GigaOM

Running a video startup isn’t a cakewalk. Despite its rising impact on the media business in particular and the population in general, the sector has few exit trophies on its shelf. Turning profits remains a distant dream and even investors are reluctant to open their check books any further. No surprise we are seeing some chief executives move on from their current gigs. Continue Reading.

RockYou, the maker of applications such as SuperWall and Likeness that ride on top of social networks, has raised $35 million in a round of venture funding led by DCM. We confirmed with a company spokesperson that previous investors Partech, Lightspeed and Sequoia participated in the round. San Mateo, Calif.-based RockYou had previously raised $10 [...]

Facebook debuted tools for item-by-item and friend-by-friend privacy settings at a media briefing at its Palo Alto headquarters on Tuesday. Perhaps more important than the granularity, the service will expand existing tools for users to lump friends into groups (”friend lists”) so they can include and exclude them from certain photo sets, applications, events, profile [...]

Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire joined me (subbing for Om) and co-host Joyce Kim on the GigaOM Show this week. Hear him talk about Brightcove’s traffic spikes from TMZ, politics, and National Geographic; Yahoo’s Maven Networks acquisition; his company’s decision to drop its own ad sales team; and learning from experience to grow through partners. [...]

Bill Gates spoke at Stanford today, gathering a crowd because a) he’s Bill Gates, and b) he’s about to retire. Microsoft had just announced it would be giving students developer and designer software for free. Gates said that besides his philanthropic commitments, he’ll continue to stay involved in Microsoft’s work on natural user interface (e.g. [...]

Peanut Labs, a company that couldn’t find a business as an also-ran social network, took a different route and now conducts market research on social networks using virtual goods to reward survey takers. The San Francisco-based startup said today it has raised $3.2 million from Leapfrog Ventures and BV Capital (which had funded its original [...]