Sunday, April 3, 2011

Y! Alert: TechCrunch

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from TechCrunch

Email Breach At Email Marketer Epsilon Affects TiVo, Citi, Marriott And More Top
photo © 2006 Gene Tew | more info (via: Wylio ) In case you haven’t already received the ominous sounding email, data held by email marketing firm Epsilon was compromised earlier this week  – the hack apparently executed by one person. The breach, which keeps broadening in scope as more companies inform their customers, has thus far affected these top brands: TiVo, Walgreens, US Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, Citi, Home Shopping Network, McKinsey & Company, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, Marriott Rewards, New York & Company, Brookstone, and The College Board. The notification emails each brand has been sending their customers is some version of the below. We have been informed by Epsilon, the vendor that sends email to you on our behalf, that your e-mail address may have been exposed by unauthorized entry into their system. Epsilon has assured us that the only information that may have been obtained was your first and last name and e-mail address. REST ASSURED THAT THIS VENDOR DID NOT HAVE ACCESS TO OTHER MORE SENSITIVE INFORMATION SUCH AS SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER OR CREDIT CARD DATA. Please note, it is possible you may receive spam e-mail messages as a result. We want to urge you to be cautious when opening links or attachments from unknown third parties. In keeping with standard security practices, the College Board will never ask you to provide or confirm any information, including credit card numbers, unless you are on a secure College Board site. Epsilon has reported this incident to, and is working with, the appropriate authorities. We regret this has taken place and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We take your privacy very seriously, and we will continue to work diligently to protect your personal information. Sincerely, The College Board Epsilon is assuring its customers that “only” email addresses and customer names were revealed in the breach but that’s actually not so reassuring. The ability to target spam emails to specific people leaves those affected by the attacks more vulnerable to phishing scams. People are more likely to trust something that looks like legitimate, direct communication. Again: Put on your thinking cap before you give anyone sensitive information like a password or social security number online. The world’s largest email marketing service, Epsilon sends 40 billion emails a year and manages the customer email database for 2,500 clients according to Security Week. It is currently investigating the incident according to its own announcement.
 
AT&T Buying T-Mobile Won't Matter. In Mobile Communications, Innovation Is Elsewhere. Top
Editor’s note : The following guest post is written by Joe Sipher , co-founder of Pinger , which makes the popular Textfree app. So AT&T wants to buy T-Mobile and some are screaming it will reduce competition and hurt the consumer. Sprint is now going to court to try and stop the merger. I am in the mobile communications industry and, to be honest, I couldn't care less. This isn't going to affect the companies pushing the real growth and innovation and it's not going to affect the consumer. The consumer has plenty of options that have nothing to do with carriers and that list is growing daily. For the legal fees it will take for these two giants to merge, ten new startups could be funded. The companies creating new business models for mobile communications are iterating out of sight of the big carriers, away from calling plans, contracts and traditional views of how people communicate. The Internet and the emergence of a robust mobile application layer have changed things forever. Over-the-top services that provide calling, texting and other communication options over the wireless data channel are getting to carrier size in less than two years. For instance, my company, Pinger , now moves over a billion text messages every month and millions of minutes of voice calls. And we are only a fraction the size of Skype. There are many more companies like ours out there too. Increasingly, users pay nothing for calls because these new over-the-top services apply internet monetization methodologies to communication services. Advertising based communication services mean no contracts, no calling plans, no overage fees. Before you say the newly extra gigantic evil carriers will shut down these over-the-top (OTT) services using their monopoly powers, let me say that the carriers are getting bigger, not dumber. Mobile operators make money with nearly every text, call, and tweet coming to their subscribers from OTT networks. These services are good for the operators because they help them sell phones and data plans. Allow me to use a couple examples from Pinger, because that is what I know. If you have a $19.99 unlimited text plan from Pinger and send 1000 texts per month, you pay $0.02 per text. Do the math: $0.02 x 1 billion is $20 million a month for the carriers on texting from our service alone. Not bad. The carrier appreciate that revenue. In fact, new app-based communications services are helping carriers discover new revenue because most of the traffic coming to their networks from over-the-top services isn't even coming from phones. In fact, 80 percent of our voice traffic comes from connected devices like iPod touch, iPad, and even desktop computers. But here’s the real truth: an entire generation isn't getting their first mobile number from services like ours. They aren't even making their first call from a phone! Because communication is simply an app, as kids grow, these apps will just work on their new device whether it's on the web, an iPad, an iPod touch, an iPhone or an Android device. Kids love Facebook, Twitter, Skype and all of these new communications apps because they offer better communication alternatives and the price is right. The thought of signing a contract just to communicate is going to be about as foreign to these kids as paying for cable TV! The real story here is that the consumer has more options than ever, and the bigger the traditional operators get, the more their scale interferes with their ability to innovate. Will there be sufficient competition in the marketplace if these two cell carriers connect? Plenty. CrunchBase Information Pinger AT&T Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Angel Investors Counter Y Combinator Start Fund With New $100 Million Early Stage "End Fund" Top
In a move reminiscent of AngelGate , Silicon Valley’s top angel investors are banding together to counter what they’re considering an existential threat. That threat? Start Fund , a new investment entity created by DST’s Yuri Milner and Ron Conway’s SV Angel. Start Fund shocked Silicon Valley in January when they announced that they’d offer every new Y Combinator startup $150,000, site unseen and without any due diligence. Angel investors panicked, realizing that Start Fund would likely result in soaring valuations. Y Combinator startups were no longer cash strapped, and negotiating leverage moved dramatically in their favor. “Start Fund was created to take traditional angel investors out at the knees,” said one such investor. “It’s highly irresponsible to invest in companies you’ve never met, and there will be unintended consequences that could hurt Silicon Valley over the long run.” Top angel investors were already meeting regularly to align investment strategies to keep startup valuations down. The collusion involved an unspoken agreement (known as the “ $4 million line “) not to compete for deals but rather to let one angel lead a deal and set valuation and then that angel would let the others invest alongside them. “That was a superior strategy and we were successfully keeping startup valuations at reasonable levels,” said investor Josh Felser at the time adding that “nothing we did was illegal because it wasn’t in writing.” But Start Fund changed the rules so much that in the last couple of months, say investors I’ve spoken with, the valuations of startups taking investment has increased dramatically. “Start Fund is the single biggest threat to our existence, and we have to adapt immediately” investor Jeff Clavier said at the Web 2.0 Expo earlier this week. Adapt they have. In a joint announcement today on Angellist , top angel funds First Round Capital, Felicis Ventures, FLOODGATE, SoftTech VC, 500 Startups, and Freestyle Capital, and nearly fifty individual angel investors, annouced End Fund , which plans to invest $1 million in 100 new startups immediately. Like Start Fund, entrepreneurs do not need to pitch their business idea or have any products built or even designed. “We’re investing in people, not ideas,” says First Round Capital’s Josh Kopelman in the release. Dave McClure , principal at participating fund 500 Startups, will lead End Fund as the fund’s only general partner. McClure was chosen, say insiders, based on his ability to make quick investment decisions based on little or no information at all. Last year, for example, McClure invested in a startup who gave him a ride to a meeting. "You did this without any due diligence or research into the company?" I asked him at the time. His answer – "Yes, but I had a referral from someone." “This is a blanket $1 million investment offer to virtually any new technology startup,” says McClure. Like Start Fund, the money is offered as a convertible note with very few conditions. Startups must fill out a web form containing five basic questions about their startup, including a one word description of the business, and agree never to take an investment from Start Fund. The first 100 startups to complete the web form and agree to the basic terms will be given the $1 million via a wire transfer. There is some fine print beyond the initial requirements. Applying entrepreneurs must also have their own computers, internet access and an email account. And the company’s next round of financing cannot be closed at a pre-money valuation of more than $4 million, and the company is only permitted to raise equity in the future from the funds and individual angel investors involved with End Fund. “Unlike Start Fund, which limits its investments to Y Combinator companies, End Fund will invest in any startup at all, with virtually no questions asked and on a first come, first served basis.” The group says that this will reduce risk considerably because of the deeper pool of talent they have to tap v. Start Fund. And the fact that only the first 100 startups to apply will get the funding means that the fund will automatically be structured to favor entrepreneurs who can make decisions and then execute very, very quickly. “We are at a unique point in history, where any two people can create a new startup and have a nearly certain chance of at least modest success,” says McClure . “Even if the product fails completely , Google and Facebook will compete to acquire the team and investors will at least get their money back.” Milner and the SV Angel team could not be reached for comment
 

CREATE MORE ALERTS:

Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted

Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope

Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more

News - Only the news you want, delivered!

Stocks - Stay connected to the market with price quotes and more

Weather - Get today's weather conditions




You received this email because you subscribed to Yahoo! Alerts. Use this link to unsubscribe from this alert. To change your communications preferences for other Yahoo! business lines, please visit your Marketing Preferences. To learn more about Yahoo!'s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy. Yahoo! is located at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089.
at

No comments:

Post a Comment