The Rise And Future Of The New York Startup Ecosystem

The Rise And Future Of The New York Startup Ecosystem

Posted 20 minutes ago by Nick Beim (@NickBeim)

Like many who have been active in the New York startup ecosystem over the past decade, I am optimistic about its future. The last 10 years have seen an increasing number of startup successes in New York. Read more of this post

What Can Indian Startups Learn From The Facebook Acquisition That Didn’t Happen

What Can Indian Startups Learn From The Facebook Acquisition That Didn’t Happen

Posted 13 hours ago by Pankaj Mishra (@pankajontech)

Little Eye Labs was not the only acquisition Facebook was chasing in India last year. Salorix, a social media analytics startup that had raised $3.5 million in Series A from Inventus Capital Partners and Nexus Venture Partners in November 2011, was approached by Facebook in October last year. But by December, the acquisition talks were stalled. Read more of this post

WhatsApp and the Wild, Weird, Wacky World of Investing

WhatsApp and the Wild, Weird, Wacky World of Investing

26 FEB 2014 – VITALIY KATSENELSON

Recently, in a conversation with another investor, I referred to a company’s management as being “extremely honest.” I was corrected, that honesty is binary and cannot be described with an adjective — a person is either honest or not. Read more of this post

WhatsApp and Tesla set the scene for soaring valuations; Danger that valuations will touch off a wider euphoria

February 27, 2014 6:11 pm

WhatsApp and Tesla set the scene for soaring valuations

By Richard Waters

Danger that valuations will touch off a wider euphoria

It is often a sign of a bubble when analysts and commentators rush to explain away each new upward step in valuations – and then come up with expansive arguments to justify why prices should be even higher. Read more of this post

Missing at Mobile World Congress: Innovation

Missing at Mobile World Congress: Innovation

This Year’s Show Offered Another Cascade of Glass-Slab Devices That Varied in Size and, Maybe, Color

SAM SCHECHNER

Feb. 27, 2014 3:25 p.m. ET

Startups have taken over the old home of Mobile World Congress. Christopher Pommerening, a venture capitalist and organizer of the ‘Four Years From Now’ project, explains why he wants to get mobile startups and investors together in a single place. Read more of this post

Baidu’s Search for Elusive Profit Growth

Baidu’s Search for Elusive Profit Growth

AARON BACK

Updated Feb. 27, 2014 11:41 a.m. ET

China’s online-search behemoth Baidu BIDU +3.48% is doing what it must to stay competitive. But in a theme Chinese Internet investors should get used to, profit growth isn’t going to be as bubbly as previously hoped.

That was the company’s message to investors Thursday. Revenue surged by 50% from a year earlier in the fourth quarter while profits were flat, as expected. But in a conference call with analysts, Baidu Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Li dropped a bombshell, saying the company doesn’t expect any increase in profit this year as it continues to invest. Pity the analysts, who according to FactSet had optimistically forecast a 31% rise in 2014 net profit. Now they are asking where the money will be spent. Read more of this post

Copycat Business Model Generates Genuine Global Success for Start-Up Incubator

Copycat Business Model Generates Genuine Global Success for Start-Up Incubator

By MARK SCOTTFEB. 27, 2014

BERLIN — For Linio, think Amazon for Mexicans. For Zalora, think Zappos for Malaysians. For Easy Taxi, think Uber for Nigerians.

And for all of them, think Rocket Internet, a budding tech empire here in Germany’s capital. Read more of this post

3D Systems Prints Everything But Money

3D Systems Prints Everything But Money

SPENCER JAKAB

Updated Feb. 27, 2014 4:33 p.m. ET

It is appropriate that a movie starring molded blocks of polymer, “The Lego Movie,” is tearing up the box office. Three-dimensional printing, a technology that can turn plastic and other materials into almost anything, has been a runaway hit on Wall Street recently. Read more of this post

Telcos ‘may cut network investments’ if they can’t ride on app messaging wave

Telcos ‘may cut network investments’ if they can’t ride on app messaging wave

SINGAPORE — Telcos and over-the-top (OTT) providers such as messaging giant WhatsApp need to work out their relationship to avoid the risk of the former cutting back on network investments as they have not found a way to monetise the growing popularity of OTT services, analysts said, following the SingTel Chief Executive’s call to allow telcos to charge OTT providers for the use of their network.

BY TAN WEIZHEN –

FEBRUARY 28

SINGAPORE — Telcos and over-the-top (OTT) providers such as messaging giant WhatsApp need to work out their relationship to avoid the risk of the former cutting back on network investments as they have not found a way to monetise the growing popularity of OTT services, analysts said, following the SingTel Chief Executive’s call to allow telcos to charge OTT providers for the use of their network. Read more of this post

Berkshire in advanced talks to buy H&F’s Catalina Marketing which has the world’s largest shopper history database; EBITDA $230m

Berkshire in advanced talks to buy H&F’s Catalina Marketing – sources

6:01pm EST

By Soyoung Kim and Greg Roumeliotis

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Private equity firm Berkshire Partners LLC is in the late stage of negotiations to buy Catalina Marketing Corp from Hellman & Friedman LLC, according to people familiar with the matter, in a deal expected to be worth more than $2 billion. Read more of this post

How a lonely Aussie student inspired $US19 billion WhatsApp

How a lonely Aussie student inspired $US19 billion WhatsApp

February 25, 2014

David Ramli

Australia’s tyranny of distance and excessively expensive phone call charges are what transformed WhatsApp into the $US19 billion ($21 billion) company it is today, according to its co-founder and chief executive Jan Koum. Read more of this post

The Unlikely Tale of How ARM Came to Rule the World

The Unlikely Tale of How ARM Came to Rule the World

By Ashlee Vance February 24, 2014

This is a story about ARM Holdings (ARMH), the mobile technology company. But before it gets going, here are a few things you need to know:
1. ARM is a company made up mostly of chip engineers. They design parts of chips—such as graphics and communication bits—and they design entire chips.
2. ARM sells these designs and licenses its chip architecture to dozens of companies, including Apple (AAPL), Samsung Electronics (005930:KS), Qualcomm (QCOM), and Nvidia (NVDA). Read more of this post

Visualizing 15 Years Of Acquisitions By Apple, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, And Facebook

Visualizing 15 Years Of Acquisitions By Apple, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, And Facebook

Posted yesterday by Josh Constine (@joshconstine)

You grow old, you slow down, and you die. That is, unless you can inject some fresh blood. After watching the last generation of tech giants wither or stagnate, today’s juggernauts are relying on acquisitions to keep them young and relevant. Check out the interactive infographic below to compare the size, frequency, and focus of the last 15 years of acquisitions by Apple, Amazon, Google, Yahoo, and Facebook. Read more of this post

How to win enemies and influence no one: Uber’s latest surge pricing snafu

How to win enemies and influence no one: Uber’s latest surge pricing snafu

BY CARMEL DEAMICIS 
ON FEBRUARY 26, 2014

If Uber had a foot, it would be permanently lodged in its mouth at this point.

The company has — yet again — blundered into a terrible publicity disaster, one that it brought upon itself. In case you missed the news, The Verge reported that Uber has been doing “surge price fixing.” Read more of this post

Big Data Comes to the Farm, Sowing Mistrust; Seed Makers Barrel Into Technology Business

Big Data Comes to the Farm, Sowing Mistrust

Seed Makers Barrel Into Technology Business

JACOB BUNGE

Feb. 25, 2014 10:38 p.m. ET

David Nelson, a farmer near Fort Dodge, Iowa, uses tractor-mounted computers to help make decisions about his plantings of corn and soybeans. Ryan Donnell for The Wall Street Journal

Big agricultural companies say the next revolution on the farm will come from feeding data gathered by tractors and other machinery into computers that tell farmers how to increase their output of crops like corn and soybeans. Read more of this post

Sam’s Club Tests Online Subscription Service as Threat From Amazon Grows

Sam’s Club Tests Online Subscription Service as Threat From Amazon Grows

SHELLY BANJO 

Updated Feb. 26, 2014 12:32 p.m. ET

Sam’s Club is quietly testing a new subscription service that allows customers to order items like diapers and printer cartridges online, a sign that Web retailers are posing a threat in areas of retail that were once considered relatively safe. Read more of this post

Hedge Fund Wants Nintendo to Make Mobile Games

Hedge Fund Wants Nintendo to Make Mobile Games

Writes to President Iwata: Think of Paying 99 Cents ‘to Get Mario to Jump a Little Higher’

MIA LAMAR

Feb. 26, 2014 9:08 a.m. ET

A Hong Kong hedge fund manager called on Nintendo Co. 7974.TO -1.96% on Wednesday to begin developing and selling mobile games, a sign of growing dissent among shareholders of the world’s largest videogame company. Read more of this post

Is Facebook Building a P&G-Style House of Brands? Long Focused on Acquiring Companies Mostly for Their Talent

Is Facebook Building a P&G-Style House of Brands?

Long Focused on Acquiring Companies Mostly for Their Talent

By Dave Knox. Published on February 20, 2014. 2

Back in 2008, I had the chance to lead Procter & Gamble’s Joint Business Planning with Facebook and other big digital media players. The intent of the Joint Business Plan wasn’t about just increasing advertising dollars. It was about sharing knowledge between the two companies with the goal of having a strategic relationship where we both became better businesses as a result. P&G expanded its digital knowledge while Facebook learned more about how brand marketers thought. Now that Facebook is buying the messaging system WhatsApp in cash and stock valued at $16 billion, it looks like the company didn’t just learn how to think like P&G; it may be becoming a P&G as well. Read more of this post

Why live video won’t save the news biz

Why live video won’t save the news biz
By: Dylan Byers
February 24, 2014 04:58 AM EST

Last July, The Washington Post launched a live video channel that its president proclaimed would be “the ESPN of politics.”

Instead, PostTV turned out to be more like a public access show. Within five months, the live content had vanished and the “channel” became little more than a clearinghouse for pre-taped video packages and recycled press briefing footage, along with the occasional original report. Read more of this post

WhatsApp shows off California’s optimism; It may well be the most overvalued purchase of all time. But you cannot fault the audacity

February 25, 2014 4:11 pm

WhatsApp shows off California’s optimism

By Luke Johnson

It may well be the most overvalued purchase of all time. But you cannot fault the audacity

Ihave just spent a week in California. As ever, it was an inspirational trip. There is something about the light, the space and the people that generates exciting ideas. It is no coincidence that the acquisition of WhatsApp, possibly the most extraordinary deal of our time, was hatched on the west coast. Anything feels possible there – both great concepts and bad dreams. Read more of this post

Web Video on Television From the Founders of TiVo

Web Video on Television From the Founders of TiVo

How much does Qplay advance the practice of streaming video on TV?

GEOFFREY A. FOWLER

Feb. 25, 2014 6:54 p.m. ET

The lives of couch potatoes changed forever when co-founders Mike Ramsay and James Barton rolled out TiVo 15 years ago. Now the folks behind the original digital video recorder want to reinvent how we watch streaming Internet video on a television. Read more of this post

Wondering What Weibo Is Worth

Wondering What Weibo Is Worth

AARON BACK

Feb. 25, 2014 5:54 a.m. ET

Sina’s microblog Weibo, once the hottest thing going in China’s Internet, has been battling perceptions that it’s in decline. Now Sina management hopes to turn that narrative around, and capitalize on sky-high tech valuations, with a partial listing of the Twitter TWTR -1.47%-like service. Read more of this post

How the Internet Was Meant to Be: Comcast and Netflix get together and solve their own problem

How the Internet Was Meant to Be

Comcast and Netflix get together and solve their own problem.

HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.

Feb. 25, 2014 7:07 p.m. ET

Yet another of their gods has let the net-neutrality faithful down.

Netflix‘s Reed Hastings routinely touted their ideal to gain leverage over downstream carriers like Comcast. CMCSA -0.74% Then a federal court in January invalidated Washington’s net-neut rules and he rushed out a statement of the obvious to reassure shareholders, saying in essence: Never mind! Comcast et. al. don’t really have an economic or political incentive to block our service. Just the opposite. Consumer expectations of the Internet are set. Carriers must supply unimpeded access to every kind of web content or else. Read more of this post