Editor’s note: Brad Woodcox is a technical specialist focusing on startup development for Novak Druce + Quigg, an intellectual property super boutique law firm.
Patents. A single word that incites a fervor in the online tech blogging realm, perhaps only behind the emotional responses with the iPhone vs. Android battle or TechCrunch using expletives in an article title. → Read More
Beyond the levels, badges, reward points and promised engagement increases, there are many behaviourist game designers who see games as persuasive tools for social change. They see a very wide range of possible benefits from games, such as education, health and awareness of social or political issues and so they want to use games to persuade players.
Do they really work though? → Read More
Editor’s note: Peter Arvai, founder and CEO of Prezi, is working to help people share ideas.
Just months before Twitter launched in 2006, a company launched in Helsinki, Finland — the land of Nokia, ruler of mobile phones. The company’s idea was simple: Make it easy to publish short messages via mobile phones. Ring a bell? For the Internet-savvy community in Northern Europe, it was Jaiku… → Read More
Editor’s note: This is Part I of a two-part guest post written by legendary Silicon Valley investor Vinod Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures. In Part II, he will examine the signs it might be time to hire a CEO.
Though debated among some venture investors, in my view, it is always better for a founder to grow into being a CEO. When there’s a choice, the founder’s vision, culture… → Read More
Happy anniversary to me: I’ve now been writing this here weekly column for exactly two years. Over the last year I have opined, prescribed, and predicted many things. And now, like last year, as part of my one-man crusade for greater opinion-journalism accountability, I’m going to take a moment to go back and look at what I got right … and where I went horribly, hilariously wrong.
(cracks… → Read More
Editor’s note: Michael Wu is the Principal Scientist of Analytics at Lithium.
Social media is a required avenue for brands to engage their customers. However, social media engagement is primarily based on conversations and personalized interactions that are difficult to scale. Influencer marketing provides brands with the leverage to reach many by engaging only a few illusive influencers. → Read More
“In the Studio” welcomes someone who created a project during his sophomore year of high school, released it to the world two years later, spent three years in college before dropping out to work on the company full-time, and now, almost eight years later, is continuing to build technologies and products for millions of students and teachers worldwide.
Andrew Sutherland, the founder and CTO of… → Read More
Scientists are yesterday’s wizards and demigods. And Nate Silver is a scientist. One whose ability to predict the outcome of elections is so precise, it’s nearly indistinguishable from magic. That’s why IsNateSilverAWitch.com is so funny. But really what his flawless prediction of the presidential election signifies is the coming of age of the quantified universe. → Read More
Yesterday, Instagram launched web profiles. To some, they’re lovely. To others, they’re long overdue. And to a great many, they’re ho-hum — an obvious way to inject yet another zinger about Facebook buying the startup for a billion dollars (but actually *only* $700-something million — ZING!).
To me, these profiles are actually a very clear window into why Facebook would spend so much… → Read More
Given how well LinkedIn has been doing of late, the headline for this post may seem a bit out of place. Just a few days ago, LinkedIn yet again exceeded Wall Street’s expectations, posting strong third quarter results and increasing revenue for the sixth straight quarter. While its profits are fairly low compared to revenue, they, too, are growing steadily, and the company predicted another strong… → Read More
Editor’s note: Jules Maltz is a general partner at IVP. Daniel Barney is a senior associate at IVP.
For some, freemium is a business model that sacrifices revenues and forces startups to support freeloaders who will never become paying customers. For others, it is the logical conclusion of a world in which the cost of bandwidth, storage, and information processing approaches zero. → Read More
I can’t tell if this is a major social media gaffe by social media itself, or the most honest thing Facebook has ever said. Maybe it’s both. Last night Facebook’s official Facebook Page shared this: “Birthday cakes are made for people to be together. They give friends a place to gather and celebrate. But too much cake probably isn’t healthy. So birthday cake is a lot like Facebook.” Wow. → Read More
If there was a time-lapse video chronicling how humans have shared and received news information throughout history, the transcript of that video would go something like this: Chest-thumping. Hand gestures. Screaming. Cave paintings. Language. Carrier pigeons, or personal messengers. Scrolls and the printing press. Pamphlets, periodicals, telegrams, and newspapers. Eventually, television, and the… → Read More
Editor’s note: Dr. Paul Judge is a serial entrepreneur and investor. He is Chief Research Officer at Barracuda Networks, co-founder and Chairman of Pindrop and Limitless Smart Shot, and previously led three companies to successful exits.
A few months ago Facebook’s initial public offering became the largest tech IPO in history, initially valuing the company at over $100 billion. Over 70… → Read More
Editor’s note: Steve Patterson’s observations and writing are based on his 20 years working in the primordial ooze of start-ups in Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Silicon Valley leads the nation with more than 50 percent of telecom venture investments, and its share is growing. The reason for this is that companies such as Google, Apple, VMware and Salesforce have redefined the meaning… → Read More
Editor’s note: Bernard Moon is co-founder and CEO of Vidquik, a new web conferencing and sales solutions platform, and co-founder of SparkLabs, a recently launched startup accelerator in Seoul, Korea.
Qik co-founder Ramu Sunkara discusses the company’s voyage from its founding in 2006 in his garage to being acquired by Skype in January 2011 for $150 million. → Read More
Editor’s note: Steli Efti is the Co-Founder/Chief Hustler of ElasticSales and an advisor to several startups and entrepreneurs.
One of the most common questions startups ask me is how to handle B2B outbound sales. They often ask this question in a state of desperation, hoping I respond with the magic formula. There is no magic formula. An outbound sale is hard work, and it requires an… → Read More
Love it or hate it, Windows 8 is a big deal and it’s only going to get bigger. Particularly the Metro side. The Windows Store will bring app store economics to the PC in a way that most users have never experienced before, and that represents a golden opportunity for developers. However they will have to move incredibly quickly to get ahead of the rush. → Read More
To operate in the 21st century as if it is still the 20th is certain death for most businesses. Not instant, but certain. And it was certainly this practice that led two of the largest publishers to combine their lot. The resulting business will have to change all the same, but it’s easier to navigate these waters as a single raft (of the Medusa variety, but a raft nonetheless) than as a flotilla. → Read More
The last time I wrote about 3D printers, an appalling number of people in the comments – including VCs who really, really should know better – kept writing things like: “Nearly identical comments were made about personal computers, desktop printers, color printers, laser printers…” and “just like printing at home” and “Let’s use the traditional paper printer as an example” and “it will follow… → Read More
Editor’s note: Boris Chan is a principal at Xtreme Labs who leads product development and innovation efforts.
Apple finally unveiled the iPad mini last week. Perhaps its main selling point is that it runs the same apps as the iPad and works just as well with the same screen resolution despite its smaller size. → Read More
“In the Studio” this week hosts a first-time founder and entrepreneur who began his career as an engineering student at two of the country’s finest universities and played baseball for his college team, after which he worked at one of the country’s largest technology research and product companies before enrolling in and dropping out of business school to work on building a company in Silicon… → Read More
Editor’s note: Sen. Jerry Moran represents the state of Kansas. Follow him on Twitter.
During the second Presidential Debate at Hofstra University, Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama found common ground – agreeing that highly skilled, entrepreneurial immigrants create jobs for Americans. → Read More
Editor’s note: Ron Conway is an angel investor and chairman of sf.citi.
As the tech industry continues to grow its footprint in San Francisco, its leaders have a responsibility to help improve the city for all of its residents. The tech sector is uniquely qualified to give back and invest in our community because its entrepreneurs have the ability to use resources within their companies to… → Read More
very now and then, I’ll get sucked into the distracting, immersive, emotional habit of flipping through pictures online. Rifling through albums can stop time. It’s disorienting, like stumbling upon an old photograph in your drawer, the type of visually arresting trigger that takes you back through time. For me, I keep a small cigar box full of all my old photographs, dating back to childhood. → Read More
Last week Glassdoor published its most recent software engineering salary report. Short version: it pays to code. Google and Facebook employees earn a base salary of ~$125K, not counting benefits, 401k matching, stock options/grants, etc., and even Yahoo! developers pull in six figures. Everyone knows why: ask anyone in the Valley, or NYC, or, well, practically anywhere, and they’ll tell you that… → Read More
I’ve greatly enjoyed watching the petty controversies that erupted this week, controversies having to do with what can only loosely be described as buyer’s remorse: indignant iPad owners, a mysteriously banished Amazon customer, and a host of people calling foul on Facebook’s promoted posts. One of these is a legitimate and productive complaint, the others are nothing but a froth about the mouth. → Read More
In the great, wide world of journalism, games journalism is a weird animal. Those who “practice” – and practice it well – face a barrage of PR perks, free trips, and angry houses. Access is given and taken away by marketing folks on a whim. There are a few great news sources (Polygon is one as is Rock, Paper, Shotgun), a few silly ones, and a few horrible ones. But on the whole, not many folks… → Read More
“In the Studio” hosts an entrepreneur who, after studying astrophysics, went on to handle various product management roles at a small startup eventually acquired by Google and who know, most recently, helped launch a venture-backed mobile application startup based in San Francisco.
Rishi Mandal, co-founder and CEO of Sosh, has brought a team together to bring real web scale technologies to a… → Read More
A year ago sucked. I mean, it was actually great, but it sure seemed to suck at the time. We were getting CrunchFund off the ground and I think everyone thought we were going to do that in full conjunction with Aol — they were and are the largest limited partner of the fund, after all. → Read More
The 6th Annual Crunchies Awards
San Francisco
New York City
