Week Ending June 20, 2010
What Tongues are Wagging About
- Ton of AAPL news
- Shipping 1.2M iPads/Wk
- 600k pre-orders for iPhone 4 early this week
- Scoble says TheDealMap and Goby are way more valuable than FourSquare or Gowalla
- Facebook revenue topped $800M in 2009
- Twitter’s first Promoted Trend Topics advertiser is Toy Story 3
- Nielsen: Social media hits ¾ of Internet population
Events: E3 Gossip
Key things are:
-
- Overall nothing shocking unveiled, game companies focusing on sequels and no new IP
- MSFT unveiled a new Xbox 360 that’s smaller, has more memory and better wireless connectivity
- MSFT also has three top exclusives with Halo Reach, Gears of War 3 and Fable III
- Motion gaming is big with MSFT’s Kinect and Sony’s Move both making big splashes
- 3D technology seen as risky-but-obvious moves for both Nintendo (with the 3DS) and Sony (PS3 will be 3D capable)
- Virgin launched Virgin Games
Awards:
Upcoming Events/Speaking Opps:
- SXSW 2011 Panel Picker (Due 7/9/2010)
- March 11-19, 2011
- The PanelPicker is a two-step online system that allows the SXSW community to have a significant voice in programming Interactive, Film, and Music conference activities (panels, presentations, discussions, demonstrations, etc.) for 2011.
What Tongues are Wagging About
- Tony Blair and Bill Gates were spotted having dinner at Carvallo Point this week. Possible Khosla Ventures meeting?
- Celebrity Twitter: Boku Muscles up with Andreessen Horowitz to chase mobile payments opportunity. http://wp.me/p4P8c-vW8 from @gigaom – Om Malik
- R-rated: Yahoo!’s CEO Carol Bartz tells Michael Arrington of TechCrunch to ‘F’ Off, in an interview at TC Disrupt
- Twitter cracking down on companies like Tweetdeck and Seesmic that amalgamate social media streams – sets specific guidelines about where ads can be placed
- Apple surpassing MSFT in valuation (on and off); iPhone is kicking RIMs butt in the enterprise according to latest stats; $99 cloud-based Apple TV launching
Events:
- Dot.com Gala
- It was “very light on stars” – most of America was watching the American Idol finale
- Highlight was McNealy’s Top 15 Reasons for the Internet
- TC Disrupt
- TechCrunch replaced the TC50 to focus on “disruptive innovations in media and technology” and connects New York start-ups with potential investors. TC50 is officially discontinued
VC & Portfolio Cos:
- Former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is joining Khosla Ventures, the VC firm, as a senior adviser.
- Four months after stepping down as chief executive of RealNetworks, Rob Glaser has found a new line of work at Accel Partners
Press Riffs:
- Global Corporate Venturing, a new monthly publication for the in-house venture capital teams at large companies that take minority stakes in smaller, more nascent businesses has recently launched. The PDF magazine will be sent at the start of each month, with a major analysis on a different economic sector each month: healthcare in June, IT in July, etc. There will also be a website regularly updated for more topical news on the same subject. This is the first dedicated news, analysis and comment title specifically for corporate venturing and will complement the existing venture capital titles and other financial services publications. Please send news and ideas and contacts to James Mawson at jmawson@globalcorporateventuring.com
- Engadget Introduces ‘Alt’ – it’s a new spot on the Engadget site where the reporters can cover content that might be a little outside of the norm. Content that’s just hovering on the fringe of what Engadget would consider mainstream gadget and tech news.
Awards:
Upcoming Events/Speaking Opps:
- ApacheCon (Due 5/28/2010)
- November 1-5, 2010
- Atlanta, GA
- ApacheCon (now called “ApacheCon North America”) is the Apache Software Foundation’s annual conference. It’s a highly technical audience, and a fantastic opportunity to get visibility with potential future hires and collaborators.
- Technology Services World (Due 6/18/2010)
- October 18-20, 2010
- Las Vegas
- Technology Services World – produced by TSIA (Technology Services Industry Association) – addresses IT services industry issues.
- Ad:tech (Due 6/23/2010)
- November 2-4, 2010
- New York, NY
- Ad:tech London (Due 6/23/2010)
- September 21-22, 2010
- London, UK
- ad:tech – London also recently opened its CFP.
- LeWeb (Due 6/30/2010)
- December 8-9, 2010
- Paris, France
- SC World Congress (Due 6/30/2010)
- November 10-11, 2010
- New York, NY
- SC World Congress – produced by SC Magazine – addresses various IT security issues.
- NewTeeVee Live (No deadline available)
- November 10, 2010
- San Francisco, CA
- “Television Reinvented” is the overarching theme at this online video event produced by GigaOM. Online video is a particularly hot market segment with tons of upstarts and competition, so speaking opportunities at this event (arguably the most influential in the category) will be especially coveted.
What Tongues are Wagging About
- · Just as he hoped to clean up his image, Mark Zuckerberg is to be portrayed in a Hollywood film, called The Social Network, as a ruthless and untrustworthy sex maniac.
- · The Onion’s latest tech parody takes on ad-supported phones from Google meant to drive down the device’s cost – watch the video here.
- · Google officially unveiled Google TV at its Google I/O conference today. We’ve heard lots of rumblings about Google TV over the last few months, but today the product was demonstrated before a live audience.
- · Facebook, MySpace and several other social-networking sites have been sending data to advertising companies that could be used to find consumers’ names and other personal details, despite promises they don’t share such information without consent. Danah Boyd stirred more uproar by suggesting Facebook should be regulated because it has become an indispensable utility.
- · After being available on Android and BlackBerry for some time, Seesmic is now available for the iPhone—just two days after the official Twitter app popped into the App Store.
- · At Thursday’s Google I/O keynote, VP of engineering Vic Gundotra repeatedly ripped into Apple, exulting the virtues of an open platform and contrasting it with a “Draconian future, a future where one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice.”
Events:
- Mashable party was well attended with all the familiar faces. Quite a few entrepreneurs were pushing business plans for Twitter for SMBs… a few are sending them on if you’re interested
VC & Portfolio Cos:
-
- Venture firms have lost an average of about 1 percent annually
over the past decade, according to Cambridge Associates.
- Maples’s $25,000 investment in Twitter four years ago had
multiplied by 26 times as of September, and his $500,000 stake
in textbook rental company Chegg may be up even more.
Awards:
Upcoming Events/Speaking Opps:
o San Francisco
o June 29, 2010
o The Social Developer Summit will bring together social application developers to discuss the challenges, solutions, and best practices for building applications in the rapidly expanding social Web economy. Industry experts will share tips and case studies for building high performance social Web products.
o July 22 – 24, 2010
o Aspen, CO
o Fortune’s Brainstorm: Tech is a “think tank” type of tech gathering where the publication assembles the “smartest people [they] know” to “inform editorial coverage throughout the year.”
o June 28, 2010
o South San Francisco, CA
o iPad Game Summit – produced by Engage Digital Media – looks at gaming trends and opportunities specific to the iPad.
o June 7 – 14, 2010
o New York
o Internet Week is comprised of dozens of events at our HQ and spread throughout New York City.
What Tongues are Wagging About
- Facebook vs TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/13/youre-welcome-you-bastards/
- The Oatmeal published a list of ways to Suck at Facebook – very funny!
- The press has got hold of a private instant message exchange Mark Zuckerberg supposedly had six or seven years ago at Harvard. The messages show a callous disregard for personal information added by early Facebook users.
- Acer will be launching Chrome OS devices at the Computex Taipei show, which will be held from June 1 to June 5.
- Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt presided over the meeting of several hundred stockholders at the annual Google stockholder meeting, outlining Google’s overall vision of the computing world and fielding questions from attendees.
- On Thursday, Adobe co-founders and co-chairmen Chuck Geschke and John Warnock followed published an eight-paragraph essay called “Our Thoughts On Open Markets.” It mentions Apple only once, but when it does, it is to lambaste the company for its position on Flash.
- Hulu earlier today published a blog post detailing a number of features and updates that it will soon add to its player and home page.
Events:
- Dave McClure’s SmashSummit
- It is a jampacked one day event about new approaches to marketing in a social world.
- Lots of marketing types at Dave McClure’s SmashSummit event- about new social media approaches to marketing
- As a result, VERY little press. I saw only two
- Mostly companies presenting case studies of how social marketing moved the needle for them in any number of ways
- High energy, tightly packed conference but mostly people wanted to schmooze in hallway
- Lots of VCs in attendance as the startups attending were top tier – fave was HootSuite
- More multitasking behavior at this conference than most. Hardly anyone looked at presenter. Everyone listened while starting at Tweetdeck on laptop or were doing email on iPhone.
- Almost totally a Mac-based event as far as personal devices people brought
VC & Portfolio Cos:
- SAP’s top executives, who have recently talked about making bolder and more decisive moves, did just that on Wednesday by agreeing to buy a fellow business software maker, Sybase, for $5.25 billion.
Press Riffs:
- Feedback from meeting with Michael Copeland, Fortune
- Only 3 people in the editorial offices of Fortune left: him, Jon Fortt, and Adam Lashinsky
- Personally, he likes doing video and wants to do more. His CNN Money / Fortune editors are “eating up” his weekly video segment, Techmate with Jon Fortt, http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/category/video/. It’s a bit of good cop/bad cop on this show picking apart big companies and technologies. Watch a few to see if you’ve got an angle.
- Personally he’s more interested in doing technology as it relates to medicine these days. He recently did a story on Medtronic CEO (“The ultimate personal technology”) He said he recently had a run in with the doctor, he never goes to the doctor, which made him realize online medicine / online health is a really interesting space.
- Techi – Techi, an exciting technology news platform has launched. It provides in-depth coverage of new gadgets, product launches and industry gossip. The blog is edited by Walter Apai, who also helms Webdesigner Depot. The site can be followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/techiblog
Awards:
Upcoming Events/Speaking Opps:
- Dreamforce (Due 5/17/2010)
- December 6 – 9, 2010
- San Francisco, CA
- Dreamforce is the annual conference for the Salesforce.com ecosystem. The event tends to draw many journalists and analysts interested in Marc Benioff’s cloud computing evangelism.
- Virtualization Conference & Expo – West (Due 5/31/2010)
- November 1 – 4, 2010
- Santa Clara, CA
- Virtualization Conference & Expo is produced by SYS-CON Media.
- DEMO – Fall (Due 5/31/2010)
- September 13 – 15, 2010
- Santa Clara, CA
- DEMO – hosted by publisher IDG – is a high visibility launchpad for tech start-ups that comes with a hefty price tag. The event typically draws a lot of media attention and has a number of heavy hitter investors in attendance. For ~$20k, a start-up that is selected to present can choose this destination for their curtain raiser. There’s a huge upside for companies that make a splash, but also-rans can get lost in the sea of announcements.
- Streaming Media West (Due 6/15/2010)
- November 2 – 3, 2010
- Los Angeles, CA
- Streaming Media West – produced by Streamingmedia.com – examines online video business models and technologies.
- Online Video Platform Summit (Due 6/15/2010)
- November 2 – 3, 2010
- Los Angeles, CA
- The Online Video Platform Summit will be held in conjunction with Streaming Media West and focus on publisher issues.
- Mobilize (No deadline listed)
- September 30, 2010
- San Francisco, CA
- Mobilize – a GigaOM event – looks at mobile communications trends.
- AlwaysOn Summit at Stanford (No deadline listed)
- July 27 – 29, 2010
- Stanford, CA
- AlwaysOn Summit at Stanford – produced by AlwaysOn Network and STVP (Stanford Technology Ventures Network) – addresses global tech industry trends.
- Fall Focus / SAP BusinessObjects User Conference (No deadline listed)
- October 4 – 6, 2010
- Orlando, FL
- Americas SAP Users Group (ASUG) is looking for speakers for its general fall conference and its (co-located) Business Objects-focused one.
What Tongues are Wagging About
- Digital platform company Akamai has released its latest State of the Internet Report. The report covers the last quarter of 2009. Among the findings are the persistence of Russia as the top location for attack traffic and of South Korea for speed of web connections.
- Apple wants the fastest chip for its mobile devices and has bought another chip maker, Intinsity, to gain an edge over its competitors.
- Angel Investors May Be Winning Battle Against New Rules – Under a Senate bill, angel investors who buy stakes in startups would need to have a net worth of $2.3 million. Lobbyists for the investors say they’re close to a compromise that would keep that level at $1 million, virtually unchanged from current law.
- Facebook Credits Could Put a Dent in Zynga’s Growth – Zynga Game Network, a startup in San Francisco, has almost quadrupled its workforce in the past year to 775. And sales may surpass $450 million in 2010, according to people familiar with the matter. Not bad for a company that offers games for free on Facebook. But that growth could be threatened by Facebook Credits, an effort by the social-networking site to offer its own virtual currency. Zynga makes its money selling virtual goods for its games, which include “FarmVille” and “Mafia Wars.”
- LinkedIn, Zynga Consider Following in Facebook’s Footsteps - Facebook put limits on employees selling shares for the company in private exchanges. Now other Silicon Valley startups, such as LinkedIn and Zynga, may do the same. The companies are concerned about keeping employees focused on long-term goals. The trades also may result in the leaking of inside information. Even though none of the companies is publicly traded, workers can go to sites like SharesPost and SecondMarket to find buyers for their stock.
- It’s Probably Too Early for 3-D TV, But Here’s How to Do It – Ready or not, 3-D television is here — with sets from Samsung and Panasonic showing up in U.S. stores now. It will be a while before we know if this is must-have technology or just a fad, says Bloomberg columnist Rich Jaroslovsky. But if you’re curious about the technology now, he gives you the lowdown on what you need to know.
- Elevation Partners LP’s $460 million investment in Palm Inc. got rescued yesterday when Hewlett-Packard Co. agreed to buy the money-losing phone maker.
- A report tracking the top recommended, free and paid apps for the month of March found that viral recommendations of gaming titles were spiked by the iPad launch and that Vlingo and Waze were one of the top 10 free downloaded apps in March.
- A number of big and small companies — including eBay’s PayPal unit, Intuit, VeriFone and Square — are creating innovative ways for individuals to avoid cash and checks and settle all debts, public and private, using their cellphones.
- Hewlett-Packard has killed off its much ballyhooed Windows 7 tablet computer. HP is not satisfied with Windows 7 as a tablet operating system and has terminated the project.
Events:
- Report from the Future of Money and Tech Summit
- About 400 people attended the conference – Mark Goldstein, Dave McClure, Phillip Rosedale and a few other serial entrepreneurs are focused on this sector
- It’s still early days for the promising sector – Bling Nation, Goldstein’s Home-Asset.com and Pageonce are a couple of standouts. Boku was there too
- The gossip was that despite the bad PR Blippy got, the attention resulted in a surge of new registrants for them anyway
- Interesting stats:
-
- Wells Fargo says 17M of its 34M users are using online banking (50% roughly)
- 60% of US Internet users are comfortable transacting sensitive data online and 40% aren’t. That will diminish over time
- The average person shares their sensitive financial data with zero people – unless they have a CPA
- General consensus was that sharing financial data isn’t going to happen but collaborating on trends will e.g. “I probably spend more money on beer than I should and don’t want anyone to know how much. But being able to ask ‘what do people like me spend on beer each year?’ would be very useful.”
VC & Portfolio Cos:
- After the recent $135 million funding of Groupon that valued the Chicago start-up at upwards of an eye-popping $1 billion, rival LivingSocial announced to today that it had raised a more modest $14 million in a Series C round.
- Tremor Media, the largest online video ad network in the U.S., has closed a large $40 million series D financing to accelerate its product R&D particularly its ad management system, and expand into “other media channels”.
Awards:
Upcoming Events/Speaking Opps:
- Cloud Computing Conference & Expo – West (Due 4/30/2010)
- November 1 – 3, 2010
- Santa Clara, CA
- Cloud Computing Expo – produced by SYS-CON Media – targets CIOs, CTOs, technology VPs, and IT directors and managers (generalists and specialists).
And a few upcoming ones from the top bloggers:
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