Sunday, April 8, 2012

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Real Estate Will Always Be The Best Investment: Time To Augment It Top
model homeI spend a good portion of my day thinking, researching, and analyzing our industry, our world, consumer habits, and the technology products that enhance and cause fundamental change within it. My job is quite literally to see where the puck is going and get there first. My goal is to gain insight into the direction before the shot is hit, before the trajectory is set, and if possible, before the puck is even dropped into play. Over the past months I've been mentally mulling over the profundity of Real Estate. Throughout history, real estate has been the most coveted, fought-over, and valuable resource to humanity. Entire civilizations were created, and wiped out, on their level of success in securing it and the access it provided for their people. In the modern age, this has meant the creation of vast amounts of wealth for those who control and monetize it according to their needs, for both countries and individuals alike.
 
Cater2.Me Finds A New Way To Feed San Franciscans With Pop-Up BetaKitchen Top
PrintUntil now, Cater2.me has focused on using the Web to connect companies (which need to feed their employees) with small restaurants and food carts. Now it's opening a restaurant of its own — or rather, what it calls the BetaKitchen. The idea, says co-founder Zach Yungst, is to create something that's be visible to consumers, not just office managers trying to plan the next big meal. As with Cater2.me's existing service, the goal is to connect people with a wider variety of food than they might experience otherwise. At the BeatKitchen, you'll have the opportunity to sample food from a changing lineup of San Francisco chefs. Eventually, the "pop-up and test kitchen" should also drive people back to the Cater2.me site, where they might see upcoming chefs, rate the food, and eventually vote on the who will be cooking.
 
Ridiculous 'Google Glass' Video Ripe For Parody Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-08 at 1.14.50 AMSuddenly all your friends are wearing those dumb black nerd glasses. You, as a NYC-dwelling (of course) ur-hipster in the first clip spend your day at the Strand Bookstore, chasing around a food cart, photographing street art and learning how to play something called Monsieur Gayno on the ukulele.
 
How Can We Disrupt The Cell Carriers? Top
cell towerEvery time I pick up my iPhone lately, I've been asking myself: Why do we call this a "phone"? If my "phone" habits are any indicator, we shouldn't be calling this a phone at all. On the iPhone, I don't like taking phone calls. I've moved the green phone application button away from the bottom tray and replaced it with other apps I use frequently. If Apple allowed us to actually delete the phone app, I'd bet some of us would do it right away. In our evolving relationship with mobile phones, I wonder when we are going to stop calling it a "phone." It's semantics, but the words are important and affect our mindset. If we're using precise language, these devices are really computers with data-collecting sensors and processors that happen to have voice capabilities as a feature.
 
The Rise of Full-Box CRM Top
StuffCRM is a massive business. At least an $8 billion industry according to Gartner. Salesforce, the company you think of when you hear CRM (after all, it is their ticker symbol) has a market cap north of $21 billion dollars. And while sales departments are typically most commonly thought of in conjunction with these systems, they're far from the only adopters of CRM. In the human resources and recruiting space the equivalent to CRM is the applicant tracking system or ATS. This is also a big business, worth somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion dollars. Taleo, a leader in the ATS market, was recently acquired by Oracle for $1.9 billion. SuccessFactors, another provider of ATS software, was bought by SAP for $3.4 billion.
 
Selling Digital Fear Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-07 at 4.02.12 PMThe crowded building's not on fire. After an exhaustive investigation of the top 100 Facebook apps, the Wall Street Journal didn't find any serious privacy violations. While sensationalizing the dangers of online privacy sure drives page views and ad revenue, it also impedes innovation and harms the business of honest software developers. Reality has yet to stop media outlets from yelling about privacy, and because the WSJ writers were on assignment, they wrote the "Selling You On Facebook" hit piece despite thin findings. These kind of articles can make mainstream users so worried about the worst-case scenario of what could happen to their data, they don't see the value they get in exchange for it.
 
Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Convertible Note Seed Financings (But Were Afraid To Ask) Top
seed fundingWe are in the golden age of seed financing.  Venture capital funds, seed funds, super angels, angel groups, incubators, and "friends and family" are all playing the seed financing game and investing early in startups in an attempt to land the next Facebook. As a result, the pendulum has swung dramatically in the founders' favor, and the issuance of convertible notes for seed financing has never been more prolific.  Indeed, as a corporate lawyer for 18+ years, I have seen this development first-hand. This post is the first part of a three-part primer on convertible note seed financings. Part 1 will address basic questions, such as (i) what is a convertible note? (ii) why are convertible notes issued instead of shares of common or preferred stock? and (iii) what are the advantages of issuing convertible notes?
 
Why You're A Startup Founder: Nature And Nurture Top
baby computerJust over a month ago, a random conversation with another startup founder over lunch turned into a full-blown research project. "You and I are both first-born children," I mused to my friend, "I wonder if that had any influence on why we chose to start businesses." I theorized that first borns were often given more responsibility growing up, and wondered if this role served as training wheels for building startups. I also wondered if our upbringing had an influence on things like when we start, what we start, or how much money we raise — and ultimately, how successful we are with our businesses.
 
The Future Of Content: Content Is The Future Top
Max HeadroomToday, the Web's infrastructure is built, the platforms have emerged; we're now filling the pipes with content; mainly free, ad-supported content. Anyone who's worked in user-generated/appropriated content aggregation recognizes its limitations: marketers want professional content since publishers filter audiences for advertisers. Tim Armstrong left Google (the mother of all aggregators) and joined AOL to remake it into the Time of the 21st century.  He didn't double down on Bebo.
 
Gillmor Gang: Lawyers, Puns, and Monkeys Top
Gillmor Gang test patternThe Gillmor Gang — Danny Sullivan, Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — proved unequal to the task of rendering the week's non-news into insight. Whether it was @scobleizer and Sergey Brin circling the famous Google Glasses or @dannysullivan grading Larry Page's book report, nothing was revealed. No monkeys were harmed in the making of this film. They weren't helped much either
 
When Code Is Hot Top
hacker-dojoSuddenly programming is sexy. Codecademy is drawing hundreds of thousands to its online programming tutorials. "Those jumping on board say they are preparing for a future in which the Internet is the foundation for entertainment, education and nearly everything else ... ensuring that they are not left in the dark ages," says a recent New York Times piece. The NYT's Randall Stross went on to write about how "many professors of computer science say college graduates in every major should understand software fundamentals." At parties these days, people are more impressed when I say I write apps than when I say I've had a few novels published. How weird is that? Is this the long-fabled Triumph of the Geek? If so, it should seem unreservedly great to those of us who started programming when we were ten and haven't much stopped since. So why does this sudden surge of enthusiasm make me feel so uneasy?
 
Five Great Things About Procrastination Top
procMy wife was upset at me. "You spent all weekend responding to comments on TechCrunch," she said, "and it was the one weekend without the kids and you were either on your head phones or playing chess or responding to TechCrunch comments." And then she walked away. Upset. There would be no way to make it up to her. The weekend was over. And I had big plans that weekend. My article was coming out 6am TechCrunch time on Saturday and I have two Kindle Singles (i.e. "small books") that I am putting out in the next few weeks. One: "How to Be President of the United States in Ten Easy Lessons". And two, "Scams". Plus I'm in the middle of starting three different businesses. Only one peripherally related to porn.
 
Dave McClure On What's Next For 500 Startups [TCTV] Top
15721v4-max-250x250Today was a pretty big day for 500 Startups, the Silicon Valley seed venture capital firm and startup accelerator founded by outspoken tech investment extraordinaire Dave McClure. The firm disclosed in a regulatory filing that it's halfway finished raising a brand new $50 million round of funding, the second in its two-year history and a significant step up from the $29 million investment that it raised in its first round. 500 Startups also named four new partners -- Paul Singh, Christen O'Brien, Bedy Yang, and George Kellerman -- who will help select and manage the more than 100 investments that the firm makes each year. So we were very happy to have McClure as a guest today on TechCrunch TV. Because of regulatory limitations on what companies can say while they're in the process of raising funding, his hands were tied on lots of topics on the details of the new fund -- but we were still able to get some great details from him on the future direction of 500 Startups and the venture funding world in general.
 
What A Facebook Response To A User Data Subpoena Looks Like Top
Facebook subpoena photoLast year, Facebook got a little more transparent explaining what kind of data it would provide to law enforcement officials when they made formal subpoenas for user profiles. Now, we can have a look at exactly what that Facebook account report looks like, perhaps for the first time. The document comes by way of the newspaper the Boston Phoenix, which this week published a long feature on how digital sleuthing led to detectives tracking down Philip Markoff, a man accused of robbing two women and murdering a third, having initially made contact with them through Craigslist. (Markoff committed suicide before his case went to trial.) The feature is worth reading in itself, but what's equally interesting is that the Phoenix has taken the opportunity to also make public an extensive amount of evidence that was used in the case, covering things like CCTV footage, audio of police interviews... and all of Markoff's Facebook data.
 
VC Giants, Thinking Smaller: Why Kleiner Perkins' Aileen Lee Is Getting Into Seed Funding Top
ALeeLowResAs a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, Aileen Lee has been a part of one of the most well-respected and established venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. But after 13 years with the firm, Aileen Lee is shifting her focus in a very interesting way -- she's starting a new venture fund focused on smaller, "seed-stage" investments. This is the first time that a Kleiner partner has ever left to start their own seed fund, so Lee is in uncharted territory of sorts. In an interview with TechCrunch today, Lee outlined some of the reasons behind the launch of her new endeavor.
 
Randi Zuckerberg Defends Her Reality Show: Hey Silicon Valley, Stop Being Snobs Top
randiRandi Zuckerberg has ruffled some feathers this week with the announcement that she is co-producing "Silicon Valley," a reality show set to air on Bravo that purports to be all about the San Francisco Bay Area tech scene. In an extensive post on her Facebook page today, Zuckerberg acknowledged the haters and pledged to stand up to them -- "I've never been one to shy away from a challenge or back down from critique" -- and defended her decision to bring the tech world to the small screen. One oft-heard criticism of "Silicon Valley" is that the seven-person cast is hardly filled with the industry's typical bold-faced names -- not a Dorsey or Morin to be found. In fact, most people I've talked to have no idea who the majority of the cast is. Pointedly, Zuckerberg suggests that snobbery is afoot in some of these complaints.
 
That Whole "Shoulder-Surfing Facebook Accounts At Job Interviews" Thing? It's Probably Not Really Happening Top
imgresI think the folk tale of employers asking to see a candidate's Facebook account was apocryphal at best, but it seems like it's even being debunked in HR circles. Andy Lester a blogger on high-tech career-hunting, has noted that the tale, which surfaced in an AP story a few weeks ago, has been picked up as an example of the horrible state of hiring in this country. Pundits have opined, ink has been spilled, and now interviewees are ready to go into future places of work full of righteous indignation, just waiting for the mention of Facebook. But for the most part it's an urban legend.
 
Security Company Palo Alto Networks Files For $175 Million IPO Top
palo-alto-networksPalo Alto Networks, a security software company, has filed its S-1 for a public offering, aiming to raise as much as $175 million. The company was rumored to be in the process of filing earlier this year. Founded by Nir Zuk, the company develops enterprise-grade firewalls for companies that give visibility and granular policy control of applications and content, through hardware and software technologies. Companies can gain visibility into all traffic and all applications, maintaining the security of internal data and applications. For example, the company's firewall will scan for viruses, spyware, data leakage and other application vulnerabilities in realtime.
 
After A Bump From SXSW, Banjo Tries To Bolster Its Position As The All-In-One Location App Top
banjo-androidWhat's a SXSW bump worth? To Redwood City's Banjo, which pools location data on friends from all the major social networks, it was worth 100,000 downloads in four days. That brought the app to more than 900,000 users. Of those, a little more than a half-million users are active every month. That's not bad for an app that has grown pretty much organically since it came out nine months ago, and Banjo is showing an upward tick in users at least if you look at its footprint on Facebook. Social networking is a tougher category to acquire customers in at least compared to games, where developers usually have very cash rich businesses that can pay for marketing. On the back of that momentum, Banjo has an update out that makes the app even more of a central hub for all location sharing from other social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Instagram.
 
On The Nokia Lumia 900 And How AT&T Is The Phone's Only Downside Top
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis is it. The stakes couldn't be higher. The future of Windows Mobile Phone hinges on the success of the Nokia Lumia 900. The phone has a huge amount of hype. It's priced right at $99 on-contract and it's a drop-dead gorgeous device. Nokia's latest marketing campaign directly targets Apple and Google. If any phone could rocket Windows Phone 7 to success it's the Lumia 900. It's just too bad Microsoft and Nokia tasked lowly AT&T of all carriers to launch this pivotal phone. And for whatever unknown reason, on Easter Sunday. It's just too bad Microsoft and Nokia tasked lowly AT&T of all carriers to launch this pivotal phone. And for whatever unknown reason, on Easter Sunday.
 

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