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Zoho bitterness at the credit crunch…and a solution
Enterprise Alley — ... By definition, that means very few survivors, huge cash burn for those that are building mind share but ultimately a two finger salute to the ‘build it first, figure out business model later’ brigade of VC buccaneers. If you have any doubt then check what the market thinks about Google’s near term prospects. (Hint: it’s trading at a 52 week low and as I write this, is off some 5.6% from the previous close.) ...

John Cleese on Sarah Palin: "Monty Python could've written this." http://tinyurl.com/3n22gn
Politweets — Loader Twitter.com Profile_bird Hey there! jswesey is using Twitter. Twitter is a free service that lets you keep in touch with people using the web, your phone, or IM. Join today to start receiving jswesey's updates. Already using Twitter via SMS or IM? Finish signing up . [image] jswesey John Cleese on Sarah Palin: "Monty Python could've written this." http://tinyurl.com/3n22gn 4 minutes ago from TwitterFox utterly completely bummed about not running Nike this year. Good luck ladies (and gents)! Go TEAM!!! about 15 hours ago from TwitterFox this is ...

Crispy Gamer locks in $8.25M
VC Ratings — Claiming to offer "a voice for serious gamers," video game aficionado destination Crispy Gamer Monday emerged from beta with 1 million unique monthly visitors and $8.25 million in funding from Constellation Ventures and its founders. The company was dreamed up by Chris Heldman, the former head of media entertainment at Google Inc. [GOOG]. Heldman hired John Keefer, multiplayer gaming site GameSpy's former editorial chief, and Chris Hoerenz, who was chief marketing officer at music subscription service eMusic.com Inc., to found Crispy Gamer. The company is gambling that by ...

Trust Digital secures $14.5 million
VC Ratings — Mobile security software maker Trust Digital on Wednesday said it raised $14.5 million in Series C funding. The list of investors is long, so be patient. It includes Summerhill Venture Partners, Fairhaven Capital, Core Capital Partners, Avansis Ventures, MMV Financial and Square 1 Bank. Summerhill, Fairhaven, Core and Avansis all invested in the company previously. Trust Digital's security software is used by businesses and government agencies to secure PDAs and smartphones in the same way that IT departments protect laptops and desktops. The McLean, Va.-based company said it will use the funding to ...

Google's Ad Biz Finally Cracks
Wired: Epicenter — Google says it has only benefited from the economic downturn. Bargain-hunting Americans are using the search engine to scout out deals, according to chief economist Hal Varian. "One thing that we think at Google is that when there is a recessionary environment, people are counting their pennies, are going to be researching their purchases, looking for bargains, and this potentially has something of an upside for Google, where we referred to this last time I called it the Wal-Mart effect," said Varian, in a conference call last month. It's a fine argument, but it can't hold for long -- ...

Is Google’s Ad Biz Start to Unravel?
SitePoint — The prevailing wisdom at Google is that their ad-centric business model is recession proof. As advertising budgets are squeezed, some pundits have suggested that ad dollars will move online to advertising methods where it is more easy to measure return on investment. That means advertising models such as Cost Per Action, and Google’s bread and butter, Cost Per Click ads, would see growth while other advertising methods hit the skids. Further, Google believes that as consumers become more budget conscious, they’ll turn to online search engines to scout out new deals. “One thing that we think ...

Social network aggregator Power.com launches globally, takes $8M
VC Ratings — As the buzz grows for Facebook Inc.'s Connect initiative to reach further outside its walled garden, a new venture-backed startup is endeavoring to reach inside social networks and gather information into one place. That'd be Rio de Janeiro-based Power.com, whose system permits users to gain visibility into their friends' pages on various social networks, allowing cross-platform messaging and other utilities that span across Facebook, Hi5, LinkedIn, Microsoft Corp.'s [MSFT] MSN, News Corp.'s [NWS] MySpace Inc. and Google Inc.'s [GOOG] Orkut. Draper Fisher Jurvetson has ...

Topical search site Kosmix takes $20M
VC Ratings — Kosmix Corp. is preparing to make its move in the next-generation Web search category with a new $20 million fourth round of funding that includes Time Warner Investments and former Motorola CEO Ed Zander. The new backers join Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and DAG Ventures in the new round, which brings Kosmix's total investment to $55 million. Amazon.com Inc. [AMZN] chief executive Jeff Bezos and Legg Mason chief investment officer Bill Miller are also stakeholders in the startup, which last raised capital in December 2007. Kosmix's algorithm is designed to detect the context of a ...

SpotMixer grabs $9M second round
VC Ratings — One True Media Inc., which operates online video ad service SpotMixer, has closed a $9 million Series B round. The funding was led by new investor DAG Ventures and included backing from NTT Finance and Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, which led One True Media's $5 million Series A round in 2006. DAG managing director Young Chung joins the startup's board as part of the transaction. Like so many other startups that have announced funding in the past several months, One True Media pitched its SpotMixer service as one that will help small companies save money by allocating their ad dollars in a ...

Google CEO revises view of Twitter: “It’s an incredibly useful thing”
The Next Web — Image by wwphotos via Flickr According to Dow Jones Newswires, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said on Thursday he would be happy to pursue an advertising deal with Twitter. Having previously dismissed Twitter as a ...

How Google Made Its Q2 Numbers: Squeezing Expenses
TechCrunch —     Google made its earnings numbers yesterday, actually coming in above expectations.  Total revenues were $5.5 billion, 3 percent above the same period last year and flat with the first quarter (when sequential revenues actually declined).  Net revenues, which are the revenues which actually go to Google after they pay off AdSense and AdWords partner sites via traffic acquisition costs (TAC), came in at $4.07 billion.  That was slightly above the Street consensus of $4.05 billion (see Citi’s cheat sheet below).  Non-GAAP earnings came in at a respectable $5.36 earnings per share, ...

Google Ventures Backs Adimab in Antibody Discovery Business
Xconomy — Life Sciences, Web, deals Ryan McBride wrote: Adimab has added Google Ventures to the roster of venture investors that are backing the Lebanon, NH-based biotech startup in its development of a fast and powerful antibody discovery platform, the company reports ...

Microsoft and Its Competitors Still In Search of Mainstream User Base for Personal Health Records
Xconomy — Health IT, Software, Life Sciences Ryan McBride wrote: Microsoft hasn’t yet attracted the millions of patients it would like to its personal health data service, HealthVault, says Peter Neupert, corporate vice president of the company’s Health Solutions ...

Polaris Venture Adds Google Vet
Xconomy — VC, Web, deals Ryan McBride wrote: Polaris Venture Partners, which has its main office in Waltham, MA, has tapped former Google employee Jon Steinberg to be an executive in residence at the venture firm, VentureWire reports. VentureWire writes that Steinberg, a ...

Google Equals Apple In Value. And Vice Versa!
TechCrunch — People often compare market capitalization (current share price times the number of shares outstanding) for public companies as an indicator of success / failure, and one surpassing the other as a sign that one is overtaking the other, regardless of whether they’re actually full-fledged competitors or not. Google and Apple, for example, have been making headlines when stock transactions move their respective market cap to top the other company’s (see this Bloomberg article from August 2008 or this one from GigaOM from two weeks ago). So here’s a fun fact to start off the week ...

Google Demos Chrome OS, Microsoft Links Into LinkedIn, Amazon Ramps Up for Holidays, & More Big Company News
Xconomy — Public Companies, startups, trends Gregory T. Huang wrote: It’s been a busy week around here for the big tech companies. At Xconomy, we don’t usually report on things like product releases from Microsoft or sales figures from Amazon—our main focus is on ...

Brokerages Race To Find Speed And Depth With Smart Phones
MacBytes.com — Looking to get alerts on your mobile phone when a stock hits a buy or sell point? And then quickly execute a trade with a few taps on your handset based on that data? "There's an app for that," says Apple's marketing campaign for the iPhone. Indeed, software applications, or apps, are popping up on all sorts of smart phones, including Research In Motion's (NasdaqGS: RIMM ...

Aura, MicroCHIPS, Boston-Power, & Other Hot Local Startups Join the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers
Xconomy — IT, energy, Life Sciences Ryan McBride wrote: A handful of startups from the Boston area are joining an exclusive club today. The World Economic Forum—the Swiss nonprofit that has previously honored such companies as Cambridge, MA-based biotech Alnylam ...