when it came to its price or release date. Now, thanks to a timely leak, it looks as though Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone could hit AT&T’s shelves on March 18.
That’s apparently the plan, anyway. The date, given to BGR by their anonymous sources, seemingly confirms earlier rumors about the device’s launch window, though they’re quick to note that the date isn’t set in stone since the 900 hasn’t yet completed the technical acceptance process. → Read More
comScore recently ranked LG second in the world in terms of mobile OEM market share, and it would seem the good news keeps on coming for the smiley-face company. The Nitro HD, or Optimus LTE if you’re from outside of the States, has reportedly hit 1 million units sold.
It was first available in South Korea last year in October, and LG sold 600,000 units on its home turf. After venturing into new lands, including Japan, Canada, and the US of A, another 400,000 units were sold. According to my calculator, 600,000 plus 400,000 does indeed total 1 million units. → Read More
Kapitall, a web app that investors can use to research and analyze stocks, mutual funds and exchange traded funds, is debuting the ability to trade stocks via its platform today.
Kapitall’s interface is inspired by video game design and combines a graphical user interface with tools that make it easy to build portfolios, share ideas and execute trades. The startup believes that people can learn to navigate the stock market even if they don’t have a financial planner or don’t have the experience to sift through financial statements of public companies. The drag and drop interface was designed by Cordell Ratzlaff who led the design of Mac OS X at Apple.
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During this morning’s keynote at the annual Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC) conference in Orlando, Florida, Google’s Product Manager for Chromebooks, Rajen Sheth, shared an update on Chromebooks‘ headway in educational institutions. According to Sheth, today there are now “hundreds” of schools using Chomebooks in 41 states across the U.S.
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For the second time over the course of a year, it would seem as though Sprint’s ready to kill the BlackBerry PlayBook. A new version of the PlayBook OS is set to debut in February, but according to an EOL (End of Life) report out of SprintFeed, Sprint isn’t prepared for the wait. Not even for a week.
Of course, the WiFi-only PlayBook will still be available at various office stores like Best Buy and from RIM directly, but Sprint’s execution of the PlayBook marks the end of the product’s life on a carrier shelf. → Read More
ShopSavvy, which you probably know as the barcode-scanning, price comparison app, is launching a major new feature today: SavvyListings, a mobile marketplace. With the addition, the company is hoping to turn its user base of some 20 million into customers who buy and sell items directly with each other.
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Brands and businesses can track their reputations online and connect with consumers through social media. But what about in the real world? One of the biggest prizes in Startupland will go to whoever can figure out how to connect real-world shopping to brands and businesses. Steve Carpenter is going after that prize with his latest startup, Endorse.
Carpenter has been incubating the company for a year as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Accel. (He sold his last company, Cake Financial, to Etrade in 2010). Endorse just raised $4.25 million in a Series A led by Accel, with SV Angel also investing. His co-founders and team include early employees from YouTube and Paypal (Erik Klein, Mayrose Dunton, and Franck Chastagnol). → Read More
JNSQ, the first independent style magazine for the iPad, is making its public debut today. The app, created by former Beauty.com marketing manager Melissa Middleton and angel investor and stealth startup founder Fritz Lanman, features similar content as to what’s found on the online version of the company, at www.jenesequa.com, but is published monthly – like a real magazine.
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I just love it when leaks come straight from the horse’s mouth. A leaky horse mouth, if you will.
Electronista is reporting that a Samsung product marketing manager by the name of Ryan Bidan has let slip a few details on the next Galaxy Tab or, potentially, the next iteration of the Galaxy Note.
According to the report, Mr. Bidan hinted at the inclusion of an S pen (the same stylus used with the Note), 3D gestures courtesy of the front-facing camera, and perhaps even some voice controls “in certain circumstances.” → Read More
