Some years holiday presents come early, some late. Over the past few weeks, a good handful of companies have gotten their gifts from venture capital firms. From Red Room to Spotzer, MixerCast and Edgecast to 56.com and Kyte.TV, here’s the latest Venture Roundup: Metue’s regular recap of companies recently receiving funding.
There’s no such thing as corporate Darwin Awards or business Razzie’s but when it comes to bad executive decisions or business "say what’s?" it seems there ought be something.
In fairness, there are lots of gambles that don’t pay off, decisions that look much worse in hindsight than they did on the drafting table. As the cliches go: Nothing ventured nothing gained. You’ve got to gamble sometimes. Take some risks. Bad decisions and mistakes, of course, happen all the time. I’m not talking about those. What I’m thinking about are those decisions that fall easily in to the "should have known better"category. Choices that seem to violate common sense. It seems there should be some sort of trophy to acknowledge those kinds of mental lapses in the executive wing. A decision that leaves people scratching their heads and going "watchoo talking about Willis."…that deserves a special Lucite block on the mantle.
Looking back over last weeks events, I’ve got to wonder if management at Blockbuster might be inline for such a nomination. Click to Read More
Those listening to music online are probably familiar with Pandora. The popular and fast growing company has been a pioneer in net radio. On Thursday, they announced a mobile version of their highly personalized service will be available via AT&T Wireless on select phones.
Pandora’s traditional offering is built around an extremely sophisticated personalization engine. Drawn from what was called the Music Genome Project, Pandora analyzes and catalog songs by as many as 400 musical attributes. All that data is then correlated against music a listener’s likes and dislikes in order to build a profile and stream comparable music. If I like music by Eric Clapton, B.B. King and The Rolling Stones, for example, Pandora’s engine will recognize the underlying blues riffs, they’ll recognize whether the songs are up tempo, or slow, whether acoustic or electric. Then, when the song’s I’ve chosen are done playing, Pandora will play something similar – maybe something from the Allman Brother’s, or Buddy Guy. They will recommend music my patterns suggest I might like. Click to Read More
It is the story of the day. Scan the headlines and everywhere that touches technology has a tidbit on the subject. The mysterious G-phone, a myth as exotic as an udumbara flower and as circulated as a chain email has finally been revealed. The urban myth quashed.
Today, Google revealed as widely expected there will not be (at least for now or the near future) a Google branded cell phone; no gPhone to challenge the iPhone. Instead, Google has been applying its considerable software development skills to the development of a next generation open-source mobile operating system platform. Engineers with analog and cellular design experience were there for optimization, for marrying software to hardware, not to reinvent the phone itself.
Andy Rubin, head of Google’s mobile platforms said unequivocally, "we’re not building a GPhone; we are enabling 1,000 people to build [it]."
First it was iPhone pricing. Tuesday, iTunes pricing. Wednesday, it’s third party applications for the iPhone. For the third time in less than as many months, Apple is reversing course. For a company as sure footed as Apple, that’s borderline bizarre. Even with a stock price through the roof and products selling like hot cakes, it’s something to stop and scratch your head about. Makes you wonder what’s going on in Cupertino. One of those things that makes you go “hmm?”
The first adjustment came last month when Apple cut the pricing on the iPhone. They then waffled over whether to compensate early adopters who paid a substantially higher price. Click to Read More
YouTube’s on the iPhone. Now MySpace will be too, at least indirectly. As of today, MySpace, and soon most of its siblings at Fox Interactive Media, will be available in a specially formatted mobile offering formatted specifically for cellular use.
Unlike MySpace’s existing subscription based service which is offered on AT&T and Helio wireless services, the new mobile MySpace launching today will be free and ad supported. It will work on all U.S. carriers and any phone that has the ability to surf the Internet. Popular MySpace functionality, like the ability to send and receive messages and friend requests, or update blogs, or search for friends will all be supported.
Fox Interactive is taking its mobile initiative seriously. John Smelzer, a senior vice president at Fox Interactive believes "Accessing the Internet from your mobile phone will soon be as common as text messaging and voice calling."
Signaling investors continued bullishness about mobile entertainment, two new companies have secured middle rounds of financing: mobile gamer Vollee and mobile video provider Quickplay Media. The specifics:
Vollee
Founded 18 months ago, Vollee is developing game distribution technology that allows them to adapt, host and stream PC and Console games for play on mobile phones and portables over 3G Networks. Based in Israel, and running with a staff of near 50, the company previously closed a $4m Series A round in March from Benchmark and Blue Run Ventures (BRV). BRV Partner Yossi Hasson is also a co-founder of the company.
