VentureBeat
Silicon Valley news about tech money and innovation
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Finding a buyer for your start-up
(Editors note: John Ovram founder and CEO of Exit and Answers, a social community for entrepreneurs looking to sell their company. The story originally appeared on his blog.) Entrepreneurs tend to look for one of two types of buyers when they decide to sell their business. Some search for the perfec …
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Game ad firm NeoEdge merges with game developer, hires new CEO
NeoEdge, a company that offers a way to insert video ads into online games, is going through some big changes in part driven by the recession in the online ad market, but also by the proliferation of other, cheaper games. Today, the company is announcing that is merging with casual game development …
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Flurry launches AppCircle to help apps get discovered
With 100,000 apps in Apples AppStore, it has become ridiculously hard to get an app discovered. At any given time, perhaps 100 apps are easy to find on the featured apps or top apps lists. Thats why analytics startup Flurry is launching a new platform, AppCircle, whose aim is to get iPhone and iPod …
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Runa’s new service looks to turn web surfers into sales
Last year, e-commerce retailers spend $21 billion, or 15 percent of their revenues, in online marketing to drive traffic to their websites. The end result a dismal 2-3 percent conversion rate between visitors and sales. Mountain View startup Runa, a provider of revenue growth and profit maximizatio …
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Olive Media launches new way to serve music to home stereos
High-end audio is moving into the digital age. Olive Media announced today it has created an audiophiles music storage system that can deliver digital music to home stereos. The San Francisco-based company is launching the Olive 4HD, a high-definition Hi-Fi Music Server. The system serves as a contr …
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Livescribe launches an app store for its Pulse smart pen platform
Inspired by Apple, every hardware maker is creating an app stores these days. Today, Livescribe is launching a beta platform that allows developers to create apps for its Pulse smart pen. There are already 30 cool third-party apps available in the Livescribe store, which is open for shopping. The sm …
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5 O’clock Roundup: Office web app impressions, AT&T’s legal skirmish with Verizon
Heres the latest action: Microsoft releases beta test downloads of Office 2010 This is basically the first time the public has a chance to play with the much-vaunted web application versions of Office. Due to a bunch of restrictions, I wasnt able to try the apps out myself, but Harry McCracken at T …
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GreenBeat: Brace yourselves, electricity prices will rise over next 10-30 years, Duke CEO Jim Roger …
In the last 50 years, electricity prices have been flat in the next 10 to 30, the price of electricity is going to rise, said Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers in conversation with Matter Networks John Gartner at GreenBeat 2009 this evening. This is going to lead to a lot of frustration from consumers and …
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GreenBeat: Save energy (and money!) — leave consumers out of it, energy management companies say
The most obvious answer to how to get consumers to embrace the Smart Grid is money, said the startup and demand response company leaders on GreenBeat 2009s Consumers and Efficiency panel. The invisible hand of economics hath built the empire of Wal-Mart, could it not also raise up smarter utilities …
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Imeem — another music streaming story ends in tears?
If I were Spotify, Id be paying close attention right now. Imeem, which was one of the first music startups to work out streaming deals with all four major record labels, is going to MySpace for a bargain basement price of $1 million in cash, according to TechCrunch. Neither company is commenting on …
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GreenBeat: Accenture’s Sharon Allan says U.S. needs to play catch-up in cleantech
Sharon Allan, leader of Accentures North America Smart Grid practice, took the stage at GreenBeat2009 to present results to the firms survey on attitudes toward and responses to climate change and initiatives to battle global warming. Unsurprisingly, her major points also pointed to the U.S. falling …
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GreenBeat: Doerr wants to see more U.S. leadership in smart grid, cleantech
Ten years out we want lamps that use 2 percent the energy and put out the same amount of light, Doerr said at the beginning of his talk at GreenBeat 2009 today indicative of his interest and that of his firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in the newest, boldest investments when it comes to c …
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Network equipment company IPWireless restarts with $15.5M
IPWireless, a maker of mobile network equipment, has raised $15.5 million in a new first round of institutional funding. The company previously raised $235 million and was acquired by NextWave Wireless in 2007, but NextWave sold the company back to its founders last year, according to Dow Jones Vent …
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Outright raises $5.5M to help small businesses with their finances
Outright, which offers a free online application to help small businesses manage their finances, has raised $5.5 million in a first round of institutional funding led by Sequoia Capital. The firms that invested in Outrights seed round First Round Capital, Shasta Ventures, and SoftTechVC also parti …
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IBM adds two new utility partners to intelligent grid ops
IBM has announced two new utilities joining the Global Intelligent Utilities Network Coalition. CPFL Energia from Brazil and Liander from the Netherlands are now members of the collective designed to push adoption of smarter energy distribution programs. The IUN Coalition now serves about 100 millio …
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Verizon expands Smart Grid play, launches consulting
Verizon is already eying opportunities to provide wireless networks for Smart Grid communication systems, but today its expanding its presence in the space even more with the launch of a security consulting service for utilities rolling out smart meters and other advanced grid infrastructure. Securi …
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Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff: Don’t call Chatter a social network
Salesforce.com announced a new product today called Chatter, which it describes as Facebook and Twitter for enterprises. But during a press and analyst session at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, chief executive Marc Benioff said he doesnt want you to think of Chatter as a social network. …
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Twitter adds description to new lists feature
Twitter just added a bit more description to lists, a recently launched feature that lets you create and share groups of accounts to follow. Ive put an example up above with Venturebeats list. You can take an existing list, click Edit if youve created it and just add a description. How is the new f …
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Carlos Ghosn & The Coalition Push for more, more, more
Nissan-Renault CEO Carl Ghosn seems to be taking career advice from Frank White lately; wherever there is an opportunity to start making some money, he wants in. Recognizing that full size vehicles were a cash cow in the U.S., Ghosn wanted his cut. Shortly after taking the reins of Nissan in June of …
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GreenBeat speaker EcoFactor takes top honors Cleantech Open
Making the rounds of Smart Grid events (and there are quite a few of them this season), smart thermostat company EcoFactor nabbed the $250,000 grand prize in yesterdays Cleantech Open business plan competition. EcoFactors Scott Hublou will be speaking today at GreenBeat 2009. Based in San Francisco, …
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