Tila Tequila ushers in reality TV on Woome

Speed-dating site turns 'dating intros' into new form of entertainment

by Bambi Francisco - November 13, 2008
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Web conferencing launched on iPhone

by Bambi Francisco, November 13, 2008 | Comments (0)

Iotum's Calliflower on-the-go is free until January

At the Under the Radar conference this week, Iotum announced its Calliflower app for the iPhone. Essentially, the app is an extension of the Calliflower desktop conferencing service, which is similar to DimDim, GoToMeeting and WebEx. With the app, you can share documents, moderate multiple parties on the call, invite guests, chat, and post images, among other things. Founder and ...

Playing the iPhone like a flute catches on

by Bambi Francisco, November 13, 2008 | Comments (0)

	Smule's Jeff Smith shares update, and plays a tune Oh, how far we've come. It wasn't long ago that phones were just used for talking. Now people can blow into their Apple iPhones and actually play Amazing Grace. They can do so by playing the Ocarina, one of the hottest iPhone apps to come out recently, despite the fact that it costs $1.Launched last week, the Ocarina has already ...
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Mobivox seeks to help monetize audiences

by Bambi Francisco, November 12, 2008 | Comments (0)

Low-cost carrier shifts from B2C model to B2B

Rather than compete with low-cost phone service providers, Montreal-based Mobivox, which allows people to make free or cheap phone calls, is increasingly partnering with them. In an effort to help service providers or communities generate more revenue, Mobivox is white-labeling its platform of services, such as voice-enabling calls and an online hosted address book. I caught up with Peter Diedrich, President ...

Why developers prefer iPhone to WindowsMobile

by John Shinal, November 12, 2008 | Comments (0)

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PhunkWare's founder says Apple's OS makes it easier to focus on features

If you've ever wondered why the iPhone has all the cool applications, just ask Stan Miasnikov.As the founder of software developer PhunkWare explains in this video, Apple's integrated hardware and operating system lets his company focus on coding features, rather than spending time on the user interface.PhunkWare had its handwriting-recognition software, WritePad, approved for the iPhone App Store, where it's ...

Survive long enough for your luck to change

by John Shinal, November 11, 2008 | Comments (0)

Bridge Bank's Lambert advises startups to get creative on fundraising

A lot has changed since the last time we spoke with Ed Lambert, senior vice president at Silicon Valley financing firm Bridge Bank. Lambert, like most bankers believe that the IPO drought is going to continue until at least 2010.Others are even more pessimistic. Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr said last week that it could last three years or more.In ...

Web 2.0 valuations slashed to 2003 levels

by John Shinal, November 10, 2008 | Comments (1)

Angel investor Jeff Clavier says Sequoia Capital slide show was pivotal moment

How do you end an investment boom in the hottest Internet sector since the dotcom era?If you're a top-tier venture capital firm, merely by predicting it. The gloom and doom presentation that Sequoia Capital gave to its portfolio companies last month has done more than put fear into the hearts of Internet startup executives.It's also slashed early-stage valuations for Web ...

Gore says building new grid kills two birds

by John Shinal, November 10, 2008 | Comments (0)

Former VP says revamping energy industry will help economy and environment

Can a total revamp of the energy industry be a way out of the current economic crisis?Former Vice President and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore thinks so.Gore is joining a growing list of Silicon Valley notables, including John Doerr and Eric Schmidt, in saying that the government should undertake a massive investment in the energy infrastructure, not just to tackle ...

Yang: Why I'm CEO of Yahoo at this time

by Bambi Francisco, November 9, 2008 | Comments (0)

Jerry Yang concedes: "It's not the most fun thing to go through..."

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang has had a brutal week, and a rough year. It started when on Monday, Google announced that it was terminating its search partnership with Yahoo, amid antitrust regulatory concerns. Then there were rumors swirling about that Yang was quitting. Then the idea that Microsoft and Yahoo might get back to the table to discuss an acquisition ...

Obama owes win to the Internet

by Bambi Francisco, November 7, 2008 | Comments (0)

Arianna Huffington: The Internet dispels lies and chokes off disillusional fearmongering

Arianna Huffington is not one to mince words. “Let’s be very blunt here," she said. "Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be a democratic nominee."Huffington was on a panel at the final day of the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. She was joined ...

Gavin Newsom: I'm obsessed with Facebook

by Bambi Francisco, November 7, 2008 | Comments (0)

Yet San Francisco Mayor fears being always accessible and watched

At his re-election campaign last year, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom found himself amid an audience of strangers, not the "usual suspects," he said. Upon asking who the new faces were, someone replied that they were his Facebook friends. His response: "What's Facebook?" That was 12 months ago. Today, Newsom has embraced it. “I'm proud to say that I have ...

Warner Music's Bronfman on DRM-free tunes

by John Shinal, November 7, 2008 | Comments (0)

The technology never did what it needed to do

Several years ago, the major music publishers were still clinging to digital rights management as a way to prevent consumers from copying music. Today, all of them have abandoned DRM in various ways in an effort to stop their revenue from continuing to plummet.So what happened? "The world changed," says Edgar Bronfman, the head of Warner Music Group, which has just ...

Demand Media, profitable and still buying

by Bambi Francisco, November 6, 2008 | Comments (0)

	But CEO Richard Rosenblatt braces for an ad downturn A reliance on clicks and not display ads has helped Demand Media hold up so far during this downturn. "The good news is that the ad market has not affected our properties very much yet, and that's because we never really had a strong focus on branded ad sales," said Richard Rosenblatt, co-founder and CEO of Demand Media. "We've mostly ...
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It's the real Lance Armstrong on Twitter!

by Meliza Solan, November 6, 2008 | Comments (3)

But don't expect the cycling legend to follow you; he'll only follow those who Tweet for a cause

It's hard to tell if a celebrity is really using Twitter. When it was reported that Britney Spears had a Twitter account, popular blogger Gary Vaynerchuck, cried "Foul," accusing the star of only "kinda" posting Tweets. Turns out for a long time, there was a fake Lance Armstrong on Twitter. He'd put out Tweets daily, saying: "Goin for a bike ...

Microsoft's Lewin on new push for startups

by John Shinal, November 6, 2008 | Comments (0)

	BizSpark program "a logical extention" for developers and young companies Microsoft corporate VP Dan'l Lewin, the company's point man in Silicon Valley, explains the company's new BizSpark program, which it unveiled yesterday.
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