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Tech

Crowdfunding via customers is the new startup capital

But hidden in the headlines about the JOBS Act is the creation of an entirely new class of capital that could be far more valuable to startups: customer capital. Instead of raising capital from VCs, entrepreneurs can reach out to customers directly. Read More »

As part of paidContent 2012: At The Crossroads on May 23 in New York, I’ll be talking with venture capitalist Fred Wilson about the future of media and with Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo and Vivian Schiller of NBC News about real-time politics. Read More »

 
 

In this occasional weekend column, if we asked people in the tech industry to share the apps they use, their favorite gadgets and most importantly, the songs that inspire them? Of course, we will get them to share their Spotify and Rdio playlists as well. Read More »

Yes James, Good guys do win

Last thirty days have been nothing but full of twists and turns in tech-land. Maybe it is the “bubble” or maybe it is just an upcycle, but it sure is exciting. Here some events from today, that have one common theme: good guys do finish first. Read More »

The new Forbes Midas List is out and it ranks the top 100 venture capitalists. The list ranks uber-VC Fred Wilson below those whose performance is average at best. I find the list confusing, thanks to an ambiguous and somewhat faulty methodology. Read More »

“Content” is an industry that is going through a renaissance.Despite the current challenges and there are opportunities. All these threats and opportunities will be part of the discourse at paidContent 2012, which will be held on May 23, 2012, at the TimesCenter in New York City. Read More »

Y Combinator founder Paul Graham is right when he says that the continued push for legislation like SOPA and PIPA is a result of a failure to adapt to the changing environment the internet has created when it comes to intellectual property and the content industries. Read More »

Engagio, which launched on Wednesday backed by seed funding from Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures and other angel investors, pulls in comments and replies from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and a number of other social services and sites to create a one-stop social dashboard. Read More »

Get ready for a blockbuster — and almost nuts — year of technology in 2012. Why? Because Facebook is doing the mother of all initial public offerings. And like Netscape and Google before, the Facebook IPO is going to change not only the company but also … Read More »

News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch’s comments about piracy reinforce the sense that the billionaire media and entertainment mogul doesn’t understand how content works in a digital era, and that he is continuing to try and impose the scarcity that media companies have had in the past. Read More »

Writer-turned-venture-capitalist MG Siegler recently reignited a long-standing debate over whether blogs should have comments or not. Critics argue that comments are mostly noise and are a waste of time, but blogs that don’t have them risk being seen as just a soap-box for their authors. Read More »

Two of the early investors of Twitter — Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures and Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital — are leaving Twitter’s board of directors. This is the latest shake-up in the long list of shake-ups at the San Francisco–based company. Read More »

More Must Reads

Developers building atop platforms like iOS and Twitter should plan for the day when platform owners work against their interests, said Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson, who reminded entrepreneurs about the dangers of relying on someone else’s APIs. Read More »

I am a big fan of fast growing crowd funding platform Kickstarter, arguably one of the most disruptive and innovative platforms to emerge for the creative community. Less a technology site, more a socio-cultural movement, Kickstarter is changing how we make things, how … Read More »

The next big opportunity is in social upheavals and revolutions, said Union Square’s Fred Wilson. After the infrastructure of the Internet and the applications have been established, he said the next step is revolutions personified by Wikileaks, BitCoin, the Arab Spring and other changes. Read More »

The enthusiasm iPad users had for magazine apps seems to be waning, according to some recent numbers that show sales of many apps slipping. Hopefully some publishers are starting to realize that simply having an iPad app doesn’t qualify as a digital content strategy. Read More »

Some Google engineer gets paid $3.5 million to not leave, and finally people notice: Irrationality seems to be escalating in Silicon Valley, a place that, for some odd reason, is detached from the global economic reality. This is not going to be good for startups. Read More »

As Om shared earlier this month, New York’s tech scene is getting a flood of venture capital for Internet deals, rivaling San Francisco. I sat down with Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures to discuss the New York renaissance, how it came about and where it’s … Read More »

GigaOM TV rock-tobered this month, delivering a bevy of videos that will engage, entertain and quite possibly inspire. From business insights and optimal work habits, to cutting-edge inventions, see what you may have missed. Read More »

Data from CB Insights, a research firm that tracks the Venture Capital industry shows that seed investments, led by Internet startups, increased from mere one percent of all deals during the third quarter of 2009 to a whopping 11 percent of total deals a year later. Read More »

Union Square Ventures investor Fred Wilson came to Toronto earlier this week for a series of meetings with startups and venture investors, and to judge some young companies at a local DemoCamp, and said that the startup atmosphere in Toronto reminded him of New York. Read More »

During a recent interview in Toronto, venture investor Fred Wilson shared some thoughts about the recent “AngelGate” clash between “super-angels” and traditional VCs, as well as some of the big trends online that he is thinking about as he makes investments for Union Square Ventures. Read More »

Reports about a secret meeting in San Francisco where “super-angels” discussed ways of fighting back against mainstream venture capital funds and holding down startup valuations has sparked some strong reactions, including responses from angel investors Dave McClure and Chris Yeh, as well as VC Fred Wilson. Read More »

There was a push and pull throughout the TechCrunch Disrupt conference this week about the role investors play in Internet startups. Sometimes, it’s worth it to find an investor who’s willing to invest at a big valuation and leave a company alone. Read More »

The idea of the “lean startup,” where young companies make use of readily available tools and quick iteration to figure out their business without spending much money, might be trendy, but VC Ben Horowitz is not a fan. Today he debated lean startup proponent Fred Wilson. Read More »

Blogging platform Tumblr has raised another round of financing from its existing venture backers, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures, putting pressure on the company to start generating revenue. It is exploring various options, but founder David Karp has said that he is “opposed to advertising.” Read More »

Twitter investor Fred Wilson’s comments about the company’s evolution have sparked fear among developers of third-party apps that rely on the network. But even if his comments do mean Twitter is going to compete with them, shouldn’t they have seen this coming a long time ago? Read More »

Union Square Ventures investor Fred Wilson says he believes Twitter has reached an inflection point, where it is big enough and important enough to become the center of a new marketplace of businesses. But it’s not clear if the social network will ever fill that role. Read More »

A new site called ChatRoulette has been getting a lot of attention lately because it features live video chatting with random strangers, with predictable results. But among those interested in the site is venture investor Fred Wilson, who has invited the founder to New York. Read More »

Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis has called for a public boycott of comScore because of a controversial change in the way it measures web traffic, and has pulled Union Square VC Fred Wilson into the fight as well. Read More »

The venture model is ailing, and folks in the industry are promoting two different diagnoses for the sickness. One group says the industry needs more exits and should promote the return of smaller initial public offerings, while the other says the industry has grown … Read More »

VC Fred Wilson was interviewed by a reporter on Monday, on the topic of what makes an entrepreneur, and entrepreneur. Read his post, but these 3 exchanges in the Q&A make for a nice Thought for The Day: Q: What is entrepreneurship? A: It’s … Read More »

Editor’s Note: Serial founder Tony Wright recently completed a 3-month stint at the incubator YCombinator, where, in November 2007, he and two partners launched RescueTime, which hawks free software to help individuals and businesses spend their computing time more effectively. After … Read More »

They’re just throwing darts at a wall. Or worse… “Oh, Look! Mr. Peepers just picked the very same [startups] your investment software did!” OK, venture capital may be slightly more sophisticated than this — but I have trouble with VCs who nobly claim that their business … Read More »

1) Revenues & Up-selling in a Recession: Related to Larry Chiang’s post this week on the topic, now read Level up for features instead of freemium?, in which Andrew Chen writes: “Everyone is familiar with freemium models – that is, make it free for … Read More »

We publish often about the importance of selecting the right advisors and board members. Plenty of serial founders will happily share their ideas for how to do this, but even the most successful among them will tell you that it is not only as … Read More »

We linked earlier this week to a dialogue — or blogalogue — between VC Fred Wilson and WIRED Editor Chris Anderson about so-called Long Tail b-models and the many creative ways in which you can leverage them to generate revenue for … Read More »

Another great post from VC Fred Wilson, this one on one of our favorite topics: leadership. Fred wrote Wednesday of a discussion he had recently with a colleague about “the classic visionary leader entrepreneur.” Their conversation turned to Sigmund Freud, the 19th century father … Read More »

WIRED Editor Chris Anderson, who is also author of the best-selling book, The Long Tail, recently published a blog post listing various new media b-models, a.k.a, “long tail” b-models where, generally, the content you’re “selling” is free or almost free — and you make … Read More »

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