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• Retail security breaches come back to haunt Apple Pay

  by Steven Loeb, March 6, 2015

  Credit cards stolen from retailers like Target and Home Depot being used for fraud on Apple Pay

  Remember all of those security breaches suffered by retail outlet from Target to Home Depot and Dairy Queen? The ones that affected millions of customers and cost those companies millions of dollars? Yeah, we're not quite done with that yet. And now its starting to expose a big weakness in mobile payments as well. Apple Pay, the mobile-wallet payment system launched by Apple last year, has been see

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• Twitter's ad targeting just got even more specific

  by Steven Loeb, March 5, 2015

  Partner audiences lets advertisers target users based on their personal shopping habits

  As much we all hate it, and so many of us rail against it, ad targeting works. It just does. Sure it can be a bit creepy, but look at Facebook and Twitter and how much money they make from advertising alone. Facebook makes billions in that one area. No one is paying a company if the wrong ads are going to the wrong people at the wrong time. So it shouldn't surprise you that Twitter has just introdu

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• Musement raises a €5 Million Series A round

  by Ane Howard, March 5, 2015

  The London-based online booking site wants to go beyond Europe and expand globally

  To call the the travel and tourism industry in the United States a booming business doesn't do it justice. SelectUSA reports that it "generated nearly $1.5 trillion in economic output in 2012. This activity supported 7.8 million U.S. jobs, and accounted for 7 percent of all U.S. exports. One out of every 17 Americans works, either directly or indirectly, in a travel or tourism-related industry. In

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• Phablets are taking over: usage rose 148% in 2014

  by Steven Loeb, March 5, 2015

  The smartphone/tablet combos are giving people larger screens without the bulkiness of a tablet

  "As we’ve seen before, the introduction of a form factor changes the media and computing landscape. We saw the laptop change the personal computing landscape," said Flurry. "We saw the tablet change the smartphone and mobile media consumption landscape. This time, it’s happening again with the phablet. It is not just the third-stage media booster rocket, it is the ultimate mobile form factor."

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• Etsy files for IPO, looks to raise $100 million

  by Steven Loeb, March 4, 2015

  The company has seen revenue go up in recent years, but is also seeing higher losses

  "We may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future," the company wrote in its SEC filing. "We expect that our operating expenses will increase substantially as we hire additional employees, increase our marketing efforts, expand our operations and continue to invest in the development of our platform, including new services and features for our members. These efforts may be more costly than

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• Key details emerge about HBO's stand-alone streaming

  Called HBO Now, it will cost $15, debut in April before Game of Thrones and may be on Apple TV

  Since then, though, details have been basically non-existent. We didn't even have a name for the service. Now, finally, some crucial details have emerged, including, yes, a name, as well as pricing and ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Instagram updates ads to include clickable links

  Instagram also debuts "carousel ads," which feature multiple pictures that users can scroll through

  nstagram began to run its first ad all the way back in 2013. It was a very successful and since then the photo-sharing has continued to cultivate its relationships with brands and advertisers. It has not, ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Uber is buying deCarta, making its first acquisition

  Uber will use deCarta to improve its own mapping capabilites, become less reliant on GoogleMaps

  With all of the money that has raised (I'm talking billions in the span of just over a year or so) it's a little surprising to me that Uber has never made any acquisitions. Companies like Google, Yahoo ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Nextdoor raises $110M at a $1.1B valuation

  The social network is dedicated to creating private networks based on local neighborhoods

  Let's face it: as much as they'd like to, no company is going to ever really take down Facebook as the go-to social network; there are just too many people on it now for that the conveibaly happen anytime ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Box beefs up security with acquisition of Subspace

  This is Box's first startup purchase since going public in January

  No financial terms of the deal were disclosed, but it was revealed that Subspace's entire seven member team, which includes its founders Jon Fan, Ben Kus and Peter Loer, will all be joining Box. Subspace ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• It's official: Fab has been sold off to PCH

  No financials were disclosed, but Fab, once valued at $1 billion, is said to have sold for $15M

  The company announced on Tuesday that it has been sold to PCH International, in order "to focus 100% of our resources on Hem." Though no financial terms were disclosed, previous reports had pegged the ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• YouMail uses JOBS Act to raise $5.5M round

  The company bypassed venture capitalists and raised its funding from 30 private investors

  We've seen the effect of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act in how it has affected companies looking to go public, which major players like Box, GrubHub and Trulia using it to file confidentially. ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Amazon is laying the groundwork for shipments to Cuba

  The site began showing a button for shipping to the country, though it did not yet work

  Even with relations between the United States and Cuba thawing a bit recently, it has not resulted in anything significant yet. The trade embargo is still in place, at least for now, but It seems like ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Gaming advertising network RockYou raises $23 million

  RockYou now has over one billion impressions a month, making it a top 10 video property

  There's a strange desire on our part to always want something new, and to believe that just because something is no longer fresh it has no value. RockYou rejects that idea. It is a cross-platform advertising ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• PayPal acquires Paydiant to expand reach to merchants

  Paydiant helps retailers, including Subway, Walmart and Target, to create their own wallet apps

  I swear that I have been hearing for years about the emerging payments space, and all of these companies that were going to get rid of the wallet forever (I still do not believe that will ever truly come ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• HP acquires Aruba Networks for $2.7B

  HP and Aruba Networks aim to combine network systems innovations with a global go-to-market breadth

  In what is the biggest Hewlett-Packard's acquisition in recent years, the Palo Alto-based tech giant announced that it is buying Aruba Networks for approximately $3.0 billion, and net of cash and debt ...
  By Ane Howard
  

• Google+ to be split up; is this the end of the line?

  Bradley Horowitz is put in charge of Google+, as Google says it will split into Photos and Streams

  It is time to say goodbye to Google+ as we currently know it, as its parent company made some big announcements on Monday regarding the future of the widely underused, and under-performing, social network. ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Sequoia Capital leads the charge on $1B companies

  The firm has invested in 12 companies that hit that mark, and made six of them in the early stages

  As we all already know by now, as valuations have been creeping up, so has the number of companies that are reaching $1 billion valuations. In fact, it has jumped massively in just the last year or so. ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Social+Capital is looking to raise a $450M fund

  Social+Capital's recent investments have included Slack, Ringly, Getable, Bustle and Hubba

  Here's some evidence of that already: the Social+Capital Partnership is raising a new fund, according to a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, its largest yet, by far. ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Uber reveals hacking, 50K drivers may have been exposed

  The company found out in September, but is only now notifying those drivers of the breach

  Uber has had its fair share of scandals over the past year or so, from reports of potential fraud against Lyft, to the accusations that some of its drivers had raped their passengers, to that whole "let's ...
  By Steven Loeb
  
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