Mashable: Latest 8 News Updates - including “Is Facebook Worth $41 Billion?” |
- Is Facebook Worth $41 Billion?
- Why Huddle’s Collaboration Tool Appeals to Big Business and Government
- With a 50 Friends Limit, Path Is the Opposite of Twitter
- This Has Been a Test: GoDaddy Makes .COM Default Again
- Should Your Startup Apply for the sFund?
- Startup Advice: Inside Tips From Expert Entrepreneurs [VIDEO]
- AOL Unveils “Project Phoenix,” Its New Webmail App
- 5 Ways to Promote Your Social Media Efforts Offline
- 35 New Social Media Resources You May Have Missed
| Is Facebook Worth $41 Billion? Posted: 15 Nov 2010 01:52 AM PST      In the last couple of years – it seems like forever, really – the tech world has been fixed on finding how much the biggest social network, Facebook, is worth. Right now, if you trust the valuations at SecondMarket – an online marketplace for trading with otherwise illiquid assets – Facebook is currently worth around 41 billion dollars, Businessweek has learned from a source familiar with the matter. Back in 2007, Facebook was said to be worth $15 billion; its valuation “dropped” to a “meager” 3.7 billion at recession’s peak, but it rose unstoppably ever since. In September, the Financial Times said Facebook was worth $33 billion, which meant it was bigger than eBay, a publicly traded company that was then valued at $32 billion. Now, with a $41 billion “valuation” Facebook is once again edging over eBay, which is currently valued at $39.3 billion. Of course, all these numbers and valuations that are thrown around Facebook have one thing in common – they’re not real. Yes, Facebook is one of the hottest technology companies around, and yes, lately it’s been showing solid business results. But the current “valuation” is less concerned with the business side of things – eBay’s revenue, for example, is expected to top $9 billion this year – and more with expectations, which start somewhere at Facebook further expanding its huge user base and increasing ad sales, and end at over one billion users and world dominance. Unrealistic? Who knows. Risky? Definitely: one only needs to look back at MySpace and how quickly it fell from a social networking powerhouse to a has-been. You can trust the current Facebook valuations on SecondMarket, and if you’re feeling really bullish about social networking and Facebook’s future, feel free to raise the bar even higher. But have in mind that only after Facebook goes through with an IPO, the market will determine its value. Until then, its valuations are mostly speculation. More About: 41 billion, facebook, SecondMarket, social network, stock, valuation For more Business coverage:
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| Why Huddle’s Collaboration Tool Appeals to Big Business and Government Posted: 15 Nov 2010 12:40 AM PST    This post is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark as a new part of the Spark of Genius series that focuses on a new and innovative startup each day. Once a week, the program focuses on startups within the BizSpark program and what they’re doing to grow.Huddle makes web-based project management software. The three-year-old startup is now reporting 300% year over year growth in users and revenue — no small feat considering the elephant in the room (in the cloud) that is Basecamp. But Huddle, which closed an additional $10 million in funding from repeat investors earlier this year, has shifted its focus to the enterprise, a tougher nut to crack then the original target audience of SMBs. Right now the startup is hitching a ride on the coattails of two trends: “consumerization of IT and the social revolution,” says CEO and Co-founder Alastair Mitchell. In so doing, Huddle has managed to land a slew of businesses, big and small, including Disney, P&G, Kia Motors and the Belgian Federal Public Service Social Security as customers. Part of the appeal, explains Mitchell, is that Huddle build tools that are fundamentally easier to use than traditional enterprise software and ultimately made with IT departments in mind. Made with IT in MindWhile Huddle’s primary marketing strategy is based around system-engineered person-to-person project workspace invitations, the startup is also making inroads with IT departments by shooting to make their lives easier. “Central IT departments have realised that the traditional tools deployed to enable and support collaboration are fundamentally broken. With 90 percent of collaboration happening between teams, departments and companies across firewalls, the inward-looking legacy systems simply don't work,” says Mitchell. The problem, explains Mitchell, is that IT departments have invested massive resources implementing these internal systems, that they “simply aren't in a position where they can rip them out and start again.” Workers, he says, choose external SaaS tools to avoid the frustration of using these legacy systems. Because Huddle works in conjunction with SharePoint and Microsoft Office, is built to be secure, works cross-platform and across the firewall, and is user-friendly, Mitchell believes that the service satisfies all parties’ interests. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Huddle’s customers help champion their cause. “People are now so used to being able to buy applications on their cell phones, they expect the same power and simplicity to be available in the office. People are also accustomed to using simple, flexible web-based tools — such as Facebook and Twitter — to communicate with people in their social lives and they want this ease of use to be available in the enterprise. They are now selecting the tools that they want to use to get a job done and presenting their case to the central IT department,” details Mitchell. Huddle’s Real Competition There are a number of competing startups and big businesses with their sights set on the same enterprise-class audience, but Mitchell says the company’s biggest competitor is e-mail. “Huddle competes with traditional enterprise content management and collaboration solutions, such as Microsoft SharePoint, IBM Lotus Connections and Cisco, at one end of the scale and prosumer web productivity tools on the other. These include the likes of Box.net and Basecamp. But we actually view email as our biggest competitor,” explains Mitchell. The reason being that business users gravitate towards e-mail as their primary communication tool. “But e-mail is a terrible collaboration tool … You get content clogging up people's inboxes and no one has visibility of the final versions of documents. You end up with chaos,” says Mitchell. It follows, then, that Huddle’s primary purpose is to get rid of the chaos by providing collaboration tools for a variety of project and communication-related tasks. “Huddle is like Box.net plus Basecamp for adults. People grow out of these prosumer web products and turn to Huddle because we have the enterprise-grade feature set, support and security measures required by organizations,” hey says. Room for More Growth? Although we couldn’t get Huddle to go on the record with official stats on users and revenue, the startup did share that they have hundreds of thousands users and that both areas are seeing 300% growth. To sustain this upward trend, Mitchell shares that the company is focused on four areas: mobile, integration with enterprise systems, multi-language support and integration with third-party platforms. Huddle is already aggressively working on each of these goals. On the mobile front, Huddle makes applications for iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry. “With more and more devices being launched, mobile will continue to be of importance for us,” says Mitchell. Huddle also designs to be complementary to the work tools that enterprise staffers are already using — SharePoint and Office products, for instance. “We understand that many enterprises have already invested a lot of time, money and effort into rolling out traditional systems and, rather than being a 'rip and replace' service, Huddle works in parallel with these systems,” Mitchell explains. Third-party integrations are also key and bring Huddle’s functionality to users of other platforms including Xobni, Linkedin and XING. Plus, “more great platform integrations are yet to come,” Mitchell tells Mashable. Image courtesy of Flickr, Ed Yourdon Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
Reviews: Basecamp, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Mashable, Twitter, XING, Xobni, iPhone More About: bizspark, Huddle, project collaboration, startup, team coll For more Tech coverage:
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| With a 50 Friends Limit, Path Is the Opposite of Twitter Posted: 14 Nov 2010 10:59 PM PST   Stealth startup Path has finally launched after months of hype, speculation and rumors; in many ways, it is the anti-social network. Path calls itself “The Personal Network” because it’s determined to go against the example set by Twitter’s follower model; you are limited to just 50 friends on Path. It chose the 50 number based on the theories of Oxford Professor of Evolutionary Psychology Robin Dunbar, who claims that 150 is the maximum number of social relationships any human can handle. “Because your personal network is limited to your 50 closest friends and family, you can always trust that you can post any moment, no matter how personal,” the company said in its announcement blog post. “Path is a place where you can be yourself.” So what exactly is Path? It is a suite of applications (starting today with the iPhone) focused on intimate photo and picture-sharing. All you do is share pictures and three pieces of information to give them context: people, places and things. As part of its mission to be a personal network, Path has spurned the usual social networking norms; likes, comments, and photo sharing on your other social networks are nowhere to be found. There are no photo filters or viral photos like you might find on Instagram. Path has received a lot of attention because of its founding team: former Facebook senior platform manager Dave Morin, Macster co-creator Dustin Mierau and Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning. The company raised a blockbuster seed funding round with angel investors like Kevin Rose, Ron Conway and Paul Buchheit. Is Path’s go against the grind approach a recipe for success? It’s going to get a lot of attention and a lot of downloads based on the reputation of its founders alone, but whether that translates into consistent, active users could be another story. Then again, the power of exclusivity could work in Path’s favor.  Reviews: Facebook, Twitter More About: Dave Morin, facebook, iphone, iphone app, napster, Path, trending For more Social Media coverage:
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| This Has Been a Test: GoDaddy Makes .COM Default Again Posted: 14 Nov 2010 07:27 PM PST   Yesterday we noted that popular domain name registrar GoDaddy made .CO the default top-level domain for newly registered domain names. Now GoDaddy has returned the default to .COM — the initial switch was apparently just a test. But that doesn’t mean the trend is any different. Regardless of whether it was permanent or temporary, GoDaddy’s switch was a signal that the American and international web is moving away from the now-crowded .COM standard. We’re anxious to see what GoDaddy learned in its test, but if you look at the registrar’s Twitter conversations you’ll see that quite a few people jumped on the bandwagon and embraced .CO domain names with their new registrations. The move away from .COM is inevitable because there simply aren’t that many .COM domains left. You’d be hard-pressed to find your first choice without going for something else — it’s just a question of which extension will be the most popular successor. Right now .CO is a promising contender. .CO is actually held by the Republic of Colombia, but just like the island nation Tuvalu (which holds the .tv domain), residents and officials in the country believe that their domain can be lucrative. According to a BBC report, one quarter of the .CO registry’s revenue goes to the Colombian government. More About: .co, com, domain, domain name, domain registrar, godaddy, GoDaddy.com, registrar, test, web For more Tech coverage:
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| Should Your Startup Apply for the sFund? Posted: 14 Nov 2010 05:51 PM PST   This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. Esteemed venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins launched a new fund called sFund last month. That’s not specifically remarkable; VC firms launch new funds all the time. What makes the sFund remarkable are its other key investors: Facebook, Amazon and Zynga. Not only are these major tech companies investors, but they’re also offering startups funded by the sFund advice, perks and “relationship capital” to give them an advantage over their competition. What is the sFund all about? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the fund? And finally, is it something your startup should consider applying for? Let’s take a quick look. sFund Q&AQ: What exactly is the sFund? Q: What makes the sFund unique? Q: Who has been funded by sFund? Q: What is the biggest advantage to being funded by sFund? Q: What is the biggest disadvantage to being funded by sFund? Q: I have a startup and I’m looking for funding. Should I apply for sFund? More Funding Resources from Mashable:
Image Courtesy of Flickr, KPCB Reviews: Facebook, Flickr More About: business, cafebots, funding, investors, sfund, small business, startup, startups, vc, vcs, venture capital, venture capitalist For more Business coverage:
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| Startup Advice: Inside Tips From Expert Entrepreneurs [VIDEO] Posted: 14 Nov 2010 04:47 PM PST When the dot-com bubble burst in early 2000, many investors lost 80% to 90% of their net worth; some lost even more. The CEOs of those tech startups fared no better. Many companies that were once million dollar babies soon became the laughing stock of Wall Street. But, after a slow and deliberate crawl back to a state of equilibrium, the startup scene is thriving once again. To gauge the pulse of today’s tech startup ecosystem, we spoke to a group of New York-based entrepreneurs and investors. We asked the CEOs of Learnvest, Roadify, Hunch, and HowAboutWe what it’s like to pitch, run and grow a company. We also asked angel investor David B. Lerner and seed-stage venture capitalist Brett Martin what they’re looking for when they evaluate a company. How healthy do you think today’s tech startup ecosystem is? Are you a founder? Investor? Enthusiast? Let us know what you think in the comments section below. More Business Resources from Mashable:
Reviews: Hunch More About: angel, business, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, investment, media, Mobile 2.0, small business, startup, tech, venture capital, video
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| AOL Unveils “Project Phoenix,” Its New Webmail App Posted: 14 Nov 2010 03:36 PM PST   AOL this afternoon unveiled an updated web client for e-mail, which it says accounts for 45% of all its page views. The announcement and new features have arrived just one day before Facebook is expected to announce an e-mail solution of its own. The new e-mail app — currently called “Project Phoenix” — is in beta testing with just a few users, but it will launch to the public next year sometime. It’s part of a recent spat of AOL moves to reinvigorate a once-great brand that has recently been eclipsed by newer ventures like Google and Facebook. The company recently launched a Groupon-like group-buying site and acquired the popular tech blog TechCrunch — those are just a couple of its recent moves. The webmail redesign is a particularly notable move because of that 45% figure we just mentioned. According to CNET, the new design “looks a lot like Gmail” with some extra features added in, such as a quick bar for easily writing and sending short e-mails. There’s also a new Twitter-like side bar called “Smart View” for previewing the contents of e-mails and their attachments, as well as maps, conversation threads and other data. Phoenix supports e-mail addresses on the AOL-owned domains aol.com, ygm.com, wow.com, games.com and love.com, and it will also bring in messages from Yahoo Mail, Hotmail or Gmail. If you’re interested in trying it out, you can go to the Project Phoenix website and request an invite, but you’ll be waiting a little while. Reviews: Facebook, Google, MSN Hotmail, gmail More About: america online, aol, AOL mail, App, e-mail, Mail, Phoenix, project phoenix, webmail For more Social Media coverage:
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| 5 Ways to Promote Your Social Media Efforts Offline Posted: 14 Nov 2010 01:07 PM PST   This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. The real world is often overlooked when small businesses try to raise awareness of their online efforts. But with a few clear exceptions, people still do most of their living offline. Physical space can be as good of a place as any to advertise your website, social media accounts and blogs. There are a bevy of creative ways to get your online properties in people’s offline views, and we’ve got the photographic evidence to prove it. These seven strategies will help you kick-start your brainstorm for the perfect offline efforts for your online strategy. If you’ve already dabbled in promoting your social media efforts offline, let us know which ways were successful in the comments below. Don’t forget links to pictures! 1. Integrate Your Web Presence into Offline Advertising Jeweler Samuel Gordon ran this full-page magazine ad in a local publication. It includes the company Twitter account, Facebook Page, iPhone App and a QR code for its Android App.  The folks at Martin Flyer linked to their website with a QR code on their ad in InStyle Magazine. You can learn more about using QR codes for small business marketing here. 2. Make Traditional Business Cards Online-Friendly Maria Todd, the CEO of Mercury Healthcare, frequently speaks to associations and healthcare professionals. She includes a special tracer code on her business cards and Facebook Fan Page that gives those who use the code a 25% discount on future webinars, seminars and speaking engagements. In order to view her schedule, you need to visit her Facebook Fan Page.  Social media-friendly business cards give others more options for connecting with you. At appbistro, employees add Twitter handles to their business cards. “It’s simple, but when people want to reconnect with you, it’s always there as a reminder,” says Heath Black, the owner of this card. 3. Use Your Vehicle as a Billboard BumperTwit will help you turn your car into a billboard for your Twitter account for $7.  Jay Ducote runs a blog called biteandbooze.com about food trucks in Baton Rouge. “The Baton Rouge food truck scene is emerging, and [trucks] heavily use social media to promote where they are located at any given time,” he says. “In order to increase their social media following, they all promote their social media accounts on their trucks.” 4. Integrate Online Components into Offline Events BestSmallBizHelp.com invited small business owners to come together to blog about each others’ companies. It named the shindig a “blog party.” For details on how to start your own, see its website.  H20 Audio took photos and short videos of people using its waterproof headphones at a promotional event. They posted the images in a Facebook gallery and then directed everyone at the event to the brand’s Facebook Page to vote for favorites. People who were out of town could also submit photos online. 5. Get Creative To promote his reflective bike tape business, Brent Thomas sends postcards with a QR code that may link to videos, pictures or his website. Thomas also organized a scavenger hunt to promote his product. He announced the hunt on his blog, hid free BikeWrappers all around the city, and disclosed their locations over Twitter. The first one was found 20 minutes after the first Tweet.  ItsMyURLs.com co-founder Mukhtar Mohamed wore some hi-tech bling (yes, that’s an iPad) to demo the profile aggregator website in Harvard Square, Mass.  When Page.ly hands out a T-shirt, it comes with a label that asks the recipient to add a “Page.ly” tag to photos that show the shirt on Flickr. T-shirt wearers’ photos then show up on the Page.ly website.  The team members from Brazilian social media agency Agencia de Sites showed up to the Social Media Brasil conference with their personal Twitter handles displayed on each of their “jerseys.” More Business Resources from Mashable:
Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, ItsMyURLs.com, Page.ly, Twitter More About: BumperTwit, business, business cards, Foodtruck, List, Lists, offline marketing, qr code, small business, social media, trending, twitter For more Business coverage:
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| 35 New Social Media Resources You May Have Missed Posted: 14 Nov 2010 11:11 AM PST   We’re back with another jam-packed roundup of social media tips and tricks. We’ve been working hard to make sure you have enough to read as the temperature starts dropping, but with this many new tools and resources, we understand if you missed one or two stories. To help, we;ve gathered 35 of our most useful post from the past week or so to make sure you stay on top of your digital game. Social Media looks at five captivating personalities, tips for maximizing Facebook “Likes,” and talks social media with Late Night host Jimmy Fallon. Tech & Mobile features some amazing crowdsourced art, analyzes the “dumbphone” market, and helps you get started developing apps. Business takes a closer look at brand names, startup lessons for Madison Avenue, and even some great Drupal themes for small business. Looking for even more social media resources? This guide appears every weekend, and you can check out all the lists-gone-by here any time. Social Media
For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook. Tech & Mobile
For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook. Business
For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook. [Image courtesy of Webtreats] Reviews: Android, App Store, Drupal, Facebook, Google, Internet, Mashable, Pandora, Spotify, Twitter, social media More About: business, facebook, Features Week In Review, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, small business, social media, tech, technology, trend, trending, twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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