Bijan Sabet and Fred Wilson continue a long tradition of a couple investors utterly dominating their sectors by betting on what they know, and getting in early before others even know there is an opportunity. Read more »
Bitcoin is more liquid and popular than ever before — though the cyber-currency remains controversial. Here’s a round-up of a busy week of Bitcoin news. Read more »
Can New York City be a major-league player in tech without a high profile IPO? City advocates think so, and point to the city’s “dash tech” and recent success versus other hubs Read more »
The comments you leave on a website — are they garbage or a gold mine? Disqus says comments are more popular than you might think and has big plans to make money off them. Read more at paidContent »
Native advertising — like a brand’s Tumblr blog or a sponsored tweet — is generating a lot of hype. A new survey says ad people are ready to take it on en masse, but some wonder if it can scale or if it’s just a buzzword. Read more at paidContent »
SnapChat is a mobile photo service that is spreading like a wildfire. The photo sharing app is seeing about 1,000 photos a second being shared and that has attracted some big name VCs who want to fund it. Benchmark’s Matt Cohler seems to be the winner Read more »
More and more publications are turning to “native advertising” as the solution to declining display ad dollars and readers’ ongoing switch to mobile. Will we soon see an advertiser like Tesla paying to include a story in the New York Times? Read more at paidContent »
Tumblr is enjoying explosive traffic growth and jaw-dropping valuations. But so did a similar community site, GeoCities, a decade ago before it quickly imploded. Investor Fred Wilson says this time is different. Read more »
“Social capital” has been around for a while, but now VCs and other investors are starting to see opportunities in socially-valuable areas such as health and education. Cue an explosion across the technology industry. Read more »
Community-writing site Wattpad says over 70% of time spent on the service comes from users on tablets or smartphones. One of its most requested features is the ability to write and edit stories from mobile devices. So the company is rolling out “Create” functionality for Android. Read more at paidContent »
Paul Graham of Y Combinator has warned startups they have to be more cautious in the wake of the lackluster Facebook IPO. But did Facebook really pop a venture-financing bubble, or did it just allow some of the steam to escape from an overheated market? Read more »
In an interview at paidContent 2012 in New York, venture capitalist Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures said he has stayed away from media investments, and believes that the future for content providers lies in connecting directly with consumers through platforms like Kickstarter. Read more »
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 »
It’s all about the platform — except when it isn’t: Speakers at paidContent 2012 spoke about the opportunities, challenges and constraints of creating digital content. Read more at paidContent »
Several hundred execs filled The TimesCenter Wednesday for a day of intense conversation and discovery (on stage and off) about the current state of digital content online… and where we’re headed. But paidContent 2012 is just the beginning. Read more at paidContent »
The pitched war between content owners and technology companies doesn’t have to persist if media companies would acknowledge and adapt to the new realities of digital distribution, famed venture capitalist Fred Wilson told attendees at paidContent 2012. Read more at paidContent »
paidContent 2012: At the Crossroads is today at The TimesCenter in New York. Hundreds of media, entertainment, info and tech execs will be there in person to talk about the best ways to make content pay. You can join us via our livestream. Read more at paidContent »
paidContent 2012: At the Crossroads is only a day away — with a line up of Q&A, on-target sessions, new research and lots of time for networking with key decision makers. Read more at paidContent »
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 »
As much as things change, one goal remains the same: the creation and evolution of sustainable business models that will support quality media, entertainment and information across platforms — and paidContent 2012 is all about meeting that goal. Read more at paidContent »
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 »
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 Silicon Valley. Read more »
This weekend in New York City, dozens of developers gathered for the second Cleanweb Hackathon, where programmers spent the weekend building mobile and web apps around new ways to manage energy. The event is the latest sign the ecosystem around clean technology is changing. Read more »
We’ll once again be live streaming the second Cleanweb Hackathon that will be held in New York City, this weekend! The “Cleanweb” is the trend of using information technology — software, the web, social media, mobile — to address resource constraints around energy, food and water. 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 prominent members of Twitter’s board of directors–Fred Wilson and Bijan Sabet–are stepping down from their roles overseeing a company… Read more at paidContent »
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 »
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 »
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 headed. 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 »
