Friday, April 1, 2011

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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 meetin g. "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 much 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 considerable 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 dfadfadfadsf. “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
 
Chinese e-Commerce Site 360buy Grabs $1.5B From DST And Others Top
Yesterday we were hearing reports that global investing behemoth Digital Sky Technologies was setting up another fund, already investing in Groupon and Spotify’s $100 million round and sniffing around the “Amazon of China,” 360buy.com. Today the company has confirmed the reports to Reuters, revealing that the total amount of financing was an impressive 1.5 billion. 360buy.com, in the same space as Taobao, plans to IPO in 2013. The Yuri Milner-led DST has put in $500 million of the $1.5 billion in funfing, with Tiger Fund, Walmart and others completing the rest of the round. If you’ve read Sarah Lacy’s extensive chronicling of the region, it comes as no surprise that the same investment group that made a successful bet with Facebook and Groupon has now set its sights on the burgeoning opportunities in Chinese e-Commerce. The e-Commerce industry in China as a whole saw $79 billion (520 billion yuan) in sales last year, and 360buy.com itself made an estimated $1.7 billion in sales in 2010. DST also raised another $500 million in December from six investors including Walmart again. CrunchBase Information 360buy.com Digital Sky Technologies Information provided by CrunchBase
 
TechCrunch Giveaway: Free Tickets To Disrupt NYC #TechCrunch Top
TechCrunch Disrupt is back. This year’s first Disrupt is taking place in New York City, where we will have the best new startups, all-star guests and speakers, after parties, and more that we will reveal in the upcoming weeks. Disrupt NYC starts on May 23rd and goes until May 25th. May 23rd is only eight weeks away. For every Friday leading up to Disrupt NYC, we are going to give 1 ticket away to one lucky reader, fan , or follower . The tickets start at $1,795, later going up to $2,995. The way to win the tickets may change, but the prize will remain the same. If you want a chance at winning this week’s ticket to Disrupt in New York City, just follow these steps to enter: 1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page: 2) Then do one of the following: - Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TechCrunch hashtag) - Leave us a comment below The contest starts now and ends tomorrow, April 2nd at 7:30pm PST. Please only tweet the message once or you will be disqualified. We will choose at random and contact the winner this weekend with more details. Anyone in the world is eligible and we will be announcing the winners on our Facebook page. Please note these giveaways are for 1 ticket only and do not include airfare or hotel. If you do not win this week be sure to check back next Friday. Good luck!
 
The Onion, America's Finest News Source, Picks Finest Day To Debut iPad App Top
This is not a joke. The Onion , “America’s Finest News Source” (TM), released its iPad app fittingly enough on April Fools Day. IPad apps are serious stuff. This one delivers fake news stories, videos,and images from the parody site in both vertical and landscape modes. It’s a pretty basic fake-news reading app, but it gets the job done. You can swipe through stories, watch videos, check out funny charts. Articles can be shared via Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Google Reader or saved to read later via Instapaper or Pinboard. All pretty standard. From the press release: Now, using the latest news-providing technologies, The Onion introduces a format that allows you to touch the news. That's right. Swipe it, poke it, berate it, and it reacts accordingly. . . . "Whatever other news applications you've installed up to this point can be deleted now," said Director of Digital Baratunde Thurston. "Also, please try to avoid touching our news in inappropriate places. There are good touches and bad touches." The app relies heavily on HTML5, and it should be popular. The Onion’s other mobile apps on the iPhone and Android have been downloaded more than one million times. CrunchBase Information The Onion iPad Information provided by CrunchBase
 
DIY Cloud: Two Hard Drives That Let You Access Files Anywhere Top
It has long been a dream of mine to connect a hard drive at home to the Internet. This dream, of late, has been deferred by the rise of cloud services like SugarSync and Dropbox but two hard drive manufacturers, Buffalo and Iomega , have come out with compelling devices that seem to finally allow home and home office users to get the benefits of cloud hosting with the safety of complete control over your data. The two devices, the Buffalo CloudStor and the Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive, come in multiple sizes and sit on your network. They are, for the most part, plug and play except for a quick port change for the Iomega drive. I’ve put them both together as their feature sets are similar in process but intrinsically different in performance. Read more…
 
Facebook, Zuckerberg Sued For $1 Billion After Not Removing A Page Fast Enough Top
I took my sweet time to check if this was an April Fools joke to be put on our exhaustive 2011 list , but it appears to be as real as can be. Larry Klayman , a renowned American activist , former Justice Department prosecutor, former U.S. Senate candidate and book author, says he has sued both Facebook and founder Mark Zuckerberg for over $1 billion after the social networking giant failed to remove a page calling for a third intifada against Israel’s Jewish population swiftly enough. The suit was filed yesterday in Washington by Klayman, himself of Jewish origin. The complaint is embedded below. Klayman, who founded controversial law firm Judicial Watch as well as political advocacy group Freedom Watch , alleges that Zuckerberg and Facebook willfully kept a page calling for a third Palestinian intifada against Jews online to “further their revenues and the net worth” of the company. The page, which was removed on March 29 because, according to Facebook, it indeed made "direct calls for violence" in violation of its policies. On the page, Palestinians were urged to take to the streets after Friday prayers on May 15, 2011, and commence an uprising in the vein of the first two popular intifadas. “Judgment Day will be brought upon us only once the Muslims have killed all of the Jews,” read the call. The page reportedly garnered more than 340,000 fans. The removal of the page, which according to Klayman was “begrudgingly” ordered after increased pressure was exerted by himself, the Israeli government and organizations like the Anti-Defamation League , did not stop him from filing suit against the company. The activist argues that damage has already been done, and that he fears for his life since he’s been “called a Zionist publicly by radical Palestinians and other such Arabic interests” and is “thus a target of this call to kill Jews” along with other prominent public figures. The complaint alleges assault and negligence, gross negligence and recklessness on Facebook’s part. It reserves the right to be amended into a class action suit and prays for damages in excess of $1 billion, plus an award of attorneys fees and costs. Amusingly, Klayman bases part of his allegations on the fictional movie ‘The Social Network’: “While Facebook has accomplished a lot of good, it can, as in this instance, be used for nefarious and evil purposes. Defendants Zuckerberg’s and Facebook’s callous and greedy actions in not taking down the page, but willfully allowing it to stay up for many days, has caused huge damage, for which they must be held accountable, so as to prevent this from ever happening again. They must be not only enjoined but also hit in their purse, which is where they understand matters best. Apparently, the ethically compromised Zuckerberg has no conscience or sense of right or wrong, as depicted recently in the award winning film “Social Network.” On the off chance that you still think this is a joke (and I’m honestly still a little in doubt myself), know that Klayman isn’t one to kid around when it comes to litigation. As the founder and former Chairman of Judicial Watch, he attained notoriety through the initiation of 18 civil lawsuits against the Clinton Administration, and subsequently, an unsuccessful lawsuit against Vice-President Dick Cheney in order to obtain information about the White House’s energy task force. Klayman’s targets have also included OPEC and Osama bin Laden. Most of his high profile lawsuits have been dismal failures, though. Klayman also authored a book titled ‘WHORES: Why and How I Came to Fight the Establishment’ and regularly writes columns for conservative news site WorldNewsDaily . Slate in a column titled Nut Watch once dubbed Klayman a “one-man litigation explosion” after word got out that, aside from suing the likes of Hillary Clinton, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez , the Ground Zero Mosque and the Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury , he once even filed a lawsuit against his own mother . Request for comments were not immediately returned by either Facebook or mr. Klayman. Update: Facebook declined to comment on the lawsuit as it hasn’t been served yet, but issued this statement with regards to the controversial page: “The Page, The Third Palestinian Intifada, began as a call for peaceful protest, even though it used a term that has been associated with violence in the past. In addition, the administrators initially removed comments that promoted violence. However, after the publicity of the Page, more comments deteriorated to direct calls for violence. Eventually, the administrators also participated in these calls. After administrators of the page received repeated warnings about posts that violated our policies, we removed the Page. We continue to believe that people on Facebook should be able to express their opinions, and we don't typically take down content that speaks out against countries, religions, political entities, or ideas. However, we monitor Pages that are reported to us and when they degrade to direct calls for violence or expressions of hate–as occurred in this case–we have and will continue to take them down." 110331-Fbook-Complaint CrunchBase Information Facebook Information provided by CrunchBase
 
April Fools 2011: The Big List Top
Yes, folks, that’s right. That special, special time of year is upon us. It's April Fools 2011! We take April Fools pretty seriously around here, so we’ll be constantly updating this post with the best April Fools jokes and pranks the World Wide Interwebernets has to offer. All night and all day. As long as it takes. If you find a gem, please share it with us in the comments. Thank you in advance. So, without further ado, here is Aol HuffingtonCrunch’s big list of April Tomfoolery: The April Foolings An Airline Finally Offers Child-Free Flights Ryanair beats most to the punch with an announcement that the Irish airline will be offering child-free flights beginning in October. “ When it comes to children we all love our own but would clearly prefer to avoid other people's little monsters when travelling. While half our passengers would like us to divide our cabins up into 'adult' and 'family' areas it is not operationally possible due to our free seating policy, with optional priority boarding” , said Head of Communications Stephen McNamara. Google Places Filed As Spam TechCrunch reports that the internal war at Google continues, as Google Places is officially filed under “spam”, and removed from Google search. Google Chief Revenue Officer Nikesh Arora was even spotted on Demand CEO Richard Rosenblatt’s yacht, Adsense. Marissa Mayer was even quotes as saying, “Screw the webspam team", and "It's not like people are going to start using Bing". You Can Joke About Rosenblatt’s Company, But Not His Yacht TechCrunch reports that Demand CEO Richard Rosenblatt was none-too-happy about Mike revealing details about his yacht, Adsense. Maybe if he had enough sense not to call it Adsense… Spotify Kills European Service To Go American TechCrunch’s Paul Carr reports that everybody-not-living-in-America’s favourite music service, Spotify , is officially ceasing all international operations in an effort to fund the company’s American infiltration. That’ll teach ‘em. Sean Parker, one of the company's first US investors, told TechCrunch, “Europe isn't cool. You know what's cool? America." Atlassian Launches Angry Nerds Atlassian is launching its own take on hit Angry Birds….Angry Nerds. “What do you do when you have bugs in your code? Send in the Angry Nerds. Consider these issues…resolved.” ThredUP Launches Clothing Swap For…Dad Kids clothes and toys swap site thredUP will now be catering to dads with the launch of a paternity clothing swap. Previously the site had been focused exclusively on moms and kids, but is not moving into the Dads market. Deals4Hipsters A Groupon Clone, Deals For Hipsters launched as a daily deals site for the quintessential hipster. According to the site, “Nothing is more important to us than taking your money and spending it on material goods of our own. If you ever feel like Deals 4 Hipsters let you down, give us a call and we’ll think about sending you a nice thanks for trying card – simple as that.” HuffPost Irks NYT In a move sure to irk at least two or three people who work for The New York Times, The Huffington Post has erected a paywall that applies only to NYT employees. YouTube Travels Back In Time Following on its memorable April 1st pranks like, Rick Rolling its entire user base, for example, YouTube will be reverting its videos back to what it would have looked like around 1911, complete with grainy, sepia video footage, no audio tracks (save for piano accompaniment), and title cards in place of the site's normal comments. Joel On Software Gets Pwned Software developer Joel Spolsky rants about everything from software to other kinds of software on his blog, Joel On Software . This hilarious parody site, Joel On Coal , was created for April Fool’s Day. Google Autocompleter Google begins its April Fools celebration with this job posting for an “autocompleter”. “Every day people start typing more than a billion searches on Google and expect Google to predict what they are looking for. In order to do this at scale, we need your help … As a Google Autocompleter, you'll be expected to successfully guess a user's intention as he or she starts typing instantly. In a fraction of a second, you'll need to type in your prediction that will be added to the list of suggestions given by Google. Don't worry, after a few million predictions you'll grow the required reflexes.” Gmail Motion Google introduces Gmail Motion , which allows you to control Gmail with your body. Finally . Groupon Now Owns April Fools Day The uncertainty over April Fools Day’s intellectual trademark led Groupon to purchase the rights to everybody’s favorite joke day. You can read Groupon’s patent application here . Groupon has also issued cease and desist letters to all the major violators of its trademark, including TechCrunch. Watch out, you could be next. LinkedIn LinkedIn’s “People You May Know” contact recommendation engine has gotten a little cheeky on this Fools’ Day of April. LinkedIn has begun recommending people that clearly wouldn’t want to become my professional contacts. Though, Albert, if you’re reading this, feel free to peruse my resume. Some great examples of relativity. uTest Launches Dating For Software Testers uTest , a marketplace for software testing services, announced today that they will be launching a dating site, QAdate , for software testers. Even software testers gotta find love, man. Software pimpin’ ain’t easy. Starbucks Thank God Starbucks is finally putting its baristas on scooters , as the coffee giant today launches its “Mobile Pour” feature. Watch out, Zaarly . “We’ve even made ordering easy with our Mobile Pour app for your smartphone. Simply download it, allow it to pinpoint your location, select your coffee order and keep walking. Your fresh, hot Starbucks brew will be in your hands before you can say abra-arabica.” Abra-arabica! /gets coffee thrown in face Google AdWords This just in from Google AdWords: It seems that many newcomers to display advertising feel that they missed out on the glory days of advertising in the 2000s. So, Google is offering an opportunity to make up for lost time with old school ads in Display Ad Builder. Options include: "Punch the Monkey", "Click here for smileys", "LOLcat", "Dancing .gif", "Pop ups galore", and "Scratch off". SoundCloud Music distribution platform SoundCloud today announced it will be adding a righteous new feature that will allow you to customize your profile with some amazing background animations. Because, you see, it’s all about self-expression. You have to express yourself, and there’s no better way to do that than with SoundCloud’s killer new background customization features. Just try not to have a seizure. Hulu Hulu seems to have taken a page from YouTube’s April Fools Day Manual, bringing us back in time to when video killed the radio star — except in Hulu’s case we are transported to a time when modems were dial-up, hyperlinks were underlined, and images were grainy. I believe they called it “the mid-to-late nineties”. Whenever that was. All I remember is the bursting of some sort of bubble. Memory goes blank after that. XKCD The great XKCD webcomic is trying to give us a headache , and I think it’s working. Funny or Die Last year it was Bieber or Die , when the Thing They Call Bieber decided to buy the site and use it as he pleased. This year, Funny or Die has spawned the Rebecca Black version of the site, which is all Rebecca, all the time. Includes such hits as “Betwixt the Music: Rebecca Black”, “The Top 7 Days We So Excited For”, and “Which Seat Should I Take? W/ Rebecca Black”. Toshiba Toshiba, always at the forefront of gadgetry innovation, has announced the world’s first 3D monacle , for all you Monopoly-loving robot guys out there. “Infusing advanced 3D technology into such a small device wasn't easy. Two triangular polarizing lenses were melded in parallel and encased in black-plated tungsten carbide for a lightweight and durable construction. For comfort, the casing was molded into the shape of an average human eye hole, and draped in bonded leather.” Bonded leather?!? Alright! Newslite’s Facebook Announcement Newslite is breaking the news that Facebook will soon be rolling out wedding and baby filters, so that users can turn off the incessant chatter of their friends droning on endlessly about upcoming weddings as well as births and all baby-related content. The social network also expects to soon begin preventing all individuals from uploading pictures of their children to use as their profile images. With these updates rolling out, Facebook expects to hit the 1 billion user mark within weeks. Google Helvetica A fan of web-safe, browser-compatible fonts, then whatever you do, don’t type “helvetica” into Google search. No, just kidding. You should do it. See what happens. We dare you. It’s comical. Sans comical. Qualcomm Qualcomm recently announced its next mobile processor architecture for the Snapdragon family, Krait. Snapdragon is Qualcomm’s platform for smartphones, tablets, and smartbooks. Qualcomm today announced that it will be sending its employees on a “Way of The Dragon Retreat”. Then there’s something involving Kimodo dragons, it’s hard to say really. I do like Bruce Lee, but I’ll let the video explain. Thumbs Up Gadget developer Thumbs Up has a fantastic new product that it will be rolling out worldwide this fall — an iPhone controllable wifi Eagle powered by the Sun. Can you believe it? Simply download the free app and transform your machine into an all seeing remote control roving eye. The "RC Eagle i" will be fully compatible with national wifi networks so you can control your precarious bird of prey from hundreds of miles away. How does it stay aloft? Well, the sun of course. What were you gonna say? A battery? Pssh. Americans must stand and salute as this majestic gadget passes overhead. Unfortunately, though, it’s only available in the U.K., but writing your congressman/woman could change
 

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