The first quarter of cleantech was a mix of good and bad news. Avis’ purchase of Zipcar and Silver Spring Networks’ long-awaited IPO finally occurring were further signs of thawing capital markets and movement in the acquisition space. However, in both situations valuations were lower than hoped, a sign of how investors view cleantech. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
GigaOM Research analysts Jo Maitland and George Gilbert discuss the cloud in 2013: what to know, who to watch, and crazy predictions for the coming months. Read more »
The fourth quarter in cleantech saw attention paid to two prominent, publicly traded companies: EV maker Tesla and newly minted public listing SolarCity. It remains a transitional period for the sector as investment declines, with a shift toward those companies able to scale with little additional capital. Read more »
In 2013 cleantech investing will move toward companies serving unsubsidized markets where software plays a role in reducing power consumption. In many ways this is a return to plays for energy efficiency, and there’s still money to be made from business models built around saving energy. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Social media technologies continue to permeate marketing and enterprise collaboration, even if investors felt let down in the third quarter by their consumer-facing businesses like Facebook, Groupon, and Zynga. So B2B technology offerings in support of marketing and collaboration will soon steal all the social tech attention. This quarterly wrap-up analyzes these events, and provides a near-term outlook for trends, technologies and companies to watch in the next 18 to 24 months. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Twitter seems to be at a crossroads, and according to a recent GigaOM survey, its prospects for the next five years are promising. Key challenges in the near future will be establishing a revenue model and survive the backlash from developers. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
San Francisco red-hot startup activity is not only inflating the commercial real estate market, but it is also having an impact on the residential rental market, data shows. Since January 2011 annual rents are up by $5000, but down in Peninsula, rents are up even higher. Read more »
Media issues like advertising and discovery along with commerce dominated the activity in social and real-time Web technologies during the first quarter. Google raised some hackles, Facebook responded to demands from traditional advertisers, and Yahoo got a new chief executive. Read more in the full report. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
This quarter saw Amazon Web Services finally relaxing its public-cloud-only stance and launching services to support hybrid-cloud deployments. Meanwhile, Hadoop players moved to make their platforms more accessible to mainstream BI analysts and database administrators. A new quarterly report analyzes these trends and provides a near-term outlook. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
In the first quarter of 2012 all eyes were on the screen, both big and small. Apple’s new Retina display pushed video streaming, and broadcast-TV streaming service Aereo’s launch was quickly followed with litigation. These events and more are discussed in a new quarterly report. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Smartphone sales surged both in the U.S. and worldwide, carriers struggled to cope with the ever-increasing consumption of mobile data, and the fight for spectrum remained front and center in the first quarter. Our latest quarterly wrap-up analyzes these trends and more. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
This quarter the EV market struggled to find its footing. Meanwhile, the smart-grid sector solidified and low-power technology proved itself important in the data center. Read more to learn what these news pieces and others mean for the larger space over the next few months. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
For ad-supported web platforms such as Facebook, every dollar spent on infrastructure means even more money brought in by advertising — the culprit of many privacy issues. That has big implications for a company’s bottom line. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
There is a lot riding on Facebook Credits. But for established media companies, the mandatory use of the in-app Payments system could be less than appealing. Will the company be able to become a major distributor of paid premium content? It depends if it wants ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The solar industry has begun 2012 with some trepidation, with many on the warpath to cut costs and reduce output. These moves give the market a chance to reduce inventories and get production more in sync with demand. But recovery will likely come slowly. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
In its IPO filing Facebook mentions the word “mobile” 123 times but didn’t use the term in positive ways. In fact, Facebook’s S-1 filing is one big warning to investors: Its growth is being driven by user behavior that it has so far failed to monetize. Read more »
The fourth quarter may have lacked a dominating big-event product announcement like Q3’s Facebook platform extension or Q2’s unveiling of Google+, but the NewNet world continued to buzz along. In the battle for mind share, everyone wanted to be a platform. Meanwhile, consumer and social technologies continued to gain momentum, and new vehicles for content and service discovery presented both challenges and opportunities for NewNet companies. And it is hard to ignore the overcrowded but growing world of daily deals. This quarterly report analyzes these trends and others, and it also provides a near-term outlook of trends, technologies and companies to watch in 2012. Companies mentioned in the report include Amazon, Facebook and Socialcast. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
It’s the last full week before everyone essentially checks out until January, which means a lot of us are scrambling to get things done. For a number of companies, an IPO is an item on this year’s pre-Christmas to-do list, including Jive Software, Zynga and others. Read more »
Trulia, the San Francisco-based real estate search company, has added two new executives with public company experience as it moves toward an initial public offering of its own. Trulia has named former PayPal exec Sean Aggarwal as its first-ever CFO, and Scott Darling as general counsel. Read more »
Facebook is said to be making concrete steps toward its planned initial public offering, talking to bankers and getting regulatory filings in order for a spring 2012 IPO, according to the Wall Street Journal. This news is in line with previous reports about Facebook’s IPO plans. Read more »
Yelp, the San Francisco-based local reviews website, has filed official documents to raise up to $100 million in an IPO of its stock. The filing reveals that Yelp pulls in solid top line sales, but has yet to turn a profit at the bottom line. Read more »
Groupon is set to make its debut on the stock market any day now, with several reports saying the IPO will take place by week’s end. But some analysts say that Groupon does not deserve the $11 billion valuation at which it’s set to debut. Read more »
Reports of the death of Groupon’s IPO plans have apparently been greatly exaggerated. The online daily deals pioneer filed an updated version of its S-1 document with the SEC Friday, as part of its preparation for an initial public offering of its stock. Read more »
This is a moving weekend for me so I am going to keep the list of recommendations to read this weekend very short. So without much ado, here are some posts that are worth reading this weekend. Read more »
Internet radio company Pandora reported the financial results of its first three months as a public company Thursday. The company confirmed that while it still has a long way to go before it reaches the listener levels of traditional radio, its ads are now just as valuable. Read more »
With the stock market in flux, do tech startups stand a chance when it comes to luring investors? To find out, we polled GigaOM readers on what’s hot, what’s not, which sectors might favor buyouts versus IPOs and how it all will change in the near ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Zynga is expanding its mobile ambitions by apparently picking up New York City-based developer Astro Ape Studios. The gaming powerhouse, which is preparing to go public, has been increasingly looking to shore up its mobile efforts, which has not be as successful as its Facebook business. Read more »
Andrew Mason has said that “Life is too short to be a boring company” — and his company Groupon continues to deliver the goods. The daily deals giant has filed an updated S-1 as part of its IPO preparation, and the document is not short on surprises. Read more »
The recent volatility in the stock market has had strong effects on many publicly traded companies, and private firms aren’t exactly eager to join their ranks. Five of the 12 companies expected to price IPOs this week have decided to postpone their public market debuts. Read more »
There will be no loan guarantee for recently public biofuel company KiOR, at least this year. According to correspondence with the SEC, KiOR put its application for 2011 on hold in May, with plans to roll it over to 2012 — assuming the program gets funded for 2012. Read more »
The tech industry’s public market newcomers LinkedIn, Pandora and Zillow have become some of the hardest hit stocks in the ongoing stock market tumble. Could this halt the ongoing initial public offering wave that has been building in the tech industry for several months? Read more »
Real estate listing site Zillow received a warm welcome from public market investors after its IPO Wednesday morning. Zillow’s stock hit the market at $57 per share, more than double its $20 IPO price. But the stock proved volatile within a few hours of trading. Read more »
It looks like Zynga is polishing up the proverbial silver in the run-up to its planned IPO. The social gaming company has launched “PrivacyVille,” a new game-like tutorial that rewards users with zPoints, Zynga’s virtual currency, for learning more about the company’s privacy practices. Read more »
Zynga on Friday filed its S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise $1 billion. The IPO filing comes just one day later than many people expected — reports have been bubbling for weeks that Zynga was planning to file its S-1 sometime in June. Read more »
The future of clean power and greener transportation is being carried by FarmVille and online coupons — at least in terms of venture capital portfolios. Read more »
Ubiquiti, the wireless technology provider, filed IPO paperwork with the SEC recently, following hot on the heels of the Boingo and Fusion-io IPOs. Though VCs, including Sequoia’s Michael Goguen, are bullish on the activity in infrastructure, it’s too soon to say how it will pan out. Read more »
Just because it works in the United States, doesn’t mean it will work in China. It’s a lesson some of our biggest tech brands have learned the hard way. And as Groupon attempts expands east, critics say its already making the same mistakes. Read more »
The summer of 2011 is shaping up to be the season of the tech IPO, and according to a report published today by Bloomberg, Zynga is next in line for a stock market debut. The company is reportedly looking to file its S-1 by month’s end. Read more »
Airbnb, the peer-to-peer apartment and house rental website, is rumored to be raising $100 million in new funding at a whopping $1 billion valuation. But based on the company’s revenue and growth prospects, that number may not be as shocking as it seems. Read more »
Kayak kicked off 2011 with major sales growth in the run-up to its planned IPO, according to a regulatory filing. The travel search company made $52.6 million in the first three months of 2011, representing a 43.4 percent increase over the same period in 2010 Read more »
