• Report: Russians Muscled Out Of Twitter Grab
    Russian investment outfit DST Global is out of the running to fund Twitter, sources tell AllThingsD's Kara Swisher. "Instead, the prize is almost certainly going to Kleiner Perkins," she reports in reference to the top Silicon Valley venture firm. Meanwhile, the valuation for the new round, which sources tell Swisher is well above $150 million, will be from $3.5 billion to $4 billion. This latest round, which could include various smaller investors, is expected to close this week. Late last year, Twitter raised funding at a $1 billion valuation to help scale its business. Russia's DST has famously made …
  • Report: AT&T Worst Provider Of Them all
    Color us shocked. As ranked by subscribers themselves, AT&T has flunked Consumer Reports' latest mobile service provider study. As the Houston Chronicle points out, AT&T "brings up the rear nationwide, and in every city in which Consumer Reports surveyed its readership." Worse still, "Nationally, AT&T scored a 'Worse' rating -- the dreaded full-black dot -- in every survey category except for texting, in which it gets a half-black dot," the Chonicle notes. "It had a reader score of 60, compared to 82 for U.S. Cellular, which doesn't serve Houston." By contrast, among the four major carriers, Verizon came in …
  • Report: Startup Investment Ebbing
    During the third quarter of the year, 343 companies raised a total of $1.8 billion in venture capital funding, according to a new report from venture capital database VentureDeal, which tracks investments in the world of the Web, digital media, software and ecommerce. That's down 14% in total funding since the second quarter of the year, and down 6% in the number of companies funded. As TechCrunch notes, "Three of the four sectors showed a decrease in funding amounts and the number of companies funded." Only the Software sector showed an increase in funding amounts, jumping 19% in terms …
  • Will Groupon Follow Facebook or Yahoo?
    Late last week, as you must have heard by now, Groupon rejected Google's heady takeover bid, and Bloomberg thinks it knows why. Chiefly, the social deal leader is "betting it can keep increasing its valuation after walking away from a deep-pocketed suitor." As the story of Yahoo demonstrates, it's a strategy fraught with risk, but -- as the story of Facebook shows -- great potential, too. "It is very common for all executives -- entrepreneurs or executives of public companies, to drink their own Kool-Aid and believe their own hype," Lou Kerner, a social-media analyst at Wedbush Securities tells …
  • Google eBookstore Open For Business
    Google on Monday debuted its e-book marketplace with more than 3 million titles, which are now available via smartphone, laptop, tablet, netbook or desktop computer. "Google eBookstore" -- not "Google Editions" as many expected -- is live and offering hundreds of thousands of titles for purchase, reports ReadWriteWeb. Setting it apart from many an e-book seller, Google's e-books are entirely cloud-based. "Google eBooks stores your library in the digital cloud," the company explains, "so you can read all of your favorite books using just about any device with an Internet connection." Meanwhile, for those afraid of losing their proverbial …
  • What Could Be Worse Than 'Google'?
    Nothing's written in stone yet, but Google is reportedly considering calling its forthcoming far-reaching social project "Google+1" or Google plus One." So say TechCrunch sources. Anything's better than the previously proposed "Emerald City." As TechCrunch reports, "The 'Plus One' name apparently is derived from some of the functionality of the project ... In this case, you could think of '+1' as being Google's version of the 'Like' or 'Retweet.' It also speaks to the the [sic] fact that you're not doing something alone on the web. It's social, get it?" Frankly, we don't know why a …
  • Google Finding Its Voice
    Hoping to add a "human" touch to future services, Google has acquired speech synthesis technology provider Phonetic Arts. Translation: "The grand plan for Google is to enhance the robo-voices when a computer speaks to you," ZDNet explains. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. "Google Translate talks to you and rest assured Android devices will be yapping more often too." In a blog post, Google said Phonetic Arts researchers and engineers are hoping to deliver natural computer speech from small samples of recorded voice. According to ZDNet, Phonetic Arts has a series of products ranging from …
  • Hey, Local Media! It's Your Time to Shine!
    Amid a white-hot market for local commerce and advertising, paidContent asks the obvious question: Where's local media, and why aren't they cashing in on their well-placed position?! From Google going after Groupon to Amazon investing $175 million in LivingSocial, the focus on local "should finally mean boom-time for local newspapers, long out in the wilderness during an online age whose abundance had undermined their historical lock-down on local ad sales," paidContent explains. As is painfully obvious, local media has very little to do with what paidContent calls "the booming crop of next-generation local ad services." Relative trailblazers …
  • Report: Google Will Take NY
    From Madison Avenue to Silicon Alley, it looks like Google has truly taken a shine to the Big Apple. Indeed, sources tell The Wall Street Journal that the search giant has signed a contract worth nearly $2 billion to buy the building that houses its New York City offices. In grand Google fashion, "The deal for the massive 2.9-million-square-foot property at 111 Eighth Avenue is the biggest for a single building in the U.S. this year," The Journal reports. Tenants include Nike, the Lifetime cable channel and WebMD, while about a third of its space is reportedly …
  • Amazon Stakes 'Local' Claim
    Likely preempting Google grabbing Groupon, Amazon has taken a $175 million stake in rival deal site LivingSocial. As TechCrunch notes, "This comes at an interesting time for both companies, amidst even more rumors that competitors Google and Groupon will hook up to the tune of $5.3 billion in the coming weeks." Under the headline, "Amazon Deal Shows 'Local' Is New E-commerce Buzz," The Wall Street Journal writes: "Behind the [acquisition] activity is a wider renaissance in e-commerce, which for years had developed little beyond the auction system pioneered by eBay and the …
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