Tuesday, June 29, 2010

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Foursquare Closes $20 Million Series B From Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square, And O'Reilly Top
Foursquare , the geo-mobile startup everybody tried to invest in or buy, now has officially closed its Series B funding round. The “wire transfer heard ’round the world,” as board member Bryce Roberts puts it , was for $20 million. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, as previously reported , with existing investors Union Square Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures participating. CEO Dennis Crowley says the fundraising was “a lot of work” and plans to use the money to staff up and keep adding to the product. “It’s all about building a team that can churn out new product,” he tells me. “We’ve been dreaming up these things for the past 10 years and now we have the opportunity to build them all.” The money will also help pay for more office space. His 27 employees are already too big for the startup’s current New York City offices, and Foursquare is about to move into new digs upstairs in the same building. “It’s awesome,” he says, “we can hear them building it upstairs right now!” He plans on hiring a lot more engineers. The whole funding process has been drawn out. Crowley was deciding between suitors last Spring , when buyout interest started to come, first from Yahoo, and then from Facebook. The VC deal was put on hold. But Andreessen Horowitz felt so yanked around by the process that partner Ben Horowitz very publicly “withdrew” from the bidding. That turned out to be nothing more than a rebuke. And now Horowitz says of course they invested. Foursquare has a “great Founder/CEO,” a “killer product,” and is going after a “gigantic market.” In Crowley, specifically, Horowitz sees the leadership traits they like to invest in: a CEO who is a “keeper of the product vision.” Selling to Yahoo would have been a mistake . Facebook would have been more interesting. In any case, Foursquare will go it alone for now, and develop the product unencumbered by a larger organization with a different set of goals. But remember, Marc Andreessen is on Facebook’s board, so that avenue is not entirely shut off. Leaving Foursquare independent will allow it to find its own way. The geo check-in service that lets you broadcast your location to all your friends is hitting a nice growth curve, adding 15,000 users a day. It is now up to 1.8 million registered users, up from one million just last April. Why mess up a good thing when you can buy it later? CrunchBase Information Foursquare Andreessen Horowitz Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Foursquare Requests Now Much More Useful With "Friends In Common" Top
Big news from Foursquare today. No, not that news ( just yet ). And okay, not really that big. Still, very useful. Foursquare has given its friend request emails a nice upgrade today. Previously, all you would see is a text note that someone wanted to be your friend. If you wanted to learn anything about them, you had to click-through to their profile page on foursquare.com. But starting today, Foursquare has a new notification email system that includes the user’s profile picture and more importantly, an area noting what friends you have in common. Right above the button to add that person as a friend (which takes you to your pending friend requests page), you’ll see a new area that reads “ Also, it looks like you have some friends in common: ” Below that, you’ll see a picture of the friends you have in common. This is very helpful for a service like Foursquare because you’re likely only going to want to follow people you really know. And friends in common is a great way to tell that — something which Facebook uses to great effect as well. Of course, not everyone uses Foursquare that way. For example, Robert Scoble has about 8,500 stalkers (I mean, “friends”). Not surprisingly, the first new Foursquare notification I received showed that we had Scoble in common as a friend. So basically, Scoble may have broken this system before it even started. CrunchBase Information Foursquare Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Salesforce Chatterizes 10,000 Of Its Customers First Week After Public Launch Top
Unsurprisingly, Salesforce is seeing rapid adoption of its social collaboration platform Chatter among its existing customers after launching to the public last week. In its first week of general availability, Chatter has been integrated by 10,000 of Salesforce's 77,300 existing customers, or 13 percent of Salesforce's customer base. Salesforce CEO and co-founder Marc Benioff said in a statement: "We've never seen this kind of excitement around a product release before." Chatter was made available to the public last week after four months in private beta. Announced last November, Chatter leverages what Benioff calls the Cloud 2 , delivering realtime access to data and information, using social sources, such as YouTube and Twitter.
 
Google Taps The Buzz Keg For More Social Search Brew Top
Google Social Search is a good idea . You take regular Google search results and intertwine them with related elements that your contacts have shared on various social networks. But there’s one big barrier to entry. In order for your contacts to automatically share elements, they have to link up their various social profiles to their Google Profile page. A lot of people are simply not going to do that. So Google is changing things up a bit and making it easier to get at social data. Starting today and rolling out over the cource of this week, Google will begin looking at items you share on Buzz and crawling elements from those social networks to use in Social Search as well. For example, if you link up your Twitter feed to your Buzz page, even if you haven’t linked it to your Google Profile, you’ll now start seeing results from your Twitter social graph in the results. Obviously, Google is just going to be crawling public information. And if you want them to stop crawling something, you can simply unlink it from your Buzz account (just as you can unlink it from your Google Profile). Though this unlinking may take a little bit of time due to the crawlers, I’m told. “ It’s a win for users because it creates more value in Social Search ,” Google’s Matt Cutts tells us. I asked Cutts where most of the Social Search data comes in from, and while he didn’t have any hard data, he said that Twitter was obviously one of the biggies (though there is still the Twitter/Buzz disconnect ). FriendFeed also remains a valuable source of data, he says. But now that anything you share in Buzz can be pulled into these Social Search results, hopefully there will be even more diverse data — and more of it overall. While it’s not happening just yet, Cutts envisioned a time when searching in a particular area (known from geolocation in your browser) would pull in results from your Foursquare social graph, for example. CrunchBase Information Google Buzz Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Kontagent Raises $4.5 Million For Facebook Analytics Platform Top
Only a few months after the company raised $1 million in funding, Kontagent , an fbFund winner and social analytics platform, has raised $4.5 million in new funding. We’ve confirmed the funding with Kontagent’s co-founder, Albert Lai. The round was led by Altos Ventures and Maverick Capital , with participation from Larry Braitman , cofounder of FlyCast and Adify. This brings the total amount raised by Kontagent to nearly $6 million dollars to date. Kontagent’s platform gives Facebook app developers and publishers detailed data of demographics based on geographic location, age groups, gender, user engagement times, social interaction and other variables. The platform provides powerful A/B testing across any viral channel (a button, an invite or a notification) that sits inside Facebook. Kontagent also offers developers viral optimization tools to track the virality of the application on Facebook. And Kontagent offers these analytics to iPhone and web applications u sing Facebook Connect. Currently Kontagent’s deep analytics track over 60 million monthly active users with its analytics. The company plans to use this additional capital to build out sales and marketing capacities as well as for research and development. Kontagent is currently actively hiring and expanding its engineering, sales and marketing teams in both its San Francisco and Toronto offices. CrunchBase Information Kontagent Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Foursquare Board Approves The "Wire Transfer Heard 'Round The World" Top
The long dalliance between investors and Foursquare appears to almost be consummated. According to a Tweet by Foursquare board member Bryce Roberts of O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures , about an hour ago he was “approving the wire transfer heard ’round the world.” That would be the wire transfer from the new group of investors led by Andreessen Horowiitz, as we reported a few weeks ago . Despite being one of the hottest startups around, or perhaps because of it, Foursquare took along time to close this round. Mostly that was because the company got distracted by acquisition talks with Yahoo and Facebook. When I asked Foursquare CEo Dennis Crowley about this drawn out process ten days ago, he responded , “You don’t have to rush through it.” There is still no official announcement yet from Foursquare on the funding, the exact amount raised or other investors involved, but I am pretty sure more details will be forthcoming shortly. Sometimes VCs get so excited they like to break news themselves, I guess. CrunchBase Information Foursquare Andreessen Horowitz Information provided by CrunchBase
 
iPhone 4 + Verizon + January = Boom? Top
This is it, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Well, maybe. A report today in Bloomberg citing two unnamed sources claims that Verizon Wireless will be getting the iPhone in January. Yes, Verizon, iPhone, January. Naturally, all the companies involved are declining to comment on the record, but Bloomberg sounds pretty confident in the report thanks to their two sources “familiar with the plans.” This information is close to what the Wall Street Journal was reporting back in March which stated that a CDMA (the type of network Verizon uses) iPhone would be entering production later this year to be released at some point after that . There have been many earlier reports as well. Some dating back years — and some of those may have very well been negotiating tactics by Apple to score a better deal when re-upping with AT&T. But these latest reports seem to sync up well with recent maneuvers AT&T has been making to ensure they lock in customers for another two years with the new iPhone 4. AT&T allowed many iPhone 3GS buyers to upgrade to the iPhone 4 for the fully early — months early, in some cases. This was either AT&T being nice or them trying to lock users in to a new two-year contract. I’ll let you make up your own mind on that one. The company also recently upped the early termination fee when you sign a new contract. That way if you do want to break the contract, say if a certain device were all of a sudden offered on another network, you’ll have to pay more to do so. But the exact nature of Apple and AT&T’s exclusivity agreement has never been fully known. Depending on which report you’ve read in the past couple of years, it was either going to end in 2009, 2010, or 2011. But that deal has undoubtedly been amended along the way. And again, AT&T’s maneuvers of late suggest they may know it could be ending sooner rather than later. While Apple has for the most part said the right things about the relationship in public, you hear time and time again that they’re not pleased with some of AT&T lackluster performance. Apple CEO Steve Jobs even publicly said as much recently, but noted that the network should improve soon. Perhaps by “soon,” he meant January, when the company can offload a ton of users to a new network. Still, it’s a little odd that Apple would go with Verizon as their second carrier ahead of someone like T-Mobile, which also runs a GSM network, and as such, wouldn’t require a complete re-working of the iPhone hardware. But Apple undoubtedly also knows that Verizon is the big catch in the U.S. market as they are still the largest carrier, and the one that is perceived to have the best actual service. Verizon has also been heavily aligning itself with Google’s Android platform in recent months — a move which Apple can’t be too pleased with. Perhaps Apple wants to make the move to Verizon before Android has too strong of a foothold there. Overall, it’s clear that if Apple does actually want to compete with Android in terms of numbers (which it’s not yet clear that they do — they may prefer to make more revenue per device sold instead ), they’re going to need to move beyond AT&T. The network is quite simply its biggest inhibitor to growth at this point. Android phones, meanwhile, are on all the major carriers. The iPhone is still far outselling any single Android device, but put them all together, across all those networks, and it simply will be very hard for Apple to match that volume the way things are currently. Something else to think about: if the iPhone (presumably the iPhone 4) is coming to Verizon, does it mean the iPad will too? Perhaps Apple really did intend to use the 3G iPad as a parting gift for AT&T — on top of giving them a few months exclusive on the iPhone 4. Remember, the iPhone on Verizon doesn’t mean it won’t be on AT&T too, it just means it won’t exclusively be there anymore. Apple still has to maintain a relationship with AT&T going forward as they will continue to be an important partner regardless. The January timeframe for a Verizon iPhone could make sense as Apple likes to do big events in January. In previous years, that’s been Macworld, but this year it was the event to unveil the iPad. Don’t be surprised if Apple holds another iPad event in January 2011 — but this time the “one more thing” just may be a Verizon iPhone. The ultimate “ Boom! “ God I hope so. CrunchBase Information iPhone 4 Verizon AT&T Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Twitter Slashes API Rate Limits In Half Across The Board To Deal With Capacity Issues Top
As you may have noticed, Twitter has been having a rough month. Due in part to traffic from the World Cup , Twitter has had its worst month in terms of uptime in a year. The Fail Whale has been out in full force , and it’s partially Twitter’s own fault as they’re trying to overhaul their internal network during this time of high traffic. And today they’ve announced another move to help deal with network strain: an API rate limit cut. And this isn’t a minor rate limit cut either. Twitter is taking the default limit from 350 and cutting it to 175. And they’re slashing the rates in half across the board. This means that everyone from the smallest Twitter sites to those whitelisted will be affected. Even Twitter’s own mobile properties (which use the same API) are being forced to deal with this cut. “ To ensure fairness to all users of the API, the reduced rate limit is proportional to that application or users’ allowance rather than a fixed value of requests ,” Twitter notes on its FAQ site for the cut. “ Reducing the API rate-limit is not the first or only method we use and is one we try to avoid if possible. However, it is also one of the more effective ways to reduce load and ensure that the Twitter service remains available to the greatest number of users ,” Twitter developer advocate Matt Harris writes in the Twitter Development Tool Google Group today. And 175 isn’t as low as Twitter may need to go at time. For example, earlier today Twitter slashed the rate all the way down to 75, and started slashing features such as integrated search. It was re-established a few hours later, but Harris warns that developers can expect more of that in the coming weeks — and these downgrades can happen without notice as Twitter attempts to maintain service availability. The number of people this change will affect is pretty staggering. “ The API represents approximately 75% of the traffic that comes to twitter.com ,” Twitter notes. Update : And just to be clear, the limit is only on tweet read requests — there is no limit on tweets sent. [photo: flickr/ thetruthabout ] CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Hulu Launches Premium Subscription Service 'Hulu Plus', Coming To iPhone, iPad & PS3 Top
The rumors were true. Today, Hulu is announcing a limited launch of Hulu Plus, an ad-supported, premium subscription service that will run $9.99 per month and includes HD access to full season runs of shows from Fox, ABC, and NBC. Better yet, Hulu Plus will work across a multitude of platforms, including PCs, the iPad, iPhone, some Samsung Blu-ray players, and soon, the PlayStation 3. The service is currently only available to select Hulu members who have been invited — you can request an invite here . Even if you don’t have an invite, you’ll still be able to download a Hulu Plus application on the iPad, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4. The application features a limited number of episodes, but you’ll be able to get a feel what the service will be like. Hulu says that the service will launch broadly in the coming months. The new subscription service will feature shows from over 100 content providers, including both current and ‘classic’ episodes. Subscribers will have access to every episode from current seasons of 45 programs from ABC, Fox, and NBC, including Glee, Modern Family, 30 Rock, and The Office through a ‘Season Ticket’ system (see the screenshot below). The service will also offer a back catalog of older shows, some of which will include the entire series run of episodes. Content will be delivered at a resolution of 720p (HD) when available, and can be downgraded in low-bandwidth scenarios. Hulu clearly hopes to distribute the service across as many platforms as it can. Along with the aforementioned device partners, Hulu intends to include Hulu support with more Blu-ray players and TVs, including some from Sony and VIZIO. Support for the Xbox 360 will be coming in early 2011. You can see a full list of supported devices here . This has been a long time coming. We’ve been hearing about an iPad version of Hulu for months now, and rumors have persisted about a possible Hulu subscription for much longer than that. In March Hulu CEO Jason Kilar announced that the company was profitable based on ads that are served against its free videos, but that hasn’t stopped content owners from pushing for a premium offering. The question now is whether people will pay for it. My hunch is yes, provided the content owners are willing to ensure that Hulu’s library is both current and full of compelling older shows. Hulu isn’t the only company looking to offer premium on-demand video service — Apple has been rumored to be working on one of its own, and Netflix offers some (generally less recent) shows through a streaming service as well. CrunchBase Information hulu Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Tesla IPO Shares Pop, Drop, And Rally. Market Values It At $1.7 Billion. Top
With the Dow down more than 250 points, today is not the best day for an IPO. But Tesla shares are rallying after an initial scare. Tesla Motors rang the Nasdaq opening bell earlier this morning to commemorate its initial public offering under the ticker symbol TSLA The shares opened at $19, a 12% jump from its $17 pricing yesterday. But then they immediately dropped, dipping below $17.70 before rallying again. Currently, they are trading above $18, which gives Tesla a market cap of about $1.7 billion The company was able to price the shares above its $14 to $16 range, and will collect $202 million from the IPO Tesla is selling 13.3 million shares, 11,880,600 through the company and 1,419,400 through selling stockholders, including founder Elon Musk . This is the first time an automotive company has gone public in more than 50 years. (For a skeptical take on Tesla’s chances, read this in-depth Reuters article , in which GM’s Bob Lutz predicts, “These geniuses always get their comeuppance”). Any bets on where the shares will end the day? Update : Tesla’s shares kept rising through the day past the opening price and closed at $23.89, giving the company a market cap $2.2 billion at the end of its first trading day. CrunchBase Information Tesla Motors Information provided by CrunchBase
 

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