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Posts Tagged ‘Stake’

Weekly Poll: What Companies Will Be at the Top of the Cloud in the Next 5 Years

We take a look at the future of cloud computing services this week. We want to know: What companies do you think will be at the top of the cloud world in five years?

This past week, we had 93 people respond to the question:
‘Is There A Place For Open-Source in the Data Center?” The respondents were pretty much in full support of the open approach. Of the 93 people who responded, 83 said, yes, there is a place for open-source. But we wonder what it will take to get such a movement to a pace of note. We do have faith in the open-source way but how will this effort transfer to the data center?

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The organizers have the right idea.

Michael Manos of Loose Bolts writes:

“If you think of the Linux movement, and all of those who actively participate in submitting enhancements, features, even pulling together specific build packages for distribution, one could even see such things emerging in the data center engineering realm. In fact with the myriad of emerging technologies assisting in more energy efficiency, greater densities, differences in approach to economization (air or water), use of containers or non use of containers, its easy to see the potential for this component based design.”

Let’s move on to this week’s question. It’s certainly true that cloud computing is one of the most category filled markets you can find. Platform-as-a-Service, Software-as-a-Service – the list goes on.

What companies do you think will be at the top of the cloud world in five years?opinion

We do see the same big name companies making their stake in the market, no matter what their category. It’s evident that there will likely be a handful standing over the next several years. Who will they be?

Discuss

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Incubator Betaworks raises $20M

Betaworks, the New York-based startup incubator and early-stage investor, has raised $20 million in a second round of funding.

The firm, which focuses on real-time web startups, was founded by former AOL executives John Borthwick and Andrew Weisman. Betaworks has made 24 investments so far, taking a big stake in five companies — Bit.ly, Chartbeat, Tweetdeck, Twitterfeed, and a stealth startup — according to GigaOm. Although the firm is commonly known as an incubator, Borthwick reportedly prefers to compare it to a holding company like InterActiveCorp.

The new round was led by Intel Capital (Betaworks’ first Bay Area investor) and past backer RRE Ventures, with participation from Softbank, Founders Collective, DFJ Growth, AOL Ventures and the New York Times. Betaworks previously raised $8 million.

Companies: Betaworks, Intel Capital, RRE Ventures

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Zynga Cofounder Andrew Trader Out

One of the cofounders of Zynga, the company’s executive vice president of sales and business development Andrew Trader, is no longer with the company, we’ve confirmed. He has been quietly removed from the company’s management page. Remaining cofounders – Mark Pincus, Michael Luxton, Eric Schiermeyer, Justin Waldron and Steve Schoettler, remain.

As of a month ago Trader’s title had been downgraded to VP of Partnerships and Studio Services, although no top sales or business development replacement executive has yet been named.

Why is he gone? No one is saying. CEO Mark Pincus says only “AT [Andrew Trader] and zynga have parted ways. He made an awesome contribution. We need to continue scaling the company.” Trader hasn’t yet returned a phone call asking for his comment.

Zynga’s revenue growth has been nothing short of astronomical over the last 18 months, so it would be hard to blame him for not bringing in the dollars. Perhaps he took the fall for the Scamville saga although that has largely blown over now.

Trader was with Zynga nearly three years, so he’s vested on a lot of his stock. Given how much money is at stake, the whole story about why the first cofounder of Zynga has left the building may never come out. Zynga raised $180 million in December 2009, at a rumored valuation of above $2 billion.

And no, I have no idea why he’s holding a banana in the picture.

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Tiffen Smoothee brings Steadicam to the iPhone 3GS

We had no idea the market of iPhone filmmakers out there was big enough to support pro-quality accessories, but it looks like we were mistaken: Tiffen just announced the Smoothee Steadicam rig for all you mobile Tarantinos out there. As with all Steadicam rigs, the Smoothee stabilizes a handheld camera by means of a counterweight, and the phone cradle can also be detached and mounted on a tripod or used as a stand on a flat surface. No pricing or availability yet, but those things don’t matter when your masterpiece is at stake. Video after the break.

Continue reading Tiffen Smoothee brings Steadicam to the iPhone 3GS

Tiffen Smoothee brings Steadicam to the iPhone 3GS originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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No Flirting! Social Network Badoo Is Banned In Iran

Badoo, a social network popular in emerging markets like Russia and Brazil, has been banned in Iran. As of December 2009 Badoo says it had broken the 50 million user mark globally, with 250,000 of those coming from Iran. Pictured is the text that comes up when trying to access Badoo from inside Iran.

Badoo runs a fine line between a social network and a dating or (more accurately) a flirting site, but it is not at all political. It may be this flirtatious aspect of the site which has inflamed the ire of the strict Islamic authorities – however, there has been no official reason given.

In January 2008 Badoo pulled in $30m from Russian investor Finam for a 10% stake. The money was to build the service in Russia and other emerging markets.

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Why is porn one of the top web searches by kids?

Sex and porn were the No. 4 and 5 search terms for kids, according to a recent survey by Symantec’s Norton OnlineFamily division.

This reminds me of a story. I was writing a story in my home office about a porn company that was buying a stake in another company. (It wound up not being published). Then my nine-year old came into my office and asked, “Daddy, what’s porn?”

Not knowing what to say, I just barked, “Get out of my office!” She didn’t ask it again. But then I started thinking. “What happens if she goes to her mother now and asks, ‘What is porn?’”

My wife would ask, “Where did you hear that?”

And my kid would say, “I saw it on Daddy’s computer.” Or, if my wife punted the question, I could see my kid asking the teacher at school, and the teacher wondering why my kid saw porn on her Daddy’s computer. I headed those conversations off by going directly to my wife and telling her the story. So I can understand why kids would search about these words that are so pervasive in our society. They’re curious to know what they mean, and of course it should be up to parents, and not search engines, to tell the kids what they mean, in the proper context and time. I’m trying to think if “Never mind” would work if my kid ever asks again.

Some of those results were amusing. The No. 4 search term for boys was “sex” while for girls it was “Taylor Swift.” But sex was No. 5 for girls. Michael Jackson was the top celebrity search, coming in at No. 12 overall, and Taylor Swift came in at 13. While searching for celebrity names seems safe, Norton has noted that cybercriminals love to take advantage of well-known names to embed malware in deceptive web pages.

Symantec said it did the survey through its site OnlineFamily.Norton to help foster conversations among families. Thankfully, in 2009, sex and porn were not at the very top of the list. At the top were YouTube, Google, and Facebook. Norton notes that while these sites can be entertaining and educational, parents shold talk with kids to talk about what’s appropriate when viewing videos online, searching for info, and interacting on social networks.

The Facebook search is also at the top of my mind. My 13-year-old asked for a Facebook page, and my immediate answer was no and that they weren’t old enough. But I checked Facebook’s rules, and now the social network is open to 13-year-olds. So we’re overdue to have the conversation about Internet safety and predators and all of that other stuff it’s worth warning a kid about before they join Facebook.

The survey was conducted between Feb. 2 and Dec 4. this year, tracking a total of 14.6 million searches on OnlineFamily.Norton, which tracks the Internet activities of children.

[photo credit: Flickr, Dalbera]

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Comcast deal to buy NBC is done, will be announced Thursday

We told you we had a feeling this thing was happening — less than a day after GE consolidated ownership of NBC Universal in preparation to spin it off and sell a controlling stake to Comcast, CNBC is reporting that the deal is actually done and will be announced Thursday morning. As rumored from the start, Comcast will now own 51 percent of NBC to GE’s 49 percent, and the new company will fold in Comcast’s various content assets, which means the new NBC will rival Disney in size. That’s a big enchilada, and it should make the future of Comcast intiatives like TV Everywhere extremely interesting. Of course, all this still has to go through the FCC and FTC, and we wouldn’t expect anything to be approved and finalized for a year, but none of that takes away from the magnitude of this deal. We’ll obviously know more in a couple days, stay tuned.

Comcast deal to buy NBC is done, will be announced Thursday originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Russian Social Strategy Game Raises $5 Million

We all know social games are hot right now, and that’s as true in Russia – a large and growing market – as anywhere else. Now Russian online game developer Nival Network has closed a $5 million round from an undisclosed investor but will use the funds to develop Prime World, its online strategy game with social networking features aimed at the Russia and former Soviet countries.

Nival Network is currently majority owned by founder and CEO Sergey Orlovskiy. Software vendor 1C Group owns a 30% stake in Nival Network, reports Quintura.

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