The emergence of inexpensive sensors is the singularly most exciting thing about the world in many ways. A big part of our life is to make sense of it all before it’s too late. Read More »
What will be the next big feature that Facebook introduces in terms of mobile applications? It’s not hard to come up with an answer to that question — it’s obvious that the Palo Alto, Calif.-based social networking company will launch “chat” as part of its mobile … Read More »
In Part II of his video interview, Slide Founder Max Levchin talks about PayPal’s turbulent early years, the delicate balance between platform owners and developers and his not-so-fond-memories of the advertising based business models. He talks about the lack of desire for big breakthroughs in society. … Read More »
In the Part 1 of the two part interview, Max Levchin, the Ukrainian-born co-creator of PayPal and founder of Slide, talks about his entrepreneurial journey. It is a story of immigrant work ethic, relentless desire to live his version of the American dream. Read More »
There’s a lot of talk these days about data-driven product development. But at least one startup, Lolapps, is finding that data isn’t everything. Now it is switching its strategy, hiring experienced game designers and conducting user tests where the goal is maximizing fun. Read More »
Keith Rabois, a well-known angel investor and senior executive at social gaming company Slide, that was recently acquired by Google for $182 million is leaving the company and joining Square, a company founded by Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey. Rabois is joining as Square’s general manager. Read More »
Slide CEO Max Levchin is joining Google with the acquisition of his company, but some of his thinking could collide with the way Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been approaching social products like Google Wave. One of the biggest issues: Levchin really doesn’t like failure. Read More »
Google this morning confirmed what had already been widely reported — that it has bought Slide, the social application maker. Google’s blog post on the matter is incredibly vague as to what Slide will actually be doing for Google, but let’s read the tea leaves. Read More »
Google will do just about anything to get social. Like spend $200 million on Slide, a head-scratcher of a deal that shows Google not only has no idea what to do about social, it actually lacks the imagination to even think of anything worthwhile. Read More »
Max Levchin’s Slide, a San Francisco-based startup that caught the Facebook application wave early, is making a strategic shift, refocusing its revenue efforts on higher-margin premium advertising that include brand sponsorships for many of its well-known applications such as Super Poke. As part of … Read More »
Some venture capital investors don’t seem to be fazed by the current downturn in the financial markets and overall economy. Today, Redwood City, Calif.-based RockYou announced that it has raised another $17 million from Softbank and SK Telecom Ventures, the venture capital arm of SK Telecom. By … Read More »
In an interview published this morning in the Financial Times, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he wouldn’t be looking to pick up any other Internet companies just because the Yahoo deal failed. One can only imagine how far shares of Facebook would have plummeted … Read More »
More Must Reads
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 … Read More »
Max Levchin, well known for being a co-founder of both Paypal and Slide, as well as for imitating Tom Cruise on “The GigaOM Show,” has just become the first person to get on the cover of magazine Portfolio. The magazine’s editors recently threw a little … Read More »
Updated: Slide, the San Francisco-based widget company has joined a very special list of web companies that have been banned by the Republic of Turkey for (according to Slide blog) what the local government calls “harboring pictures and articles that are considered to be … Read More »
Brand and comparison advertising done through ad-focused widgets is emerging as a viable way of using the ubiquitous applications. Widgets’ interactive features, their ability to be virally distributed and potentially be placed on a target’s own page makes the creations appealing to advertisers. Read More »
The time to prove that widgets can make money is here. But much like the early days of banner advertising, when people just sold whatever unused space they had, the world of widget ads is a Wild West with no set sizes, rules about placements, or … Read More »
It’s like the Silicon Valley version of the boy who cried wolf. The IAC-Flixster deal, that is. Earlier this month, TechCrunch and The Wall Street Journal’s “Deal Journal” blog reported on rumors that Barry Diller’s IAC was buying Flixster, a movie-fan … Read More »
The tail wagging the dog on outlandish valuations of Web 2.0 companies are corporate buyers and investors. But free-spending strategic buyers are showing signs of coming to their senses, so valuations may be coming down. Read More »
Slow and steady wins the race. Given the VC industry’s penchant for hockey-stick growth charts, it’s far from their slogan, but when it comes to a slow annual growth in funding data, it’s a welcome sign. The PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree data is … Read More »
By Om Malik
Dec. 17, 2007, 6:55pm PT
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The Founders Fund has a raised a new $220 million fund, their second. They will invest in 15-to-20 early stage start-ups, they announced today. The four managing partners of FF include Peter Thiel, well known for his investment in Facebook and Sean Parker, who was involved … Read More »
2007 was supposed to be the Year of the Widget, according to Newsweek, and Jon Swartz of USA Today apparently agrees that the promise has been fulfilled. He says: [Widgets] are all the rage on the Web. Marketers are thinking of ways to use them … Read More »
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