Products
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Minbox: The way file-sharing should work
It’s 2013. We’ve got computers in our pockets, on our wrists, and directly in front of our eyeballs. An increasing number of tools, from Google Drive to Editorially and Fidus Writer, are trying to make it easier for us to collaborate and share with each other. Everything is connected and, frankly, amazing. Why, then, is it still such... -
Former MySpace and NASA security exec raises $700k, launches Prevoty to defend websites against malicious user code
Web security is like a generational game of leapfrog being played between malicious users on one side and site administrators and security specialists on the other. Every few years (or even months) a new class of exploit emerges against which the good guys must scramble a response. Today, one of the most common methods of attack is Cross-Site Scripting (XSS),... -
Bitcoin is legal, but mainstream adoption will mandate playing by the rules
Earlier this week, the US government took its first action against the bitcoin ecosystem, freezing the US accounts of Mt. Gox, which is the largest bitcoin exchange in the world, processing 75 percent of all transactions in the last 30 days. Since that time, the questions on most people’s mind has been, what does this mean for the future of bitcoin... -
New Zealand-based Vend raises $8M without turning to the Valley
The conventional wisdom about New Zealand startups – and even Australian ones – is that they have to look outside of their home country when it comes time to raising serious money. In both countries, there’s often enough capital for startups to get seed funding, but there’s rarely enough for a Series A. Vend, an Auckland, New Zealand-based retail…
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Bitcoin’s consumerization continues with Perk, a rewards platform and Web browser for normal people
Could consumers learn to love a virtual currency favored mostly by venture capitalists, the black market, libertarians, and engineers? An increasing number of businesses, from restaurants and bars to WordPress and OKCupid, are betting that the answer is “yes” by announcing that they will allow customers to pay... -
Zinio’s new subscription product only solves half a problem
Just over a year ago, I argued that the future of magazines should look a lot like Spotify, meaning that the magazine stories should be disaggregated from bundles and then distributed on platforms that charge an all-you-can-eat subscription price. Since then, Next Issue Media has launched, bringing magazines from Conde Nast, Hearst, Time Inc, Meredith, and News Corporation…
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Chris Dixon: The consumer Web has gotten too good, enterprise companies are cutthroat
It’s hard to tell now, but there was a time — just a few years ago, actually — when the consumer Internet wasn’t seen as a nascent industry just waiting to morph into the menagerie of photo-sharing, social networking, and casual gaming startups we have today. A time when, according to Andreessen Horowitz partner Chris Dixon, people would “literally laugh... -
How Microsoft, Google, and Square use hardware to market their software and services
Hardware is becoming an increasingly important aspect of traditionally software-focused companies. Microsoft and Google have both introduced their own hardware over the last year, with the Surface tablets and Chromebook Pixel; Square recently announced the Square Stand, which turns an iPad into a cash register; and Adobe announced its own stylus and a “smart ruler” around the... -
Marqeta now powers Facebook Card loyalty and payments tech, announces $14M Series B round
Customer loyalty programs and gift cards are essentially broken – for every merchant not named Starbucks, that is. Nearly 25 percent of the coffee house’s revenue comes from the purchase of food and beverages using pre-paid gift and loyalty cards (or apps). For everyone else, it’s nearly impossible to get a consumer to register a gift card or provide complete... -
Berg Cloud Sandbox: A tool to unite connected devices and the companies that make them
Berg, a London-based design consultancy that has worked with Nokia, Twitter, and the BBC, among others, is today announcing the Berg Cloud Sandbox, a platform meant to make it easier for companies to experiment with connected devices and services by covering an entire campus to the Berg Cloud platform. Fabrica, an Italy-based communications research center, will be the... -
Two years of stealth and $11M in VC later, EdgeSpring launches a data analytics platform for the average man
It’s not everyday that you hear of a company manages to quietly raise two venture rounds from A-list investors while spending two years developing its technology in stealth mode. But that is exactly the story behind big data analytics and business insights (BI) startup EdgeSpring, which today publicly launched its product and announced $11 million in Seed and Series... -
The future of search: Answer, converse, anticipate
Answer. Converse. Anticipate. Those are the verbs that Google believes will lead to “the end of search as we know it.” Google doesn’t want search to be restricted to a sparse landing page and a specific query. It wants search to become something as ubiquitous as oxygen and as powerful as devices that previously existed only in science fiction.... -
Google is keeping iCloud’s promises
Apple was incredibly proud of iCloud when it was first announced. The service, which promises to keep users’ documents, photos, and other data in sync across devices, was described by Apple’s executives as “magical” more than once during its unveiling. Finally there was a synchronization service that would, according to Apple, “just work.” But that was 2011 and... -
IPO candidate Plex Systems grabs Eloqua CMO Heidi Melin to grow its cloud ERP platform
It’s been an eventful last 12 months for cloud ERP (enterprise resource planning) company Plex Systems, with the company completing a private equity buyout, closing a $30 million growth stage venture round from Accel Partners (a PandoDaily investor), and the introduction of a new CEO – in that order. Each of the moves was highly strategic,... -
Vessel launches its “command center” to help mobile developers kill faulty software
Software breaks all the time. Applications are huge, sprawling lines of code that will almost definitely cause problems for users, whether that manifests as broken text, incessant error messages, or some arcane problem that defies explanation. Vessel, a Hattery-backed service launching in beta today at the Google I/O Developer Sandbox, intends to make it easier for... -
Ticketfly adds Fanbase customer analytics platform to help venue owners pack events
Ticketfly has built a reputation for itself as an ally to small- and medium-sized venue owners by offering technology tools that go well beyond ticket sales. The three-year-old startup leveraged the popularity of its social marketing and publishing tools to grow its client base by 128 percent in 2012 to 822 event promoters and venues, across 44 US states....
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Tumblr updates iOS app
Haven’t heard enough news about Tumblr today? Today it unveiled an updated iOS app, with a brand new “path-like” interface. [Source: TechCrunch]
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11.4% of Tumblr’s top 200,000 domains contain “adult content”
How many Tumblr pages contain porn? According to an analysis by web measurement firm Similar Group, out of the 200,000 most-visited domains on Tumblr 22,775 of them are considered “adult”. So now you know. [Source: TechCrunch]
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NextGuide Web launches. Can it possibly be a discovery powerhouse?
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Here’s the first recorded case of someone losing a Google Glass
Luke Wroblewski is the first recorded case of person losing his/her Google Glass. To make matters worse, Wroblewski was using it to develop Glassware and had many accounts synced to the piece of hardware. [Source: VentureBeat]
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Not Another Bill: Another subscription e-commerce play
Fast Company reports that Not Another Bill, a subscription e-commerce service that, like so many others, promises to “bring a bit of magic back to the postal service,” has launched. So if you have yet to find joy in getting the mail from Dollar Shave Club, or Birchbox, or any other “you subscribe, we ship” service, well, your options have just expanded.
[Source: Fast Company]
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Samsung announces new display technologies
Samsung has announced new display technologies that it promises will offer better color reproduction and pixel density than displays currently available. In addition to offering a better picture, Samsung claims that the displays are more power-efficient than other tech.
[Source: Samsung]
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Google Voice features are coming to Hangouts
Features from Google Voice, the telephony service from Google, will be making their way to the company’s new messaging platform, Hangouts. Users will soon be able to make calls from their Web browser via the Hangouts application.
[Source: Google]
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Minbox: The way file-sharing should work
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“After 3 and a half years of fusing my self-worth with the success of the company in the crucible of startup survival, it was impossible to tear them apart without pain. But while my first reaction was disappointment and failure, it was almost immediately washed away by a wave of relief. I knew change was inevitable, but I had no idea how stressful and exhausting maintaining my internal reality distortion field had been until they gave me permission to turn it off.”
— Awe.Sm founder Jonathan Strauss on replacing yourself as CEO
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Jolla begins pre-orders for first Sailfish OS smartphone
Nokia descendent Jolla is accepting pre-orders its first smartphone running the Sailfish OS today. The €399 smartphone has 4.5-inch “Estrade” display, an unspecified dual-core processor, 16GB of internal storage plus a microSD slot, an 8-megapixel rear camera, and can run Android apps. Orders will be fulfilled at the end of 2013. [Source: Jolla]
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Neverware raises $1M to keep old school computers working longer
Educational market focused computer maintenance startup Neverware has raised $1 million from Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Collaborative Fund, and Nihal Mehta. The company charges schools a monthly fee to maintain the performance of aging computers with the goal of extending their usefulness and saving costs. [Source: TechCrunch]
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Seamless and GrubHub merge to pursue mobile food ordering domination
The two largest forces in mobile food ordering, Seamless and GrubHub, have announced their merger. The combined companies cover 20,000 restaurants in more than 500 cities, and collectively processed $875 million in food sales last year. The deal is still subject to regulator approval. GrubHub CEO Matt Maloney will lead the combined company, which could see a dramatic reduction in its customer and merchant acquisition costs. [Source: GrubHub]
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payvia acquires Mogreet to combine carrier billing with mobile marketing
Carrier billing platform-maker payvia has acquired Los Angeles-based mobile marketing startup Mogreet. Payvia has 120 million clients and processed more than $2 billion in payments in its lifetime. Mogreet had raised $14 million in three rounds of venture financing. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. [Source: payvia]
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How a MySpace and NASA vet is fixing Web security
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“Tumblr may not drive revenue (today), but it’ll increase Yahoo’s traffic by an enormous multiplier. Tumblr may not be directly rebranded as a Yahoo property, but it’ll increase the brand-value and mindshare of Yahoo exponentially. And Tumblr may not be the blogging platform of choice for professionals, but it’s veritably filled with young, taste-making people.”
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DirecTV mulling bid for Hulu
Hulu, which had been talked about as an acquisition target for Yahoo, has received acquisition interest from DirecTV as well, reports the Wall Street Journal. [Source: WSJ]
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Websense to go private
Websense, which makes security software, has agreed to go private with the help of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners for around $1 billion. [Source: Wall Street Journal]
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FusionStorm withdraws IPO
FusionStorm Global, an enterprise IT company focused on public sector customers, withdrew plans for a $175 million IPO, which it filed for in late 2011. [Source: Renaissance Capital]
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Zyme Solutions raises $5 million
Zyme Solutions, which provides channel data tools, raised $5 million from Susquehanna Growth Equity. The company offers managed services for multi-tier channel visibility, which integrate Salesforce.com, SAP and Oracle. [Source: Zyme Solutions]
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Pinterest makes pins more “actionable,” working with brands
Pinterest has taken its first step toward monetizing by making pins more “actionable,” the social network said. The company introduced new types of pins, one for recipes, one for movies, and one which makes it easier for users to click through and buy items they see on Pinterest. The retail product pin resembles a feature that has become popular on other “social shopping” sites like Fab, Opensky and Wanelo. [Source: GigaOm]
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Food ordering services Grubhub and Seamless merge
Online food delivery company GrubHub has merged with its competitor Seamless. The companies, which processed a combined $875 million in sales (which they take a cut of for facilitating), have not decided which of its brands will live on. Seattle-based GrubHub has 350 employees. Seamless in New York has 300. [Source: Bloomberg]
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Yahoo buys Tumblr, “promises not to screw it up."
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Forget armchair activism, new app Buycott helps people shop with a conscience
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“[T]he launch of the pay model is the most important and most successful business decision made by The New York Times in many years.”
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Former Cisco exec joins Firetide
After leaving Cisco in April Joe McCool has joined the team at Firetide, a mesh networking technology provider. McCool has become the president and chief executive. [Source: The Wall Street Journal]
