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Valleywag
rumormonger
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rumormonger
Helio, Virgin Mobile in merger talks
SK Telecom, the backer of money-losing wireless startup Helio, could buy out Virgin Mobile USA and combine it with Helio. [MocoNews.net]
rumormonger
New iPhone will hit stores June 12, feature improved speakers and camera
A source tells us that "someone who designed part of the iPhone UI, who generally has access to new hardware locked down in a room to play with, " told him that the new iPhone will run on faster 3G networks, as expected; feature new, improved speakers on the bottom; and an improved camera. It will hit stores June 12. Our source warns us: "The person has mixed details before." Our guy puts his friend's trustworthiness at an 8 out of 10. More »
rumormonger
Report: LinkedIn seeks funding to set value at $1 billion
LinkedIn has hired investment bank Allen & Co. to help it raise a round of funding that would set the company's value at $1 billion. Last fall, LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye said the company would sell itself outright only for a "a lot more" than $1 billion. In January, he told a reporter "an IPO is by far and away the most likely outcome." But that was January. While the public markets are rough, private equity remains flush, making it a safer bet for raising money. We hear LinkedIn takes a tidy profit, selling advertisers on its 41-year-old, six-figure-making average user and earning $45 CPMs on ads in the process.
yahoo
Angry board members, shareholders forced Yang to backpedal
Suddenly, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang is telling reporters he's "willing to listen" to Microsoft offers below $37 a share. Why the change of heart? Because Yang had a bad day Monday. Major Yahoo shareholders slammed him in the press. Employees were angry and the Yahoo board took heat, too. "I'm extremely disappointed in Jerry Yang," Capital Research Global Investors portfolio manager Gordon Crawford told the Wall Street Journal. "I think he overplayed a weak hand." Crawford also directed his ire at Yahoo's board of directors: "The independent directors were not responsive to the needs of independent shareholders." A very tenuous source tells us at least one Yahoo board member got the message and was heard venting over the phone about Yang's performance, saying, "I'm done with this ego trip shit, he's out."
LinkedIn board raising more cash
At careerist social network LinkedIn, a marathon board meeting has sparked speculation about a new financing round. LinkedIn, often mentioned as an IPO candidate, has raised $27.5 million to date. [VentureBeat]
At careerist social network LinkedIn, a marathon board meeting has sparked speculation about a new financing round. LinkedIn, often mentioned as an IPO candidate, has raised $27.5 million to date. [VentureBeat]
rumormonger
Will the last Akimbo employee please turn out the lights
Akimbo has laid off nearly everyone except for its executives, according to a tip we just received. An early entrant in the TV-over-Internet field, Akimbo saw its original CEO Joshua Goldman leave for the luxury of investing in other video startups. The company dumped its set-top box business to sell Internet video-on-demand software to other hardware manufacturers. So far $47 million has been poured into the company by the likes of Cisco Systems, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Kleiner Perkins' William R. Hearst III, who serves on Akimbo's board. Any Akimbo employees out there want to confirm or contradict our tipster's impression that CEO Tom Frank and COO Neil Goldberg are mismanaging the aging startup?
rumormonger
Viacom offers $10 million to buy music blog aggregator Hype Machine?
A tipster tells us Hype Machine founder Anthony Volodkin has a "$10 million Viacom offer floating around." Hype Machine, a website which aggregates music uploaded to blogs, has grown 125 percent in the last year, with 127,000 monthly visitors, according to Compete.com. Another source familiar with Volodkin's plans for Hype Machine can't confirm Viacom's offer, but said an acquisition would be the next logical step. Volodkin has been very careful to avoid taking venture capital, "despite VCs going hard after him," this second source tells us. Update: A third source says Hype Machine has been sold, but not for $10 million and not to Viacom. Whoever the buyer is, the sale rumor, if true, captures a frustrating state of affairs for technology's financiers. More »
rumormonger
Anne Wojcicki and Sergey Brin begin baby-making beta test, results expected in 9 months
Google cofounder Sergey Brin and his wife of nearly a year, Anne Wojcicki are expecting their first child, the New York Post screams. We're confident Wojcicki's easy access to DNA materials at her biotech firm 23andme will assure the creation of a much more attractive child than the one we've imagined here.
rumormonger
Julia Allison's reality show gets greenlit?
We heard from a tipster that Julia Allison's reality show has been given the go-ahead to begin production. No word from JA herself though, just a mysterious blog post. I tried to call Julia for comment, but like every other time I try to call her, some guy asked me 'pick-up or delivery'? I guess she lost her cell phone again. Update: Julia called back. She says she hasn't heard anything about the show and her blog post is about her new website that's launching next month. False alarm.
rumormonger
Microsoft to open retail stores?
The list of computer companies with failed retail initiatives includes a lot of big names: Sony, Dell, and Gateway, for starters. Only one company, Apple, has beaten the odds. Now Microsoft, which tried and failed with one retail store in San Francisco a decade ago, is rumored to be tiptoeing into the retail waters again. Fudzilla, a rumor site, claims Microsoft will open "many" retail shops dedicated to Microsoft products. The aim of the stores would be to show the "true Microsoft experience." What, random crashes of the cash register during checkout and multiple identity checks before being allowed into the store? This can't end well. A Microsoft spokesperson offered the standard noncomment, which may be wise; if the retail push is for real, I wouldn't want to try and pitch it to the press, either.
deathwatch
Pageflakes running on empty
Personalized homepage startup Pageflakes will be broke soon according to sources cited by Om Malik, though while CEO Dan Cohen admits the company is for sale, he denies that it's running on empty. The company, founded in 2005, has raised a total of $4.1 million but with a reported $300,000 monthly burn rate and scant revenue, it does sound like just a matter of time. A few weeks ago I went to meet an acquaintance at a company party in SOMA. So I didn't look like a total idiot, I tried to access the site to see what the company was all about just in case — and got a page not found error. Which I'm still getting today. Must be hard to generate income when users can't even access the site. Update: Brad Greenspan, the guardian angel of failing companies, will add Pageflakes to the roster of companies LiveUniverse will probably continue to mismanage reports TechCrunch.
rumormonger
Jingle's free 411 service aiming for $175 million sale
Free directory assistance has a price after all: $175 million. That's the price we hear Jingle Networks is trying to get for its 1-800-FREE-411 service, which gives free business listings in exchange for playing ads. Google, Microsoft, and AT&T are all preparing bids. But a source who has looked at Jingle's numbers say it will be lucky to get full price: "It's maybe worth $90 million." By late 2006, Jingle had raised $60 million; we hear it's since blown through that, and taken on debt besides. More »
rumormonger
Is Jakob Lodwick the moneyman behind Muxtape?
Jakob Lodwick now admits he's involved with Justin Ouellette's Muxtape. What the Connected Ventures cofounder, ousted from his job at the IAC-backed venture by Barry Diller, doesn't disclose: a financial stake in Ouellette's online mix-tapes project. We hear it's more than plausible Lodwick is an early investor in the startup. Lodwick has already shown a willingness to invest in projects he admires, such as David Karp's Tumblr. Before publicly disclosing his employ with Muxtape, we asked Lodwick to explain his connection to Muxtape. In an email, Lodwick changed the subject to fantasies of his personal life. More »
rumormonger
iJustine to take over Mahalo Daily?
Who will fill the hole soon-to-depart Mahalo Daily host Veronica Belmont left in Jason Calacanis's heart? He's planning an American Idol-type contest to find out. Rumors peg Pittsburgh-native Justine Ezarik, better known as iJustine, as an early favorite. Check out the clip below. In it, iJustine interviews SXSW music attendees to the shortly after SXSW interactive geeks left Austin. "Did you hear they released the iPhone SDK," she asks one music fan. "I don't know what that is" he says. "That's just letters." Good, geek-deprecating stuff. But we're still holding out for Andrew Baron. More »
rumormonger
At 10 a.m., Jeff Bonforte, the ex-Yahoo who's now CEO of Xobni, described his status on LinkedIn as "legal documents up to my ears." What could have him so submerged? Microsoft has long been rumored to be interested in Xobni, which makes a plugin for its Outlook software. Not long ago, Microsoft startup scout Don Dodge took the startup's small team to dinner, but Xobni's said to have balked at a sub-$20 million offer they viewed as lowball. If Bonforte has actually persuaded Microsoft to raise it, he'll have earned his pay. The irony, if a deal happens: Bonforte will likely end up working for Microsoft long before his former colleagues. Update: Xobni cofounder Matt Brezina tells me the legal documents are for intellectual-property licenses, not a sale. Sounds dreadfully boring — and good training for a career at Microsoft if the widely expected purchase goes through.
Has Microsoft bought email startup Xobni? No, but its CEO is getting used to paperwork
At 10 a.m., Jeff Bonforte, the ex-Yahoo who's now CEO of Xobni, described his status on LinkedIn as "legal documents up to my ears." What could have him so submerged? Microsoft has long been rumored to be interested in Xobni, which makes a plugin for its Outlook software. Not long ago, Microsoft startup scout Don Dodge took the startup's small team to dinner, but Xobni's said to have balked at a sub-$20 million offer they viewed as lowball. If Bonforte has actually persuaded Microsoft to raise it, he'll have earned his pay. The irony, if a deal happens: Bonforte will likely end up working for Microsoft long before his former colleagues. Update: Xobni cofounder Matt Brezina tells me the legal documents are for intellectual-property licenses, not a sale. Sounds dreadfully boring — and good training for a career at Microsoft if the widely expected purchase goes through.
rumormonger
Tipster: Mahalo revenues are around $9,000 a month
At Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis's Dim Sum 2.0 dinner in New York a couple weeks back, I was just within earshot when Calacanis told someone nearby that Mahalo was already profitable. A pleasant surprise, he said. Later, I asked him directly if Mahalo was profitable. "Not yet," he told me. Now a tipster tells us Mahalo isn't even close — with 4 million unique visitors a month on 8 million pageviews, the site's monthly gross is $9,000. More »
Federated Media snags $50 million investment?
A tipster reports that John Battelle's Federated Media ad network just scored a $50 million investment. We've emailed FM but haven't heard back yet.
