BLOG STARTUPS, VENTURE AND THE TECH BUSINESS
March 9 2012
by Thanasis Delistathis
Takeaways from Jobs’ biography
I recently finished reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. It was a fascinating retrospective of Jobs the business person, but also Steve Jobs the individual. I already knew a lot about his role in starting Apple and eventually saving the company, but very few things about his personal life and character. Visionaries that drive ...
March 8 2012
by John Backus
Serendipity, not Search, Finds Top Apps
Much has been written about the explosive growth of smartphones and tablets, but apps are what make them useful and are driving their adoption. IDC estimates mobile app downloads will reach nearly 182.7 billion in 2015. There are now nearly one million apps, mostly for Apple and Android devices, and Gartner projected app revenue from ...
March 8 2012
by John Backus
Wake up DC!
I was proud and humbled to be honored by the Northern Virginia Technology Council this month with a “lifetime achievement” award – by the NVTC Entrepreneur Center – for helping entrepreneurs across more than a decade. While I think I have a decade or two left in me to help entrepreneurs, I gave some quick ...
March 5 2012
by Scott Johnson
Web Video Ads That Don’t Suck
We all skip them as fast as we can, those despicable pre-roll video ads that keep us from our video content. They are intrusive and annoying, and at best lead to disappointing recall, at worst negative brand association. We tolerate them on broadcast TV because they have always been there, and that is a lean-back, ...
March 1 2012
by Scott Johnson
Why I Invested in YieldBot
YieldBot takes the largest advertising demand pool on the internet (search), and plugs it into publisher inventory, the largest source of supply. Advertisers add YieldBot to their keyword buys, and YieldBot delivers high performing, intent driven clicks, just like a search engine. They do this with exceedingly clever analytics that reveal intent, the currency of ...
February 23 2012
by Scott Johnson
Why I Invested In Truveris (Again)
Today Truveris announced a follow-on round of financing of $10 million led by new investor New Leaf Ventures. The cash is key, but what we are really excited about is Phillippe Chambon, one of the smartest healthcare investors on the planet, has joined the company’s Board. With Bryan Birch, a PBM industry veteran as CEO, ...
February 16 2012
by Todd Hixon
Going Viral On The Mobile Web
John Doerr usually gets credit for describing the potential of the Internet to create a “new economy” (however, a Google search credits Clement Mok). Whoever said it, the point was: the bricks-and-mortar economy was about to be recreated in the virtual space of the Internet, and in many ways it has been. Today there’s a ...
February 14 2012
by Scott Johnson
2012 Continued: My Take on The Cloud and Innovation
I know – blogging about the cloud has long ago jumped the shark. But I will press forth regardless, because I said I would in a previous post, and because both the smartphone and cloud computing are under-hyped. Properly hyped, the situation sounds something like this: Smartphones accessing cloud services comprise the greatest platform for ...
January 31 2012
by Todd Hixon
My Three Biggest Tablet Computer Surprises Of 2011
Las Vegas recently hosted the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (“CES”). At CES 2011, “The Year Of The Tablet” was proclaimed, but that struck me as the hyperbole of bloggers hungry for a tag line. Nine months in to the tablet era, Apple was off to a great start, and lots of other vendors had announced ...
January 31 2012
by Todd Hixon
Android: The Consequences Of Open
The Other Side Of Open | TechCrunch The link above leads to a post by TechCrunch’s MG Siegler about the perils of the open Android OS to Google: major competitors will hijack Android by building their own version, and then lock Google’s services out. MG observes that Amazon is starting to do this: the Kindle ...
