Bev's News

You Americans have all the good stuff. Stuff like BP pumping oil in the Ocean and guns, lots of guns. And then you have Netflix and we people outside the U.S. are wondering what could it feel like to have a service like that. Now I know.

Earlier this month, I attended OpenWebAsia – South East Asia in Kuala Lumpur/Malaysia, a two-day tech and web industry event that attracted over 350 international attendees. The event shined a spotlight on a market that's still largely overlooked: a whopping 600 million people live in South East Asia, which boasts a rapidly growing web and mobile population. What follows is a short summary of just a few presentations, panel discussions, and startup demos I witnessed at OpenWebAsia (those with a focus on Asia only).

One thing you can say about the Flickr team - there's some fight in 'em. They apparently were not super pleased with our coverage of their annual (and unofficial) Grant-Pattishall Award given each year to the Yahoo engineer who “who breaks Flickr in the most spectacular way.” I'm not sure why, I think the award is fun. So now they have a new award, called the Bogan-Martin Award: "The Bogan-Martin Award is given yearly to the Flickr staff member who inadvertently generates the most spectacular media overreaction to a personal comment or inside joke."

With more than 200 deals since 2005, Y Combinator's Paul Graham knows how to size up a young team of entrepreneurs. However, he didn't get it right from day one. On Friday, we got a chance to talk to Graham after his morning panel with SV Angel's Ron Conway. He discussed how his strategy has evolved over the past five years and why the balance of power is shifting in Silicon Valley. See videos ahead.

Grammy award winning artist Chamillionaire (a.k.a Hakeem Seriki) has become a regular at tech conferences, perhaps because the hustle and flow culture of the rap business and the hustle and flow culture of the tech business are surprisingly similar. His stories of struggles between artists and music labels are resonant to anyone who's experienced the relationship intricacies of startups and VCs.

Perhaps you've heard: social games maker Playdom was acquired by Disney a few days ago for a deal potentially worth north of $750 million. Playdom CEO John Pleasants took the stage today at our Social Currency CrunchUp in Palo Alto, to talk a bit about the deal and the future. Pleasants says that he's not exactly sure what his title at Disney will be yet, but he thinks he'll be the General Manager of Playdom. He's also not sure if Tapulous (another gaming company just acquired by Disney) will be under his department, but he doesn't think so. And he made sure to clarify that the deal was for $563.2 million plus an earn-out of up to $200 million -- so he's not super super super rich, he's just super super rich.

Smart window startup Soladigm announced today its plans to build a factory in Olive Branch, Mississippi. The Khosla Ventures and Sigma Partners backed company makes dynamic glass windows that can be tinted on demand to block excess light and heat. Founded in 2007, Soladigm has been operating in stealth until now. The company employs about 50 people in its Milpitas, California headquarters, and plans to hire about 300 employees over the next few years for the Mississippi plant.

Criticising Valleywag in 2010 is something of a pointless exercise, like offering diplomatic counsel to the Ottoman Empire ten years after the Treaty of Lausanne. More pointless still, attacking the site’s titular editor Ryan Tate is like appealing to the guy responsible for writing parking tickets in Constantinople. I mean, I get that. And yet despite the irrelevance of Gawker’s saddest sub-domain and the tragic impotence of its editor, the influence of its parent means that when a Valleywag story oozes its way on to the front page of Gawker.com, it’s important to take notice. And to mop it up so that no-one slips. Here goes then.

Online monetization platform gWallet, which offers social gaming developers a variety of ways to monetize their apps and boost engagement, is looking to put its money where its mouth is: the company is launching a $20,000 cash guarantee to any social gaming publishers that don't generate more revenue when they switch from their current monetization platform to gWallet. To participate, publishers are being asked to implement a simultaneous, head-to-head test over the span of thirty days (you can sign up starting today, with the 30 day window beginning August 1). At the end of that time period, if your revenues from gWallet aren't higher than they are on you original implementation, then the service will pay out the guarantee. But you'll have to be a pretty sizable game to participate: to qualify, gWallet says that publishers need to be new to the platform, and need to have at least 250,000 daily active users. That said, it sounds like the the company is willing to discuss a guarantee to apps with a smaller user base if you email their partner@gwallet.com address.

Tomorrow night, July 31, Twitter has announced they are having some planned downtime. Beginning at 11 PM PT, Twitter will likely be down on and off for up to 5 hours, Twitter warns. The reason for the downtime? NTT America, Twitter's hosting provider is upgrading a part of the internal network. This is interesting because Twitter is in the process of opening their own data center in Utah later this year. Despite the new tweet digs, they've said they'll keep working with NTT America, so this maintenance is clearly necessary.

Place Connect is a social site that will let you get in touch with people based on these places that you have been to. This means that if you attended a Kings Of Leon gig and you were left entranced with a girl/boy who was in the audience then you will be able to get in touch with him/her if he also happens to use the site. And the same applies to just any kind of event such as weddings or festivals.

Read more

Learn more about PlaceConnect.com in Dataopedia.com

Find out how much PlaceConnect.com is worth with Stimator.com

Have a business question? Ask Startups.com

Mixform offers visual artists an excellent chance to present their work online. By signing up for an account, they will be capable of creating a portfolio website they can use for self-promotion purposes. These sites are incredibly easy to use - you don’t need to download anything in order to get one together, it is all handled from the browser.

Read more

Learn more about Mixform.com in Dataopedia.com

Find out how much Mixform.com is worth with Stimator.com

Have a business question? Ask Startups.com

Any person who manages a sports team or a sports league is going to find this new resource valuable. Generally speaking, it will let them create a website for providing their players with all the information that there is to know about schedules, events and practices, and such a website will be not only aesthetically-pleasant but actually very simple to edit and update. Besides, ads and sponsors can be managed in the way the webmaster desires.

Read more

Learn more about LuckyLeague.com in Dataopedia.com

Find out how much LuckyLeague.com is worth with Stimator.com

Have a business question? Ask Startups.com

The way things stand right now, there are many people who use Twitter mainly for the sharing of images. There is nothing wrong with that, but the direct result of having so many individuals sharing such a large amount of data simultaneously is that good images can (and do) get buried along the way. And that is where a service like Twtimage comes in.

Read more

Learn more about Twtimage.com in Dataopedia.com

Find out how much Twtimage.com is worth with Stimator.com

Have a business question? Ask Startups.com

AJ Help Desk might just be the right application to check out if you are looking into a way of providing your customers with better support and assistance. In essence, the site offers a customer support system that comes complete with ticket management, statistics and reports.

Using AJ Help Desk the resolution process for queries is made suppler than by other means - the submission is instant, support personnel can trace the problem to its roots, and the redirection of the ticket can be tracked by the manager at all times.

Read more

Learn more about AJHelpDesk.com in Dataopedia.com

Find out how much AJHelpDesk.com is worth with Stimator.com

Have a business question? Ask Startups.com

Daytum is a platform that will let you capture and communicate the statistics in your life that mean the most to you. If setting down the time and way in which you have read the final book in the Harry Potter saga is what you want to do, this tool will let you take care of that, and also of having the information shared with others. You can also keep track of the results of any sports event that means a lot to you, of the times in which your children began walking, talking, writing… the uses are as many as people who would actually try this system out.

Read more

Learn more about Daytum.com in Dataopedia.com

Find out how much Daytum.com is worth with Stimator.com

Have a business question? Ask Startups.com

Presented by HP, Gabble will let you have video conversations with your contacts on the Social Web in a setting that is both safe and private. That is, only those that you mark down as friends will be able to see the videos that are posted in your group.

The way that the whole service is implemented is certainly versatile, as you will be able to start talking away without needing to download a single file.

Read more

Learn more about HPGabble.com in Dataopedia.com

Find out how much HPGabble.com is worth with Stimator.com

Have a business question? Ask Startups.com

Knowing who calls the shots is vital in any kind of context - if you are a newcomer, the last thing you want to do is upset the apple cart or make a blunder that would make you end up labeled for the rest of your career. The Internet is no exception to that rule, and the site under review right now will let you now exactly who are the people who form opinions and cause direct reactions on the World Wide Web.

Peer Index does that by tracking over 1,800,000 people over social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn along with many assorted blogs.

Read more

Learn more about PeerIndex.net in Dataopedia.com

Find out how much PeerIndex.net is worth with Stimator.com

Have a business question? Ask Startups.com

Hello Travel is one of the most complete resources for planning a trip that you can find on the World Wide Web. The site makes it possible for you to pick a destination anywhere in the world, submit information such as how long you intend to stay there, how much you can afford to spend and the overall motive of your travel in order to receive comprehensive price quotations and itinerary suggestions.

As it was only to be expected from a resource like this, you will be able to read about recommended places on the main page (both “Featured Destinations” and “Top Travel Attractions” sections are provided), and choice destinations are covered in the existing blog.

Read more

Learn more about HelloTravel.com in Dataopedia.com

Find out how much HelloTravel.com is worth with Stimator.com

Have a business question? Ask Startups.com

Agile Words is a platform for online collaboration. It will let you upload a MS Word document and have it edited collectively. This service is tailor-made for small teams that need a cost-effective way of collaborating not only among themselves, but also with their clients.

Read more

Learn more about AgileWords.com in Dataopedia.com

Find out how much AgileWords.com is worth with Stimator.com

Have a business question? Ask Startups.com

Eddie Chen stepped up in the Taiwan family behind Daphne, which he's made the basic women's shoe source in China.

Vietnam can't boast many companies that compete overseas. Nguyen Quoc Khanh started one 20 years ago, and he now wins contracts from New York to Kiev.

Ajay, the younger, takes charge at MasterCard, but the business world may not have heard the last of Vindi.

Does the offer of making a mint in your pajamas sound too good to be true? It surely is.

These spots really do drive business. And they're affordable, too.

Michael Levinson and his partners sold their companies for a bundle. Now they want to help other entrepreneurs hit it big.

The swashbucklers of the tech boom have turned skittish, and their returns reflect it.

Referral programs, when executed well, deliver huge value for young companies.

Bringing a lawsuit is like any other business decision. Here's how to think it through.

Does your company run on the work of a few heroes? Consider key-person insurance.

Twitter started testing a new way of delivering tweets to users this week. As the videos we posted showed, they’re going to change your Twitter experience  forever. Some of the changes that User Streams usher in immediately improve Twitter while others will take some getting used to. Having been using the User Stream Preview version of [...]

Facebook announced this morning that it is to double the size of its Oregon based data center, expanding the facility before construction has even been completed. Posting on the Prineville Data Center Facebook page, Facebook added that it will be expanding its 147,000 square foot shell to encompass another 160,000 square feet, the additional area will [...]

OK, to start, let’s get past the whole “PC means personal computer so a Mac is a PC” thing. I’m aware. But for the sake of argument and story-telling, I’m going to use PC to refer to a Windows-based machine, whether home built or from a manufacturer. That said, I have to repent for a sin. [...]

Casino giant Harrah’s will bring its popular World Series of Poker (WSOP) to Facebook and MySpace in a new partnership announced with Playdom, which was just acquired this week for over $700 million by Disney. In the deal, Playdom will relaunch its Poker Palace game as the official WSOP game, starting first on Facebook and then [...]

Today at the CrunchUp in Palo Alto rap all-star Chamillionaire sat down with Michael Arrington and talked about the social internet. Chamillionaire is a noted Twitter user, and actually debuted the lead music video for his upcoming album live on Ustream. Arrington pressed Chamillionaire, real name Hakeem Seriki, on his use of social media to help [...]

TNW Quick Hit You Gotta See This! is a camera app that takes advantage of the gyroscope in the iPhone 4. Love It: Create a virtual photo collage using iPhone 4’s gyroscope. Hate It: Photo quality varies by theme and use of the app makes it appear as if you are trying to fend off invisible attackers using [...]

Today at TechCrunch’s Cruchup in Palo Alto, CA,  Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s CEO and John Hanke, VP of Product Management at Google talked about the strain that is building up between Yelp and Google Places. According to Stoppleman, Yelp is doing very well, now with 12 million reviews, 35 million uniques per month and 2.5 million uniques between its [...]

Today, Twitter will be rolling out a powerful new feature for its users, helping people connect with the million of other Twitter users by way of the new “Suggestion for You” tool. Utilizing algorithms developed by Twitter’s relevence team, the Suggestions for You feature will suggest people that a Twitter user doesn’t already follow and prompt them to [...]

If you thought that everyone was going to let Kindle grab the spotlight and the e-book market uncontested think again, nearly everyone else in the space is making noise trying to stay relevant. Massive bookseller Barnes & Noble will roll out 1000 square foot retail sections in their stores this September to promote their Nook reader. [...]

A jacket (at right) that doubles as a motorized massager has been equipped with WiFi so that, when stressed, the wearer can push a button which sends a message to other peoples’ WiFi enabled neck-ties – really, this how it works – and then those users can then decide whether to send digital sympathy that, when critical [...]