Dave Wehner, the guy that was behind the recent AOL buys Bebo deal for $850 million, is the Managing Director of Allen & Co. Why would this be of any interest to you? Because the guy is rumored to be out pitching a LinkedIn venture capital round for nothing less than a whole big billion. Yes, $1 billion.
So far the Mountain View, California based company has raised $27.5 million over three rounds but if this turns out to be real, Allen & Co may be working on the most expensive private venture deal that we’ve heard of, lately.
Though rumors late last year said NewsCorpmay have been in talks with LinkedIn around an acquisition, no official papers were issued.
Honestly I don’t get it why a company like LinkedIn that have said publicly they will reach $100 million in revenue in 2008 would need funding so I suppose right now it’s nothing more than a rumor. Let’s see if we can find out more info in the days that will come.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Last year FriendFeed entered beta testing and on February 25th after raising $5 million, they managed to launch their service. Ever since, everyone at the corners are talking about how great FriendFeed is. I had to give it a try myself and see with my own eyes and so I did. I signed up for an account.
Voices in the market say FriendFeed is the Twitter of 2008, the hot startup on everyone’s lips, but to be honest I wasn’t very impressed with their concept because there are already places like Spokeo, Second Brain or Social Thing, but they win when it comes to accessibility and easy usability.
But what are they really good at? You can add different accounts from blogs or other social networking services and FriendFeed will aggregate them so that your friends can “follow” you and see what you’re up to. But wait, isn’t this exactly what you can do on Twitter? Probably so.
I don’t know about you but despite the fact that I get more and more “friends requests” I’m not really impressed with what FriendFeed has to offer. However, just like twitter they may have their own people to join that will make it big. I wish them luck!
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Hey guys, it’s time for a little announcement. Next week, 25 to 28 March, the 2nd annual “New Media Marketing” conference will begin at the Gallagher Estate in Midrand, Johannesburg.
The event will be organized by the International Quality & Productivity Center (IQPC) and people invited are going to get the chance to listen to experts talking about new social media strategies and incorporating SEO into a company’s marketing. For many of us chasing certain keywords in Google search ranks was quite a challenge and knowing that this niche is changing whenever a second passes by, I am sure the discussions are going to be very interesting and will probably catch fire.
BizCommunity reported that “the two-day New Media Marketing lineup includes Mike Stopforth, Vincent Maher, Colin Daniels, Avusa; Allan Kent, Paul Jacobson, Jonathan Bishop, Leon Orsmond, Rudolph Muller, Arthur Goldstuck, Rick Joubert, Jenny van Niekerk, David Wessels, Grant Shippey, Patrick Collings, Justin Hartman, Herman Heunis, Matthew Buckland, Lize Esterhuizen, Mike Balkind, Eric Edelstein and Tyler Reed”.
The official partners for the New Media Marketing conference are zoopy.com. They will be responsible for filming, photographing, podcasting and blogging it for all those that are not going to attend. Now that I mentioned those interested to attend, you can get a 25% discount voucher if you are interested.
Popularity: 41% [?]
Ladies and gents if you remember our Springleap coverage last month you probably know that if you submit your t-shirt design and people like it, you may win some prizes.
The guys did it again, this time with a marketing solution to get blogs/Internet exposure and came up with a SEO contest. So they needed designers the first time to have what to sell and all they need now is people talking about them.
But let me tell you more about the contest. It’s starting today and ends on April 1st. This is when a number of judges will open up google.com and will search for - springleap - and will award points to the first three URLs (obviously 3pts for #1, 2pts for #2 and 1pt for #3). The total votes will be counted and the winners will get R500 for number three, R1000 for number two and a “whopping” R2500 for number one.
As you can see their marketing strategy is great and believe me there’s going to be a lot of buzz on this SEO contest mainly because it’s money involved. What I would enjoy the most is to get some numbers from them, that tell us how many new buyers they got from this campaign.
Right now, for - springleap - BandwidthBlog is #2 and we plan to either stay there or climb one step further. I wish everyone luck and let the games begin.
Popularity: 37% [?]
If you haven’t heard by now, BuddyPress is now under the Automattic umbrella and they are taking pride to “transform a vanilla installation of WordPress MU into a social network platform“. I was expecting something like this to happen considering the long hours spent by Andy Pealting to improve the functionality of a WMU install into a functional social network so as you read buddypress.com is moving to Automattic.
Why buy BuddyPress? Very simple. When you want to enter market it’s always harder to start from ground zero, so the best solution was to buy someone that has the skills and the experience to lead such a project. Andy Pealting was the best person to go after and so they did.
The new partnership (or call it ‘buyout’) is going to make BuddyPress even better so I’m already imagining the way a social network would look on BandwidthBlog. Can you see the opportunity for your own blogs?
via Mashable
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If yesterday we told you about Facebook and the new profile layout that should go live soon, we have something new for you. LinkedIn came up with a new site-wide design today, with a header that doesn’t have tabs anymore and a left column with personal and account related options.
Not sure about you, but I think the layout looks a lot like the Facebook screenshots we’ve seen yesterday: header, a small left column and a wider right column. Is there a trend in webdesign and everyone wants to ride that wave?
The left column has important info. It tells you how many connections you have, how many joined your network or your status. There is one thing I enjoy: modules that you can drag everywhere you need them.
Too bad it looks a lot like Facebook or I would have said they did a perfect job. Now it’s just great.
Popularity: 25% [?]
Springleap
I’m not sure about you, but to be honest I really like a well designed t-shirt. Though I like how Versace or Armani build clothes believe me that when I see one with a simple but damn funny print I’m buying even if it’s a no name. I do it for fun and there are lots of you that like printed t-shirts. They are also a great resource for a birthday when you can make fun of someone.
But getting back to the South African community, the reason I started this article talking about t-shirts is because I’ve just found out about SpringLeap. What about them? They allow you to submit (for free) a t-shirt design or probably more and the members vote on who’s the best. Each month a winner is announced and 19 runners up that will get their t-shirts printed. But wait that’s not all, because the winner is getting R2 royalty for every printed t-shirt while runners-up get R1 royalty.
The project was started by Eric Edelstein and Eran Eyal, co-owners of eSquared Fashion and try to take on ThreadLess.
“Having your art showcased in a public domain and getting paid for it to boot, is what is so exciting about this venture.”, Eric said.
The t-shirts are going to cost R160 and that doesn’t include VAT or shipping fees.
I am not sure if they will be able to beat ThreadLess but at least they have the goals set. I wish them all the best. Will you submit a design to SpringLeap?
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Update - Springleap has started their first t-shirt submission contest were the community votes on the best submission. You can enter your designs and win cash! Check out their website for competition details
Popularity: 33% [?]
I just picked up that MyVideo has made changes to their interface with a sexy looking new header (pictured below) and a new content channel area called ‘iViews‘. Their new channel features interviews with prominent South African personalities. Surfing through the MyVideo site I was impressed with the quality of videos on display. I also noticed the MyVideo flyer ads on Facebook promoting their Minkie video which seemed to do well as the video has over 20k views.
In their own words regarding ‘iView’
South Africans are a diverse bunch. Some are incredibly intelligent, some are breathtakingly beautiful, some are both. An unlucky handful are neither. Every week on iViews, MyVideo brings you a fresh new video interview with a well-known South African – we’ll leave it up to you to decide which of the above descriptions they match most closely! Politicians, sports stars, top models, TV personalities – if they’re hot right now – in whatever way – we’ll bring them to you on iViews!
The new header
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eBay today announced that Niklas Zennstrom (co-founder of Skype, Kazaa and Joost) has stepped down as CEO of Skype. Zennstrom, who co-founded Skype in 2003, will become non-executive chairman of the Skype Board of Directors. Michael van Swaaij, eBay’s Chief Strategy Officer, will become acting CEO until a permanent successor is found.
eBay also announced that it has paid $530 million to settle all of its future obligations under the earn-out agreement signed with certain Skype shareholders when eBay acquired Skype in 2005. The earn-out agreement provided for payments of up to approximately $1,700 based upon specific active user, revenue and gross profit targets that were to be achieved in 2008 and the first half of 2009.
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Bill Gates ranked tops (surprise!) in Forbes’ newest list of the top 400 richest Americans with a commanding $59 billion. Half of the ten wealthiest earned their billions from the tech industry.Among those that made the $1.3 billion cutoff were five Googlers (GOOG), including employee #12 Omid Kordestani and early investor Ram Shriram. Three of Silicon Valley’s most influential VCs made the super rich list: Kleiner Perkins” L. John Doerr and Vinod Khosla and Sequoia Capital’s Michael Moritz. The Valley’s most revered entrepreneur, Steve Jobs (APPL), made the No. 56 slot with $5.7 billion.
But striking it rich through tech is still a small and elite business. Just 10 percent of those on the list make their billions that way. Compare that to nearly 5 percent who make money by inheriting it. Here’s a look at the ten richest tech titans and their staggering net worth.
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