It’s a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for the Frontback community right now. On July 23rd, the company announced that it would shut down on August 15th after two years. But something highly unexpected happened. A new team is taking over at Frontback and the service will stay open after August 15th. Read More
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Microsoft announced this morning the acquisition of Austin, Texas-based Incent Games, the makers of a “sales gamification” platform called FantasySalesTeam. As the name implies, the company’s software allows sales organizations to run contests that are similar to those found in fantasy sports. Microsoft says today it will make this feature available to its own customers in… Read More
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WizRocket, which helps companies increase user engagement by fine-tuning mobile, web, and e-mail notifications, has raised $8 million in new funding from Sequoia Capital and returning investor Accel Partners.
The Palo Alto-based startup will use its fresh capital to launch an API for developers and a new engagement platform. Along with a previous seed round from Accel, this brings… Read More
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Xiaomi regained its crown as the top smartphone firm in China during Q2 2015, according to reports from two analyst firms. The Chinese company, which is valued at more than $40 billion and recently launched in Brazil, topped the scales in China with 15.9 percent of all shipments, according to figures from Canalys’. Apple, which was first in China in the previous quarter, fell to third,… Read More
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The K-Y-A in KYA Anlytics stands for “Know Your Audience,” and founder and CEO Jeff Weisbein said that’s exactly what he’s trying to help online publishers do. Weisbein has been in those shoes himself, have created and run the tech site BestTechie for more than a decade (though he took some time away from it to work as an analyst at Mashwork, now known as Canvs.tv).… Read More
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It’s no secret that the growth of publicly available data, or open data, is more prevalent than ever. From government databases, such as those aggregated by Data.gov, to data made available via tools such as Google Places API — the public has access to an overwhelming amount of information. Read More
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About a year ago, Michael Lopp joined Pinterest as the company’s head of engineering — filling in the leadership of the engineering side next to co-founder Evan Sharp and CEO Ben Silbermann. Much of his role, since joining, has been to help teams at Pinterest, which consist of units of engineers, designers and product managers, mesh and work well together. Lopp comes from both… Read More
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On the heels of Homejoy’s failure, the fundamental “on-demand marketplace” model has come into question by investors, the media and even consumers. That questioning is very relevant, as there has been an overload of VC money that has been injected in the on-demand service platform space over the past few years ($4 billion-plus in 2014). Read More
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The FDA is currently considering clinical trials for a drug that would delay aging. The idea of extending human longevity is a controversial one, with some arguing for immortality and others arguing that a lifespan into the mid-70s is perfectly adequate. So is the drug good or bad? As an investor in science and technology, this is a non-trivial question for me. Read More
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Yahoo just announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire style-focused community Polyvore. In a blog post about the deal, Yahoo’s senior vice president of publisher products Simon Khalaf highlighted “Polyvore’s expertise on community-driven experiences and retailer-supported commerce” and wrote that the deal “will accelerate Yahoo’s digital… Read More
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