This was posted on 7 October 2016 at TechCrunch Original Here Keith Teare CRUNCH NETWORK CONTRIBUTOR Keith Teare is the co-founder of TechCrunch and today runs Palo Alto incubator Archimedes Labs. The problems associated with the widespread rumors of Twitters “for sale” status and that the management team is divided on whether or not to sell the company were compounded this morning with reports that Google, Disney and Apple will not be bidders. The stock price is down 20% to $19.79 at the time of writing. Who runs Twitter — Board or Management? The impressive Board of Directors seems to have set itself against CEO Jack Dorsey
[read more]...I took my Tapestry story on the road this week, speaking at DEMO Fall in Santa Clara Convention Center. Here is what I said: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM1gX2iLQ_k&w=420&h=315]
[read more]...This poem seem particularly pertinent to the current state of Silicon Valley. Incubators on ones side of the valley. Nothing in the Valley. Growth Capital on the other side. Most startups are dead as soon as they exit their 3 month stint. The exceptions are rare yet notable. WHAT HAPPENED TO VENTURE CAPITAL? The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Tennyson. Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. “Forward the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!” he said. Into the valley of Death Rode the six
[read more]...Fred Wilson has a response today to Eric Schmidt’s declaration in Edinburgh that Google+ is an “identity service”. He asks and answers his own question. “whom Google built this service for? You or them. And the answer to why you need to use your real name in the service is because they need you to.” Of course Facebook is also an identity service. Facebook Connect is the means of distributing it. And of course Facebook too is built using real names because “they need you to”. At this level FaceBook and Google have much in common, and both are vying
[read more]...Glam hired a new guy today. Techcrunch, VentureBeat and PaidContent all posted about it. All of the reporting on this hire focus on Glam’s coup in getting their man, and on their profitability heading into Q4. There is little in the way of analysis, which is probably quite reasonable on a news-filled Monday morning here on the West Coast.. As TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid reports: Glam Media has scored a major senior hire, landing Josh Jacobs, Yahoo’s Vice President & GM Advertising Technology Platforms who currently runs Yahoo’s entire display ad platform and previously ran the portal’s publisher network. Jacobs will
[read more]...I am re-posting this from the edgeio blog. Mainly because I think it has current relevance and will in future have historical value. I’m not certain the edgeio blog will continue to exist, so this is the new home for the post. Since it was originally written we have seen the rise of Adbrite, Glam, Sugar Publishing, Digg and other businesses based on understanding the proliferation of publishing, reading habits, and advertising away from the big portals. I also note that Chris Anderson of Long Tail fame commented on the post, something I failed to notice originally. So, here is
[read more]...Update 2:Rafat has a comment to this post pointing out that by just looking at paidcontent.org I am doing the valuation of ContentNext a disservice. Of course he is quite right. ContentNext has other sites and also events. It is also true to say – although Rafat doesn’t – that valuation has many variables, including the quality of the people etc. Rafat is very good at what he does and he has a great team. So … fair point Rafat. In my own defense, this post is not intended to be a scientific analysis of valuation. I did a “back
[read more]...As the title says I have been tagged by Dave Winer. The rules say I now have to tell you 5 things you didn’t know about me and then tag five others. So, here goes: 1. I am currently in St James, Cape Town, S Africa. It is a small area between Muizenberg and Fish Hoek (see map). 2. I own a home here – on Jacobs ladder. 3. My wife is South African – Gené McPherson. Born in Jo’burg. Her parents and one of her sisters live in Cape Town today. Gené was a co-founder of Cyberia [free subscription
[read more]...In response to the current discussion on Techmeme and TailRank hipmojo writes that the Pareto principle is in play on the internet and that no matter how much we want it to be otherwise 80% of online advertising will go to 20% of the web sites. When the dust settles, the top 20% of websites will get 80% of ad revenues. It’s that simple. Portals might change in shape, form or nature, but whatever they represent loosely will still get the bulk of revenues and traffic. With respect, that is nonsense. Since the advent of Google Adsense the shape of
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