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Ning
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social networks
venture capital
VC Dennis Miller doesn't envy Ning and Brightcove's investors
NEW YORK — VCs continue to invest irrationally, Spark Capital partner Dennis Miller said at EconAds yesterday. He said too many VCs invest in "rock star" founders as though they are "a call option on a bright future." Others too quickly buy the hype from hard-selling founders. Too many company's are getting too high valuations, he added. More »
Google's Friend Connect bad news for Marc Andreessen
By offering a suite of tools for websites to add a social network layer, Google isn't challenging established players like Facebook and MySpace, but instead sites offering customizable, turnkey social networks. In other words, look out, Marc Andreessen: Larry and Sergey just declared themselves the Microsoft to Ning's Netscape. [News.com]
once you're lucky, twice you're good
B is for Botha, who sold YouTube big
Few people outside Silicon Valley have heard of Roelof Botha. But the former CFO of PayPal is famous here. His two claims to fame: negotiating that company's $1.5 billion sale to eBay, and later, as a partner at Sequoia Capital, investing in YouTube and quickly flipping the startup to Google for $1.65 billion. Is it a coincidence that that figure is 10 percent higher than his PayPal score? Few insiders think so. Botha gets four pages in Sarah Lacy's Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good — more than Google cofounder Sergey Brin. Other figures who appear on the second page of her Web 2.0 book's index: John Battelle, Ning CEO Gina Bianchini, Facebook board member Jim Breyer, blog blowhard Jason Calacanis, and YouTube cofounder Steve Chen, whom Botha made quite wealthy. More »
once you're lucky, twice you're good
A is for Adelson, who cofounded Digg
Digg cofounder Jay Adelson is now asked by the likes of Kara Swisher how he'd fix big media companies, as in this clip. But there was a time when he barely knew what to do with his own Internet startup, Equinix. That tale and more covers 54 out of 294 pages in Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, Sarah Lacy's soon-to-be-released book about Web 2.0. The first page of the book's index, one of many to come: More »
hires
Andreessen to stack Facebook board further in Zuckerberg's favor
Netscape cofounder and propagator of porn social networks Marc Andreessen will join Facebook's board of directors, Kara Swisher reports. Andreessen will join current board members Accel Partners Jim Breyer, Clarium Capital's Peter Thiel, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Andreessen is the chairman of Ning, a company which sells tools for rolling your own social network. If your mom has an excellent visual memory, she will probably remembers him for appearing on the cover of Time magazine without shoes on. You can tell her that he dresses better now, but only slightly. Why Andreessen, and not a proxy for new investors Microsoft or Li Ka-Shing? More »
deals
Marc Andreessen's hidden hostility to takeovers
Ning founder Marc Andreessen is already on the record about Microsoft's proposed takeover of Yahoo: He thinks it will likely go through, and turn out to be a good deal. It's a remarkably sanguine take for someone who saw Netscape bought and destroyed by AOL. In a thorough analysis for which he dragooned two corporate lawyers, Andreessen elaborates: Yahoo has few defenses, aside from a poison pill, and Microsoft will likely succeed. For all its thoroughness, the analysis is less interesting for what it says about Microsoft-Yahoo than for what it says about Andreessen. More »
marc andreessen
Why Marc Andreessen should stick to his keyboard
Every time Marc Andreessen steps away from his desk, disaster abounds. For the father of the Netscape browser, the creator of the Web as we know it, the legendary barefoot geek from the magazine covers, expectations are way too high. And so the disappointments pile up. The Andreessen of today is not the Marc we remember. His pate has gone from mophead to Klingon; his wardrobe, inevitably a tracksuit with leather shoes, is an utter disaster. And when he speaks, he says absolutely nothing. John Battelle, the slickster salesman-interviewer of bubbles past and present, tried to get some fighting words out of Andreessen on stage at Web 2.0 Expo. He failed, utterly, epicly. Andreessen praised Bill Gates, said competing with Microsoft was interesting, described Microsoft-Yahoo as "a good deal." More »
9:40 AM on Fri Apr 25 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,797 views,
12 comments
Latest by n/a: @broozier: Males shouldn't be jealous that's a female trait Watch you mad 'cause you push dimes and he sell weight? more »
breakdowns
Ning fires VP of operations two days before major outage
Here's how things usually work: Have a major outage, then fire your operations guy. At Marc Andreessen's Ning, the social-network Web host best known for its porn sites, things run a bit differently. On Monday, CEO Gina Bianchini fired VP of operations Alexei Rodriguez. On Wednesday, the company saw all of Ning's networks go offline. We hear Rodriguez failed to deliver a promised upgrade to Ning's systems that would have avoided the problem; the outage was coincidental but almost inevitable, given Rodriguez's omission. The larger problem for Ning: No one seems to care that it was down. When you offer porn and still no one complains that they can't get to it, you have a problem which goes much deeper than database configurations.
Ning raises $60 million for "nuclear winter"
A Fast Company cover story isn't the only inexplicable gift social-network startup Ning has received. After raising $44 million last July, Ning has raised another $60 million, cofounder Marc Andreessen reluctantly announced. (A regulatory filing uncovered by VentureBeat forced the news out of him.) Why the eight-figure round for a startup whose annual revenues are likely in the low seven figures? Andreessen says he wanted to "make sure we have plenty of firepower to survive the oncoming nuclear winter."
journalist math
Marc Andreessen's egg-shaped head, CEO's rack distract Fast Company writer from Ning's vanishingly small business
Here's what you really need to know about Ning, according to Fast Company writer Adam Penenberg. Its chairman, Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen, has an egg-shaped head. Its CEO, Gina Bianchini, who posed for Fast Company's cover in a tank top, is a "hottie." And Ning, a provider of websites for niche social networks, is poised to hit "critical mass" and "no one can stop it." Two out of those three statements were factchecked. More »
acquisitions
Marc Andreessen: Plenty of buyers for startups -- especially his
Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen, who now runs social networks for porn sites, doesn't think that the Microsoft-Yahoo deal bodes ill for startups. True, there will be one less buyer out there if the deal goes through — but, he argues, neither Microsoft nor Yahoo has been a particularly active acquirer of small startups. He provides a long list of companies, from Akamai to WPP, which have bought startups. If anything, facing Google and a beefed-up Microsoft will prompt media companies to go on a spending spree. More »
social networks
Is Marc Andreessen running a porn ring?
Ning, the social-network software maker cofounded by Marc Andreessen, appears to get substantial traffic from adult-oriented websites it hosts. CPM Advisors notes that some of Ning's top networks include names like girlongirl.ning.com, whiteholes4blackpoles.ning.com, and ladyboyworld.ning.com. From Quantcast's and Alexa's numbers, these creatively named sites account for a double-digit percentage of Ning's traffic. Ning's terms of service do not forbid pornographic content, so no rules are being broken here, it seems. Still, one wonders if this is really what Andreessen, who previously cofounded Netscape and Opsware, had in mind for his third entrepreneurial act.
charity
Marc Andreessen gives away more money than your startup has raised
Netscape, Opsware and Ning cofounder Marc Andreessen and his wife, Stanford grad-school professor Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, have donated $27.5 million dollars to Stanford Hospital to update its emergency room. According to the report, the pair have been planning a major charitable donation "since the day they got engaged in 2006." Billionaire romance is different from the regular sort, isn't it?
What OpenSocial will look like on Ning
A tipster has leaked us these screen shots of how Marc Andreessen and company plan to integrate Google's OpenSocial platform into Ning. Make sure you're sitting down. We've got a ninja.
A tipster has leaked us these screen shots of how Marc Andreessen and company plan to integrate Google's OpenSocial platform into Ning. Make sure you're sitting down. We've got a ninja.
opensocial
Another minute, another Google Gang member
According to a source, blog-software company Six Apart has joined as another partner for Google's OpenSocial platform. For those of you keeping count at home, don't bother. The list is surely to grow as word gets out. Social network Friendster, for example, wasn't asked to join the Google Gang. The pioneering social network begged to be included after a story leaked on TechCrunch. Google's secrecy is making the whole "open" affair less than transparent, as different names leak to different reporters. Here's a list of media outlets and the OpenSocial partners they list. More »
the chart
Bunch of losers and Google gang up on Facebook
Google couldn't get a piece of Facebook or its hot apps platform, so now it's building its own. Not that it would like people to call it Google's platform; it's trying to persuade people that this is an open platform. It's called OpenSocial, and it's supposed to force developers to reconsider writing apps solely in FBML, the Facebook platform's proprietary language. The idea is that Google will gather a gang of websites whose users combined, will offer an audience as large as Facebook's. It's a fine theory, but let's see the real numbers behind the Google Gang. More »
superficial
Pictured this morning on the TechCrunch40 stage, four men worth a total of a kajillion dollars or something along those lines. From left, Yahoo founder David Filo, wearing the safe and unimaginative Silicon Valley uniform, YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley in his jeans-and-jacket casual yuppie attire, Ning and Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen, who goes for the novel tracksuit and khakis combo, and Sequoia Capital uber-investor Michael Moritz. Oh, Michael. He's Welsh, so he's always dressed a bit more snappily than the normal tech layperson, which is a good thing. But what on earth is he doing with his shoes? Hoping to change into slippers and a cardigan like a powerful Mr. Rogers? Or just nervously squirming in his chair before the crowd? VCs already have a reputation as ADD-addled fidgeters, this isn't going to help. (Photo by jspepper)
Michael Moritz, what are you doing with your shoes?
Pictured this morning on the TechCrunch40 stage, four men worth a total of a kajillion dollars or something along those lines. From left, Yahoo founder David Filo, wearing the safe and unimaginative Silicon Valley uniform, YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley in his jeans-and-jacket casual yuppie attire, Ning and Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen, who goes for the novel tracksuit and khakis combo, and Sequoia Capital uber-investor Michael Moritz. Oh, Michael. He's Welsh, so he's always dressed a bit more snappily than the normal tech layperson, which is a good thing. But what on earth is he doing with his shoes? Hoping to change into slippers and a cardigan like a powerful Mr. Rogers? Or just nervously squirming in his chair before the crowd? VCs already have a reputation as ADD-addled fidgeters, this isn't going to help. (Photo by jspepper)
