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Hiring Platform The Resumator Raises $2.1M Series B Round Led By Birchmere Ventures, Rincon Ventures Partners & Salesforce

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 21:44:58 -0400

Hiring platform The Resumator has raised a $2.1 million Series B round led by Birchmere Ventures,Rincon Venture Partners and Salesforce.com. Innovation Works and ff Venture Capital also participated in this round. Rincon Venture Partners was also the lead investor in The Resumator’s $700,000 Series A round in 2011. The company, which was founded in 2009, also previously received seed funding through its participation in Pittburgh’s Alpha Labs accelerator and from Innovation Works.

The company plans to use the new funding to expand its leadership team, increase customer acquisition and secure strategic partnership. Specifically, The Resumator is looking for talent in sales, business development and operations. As for the strategic partnerships the company is pursuing, a company spokesperson told us that the startup is “looking to partner/integrate with HR service providers that are further up the HR technology adoption chain.” In addition, The Resumator is working with venture capital firms and accelerator programs to attract more high-growth potential businesses.

The Resumator uses social media features and more traditional recruiting tools to make it easier for companies to find, sort and review applicants. The service also includes tools to administer skill tests and a number of social features that help teams make hiring decisions together.

The company tells us that it is currently growing very quickly. Both 2012 U.S. presidential campaigns, as well as startups like Pinterest, Klout, MailChip, Instagram and Tumblr, used it for their recruitment efforts in the last few months. In its announcement today, the company especially notes the participation of Salesforce.com, which it says should be seen as “validation that in the crowded recruiting software market, The Resumator stands as one of the most innovative recruiting solutions for progressive, fast growing businesses.”

Sean Ammirati, a partner at Birchmere Ventures and the former COO of tech blog ReadWriteWeb, says that he was ”impressed how The Resumator has fast become the leading hiring platform for small to medium-sized businesses in just three years.”

ShopperTrak Aims To Improve Its In-Store Analytics By Acquiring TechStars Alum ReTel

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 21:42:57 -0400

ShopperTrak, a company analyzing foot traffic data for retailers, just announced that it has acquired surveillance analytics startup ReTel Technologies. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In the press release announcing the deal, ShopperTrak Chief Marketing Officer Ed Marcheselli described ReTel as “an ideal complement” to the company’s existing services. The startup uses human auditing to analyze in-store video surveillance footage. Once its technology is integrated, it’s supposed to give ShopperTrak customers “rapid access to customer demographics, queue analysis, speed-of-service and sales process effectiveness.”

ReTel was part of the TechStars incubator’s 2009 class, and it raised $1 million in funding from Jeff Clavier’s SoftTech VC, TechStars’ David Cohen, and others. The San Francisco-based company will help Chicago-based ShopperTrak establish a presence in Silicon Valley. Retel co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer Adam Rodnitzky told me the entire team will be be joining ShopperTrak as part of the deal.

ShopperTrak claims to count billions of shoppers in more than 50,000 locations across 74 countries.

Twitter Now Has “Over 2,000 Ways” To Interact And Engage With Tweets Thanks To Twitter Cards

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 21:40:44 -0400

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Today, Twitter gave us an update on how the company is doing on its “expanded tweet” program. Right now, the company says that there are over 2,000 unique ways to engage and interact with a tweet:

Earlier this summer, we introduced the ability to expand Tweets to see content previews, photos and videos right within a Tweet. At that time, we were working with a small group of partners. Today there are more than 2,000 ways to bring more interactive and engaging Tweets to your stream –– on twitter.com, as well as Twitter for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry.

When you click a Tweet that contains a link to a partner site, the Tweet will expand, and you’ll be able to see more content directly within it. Here are some examples; we’re working to offer even more options.

The number is clearly a reference to the size of its partner pool for this initiative.

Partners like Amazon could eventually be huge, because you could click one button to purchase something that a friend tweeted out. Could Twitter get a cut of that? Time will tell, but it makes sense, no? Killer ad unit.

All of this extra information is coming to you by way of the Twitter Card initiative, where the service can pack a bunch of media into a tweet. Eventually, it wouldn’t be crazy to see polls and other interactive content. It would have been kind of cool for the election, no?

Back in July, I wrote a piece wondering out loud how much more stuff Twitter could jam into a tweet and whether it’s a good thing or not. Considering that viewing the content keeps me on Twitter instead of sending me to a different site or network, I’m kind of ok with it.

Amazon Reveals How It Views Google’s Cloud Efforts In Suit Filed Against Former Employee

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 21:38:19 -0400

Amazon has revealed a bit of detail for how it views Google’s cloud efforts in a lawsuit filed against a former employee on grounds he violated a non-compete clause.

Amazon filed the lawsuit on behalf of Amazon Web Services, claiming Daniel Powers, its former vice president of sales, has violated a severance agreement by taking a new job at Google as a director of cloud platform sales. In June, AWS offered Powers the severance agreement in lieu of termination. In September, Google hired Powers as director of Cloud Platform Sales.

In the suit, Amazon explains how it views Google as a competitor and interestingly, how it views its own business. The company boils its work down to how it “rents,” computing resources. But it’s what Amazon says about Google that is noteworthy and points to why Amazon is trying to keep Powers from working at Google:

In the suit, Amazon says AWS hired Daniel Powers from IBM and taught him the business from “top to bottom.” He learned about the company’s strategic road map, pricing strategies and all that goes with working as a high ranking sales executive. He had access to overall sales information and participated in high level, weekly meetings. He knows what customers are prospects and which ones are not. He has knowledge of what parts of the world AWS plans to expand. Powers, AWS charges, is the one person who can inflict the most damage on AWS due to his intimate knowledge of the company.

The suit, first reported by GeekWire, speaks to the challenge AWS sees in Google ands its new cloud computing venture. Google Compute Engine (GCE) was announced earlier this year at Google I/O. Krishnan Subramanian did a recent analysis of GCE on Cloud Ave– a worthy read for getting up to speed about what Google is offering and why it will have a significant impact on the cloud computing landscape.

Airbnb Says Today’s $117M Form D Filing Is Part Of Series B Financing [Update]

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:37:52 -0400

In September we broke the story about how the short-term accommodation-sharing site Airbnb was in the process of raising a significant third round of around $100 million. A Form D filed with the SEC today shows that it’s raised north of that: $117 million (or $117,051,696, to be exact). Airbnb says that this filing, although made only today, is part of last year’s Series B. The company has raised over $230 million to date.

Here is Airbnb’s statement on today’s funding:

Airbnb filed a Form D today with the Securities and Exchange Commission covering the company’s issuance of shares of its preferred stock as a part of its Series B financing, which initially closed over a year ago, on July 22, 2011. Today’s filing was a customary notification related to the company’s prior Series B financing, and is unrelated to any other financing that the company has undertaken or may choose to undertake in the future.

While the spokesperson declined to comment on future funding, the WSJ reported last week that Peter Thiel could be investing up to $150 million in the company. We have been hearing that Peter Thiel is, in fact, among the interested investors, and that the $150 million figure is correct. We’ve also heard that the total round will be $200 million, with a valuation of $2.5 billion. We’re still looking into whether Thiel’s $150 million will come from Thiel, his Founders Fund investment firm, or a combination of the two.

Previous backers of the company include Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Crunch Fund, Ashton Kutcher and more. The Form D lists Greg McAdoo from Sequoia and Jeff Jordan from Andreessen Horowitz as two of its directors.

When we first reported the news of the newest round, we had said that it would value the company at between $2 billion and $3 billion.

If correct, that could quite possibly make Airbnb the most valuable of the collaborative consumption / “sharing economy” companies out there, and almost certainly the most valuable one focused on accommodation.

Separately, Airbnb filed a second Form D that noted a raise of just under $1.6 million made earlier in the year. Both are a mixture of debt and equity filings.

In June, the company reported that it had taken 10 million bookings worldwide for room and house sharing on its site to date. The company takes a 10% commission on each booking that’s made there.

The company has not disclosed revenues publicly, and hasn’t talked about what the average price for a night’s stay is, but if the average rates are between $70 and $100, that could point to revenues of between $168 million and $240 million.

Skype Gets Retina-Ready, Adds Multi-Window Chat And Live Messenger Support

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:34:53 -0400

Skype hit version 6 today, with a rare simultaneous release for both Windows and Mac. This brings a whole bunch of new features to the table, including single sign-on with both Facebook and Microsoft credentials, so that new users don’t even have to sign up for Skype itself, Retina display compatibility for Macs, and multi-window chats, so that you can have conversations going in multiple windows at the same time.

On the Mac side, Skype has been slowly building back up from a significant redesign that struck a lot of users the wrong way, adding a lot of clutter and unnecessary screen real estate occupancy to what was once a very simple app. It’s been getting a lot better, and this update really steps up the game for owners of Apple’s 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, or those hoping to buy the new 13-inch version.

Also new to the Skype desktop app is the ability to chat with Live Messenger, Hotmail and Outlook contacts via Skype just like you’ve been able to do with Facebook contacts for a while now. Eventually, Microsoft will roll out voice and video calls for Microsoft network contacts as well, something it says will arrive “in coming weeks.”

Generally, I’m wary when a big company buys a smaller one with a cool product, but so far, Microsoft has actually been very kind to Skype’s product, and made a number of considerable improvements. Let’s hope Redmond keeps at it.

Salesforce.com Laying Off Radian6 Employees As Buddy Media Shows $20 Million Net Loss

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:31:15 -0400

Two of Salesforce.com’s most high profile “social media” acquisitions are showing signs of trouble. At Radian6, Salesforce.com is reported to be laying off “less than 100 people.” And at Buddy Media, the company amended its 8-K, which shows $20 million in net losses for the first six months of the year.

Salesforce.com acquired Radian6 in 2010 for $326 million and Buddy Media earlier this year for $689 million. The acquisitions were meant to complement each other with the two integrating and operating under the same umbrella. The news of the layoffs and the losses raises questions about how the work is going in combining the companies and integrating them into the Salesforce.com ecosystem.

A Radian 6 spokesperson wrote in an email today:

With the combination of Radian6 and Buddy Media, the Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the undisputed leader in social marketing and the only suite that allows brands to unify social listening, engagement, advertising and measurement. With the integration of Radian6 and Buddy Media, the Salesforce Marketing Cloud is re-balancing its resources to support its growth, including moving from a hub to a distributed model for certain customer-facing roles, consolidating marketing and dramatically increasing investments in R&D. Fewer than 100 people were impacted globally.

Buddy Media is another story. A Salesforce.com spokesperson would not comment on the losses, which total to $20.6 through the first six months of the year. The losses are countered to some degree by Buddy Media’s revenues which totaled $18 million, compared to $10 million in the first six months of 2011

Zynga Makes Its First Move Into ‘Real Money’ Games, Partners With Casino Gaming Giant Bwin.Party

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:29:31 -0400

I’ve a feeling we’re not in Farmville anymore. Zyngaannounced today its first concrete move into “real money” gaming, in other words, gambling-oriented games that let people both win and lose actual cash with each other.

Zynga announced this afternoon it has inked an exclusive partnership with bwin.party, the Gibraltar-based online gambling company, to offer real money online poker and casino games in the United Kingdom, where such things are currently legal (they are not permitted in the United States.) Through the new partnership, Zynga’s UK arm and bwin.party will launch products including poker and 180 other casino games such as slots, roulette, and blackjack “in the first half of 2013.” Financial terms of the partnership have not been disclosed.

A Zynga spokesperson told TechCrunch, “Bwin is reputable. They have a proven track record. They’re the leading international real money gaming operator.”

It’s not news that Zynga has been building a strategy to expand into real money games. Earlier this year in Zynga’s second quarter earnings call, CEO Mark Pincus told analysts and investors that the company was on track to launch real-money games in the first half of 2013, so this squares up with that timing. And in August, the company hired former online gambling exec Maytal Olsha to serve as its “chief operating officer of new markets,” in effect tasked to lead its push into gamesthat deal in real money.

This is big news, and it will be very interesting to see how it impacts the investor reception of its third quarter results announced this afternoon. Zynga’s stock price has been lagging around record lows for weeks, and yesterday the company cut five percent of its workforce as part of a move to cut a number of social gaming titles that have not gotten strong user traction. Making its long-anticipated launch into real money games could give Zynga a much-needed shot in the arm — although, to be sure, real gambling is certainly a more controversial industry than making social games with cute animals.

Here is the press release:

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 24, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Zynga (Nasdaq:ZNGA), the world’s leading provider of social game services, and bwin.party, the leading international real money gaming operator, today announced an exclusive partnership to offer real money online Poker and Casino games in the UK market. Zynga’s UK-based RMG service and bwin.party will launch RMG products including Poker and a full suite of 180 Casino games in the first half of 2013, which include table games such as slots, roulette and blackjack.

“Bringing together Zynga’s expertise in social gaming with the top international real money gaming operator is the best way to create the highest quality gaming experiences for our players in the UK,” said Barry Cottle, Executive Vice President, Corporate and Business Development, Zynga. “Partnering with an established leader like bwin.party is a strategic and prudent way for us to enter a key RMG market while giving local players the real money games they’ve been asking us for.”

“Today’s announcement is another example of our success in leveraging our assets through strategic blue-chip partners,” said Jim Ryan and Norbert Teufelberger, Co-CEOs of bwin.party. “Zynga is the world’s leader in social games with hundreds of millions of active players worldwide and a significant player base in the UK. We are delighted to have been selected as their chosen partner for this important step in their evolution, and hope to expand our relationship into other products and markets.”

Zynga’s real money UK poker customers will join the bwin.party dotcom player liquidity pool — getting the benefits of playing on the largest regulated poker network. Zynga’s UK-based RMG service will be powered by the established operating platform, software, and related support of bwin.party.

In addition to the full suite of Casino and Poker games, Zynga’s UK-based RMG service will also leverage the company’s world renowned entertainment brand, FarmVille, to offer local players the first-ever, online FarmVille-branded real money slots game.

Zynga’s UK-based RMG service will operate under bwin.party’s Gibraltar gaming license.

Zynga Announces $200M In Share Buybacks In Its First Repurchasing Program

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:27:41 -0400

Zynga is giving another carrot to investors. The company is kicking off a $200 million share repurchasing program. It’s the first time Zynga has ever done this. The news comes on the heels of fresh cost-cutting with layoffs for 5 percent of the company’s workforce and potential closures for international offices in the U.K. and Japan. At the same time, the company just unveiled what could be a big new revenue stream in real-money gaming abroad. The company said it’s partnering with bwin, a real-money gaming operator, to bring real money casino and poker games to the U.K. The share buyback program was buried in Zynga’s third quarter earnings announcement today. At the current after-hours price of around $2.47, such a program would cover about 10 percent of the company’s outstanding 760 million shares. The company said it saw revenue of $317 million, which was slightly above the lower range of $300 million to $305 million the company said it would see earlier this month. Bookings came in at $256 million, up 11 percent year-over-year. The company saw a loss of 7 cents per share, and its non-GAAP earnings, which exclude one-off share based compensation costs, were 0 cents per share. On the casino news and the share buybacks, Zynga’s shares have climbed 16.5 percent in after-hours trading to $2.47. However, the thing to keep in mind is that share buybacks and layoffs may be short-term moves that only boost the stock price in the near future. Zynga needs to prove success in mobile and casino gaming, third-party game publishing and in diversifying off Facebook onto its own destination site to boost the share price in the long-term.

Clearing Up The Confusion: It’s “The New Windows 8 UI” – Not “Metro UI”

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:25:22 -0400

Ever since we heard the first rumors about Microsoft dropping the “Metro” moniker for its new touch interface and its app, there has been a lot of confusion about what the new interface should be called. Is it the new Windows UI? Windows 8-style UI? The modern UI? Are these Windows 8 apps or Windows Store app? Is it still Metro and all the rumors were false? Even just a day before the launch of Windows 8, most people still don’t know what to call it (and I just spent most of the day in briefings with Microsoft partners ahead of the launch). To clear things up, I asked Microsoft for its own official guidance today (because inside of Microsoft, people are using different names as well).

So here is the official guidance from Microsoft according to a company spokesperson: when you are referring to the user interface, it’s the “new Windows user interface (UI)” or just “Windows user interface.” When talking about apps, it’s “Windows apps” or “Windows 8 apps.”

Does that really clear up the confusion, though? I’m not sure. After all, except for Windows RT for ARM tablets, all the legacy Windows apps still run on Windows 8 for x86, too. Even in the Windows Store, there are plenty of old-school desktop apps, after all. These can’t be bought directly from the store, but they are still listed there with screenshots and links to their developers websites.

Why Microsoft changed the name still remains a bit of a mystery and even now, a number of groups within Microsoft still use the old name (today’s Skype announcement just talked about the “modern design.”

The big advantage of the old “Metro” name was that it highlighted the fact that these were apps for the touch interface and not the desktop. Just like consumers will likely be confused by the difference between Windows RT and Windows 8 – which will both run on very similar machines, after all – this whole confusion around Metro just isn’t helping Microsoft right in the middle of one of its most crucial transition periods.

Twitter’s Number One Gift To The World Is The Art Of Brevity

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:23:04 -0400

I’ve been using Twitter for just about six years now, someone on Twitter informed me. Naturally. There are quite a few things that I’ve enjoyed about the service over the years, including the ability to connect with people all over the world in real-time.

But do you know what I appreciate about Twitter the most? Ushering in the notion of “brevity” for the entire Internets. Not sure what it means? Check it:

I tend to talk a lot, yes I’m a rambler. When I’m super passionate about something I immediately want to talk to whomever is around me about it. It doesn’t mean that they’re interested, it just means that I’m excited. When I use Twitter, I can say random stuff, poignant things or anything in between and sometimes I get a response. It’s like…magic.

The real reason why I get responses to things I say on Twitter is that the service forced me to introduce brevity into my arsenal. Yes, the fantastic world of keeping things short and compact, allowing people to let it run through their brain quickly and fire out a response if they like. Some people haven’t gotten the knack of the whole Twitter thing yet, linking to longer blog posts all of the time or simply using it to spit out links or images. That’s cool, but I feel like it’s missing the true spirit of Twitter.

I tend to get upset when people build things to take you off of networks, be it cross-posting from Facebook or linking for the sake of linking. I like Twitter the best when everything is contained right in my little stream, ready for me to interact with. I can favorite something, reply, retweet, view an image or a video and interact rapidly.

Brevity makes all of that happen.

ONE HUNDRED-FORTY

The 140 character “restriction” was originally introduced because that’s how long a text message generally is. Well, 160 characters, but 140 after all of the extra username junk. I remember way back when six years ago, people complained that 140 characters was simply not enough to make their thoughts heard. This was of course folks just fighting back to save what they’re used to and comfortable with.

Email made people gabby. The fact that you could write an email as long as a book, people go ahead and ramble and ramble, just like I do in real life. It’s horrible. But what I’ve noticed since the launch of services like Twitter and Facebook status updates, people are starting to communicate in a more compact and efficient way. All of the wasted crap is dropped to the side.

Brevity is winning.

That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place for long conversations, because that’s when creativity and love comes out in us. I love sitting down at a bar or coffee shop with a startup founder and listening to their story. However, when someone randomly pitches me via email, I can’t stand thirty paragraphs. Twitter has taught me to be concise and to value the very few characters I have at my disposal. My own emails have definitely gotten shorter.

Remember, on Twitter, you don’t have to tweet to get a lot out of using it.

OFFLINE

Twitter has actually affected how I communicate offline as well. For example, I’ll tell someone about something I’m interested in, but I’ll preface it with “If you’re not into it, just let me know. It won’t hurt my feelings.” By being more thoughtful with their time in this way, I save both of us from an awkward long yap-session that I’m known for.

The moment that I truly understood Twitter was when my friend in Philadelphia Alex Hillman sent out the fact that he had an extra ticket to see Foo Fighters on Twitter. I saw it as I was about to get on a train and hopped right off. We enjoyed the show together.

That efficient communication gave us a bunch of time to talk about technology, music and life. I thank Twitter for that, and for Alex’s brevity. And yes, this post was ironic.

10gen Staffsup for Bigger Mongodb Push

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:59:26 -0400

10gen, the company behind MongoDB, the NoSQL database used by companies from Craigslist to Foursquare to Disney to Thrillist, is adding some serious enterprise and open-source software talent to its executive roster to help build momentum worldwide.

The new faces include Ed Albanese, who headed business development for super-hot Hadoop startup Cloudera and is now VP of business development for 10gen. Albanese also spent time at VMware, Microsoft and Keane.

In addition, Matt Asay, who’s done stints at Nodeable, Alfresco and Canonical (and has contributed to GigaOM), is 10gen’s new VP of corporate strategy.

Also new to 10gen is Ron Avnur, formerly of MarkLogic, who is now VP of services and product management. Kurt Daniel, formerly of Worklight, is VP of marketing and online services and Joe Morrissey, a veteran of MySQL and Oracle, is VP of Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

In a statement, 10gen president Max Schireson said the expanded team will help the company accelerate MongoDB momentum both in the NoSQL and broader database market.

7 Things we Learned at Structure Europe

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:57:09 -0400

Facebook’s breaking up with hardware OEMs, Europeans distrust the cloud and it’s anyone’s guess whether there will be an Amazon of Europe. Those were among the key takeaways from the first-ever Structure Europe event in Amsterdam last week.

photo: Flickr /Peverus

Hundreds of cloud computing purveyors (or would-be purveyors) and customers gathered in Amsterdam last week to discuss the state of cloud computing in Europe at GigaOM’s Structure Europe conference, our first foray onto the continent. In case you missed it, here are the top lessons that attendees learned.

1: Facebook bids adieu to HP, Dell, server OEMs. Facebook really is parting ways with traditional hardware OEMs. The company’s Swedish data center in Luleå will be its first to use “100 percent non-OEM” servers, Jay Parikh, Facebook’s VP of infrastructure engineering told Structure Europe attendees. That is bad news for the likes of Dell and HP, which compete aggressively for this kind of scale-out business.

(L to R) Stacey Higginbotham of GigaOM and Jay Parikh of Facebook JULIADEBOER PHOTOGRAPHY www.juliadeboer.com

“We have to fine-tune performance given the scale and real-time nature of our application,” Parikh said. “We want to push forward aggressively not only on the user experience but all the underlying pieces of infrastructure to support it. We can iterate with the hardware we’re designing and deploying. Most of the time it’s cheaper and consumers less energy. It’s better for the environment and better for us, gives us more flexibility.”

2: Europeans are cloud paranoics. The widespread contention that cloud adoption is slower in Europe than in the U.S. was reinforced by several speakers. One reason: Europeans are more wary of outsourcing than Americans. Another: They’re not wild about putting their data on a U.S.-based cloud given concerns over the USA Patriot Act and right now the major cloud services providers are U.S.-based, said Christian Echeyne, director of IT infrastructure technologies and engineering for Orange Business Services.

Ditlev Brehdal, CEO of OnApp agreed that cloud is a much harder sell in Europe because people view the term with distrust. “If you want to sell cloud in Europe, call it something else,” he said.

3: European cloud adoption is fragmented but coming. It’ll be tough for one huge cloud player to dominate in Europe the way Amazon has in North America, said Marten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus, an open-source cloud company. “There is too much fragmentation, too many local players. And, when companies here grow up, they tend to go global… pan-European companies don’t happen often.”

“It takes an American company to build a pan-European brand,” he said. There are lots of soft drink companies across Europe but most of them remain local. For a pan-European brand, look at Coke, he said.

4: Cloud plus big data equals big opportunity. Cloud computing is a natural for storing reams of big data. But getting that data in and out of the cloud is tricky — and can be expensive. Ask anyone about their Amazon data transfer charges if you don’t believe this.

Michelle Munson, President, CEO, and Co-Founder, Aspera, Structure Europe 2012 JULIADEBOER PHOTOGRAPHY www.juliadeboer.com

Transporting all that big data can overwhelm traditional transport protocols like TCP, said Michelle Munson, co-founder and CEO of Aspera. Her company addresses that problem by providing a layer above TCP to facilitate fast transfers and makes that data — video for example — easier for cloud systems to ingest.

Once the transport problem is addressed, the floodgates are open for new sorts of big data processing applications, she said.

5: Amazon intends to be the Amazon of Europe. There was much speculation about what, if any, cloud provider could emerge to be the Amazon of Europe, given the aforementioned fragmented nature of the European market. Many agreed with the contention (see number 3 above) that it’s unlikely that a single player will replicate that heft — but that national telcos and big service providers will serve up cloud services.

(L to R): Om Malik, GigaOM; Werner Vogels, CTO and VP, Amazon Structure Europe 2012 JULIADEBOER PHOTOGRAPHY www.juliadeboer.com

It was clear from Amazon CTO Werner Vogels, however, that he sees no reason to cede the top spot. He promised a range of unnamed “unbelievable” services to come from Amazon. He said he sees no hesitancy among European businesses including financial institutions who seem to trust Amazon Web Services just fine with their workloads, thank you very much.

6: The cloud is open source — so far. While there’s been no Linus Torvalds of cloud, it’s safe to say that the foundation of today’s cloud computing infrastructure is open source — XEN virtualization, new-age MongoDB or Cassandra databases. And, of course, various flavors of Linux underly everything. There are four healthy contenders in open-source cloud platforms — CloudStack, Eucalyptus, OpenNebula and OpenStack.

Werker team (from left) Jacco Flenter, Wouter Mooij, Micha Hernandez van Leuffen, Benno van den Berg. (Lindsey Batema not pictured.)

7: Wercker’s SaaS deployment tool takes Launchpad prize. Amsterdam home-town team Wercker won the inaugural Structure: Europe Launchpad competition. Wercker is building a SaaS-based continuous deployment system to keep up with the hyperactive pace of webscale development — where companies can develop and release hundreds — or more — software updates per day.

“Customers have trouble deploying code across a global footprint, everyone who’s doing development can benefit from this,” said Launchpad judge Sam Johnston, Equinix’ director of cloud and IT services.

Streaming TV Startup Aereo Files Appeal In Network Case, Cites Cablevision Precedent

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:47:43 -0400

The legal battle between major broadcast networks and TV startup Aereo continues to unwind, as Aereo has filed a brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. According to the 84-page briefing filed on October 19, Aereo’s position in this case is identical (in every relevant way) to Cablevision’s in the mid-2000s, when the cable provider won a case against major broadcast networks after being sued for a cloud-based remote DVR system.

This comes just a few months after a U.S. district Judge for the Southern District of New York denied a preliminary injunction against Aereo, which would have essentially shut down the service before it even fully launched. Since then, Aereo has been offering free trials, low-cost options, and special deals to attract new customers. And the company just expanded support beyond Apple products to all major web browsers.

And today the company went straight to the Appeals Court to try and end the case once and for all.

Indeed, contrary to what may be the view of certain Appellants [the broadcast networks], copyright laws were never intended to be used to confine consumers to outdated technology. The reality is that the networks fought VCRs, and they fought remote DVRs, and they lost in both cases. This is simply another attempt to preserve the status quo as a business matter without regard to fundamental copyright principles.

For a little perspective, networks are suing Aereo (just like they’ve sued any other TV streaming startup that scares them a bit) for distributing the live TV content without the networks’ permission. The only issue is that the content is already being streamed over public airwaves, and can be picked up by any antenna. Aereo’s technology rents hundreds of little mini antennas out to users for a live TV/cloud DVR type service.

Broadcasters don’t like that.

According to Aereo, Cablevision won an identical case recently. The Cablevision case claimed that since the remote DVR service only transmitted an individual’s unique copy of the content, which was controlled only by that user, Cablevision was not infringing on the broadcasters’ copyrighted content. In fact, everything was exactly the same as the original DVR service except that the content was stored in the cloud instead of on a DVR box hard drive in the user’s living room.

The same is true for Aereo, according to the briefing. Aereo users stream live content from free, over-the-air signals through a licensed mini-antenna. Because Aereo users transmit a single, unique copy through an individual user account, Aereo argues that this should not be seen as copyright infringement.

Aereo argues that the involvement of the internet, or mobile devices, or the distance between the antenna and the user makes no difference in the case. These advances have no bearing on the copyright law.

The Southern District Court of New York, which has been presiding over this copyright case, agreed with certain aspects of this argument when it first denied the preliminary injunction. Aereo is now using that ruling to further plead its case to the Appeals Court, saying that the Cablevision ruling would essentially have to be overturned in order to consider Aereo guilty.

At least, that’s the general argument the briefing makes.

There are more nit-picky bits to the briefing, such as the portions responding to Fox, Univision, and PBS’s claim that Aereo was built to purposefully circumvent copyright law following the Cablevision case.

Finally, both Appellants and amici argue that the Aereo technology is an “artifice” or some clever attempt to get around copyright law. Essentially, Appellants are arguing that Aereo carefully designed its system to comply with Cablevision. There is considerable irony in Appellants’ suggestion that Aereo is somehow culpable because it carefully designed its system to comply with copyright law.

How Young Treps Can Participate in the Clinton Global Initiative

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 02:45:06 -0400

It’s one thing for political powerhouses like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to discuss some of the world’s most pressing social challenges alongside leaders of developing countries, major non-profits and big private-sector businesses. But it’s quite another when they’re also discussing you — or more precisely, how societies around the world can encourage social entrepreneurs and other forward-thinking individuals to help solve the world’s ills.

For young entrepreneurs angling to change the world, you’ll want to pay close attention to the Clinton Global Initiative‘s annual meeting, which kicks off in New York City on Sunday. The reason is this event differs from many others, as CGI asks its members — such as, Walmart and Deutsche Bank — to follow-up their rhetoric by putting money where their mouth is. Those funds, in turn, get committed to help realize implementable plans — including some that young treps can get directly involved in.

The theme for this year’s three-day meeting is focused on designing the world to create more opportunity and equality. Here are five areas to watch:

1. Product and Environmental Redesign
On a broad level, former President Clinton and Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, as well as heads of the World Bank Group and a design consultancy called IDEO will discuss how to invent better tools and find creative ways for designing our environments. But aspiring-product designers may find more concrete inspiration from a session that will rethink how items such as medical devices, insecticide-treated bed-nets, talking books and cooking stoves are created for the world’s poorest consumers.

Future urban planners or industrial designers should track speeches from the top brass of the American Institute of Architects and the World Heart Federation, who will discuss healthier design improvements for buildings and outdoor spaces.

Ahmad Ashkar, the founder and CEO of the Hult Global Case Challenge, is set to speak at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting. Credit: Hult Global Case Challenge

2. Social Entrepreneurism
As a young trep himself in 2010, Ahmad Ashkar launched the Hult Global Case Challenge at a previous Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting. His initiative awards $1 million annually for implementing proposed solutions to social problems conceived by college students and alums. He’s set to speak again at this year’s event and says young treps will want to:

Track the shift from traditional-philanthropic approaches to new, more catalytic ones that encourage social business.
See how our growing global population is creating a mega opportunity for social business.
Watch how corporations are tackling the world’s most pressing issues.

“By paying close attention to these areas, young entrepreneurs can get a sense of what the future landscape of entrepreneurship looks like at the bottom of the pyramid,” says Ashkar, CEO of the Hult Global Case Challenge. “The social space is a trillion dollar sector, where the opportunity for innovation is tearing at the seams.”

3. Ecological Advancements
Geeks of the green movement will find plenty of worthwhile discussions with new funding committed to innovative projects. One session will explore mobility solutions from the angles of infrastructure design, new and alternative vehicles, road safety and accessibility. Another will focus on food — both improving its resilience in extreme conditions and discovering ways to shrink our ecological footprint while consuming it.

4. Startup Funds
Aspiring business owners should watch for new financing schemes to kick start a venture. At a Clinton Global Initiative America meeting earlier this year, Jalia Ventures and the United Negro College Fund created a $3.5 million competition to develop minority-owned businesses with a social or environmental mission. “Being able to extract the insights that come out of the CGI will give any start-up junky a leg up, especially around funding sources,” says Ashkar.

5. Technological Innovation
Even non-members of the Clinton Global Initiative say they will be watching for new initiatives, some of which may introduce technological advancements with a do-good, social spin. Certain breakout sessions, for instance, will explore how to provide better access to education in underserved populations. “One way is through unique mobile device applications and educational curriculum,” says Brittany Lothe, head of corporate social responsibility for the business software provider SAP.

“There is a great opportunity for young entrepreneurs to find ways to activate and help solve the world’s most challenging, pressing issues.”

Is Your Business Ready for an Incubator? 5 Tips from a 'TechStars' Grad

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 02:42:04 -0400

It’s the dream of many entrepreneurs to get into anincubator program where they could hone their business model, get advice from mentors, and get connected to angel investors or venture-capital firms. However, as Bloomberg TV’s TechStars reality show revealed, simply getting into an incubator is no guarantee of success.

Several of the budding businesses in the New York round of TechStars flamed out. Their business ideas didn’t work, and after the show quite a few of the startups closed.

There were some success stories, though, including Onswipe, which makes publications more dynamic for use on mobile browsers. The startup had just landed $1 million in funding from Spark Capital when its TechStars program began, and the company went on to land $5 million more shortly after the program aired. Staff has swelled from four to 27employees.

Here are five lessons from Onswipe on how to make the more of your chance in an incubator program.

1. Choose your moment. Some startups come into an incubator with an embryonic idea. If that idea doesn’t prove workable, they’ve squandered the opportunity to impress the funders that have relationships with that incubator.

Instead, Onswipe waited to apply until their technology had proven itself, they had a few customers, and had successfully pitched venture capitalists. The company was ready to take full advantage of the incubator’s resources.

2. Be the breakout story. In any incubator class there will be one breakout story, says Onswipe CEO Jason Baptiste. There’s one Dropbox or Airbnb — one company with the potential to be huge. With its existing funding and proof of concept, Baptiste says Onswipe was positioned from the start to be considered that program round’s biggest success.

Though Onswipe connected with its funders outside the program, Baptiste feels that theTechStars exposure helped sell those funders, including Silicon Valley uber-angel Ron Conway, whose investments include PayPal and Twitter, and Russian mogul Yuri Milner (who has invested in heavy hitters including Facebook, Zynga, Twitter).

“What TechStars really helped us with was getting us to be the most-hyped company,” Baptiste says.”If you position yourself as the top company, a lot of people want to get in on that deal.”

3. Keep networking. The relationships Onswipe’s entrepreneurs made on TechStars have been the most valuable aspect of the company’s stay in the incubator, Baptiste says. He counts program co-founder David Cohen among his close connections formed during TechStars. He’s stayed active in New York’s budding startup scene, too.

4. Don’t get distracted. Since TechStars aired last year, Baptiste says he’s been approached by three other reality-TV shows to participate, but has turned them down. At this point, with more than 20 staffers, it would be difficult to shoehorn the company back into an incubator, anyway.

5. Give back. To help other startups, Baptiste wrote a book about Onswipe’s rise, The Ultralight Startup, (Portfolio Hardcover, April 2012). The book imparts lessons Baptiste learned from Onswipe’s success that other startups can use to ramp up faster.

If you want to watch more incubator action, TechStars’ Boulder incubator inhabitants will be featured this fall in season three of The Founders, the incubator’s own online documentary-video series.

Internet Explorer Users Face Security Risks and Issues

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:19:57 -0400

People spend hours on Facebook interacting with their friends, posting pictures, “liking” companies and celebrities, and outlining their interests and hobbies. Now it appears that Facebook is in the process of building a search-related tool using the information it has collected about its users. At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco recently, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that the company is working on something related to search. “Facebook is pretty uniquely positioned to answer the questions people have,” Zuckerberg said. He gave search examples such as: “What sushi restaurants have my friends gone to in New York in the last 6 months and liked? Or which of my friends or friends of friends work at a company that I’m interested in working at because I want to talk to them about what it’s going to be like to work there? These are questions that you could potentially do at Facebook if we built out this system that you couldn’t do anywhere else,” Zucherberg explained. While little is known yet about the format or functionality of Facebook’s potential search tools — not to mention when they might be available — there are a few predictions we can make about how this move might change the way people find your business online. Related: How To Stay Up-to-Date on Google Search Changes (Video) 1. Potential customers will need a Facebook account to search for your business. Facebook’s search utility will likely be internal. Given that Facebook’s search capabilities will be based around people, places and businesses, it’s reasonable to assume that any future incarnation of a Facebook search engine will exist as an expansion of the company’s existing internal search toolbar — not as a standalone search interface. As a result, for people to find your business using Facebook’s future search tool, they’ll need to be users of the social network themselves. Companies whose target demographics aren’t well-represented on the social network will need to continue to prioritize other means of online discovery. 2. Your Facebook “Likes” will become even more important. Businesses that are active on Facebook will want to continue to encourage fans and followers to interact on their Facebook pages as much as possible. Because Facebook anticipates answering questions such as “What sushi restaurants have my friends gone to in New York in the last six months and liked?” it’s likely that performance in Facebook’s search results will draw on page “Likes,” place check-ins and wall posts that reference your Facebook business page. Beginning to improve these metrics now should position your company well for future performance within Facebook’s forthcoming search tool. 3. Users may still favor Google. Whether or not Facebook is successful with its future search endeavors will depend in large part on its ability to convince customers to use its tool, rather than default to Google for search. While it’s possible for Facebook to steal market share away from the web’s reigning search giant, it’s highly unlikely that Facebook will execute a total coup. No matter what Facebook is able to achieve it will still be important for small businesses to carry out local SEO best practices and social media marketing activities across a variety of networks, in order to increase the odds that people will find and do business with their companies.

How a Facebook Search Engine Could Change the Way People Find Your Business

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:16:03 -0400

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At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco recently, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that the company is working on something related to search. “Facebook is pretty uniquely positioned to answer the questions people have,” Zuckerberg said. He gave search examples such as: “What sushi restaurants have my friends gone to in New York in the last 6 months and liked? Or which of my friends or friends of friends work at a company that I’m interested in working at because I want to talk to them about what it’s going to be like to work there? These are questions that you could potentially do at Facebook if we built out this system that you couldn’t do anywhere else,” Zucherberg explained.

While little is known yet about the format or functionality of Facebook’s potential search tools — not to mention when they might be available — there are a few predictions we can make about how this move might change the way people find your business online.

1. Potential customers will need a Facebook account to search for your business.Facebook’s search utility will likely be internal. Given that Facebook’s search capabilities will be based around people, places and businesses, it’s reasonable to assume that any future incarnation of a Facebook search engine will exist as an expansion of the company’s existing internal search toolbar — not as a standalone search interface.

As a result, for people to find your business using Facebook’s future search tool, they’ll need to be users of the social network themselves. Companies whose target demographics aren’t well-represented on the social network will need to continue to prioritize other means of online discovery.

2. Your Facebook “Likes” will become even more important. Businesses that are active on Facebook will want to continue to encourage fans and followers to interact on their Facebook pages as much as possible. Because Facebook anticipates answering questions such as “What sushi restaurants have my friends gone to in New York in the last six months and liked?” it’s likely that performance in Facebook’s search results will draw on page “Likes,” place check-ins and wall posts that reference your Facebook business page.

Beginning to improve these metrics now should position your company well for future performance within Facebook’s forthcoming search tool.

3. Users may still favor Google. Whether or not Facebook is successful with its future search endeavors will depend in large part on its ability to convince customers to use its tool, rather than default to Google for search. While it’s possible for Facebook to steal market share away from the web’s reigning search giant, it’s highly unlikely that Facebook will execute a total coup.

No matter what Facebook is able to achieve it will still be important for small businesses to carry out local SEO best practices and social media marketing activities across a variety of networks, in order to increase the odds that people will find and do business with their companies.

How Chobani Yogurt Used Social Media to Boost Sales

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 21:37:45 -0400

Greek yogurt producer Chobani has achieved an active cult following for its active cultures. The New Berlin, N.Y.-based company—which is approaching $1 billion in annual revenue after only seven years in business—has tapped into a highly effective marketing and social media strategy that has catapulted it to the top of its industry.

Chobani was started by Hamdi Ulukaya, who bemoaned a lack of what he considered high-quality yogurt in America when he emigrated from Turkey. The company claims its product—now sold in the U.S., Canada and Australia—accounts for 54 percent of the Greek yogurt segment. Additionally, it has earned the top spot for brand engagement among yogurt companies, according to market research firm SymphonyIRI Group, and boasts nearly 600,000 Facebook fans. (By comparison, food giants Nestlé and Green Giant have 570,000 and 400,000, respectively.) “We have built our brand around being transparent and very connected to the marketplace,” says Nicki Briggs, who manages Chobani’s social media strategy.

Chobani’s success can be attributed to both its creative handling of social media and its major efforts for brand exposure in the real world. Online, a team of five monitors digital communications and social media, making a point of responding to every consumer inquiry. “It’s about delivering the best experience possible every time,” Briggs says. “We want to be warm and quirky, engaging and inviting.”

The company’s website posts scores of recipes and photos, spotlights devotees with its “featured blogger” series and lets customers share ideas via Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.

Interestingly, the company’s analytics software has found that postings not directly related to Chobani result in the highest engagement levels. “The posts with the highest rankings are in line with our brand’s values and personality but not directly about yogurt,” Briggs says, noting that this has led the company to develop more unbranded lifestyle and visual content that appeals to its audience and “gets more shares from fans … and thus higher engagement metrics for the brand.”

Further, the site manages to forge a connection with real-world activities in an actionable way. Chobani integrates with foursquare to promote local events, including the location of its CHOmobile sampling tour, where T-shirts and free samples are handed out. At a blog-within-a-blog for the company’s Champions line of yogurt for kids, visitors can print coupons and follow the progress of a promotional bus as it visits festivals and events across the U.S. At a recent neighborhood festival in Santa Monica, Calif., the line for free Champions yogurt was longer than the one for ice-cream sandwiches.

In addition to participating in community activities, Chobani gives 10 percent of its annual post-tax profits to charity—all great topics for pass-along fodder on social platforms. “You have to go where your customers and fans go and interact with them in a meaningful way,” Briggs says.

But the biggest boon for getting Chobani in the eyes of the public may have been the company’s sponsorship of the 2012 Olympics and Paralympic Games. (The company would not disclose the cost of the sponsorship, which it promoted via digital media, TV and print advertising and on-site signage.) Among other initiatives, Chobani fed athletes at training centers and during the Games, and used social media to provide public access to six U.S. Olympians selected as “Team Chobani.”

“It is a huge sponsorship for such a young brand,” Briggs says, noting that the Olympics are a passion point for founder Ulukaya. The sponsorship is designed to target the U.S. audience, she notes, though the company is eyeing expansion into other international markets.

Chobani has found success by going to great lengths to get its name out. “Business is all about relationships and creating strong connections,” Briggs says. “When you produce a great product and you provide ways for people to interact, it’s possible to achieve results that transcend the bounds of traditional marketing and advertising.”

Finding Start-Up Success Through Serious School Spirit

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 20:49:58 -0400

While a student at the University of Oregon, Abraham Choe wanted to show some school spirit by decking out his laptop in a UO case. But, to his surprise, he couldn’t find one anywhere. So he slapped a university decal on a plain laptop sleeve and the response from his classmates was overwhelming. Everyone wanted to know where they could get their own UO-branded laptop sleeve.

Choe’s entrepreneurial instincts immediately kicked in. He started researching existing college-licensed products and didn’t find many companies that specialized in this niche.

In two short weeks, Choe, now 29, and his classmates Daniel Lee and Vinh Luu set out to launchUlife. In Sept. of 2010, the Beaverton, Oregon-based company received its first trademark license to the University of Oregon — setting Ulife up for its first production run. Choe’s company generated $150,000 in revenue this past year.

At YoungEntrepreneur, we think this is pretty impressive. So for the month of September, Ulife is officially YE’s Startup of the Month — landing the company this Q&A and, of course, bragging rights.

We caught up with Choe to discuss the ups and downs of his start-up life. Here’s an edited version of that conversation:

What’s been your greatest start-up challenge so far?
Raising capital to expand. For every university trademark, we have to pay advanced royalties and need capital for products. It takes money to make money. When you are in the wholesale business, it takes even more money.

What did you do about funding then? How about going forward?

Fortunately, with the contributions of a few family members and friends who agreed to invest in the company, Ulife got the foundation it needed. Going forward, I applied for my favorite show, ABC’s Shark Tank season four and made it to the final video submission rounds. We’re still waiting to hear if we’ll be on the show. Other than that, we are setting up an Indiegogo campaign and talking with some venture capitalists to trying and work out a deal. But like I said, raising capital is the hardest part.

How do students find out about ULife?
Grassroots marketing. One of the cool things we’re doing is our touchdown-celebration video contest. We’re asking customers to post a 30-second video of them doing their best touchdown celebration dance to our Facebook page. The person with the most “likes” wins a pair of primo UO football tickets on the 45-yard line.

For every product sold on the website, Ulife donates $2 to a textbook fund for college students. Why, as a startup, are you giving away precious profits?
Ulife exists because of the students, fans and supporters who buy our products. It’s because of them that we were able to survive and grow during the recession. I think it is important to give back and wanted to make a direct impact on students — it wasn’t long ago that I was in their shoes, after all.

What’s next for Ulife?

Our goal is to expand to 34 major universities across the nation in the next 12 months and become a household brand in the collegiate-licensed products industry. Most recently, we expanded into iPhone and iPad cases, mouse pads and travel pillows. Currently, Ulife products can be purchased at 20 retail locations, including six Oregon Mac Stores, three local Walgreens and the University of Oregon’s Duck Store. Along with retail outlets, Ulife has added two more trademark licenses for Oregon State University and Boise State University.

What advice do you have for other young entrepreneurs?
Brain storming, generating ideas, talking with family and friends — those are all good things, but everyone does them. What you need to do is take action and do everything with passion.