There’s a few things you need to remember about Bloom Energy. First, manufacturing fuel cells is a very difficult business, and one that is capital intensive with low margins. Fuel cells take fuel (natural gas or biogas) and combine it with oxygen and other chemicals to create an electrochemical reaction that produces electricity.

Customers can buy several Bloom Energy servers to deliver distributed power on site at a building, and that can have a lower carbon footprint than grid power. Competitors include ClearEdge Power, which recently scored a deal with Verizon, and the publicly-traded FuelCell Energy.

But Bloom Energy has actually gotten some breakthrough traction in the market over the past couple of years, particularly with data center operators. Apple, eBay, AT&T, Adobe, Google and others have bought Bloom fuel cells (or the power from the fuel cells) for both their data centers and building operations.

Primack reports that Bloom Energy’s latest funding was an extension of a round raised in 2011, at a pre-money valuation of $2.7 billion. The lead investor that put in $100 million wasn’t named, but Primack says that Credit Suisse put in $30 million of the round.

Because the fuel cell business is so difficult (read my The pain point for Bloom Energy and other fuel cell makers), Bloom Energy is most likely not profitable even after 11 years. Bloom Energy CFO Bill Kurtz told me that the company was “half way to break even” in the Summer of 2012. Primack previously reported that Bloom’s retained earnings through Q3 2012 stood at negative $873 million, with $113 million left in the bank, and with positive gross margins on a pro forma basis. Bloom has a goal to be profitable in 2013.

Existing investors did not participate in the round, according to the report. Previous investors included Kleiner Perkins, NEA, DAG Ventures and GSV Capital. Bloom Energy was previously working with broker Advanced Equities (like on this round in the Summer of 2012) to raise funds, but Advanced Equities has since shut down. The broker was charged for misleading investors back in 2009 for fund raising for Bloom Energy, was fined and shut its offices.

We’ll be interviewing Bloom Energy’s VP Mission Critical Systems, Peter Gross, and eBay’s VP, Global Foundation Services, Dean Nelson, at Structure in San Francisco next month.

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Facebook’s news feed design was the big news of the week. Here is what we think about the new colorful icons and sorting of the feed into categories like events and music. By the way, why couldn’t they couldn’t come up with a better analogy than a newspaper?

Talking about Facebook, one has to wonder what raw nerve Nick Bilton’s piece hit that the social web giant had to come back with all its PR guns blazing. Bilton pointed out that the engagement on his posts had gone down drastically but when he paid to promote those same links, it shot up. We have a sneaking suspicion that we have not heard the last of this debate, but if you want to get a good handle on the situation, try reading this analysis by Nick O’Neill.

Mark Zuckerberg responds to press questions and photos after announcing the new Facebook News Feed redesign on March 7 in Menlo Park.

Billionaire Boys Club: Facebook and Google have one thing in common: the co-founders of both companies are among the richest people in the world. Not much of a surprise. As technology becomes a part of our everyday lives, it’s also no surprise that tech leaders dominated the top of the annual Forbes Billionaires list this year.

Though they were dubbed “underperformers” by Forbes (technology-based billionaires on the list saw their net worth rise by only 8%, while the entire list combined rose 15%), it’s hard to find fault in a collective fortune of $272.6 billion. But in a time of massive income inequality – 80% of Americans believe their children will be worse off than they are — are these lists still relevant?

Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google were ranked at number four and five, respectively, while Mark Zuckerberg dropped to the ninth top earner (from sixth in 2012) with $13.3 billion in his coffers. That’s a lot of 747s and James Perse hoodies.

Fortune doesn’t favor the print: Print may be on the decline, but will it die a slow death? Time Warner decided to spin off its magazine publishing arm this week instead of trying to pass off the job to Meredith Corporation, creating a new standalone company for its top mags. This further perpetuates the belief that the broken print model will be ushered into the retirement home sooner rather than later as the web produces endless amounts of content, and technology makes consuming it easier than ever.

But print does have its fans — Warren Buffett invested $344 million in newspapers last year. Does he know something we don’t? We are worried about Fortune, the magazine, for we do think they have some great pieces.

VC vs VC: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venerable venture capital firm that had funded companies such as Sun Microsystems, Netscape, Genentech, Compaq, Amazon and Google, had a pretty forgettable decade. They apologized to their backers. VC Georges van Hoegaerden, writing for industry publication PE Hub, argues that the issues plaguing them and many haloed investing names are much deeper. Our colleague Katie Fehrenbacher writes a thoughtful piece on perils of righteous investing. By the way, have you read that piece about Ellen Pao and her hubby in Vanity Fair?

Mobile-palooza: You have to be really brave to pack your bags and go to Barcelona and attend Mobile World Congress. Our team members David Meyer and Kevin Fitchard did just that and both fell sick after getting back. Chetan Sharma was lucky, and that gave him a chance to recap the mobilepalooza — it is worth reading.

Freedom to Roam: If you’re dreading spending the rest of your mobile life (or at least the next 24 months) tied to one carrier, there’s good news: The White House has your back when it comes to unlocking your phone. A petition that raised over 100,000 signatures in a month has the support of the White House and a number of state senators, one of which has already drafted the Wireless Device Independence Act of 2013, which promises to legally free your devices from carrier restriction. But will it really change anything? Andrew Couts unlocks the truth.

Taking a Bow: Pop music is filled with flash-in-the-pan tunes, but the classics never fade. Unless you’re the CEO of Pandora, Joe Kennedy, who announced this week that he needed a “recharge” after his long 10-year tenure, and will be stepping aside as soon as a replacement can be found. Does this open the door for other up-and-coming music services to make their move?

As it so happens, Apple is said to be seeking a harmonious collaboration with the “Daisy Project,” backed by Beats Electronics, while  Google has partnered with Warner Music for a Google Play subscription service and is setting the stage a YouTube-Spotify throwdown. It will be interesting to see how these companies build and structure their streaming services, especially since this will be yet another effort by Apple to get music right after Ping failed to take off.

Mapping Your Innards: Google has enabled us to visit distant locations, thanks to Street View, and gets us from A to B without much difficulty. But a team of researchers has been able to one-up those achievements by successfully mapping the human metabolism. Why should you care? Well, in the future, we might actually be able to predict how our fragile bodies will react to disease, drugs and foods, which can help make the painful experience of allergy testing and trial-by-elimination a thing of the past.

Here are some stories we recommend for this weekend.

• Let’s save great ideas from the ideas industry, argues Umair Haque, over on Harvard Business Review website. His column is an argument against conferences such as the recently concluded TED.
• The printed travel guidebook is dead. Put a fork in it, says Skift’s Jason Clampet.
• The WatchMen: There’s a high tech team inside the Milwaukee PD trained to monitor the city and fight crime before it happens. This is their story.
• A LEED-certified city built on algorithms? It’s happening in South Korea, and it might give us a little glimpse of what future cities can (should?) look like.
• If you think Google Glass is futuristic, check out the computerized eyewear Steve Mann has been working on for the past decade.
• Upgrade or die, says George Packer in the New Yorker. He argues “that obsessive upgrading and chronic stagnation are intimately related, in the same way that erotic fantasies are related to sexual repression.”
• What sex can teach us about energy efficiency? Great headline, better article.

Read this and other in-depth articles on GigaOM’s Flipboard channel

Advanced Equities has looked like a train about to wreck for the past six months. My big question is not why would the firm close up its broker shop. Rather, why did venture firms with solid reputations, like NEA and Kleiner Perkins, choose to associate with an investment firm with a questionable reputation? Advanced Equities raised funds for NEA and Kleiner’s portfolio companies electric car maker Fisker Automotive and fuel cell maker Bloom Energy, among other companies.

I’m also not exactly sure what Advanced Equities’ demise means for the startups it raised funding for, like Fisker and Bloom. I’ve reached out to these companies and am waiting to hear back. It’s unclear what will happen to any deals in progress, like potentially this one.

Update: Fisker says the event “is not expected to have a material impact on Fisker or the several Fisker investment funds previously established and administered by AEI,” and also says that the management of the investment funds will likely “be transferred to another investment group.” Fisker adds: “While AEI will, obviously, no longer be able to assist Fisker with financings, Fisker has strong investor support and plans to work with other qualified investment advisors to raise equity funding to support its business plans. . .”

The SEC charges were originally over statements made by Advanced Equities co-founder Dwight Badger, who said Bloom Energy had more deals and had hit more milestones than it actually had in 2009. Badger told investors that Bloom Energy had an order for “2,000 [units] from the CIA,” which would have generated $2 billion in revenue for the company. But in reality Bloom Energy didn’t have any orders from the CIA at that time.

As part of the settlement, Advanced Equities also sent letters to all investors in its funds Greentech III and Greentech IV — which raised money for Bloom Energy — explaining the charges and the settlement from the SEC and asking the investors if they want to sell their securities in the company.

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Volpi is quoted as saying:

“We looked at a lot of deals but didn’t think that many had the same potential as tech deals, because they relied too much on subsidies. We did a couple, including a tire recycling company, but I wouldn’t say that it’s still a focus.”

Index is just the latest venture firm to decide that cleantech investing isn’t so compatible with the venture capital model. Draper Fisher Jurvetson also has shied away from cleantech investing in recent month. Both DFJ partners Raj Atluru and Josh Raffaelli left DFJ months ago to join Silver Lake Kraftwerk and it doesn’t seem like they were ever replaced.

Both Kleiner’s Ray Lane and Bill Joy, who were greentech champions, weren’t named as general partners on Kleiner Perkins’ next fund. So basically they will continue to take care of their current investments, but they won’t go out looking for new ones for the next fund. While Kleiner says it’s not changing its strategy away from greentech, its actions seem to suggest otherwise.

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The Wall Street Journal reported  Monday that the two companies finally reached an agreement after nearly a year of high-level meetings between Steve Jobs and publishers on the subject. Time Inc.’s People magazine had already offered free iPad editions to print subscribers, but it was the only one to do so. As of Monday, subscribers to Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Time will now also be able to authenticate their existing subscriptions via free iPad apps in order to gain full access to content. It’s a precedent-setting agreement that could pave the way for similar deals with other major publishers.

Apple was likely resistant to the idea for so long because it means subscription revenue will bypass the App Store altogether, and also because when subscribers sign up for the print edition, all personal info (name, address and credit card number) goes directly to the publisher, potentially to the detriment of a similar relationship forming between Apple and the individual. Under Apple’s own new in-app digital subscription terms, after all, it gets 30 percent of all revenue generated and has exclusive access to customer information, unless the subscriber decides to opt in and grant a publisher access, too.

Time Inc. had to give up something in exchange for this deal, and I’m willing to bet that we’ll see what it is come June 30. That’s the last possible day publishers have to include in-app subscriptions for their apps. All magazine and newspaper publishers, at least, who offer subscriptions outside of the app have to also offer subscriptions at the same rate using Apple’s in-app purchasing mechanism by that date. No doubt Time Inc. has agreed to begin offering in-app subscriptions on all its titles by that date in exchange for the print deal. That means that if you’re interested in subscribing, but couldn’t care less about the print edition, you should probably wait a couple of months and you’ll get the same deal as a digital exclusive.

Existing subscribers to Time publications are likely happy about this, but I’m curious: anyone out there who doesn’t currently subscribe to any of these titles tempted to do so now?

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Fortune confirmed the rumor today in an article focused on Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, but used the yet-to-be-released phone, and the impact it could have on Verizon as a company as a lead-in. Apple fans hungry for iPhone network options will want to direct their attention to the end of the first paragraph, where the magazine offers: “Fortune has confirmed that a Verizon iPhone will be released in early 2011.” It doesn’t mention a source or sources.

If there’s someone whispering in the ear of major players like the WSJ, the NYT and now Fortune, which is part of CNNMoney, then you can bet it’s not a rogue source crossing Jobs and risking firing or worse to do so. It’s a calculated leak designed to whet the appetite of American consumers, though when it comes to a Verizon iPhone, people are already famished enough.

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Fixit produced another of their legendary tear-downs today, this time examining the inner workings of the Logitech Revue Google TV set-top box. What they found reminded them very much of a plain old netbook: Logitech’s Revue features a regular-sized Gigabyte motherboard, a 1.2 GHz Atom CE4150 processor that comes with a with a 400 MHz GPU
, 1 GB of RAM and a total of 5 GB of Flash memory.

Of course, the Revue isn’t just a netbook with a different label. It has a number of special-purpose hardware extensions, including an HDMI port used for picture-in-picture viewing of live TV and websites. iFixit also took apart the keyboard and found a Synaptics T1021A touch controller, which is the same as the one used in the Microsoft Kin 2.

How does this compare to the Apple (a AAPL) TV? Apple used one of its new A4 processors in its living room device, clocked at 1 GHz, and added a generous 8 GB of RAM. Essentially, the Apple TV specs were very close to the iPad, but Apple tried really hard to give the device a very different form factor. Logitech’s Revue specs, on the other hand, are very similar to those of a netbook, and the company clearly didn’t bother to hide its ancestry all that much. Whether consumers care remains to be seen.

Image courtesy of iFixit.

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It’s a sad day for business publications. I don’t particularly miss Portfolio, the $100 million disaster produced by CondeNast Publications, but those big three have been part of my media diet for a very long time. Never mind that I once worked for Forbes.com,  Fortune’s parent company and now partner with BusinessWeek, which syndicates our content — and still have dozens of friends there.

There is, of course, a massive upheaval taking place in the media business. While some have foolishly blamed Google, the fact of the matter is that the relentless forces of Moore’s Law and broadband, along with economic and demographic shifts, are what’s causing this massive disruption of the media landscape.

The inevitability of it all is what makes it so depressing. I am seriously glad that so far The Economist, my favorite paper-based publication, remains far removed from the current crisis. But the question now is, who’s next? Any guesses?

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Once a year, Fortune releases its ranking of the top 500 global companies, and in recent years Apple has usually managed to nab a spot. This year, it rose to almost exactly the middle of the field at 253, up from 337 last year. The ratings are based on gross revenue, so it isn’t surprising to find larger PC manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard (32) and Dell (115) ranked significantly higher, despite the fact that Apple enjoys healthier profit margins.

Rankings are based on performance over the course of the last year, so the new list represents results for 2008. Apple first made the cut of the Global 500 list only two years ago for 2006, when they placed near the very bottom, at 492. Considering the short time frame, that’s actually a fairly impressive 2-year gain.

Take into account, though, that collective earnings for the list taken as a whole declined 85 percent this past year, which marks the most significant loss since Fortune began compiling it. Apple, Quanta, and HP were the only computer manufacturers on the list to post gains, with Apple outpacing all with a 38 percent boost in overall profits.

The results show that, if nothing else, Apple has been especially resistant to the effects of a down global economy thus far. Their success with the iPhone 3GS, coupled with the recent popularity of the newly upgraded 13-inch MacBook Pro, suggests that that resilience will continue through the summer and probably into the holiday season, especially if the rumored iMac price cuts come through as predicted.

The Fortune Global 500 is not to be confused with the Fortune 500, which only ranks American companies. When that list was released earlier this year in April, Apple had broken the top 100 for the first time since Steve Jobs’ return to the company in 1994. It reached number 71 on that list.

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“‘YouTube is a great place for premium content,” Multichannel News quoted Hoffner as saying. “But we need to do a better job of creating areas where the user can go and know what they are going to get.”

Hoffner was speaking to a nagging problem we’ve mentioned many times on NewTeeVee: YouTube’s interface is set up for video blogs and virals, not premium content. It’s flat-out impossible, for example, to find those full episodes from CBS. Recent moves such as widescreen players and tougher policies on “sexually suggestive” content are starting points, but the site needs to radically redesign how it exposes and promotes premium video — things competitor Hulu brags about obsessing over.

When Google bought YouTube, users worried that having a corporate owner would suck the soul out of the site. But two years later, YouTube continues to be a chaotic melange, only bigger and broader than ever before. The site had 344 million global unique visitors in October.

As the world’s largest user-generated content site, there’s no such thing as “the YouTube community” in any kind of monolithic sense. That was made especially clear at last month’s YouTube Live, an event ostensibly aimed at “giving back” to YouTube’s constituency. The company flew in hundreds of YouTube users to the San Francisco event to both perform on stage and film video from the audience. Tickets were free, and the whole thing was streamed live. It was a ton of fun — and also totally, utterly weird. The stage ended up being a confining and unfitting environment for many of the acts, and the mix of legit stars with indie faves felt random at best.

Nick Vitale was invited to YouTube Live by Google, part of its new effort to make YouTube accessible but still quirky for newcomers — he and former The 9 star Maria Sansone were co-hosts of Poptub, a Pepsi-sponsored variety video show highlighting YouTube content and content creators being distributed through Google’s new Google Content Network. Once he arrived in San Francisco for YouTube Live, however, Vitale was fired from the gig and told he wasn’t able to attend the event (fittingly, he made a video about the firing from just outside the premises). Meanwhile, Sansone and crew had exclusive insider access to film the entirety of the event (and her YouTube Live wrap-up video is the show’s most successful episode ever, with a nearly half a million views).

Vitale admitted in a phone interview with NewTeeVee that he gave Poptub reason to fire him. “There was definitely some times when I could have been more professional,” he said. But he contended that he was hired precisely because he wasn’t “professional” — he got into video hosting via sketch comedy, and announcing surfing contests and the Harlem Globetrotters tour. Vitale said he felt like Poptub was struggling to find its way — and changing its expectations of him in the process — partly due to corporate influence from Pepsi and Google.

But rather than get into the grumblings of a fired employee (who, it should be said, maintains he harbors no ill will and hopes the show is successful), I bring up Vitale because — much like the trouble finding CBS episodes and the awkward (but fun!) YouTube Live — the story of Poptub is emblematic of YouTube’s growing pains. Poptub is being given every resource it needs to succeed, but it’s having trouble combining high gloss and grassroots.

Which brings us back to YouTube’s to-do list: If premium content is next year’s top priority, what about this year’s stated goal?

YouTube’s highest priority for 2008, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, was figuring out “the perfect solution of how to make money.”

Despite a flurry of recent ad product launches, we doubt the site can legitimately check that task off its list. But Schmidt may have been putting the cart ahead of the horse; before you can figure out how to make money, you need to figure out what you’re selling.

And Hoffner’s comment reveals another lapse in self-awareness: YouTube’s strength is not premium, nor should it be. Rather, YouTube has a tremendous (and surely monetizable) opportunity to show that premium and user-generated can coexist. All they need to do is figure out how.

This article also appeared on BusinessWeek.com.

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