Vator.tv news stories and report

vator story - Hot Potato serves up social event stream

Ronny Kerr — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:22:00 -0800

Hot Potato, a startup focusing on an iPhone app that streams updates from friends at events in your area, launched on Friday, just one month after the completion of its Series A round of funding. The Brooklyn-based early-stage startup has ... [Read more]

vator story - Social networking sites are media portals

Chris Caceres — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:45:00 -0800

One of the things I love about Facebook is how simple it is to view videos on your live feed. For the most part, videos from sites like YouTube, Vimeo, or those uploaded directly to Facebook play right in the ... [Read more]

vator story - Facebook shares rise 42% in 4 months

Matt Bowman — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:04:00 -0800

Facebook’s valuation has been all over the map. In 2007, a $240 million investment from Microsoft pegged the company at a whopping $15 billion. After Wall Street imploded, the company plummeted to $3.7 billion in its own estimation, according to ... [Read more]

vator story - Adobe to release Acrobat.com for smartphones

Ronny Kerr — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0800

Adobe revealed Thursday that this weekend it will be launching a new version of Acrobat.com, an online platform which allows for PDF conversion, web conferencing, and more. Included in the announcement is the news that Adobe will likewise be releasing ... [Read more]

vator story - Twitter's new question: What's happening?

Ronny Kerr — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:38:00 -0800

From the beginning, Twitter has asked its users one simple question: "What are you doing?" The original idea assumed the network would be a place for people to keep in touch with each other and the occurrences in their day-to-day ... [Read more]

vator story - YouTube launches automatic captions

Chris Caceres — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:54:00 -0800

YouTube is taking initiatives today to help the hearing impaired by announcing a new automatic captioning feature across its millions of videos.This isn't your traditional hand written captioning either. Google is combing its automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology with the ... [Read more]

vator story - GettingHired gets $3 million

Chris Caceres — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:46:38 -0800

GettingHired, an organization focused on careers and community for people with disabilities, announced on Thursday it secured $3 million of additional investment from Zenith Insurance Company, Kamine Development Corp and Fisher Capital. Launched back in November of 2008, GettingHired.com serves ... [Read more]

vator story - The 100 top performing VCs

Matt Bowman — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:44:00 -0800

When I'm not writing for VatorNews or working with Bambi on the next mixer, I'm doing research for AlwaysOn. Over there, we just released the VC 100--our pick of the top venture capitalists based on exit performance in the last ... [Read more]

vator story - Introducing Convexity Using Put Options

Jason Ng — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:15:06 -0800

All portfolio managers aim to create and maintain portfolios that gain when market conditions are good and lose little or no money when market conditions are bad. Yes, that sounds like what every trader and investor would love, doesn’t it? ... [Read more]

vator story - Olive Media launches first HD Hi-Fi server

Ronny Kerr — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0800

The high fidelity digital media designers at Olive Media just created a new category of audio equipment for audiophiles to drool over.On Wednesday, the San Francisco-based company unveiled the first-ever HD Hi-Fi server, the Olive 4HD, a device built for ... [Read more]

vator story - Microsoft announces Office 2010 public beta

Ronny Kerr — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:56:00 -0800

Microsoft released a slew of 2010 iterations of its Office-related products in public beta on Wednesday, including Office 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Project 2010, Visio 2010, Office Web Apps for businesses and Office Mobile 2010.Office, comprised of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, ... [Read more]

vator story - EveryZing RAMPS up

Chris Caceres — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:27:00 -0800

EveryZing announced on Wednesday it has re-branded and is now called RAMP. The Woburn, MA-based startup offers universal search and publishing solutions for dynamic Web publishers. The re-branding was, "largely driven by the completion of our solution to a business-to-business ... [Read more]

vator story - Salesforce launches Chatter

Chris Caceres — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:29:00 -0800

With Salesforce.com's Dreamforce conference kicking off this week in San Francisco comes a major announcement from the company. It's launching a product called Salesforce Chatter, which the cloud computing giant describes as a "Facebook for the Enterprise."Salesforce is stepping into ... [Read more]

vator story - Facebook adopts new privacy policy

Ronny Kerr — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0800

On Tuesday night, Facebook announced that it has adopted its revised privacy policy changes, without the need to submit the changes to the site's user base for a vote. Facebook said that if 7,000 users commented on the proposal revision, ... [Read more]

vator story - Looking Into Time and Attendance Systems

Resource Nation — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:34:03 -0800

The unemployment rate reached 10.2% this October, which was the highest it has been in 26 years. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also reported that as of June 2009, the average compensation for workers was $29.31per hours worked. With ... [Read more]

vator story - Zynga raises $15.18 million

Chris Caceres — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:06:00 -0800

Popular social gaming startup, Zynga raised $15.18 million on Tuesday, according to a regulatory filing. No new investors were listed, but the company now has raised $54 million in total. Previous investors include Kleiner Perkins, Avalon Ventures, Foundry Group, Union ... [Read more]

vator story - Google Image Swirl launches in Labs

Ronny Kerr — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:00:00 -0800

First, they gave us Image Search, then came Similar Images, and now, Google is adding a new application to Google Labs, called Google Image Swirl.Announced Tuesday morning on the Google Blog, Image Swirl functions similarly to Google Wonder Wheel, in ... [Read more]

vator story - 4200 startup job openings in California

Matt Bowman — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:12:00 -0800

California has both the fourth highest unemployment rate in the country and, by far, the most job openings at startups. Go figure. Too many nice beaches, I guess. According to the NVCA, 39% of the 11,000 job openings tracked by ... [Read more]

vator story - Ankeena introduces Media Flow Director 2.0

Ronny Kerr — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0800

Ankeena, the media infrastructure provider formerly known as Nokeena Networks, introduced on Tuesday morning Media Flow Director 2.0, an update to its 3-screen content delivery platform.Media Flow Director is a 3-screen delivery platform because it is optimized specifically for a ... [Read more]

vator story - Can't make money off apps on social networks

Bambi Francisco — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:30:00 -0800

Aydin Senkut, an early-Google employee-turned angel investor, is becoming known as one of the more prolific seed-to-early-stage investors in Silicon Valley, having invested in 40 companies since 2006. His portfolio consists of some well-known consumer Internet companies, such as Mint, ... [Read more]

vator story - Why Online Marketing Strategies Can Help

Resource Nation — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:27:34 -0800

There is an increasing trend for companies to develop websites for their company. Once your website is up and running, the next step is to decide on is how you will gain traffic to your website, which in turn help ... [Read more]

vator story - Twitter homepage still most popular client

Ronny Kerr — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:33:00 -0800

Do you pay close attention to where the users you follow tweet from? "About 3 minutes ago via twitterfeed." "About 5 minutes ago via bit.ly." "About 6 minutes ago via Facebook."Despite the overwhelming abundance of third-party applications, Web sites, and ... [Read more]

vator story - Social shopping

Brenda Powell — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:03:00 -0800

Discount shopping Web sites are hardly new; Amazon has been around for almost 15 years and has reinvented itself time and time again to keep up with the changing landscape. But, with the recession taking such a strong hold of ... [Read more]

vator story - Azure Capital targets late-stage orphans

Matt Bowman — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:41:00 -0800

Mike Kwatinetz knows about recession investing. In 2001, just after the bubble burst, he led Azure’s investment in Bill Me Later, which later became the target of the second-largest tech acquisition of 2008. The company sold to eBay for $1 ... [Read more]

vator story - Obama doesn't actually use Twitter

Ronny Kerr — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0800

To the 2,676,001 Twitter users following Barack Obama's stream of presidential status updates: you've been had.In a live-streamed meeting between Obama and Chinese students during a stop on the President's whirlwind tour of Asia, one daring student posed a question ... [Read more]

vator story - Google exec: Microsoft Office is overkill

Ronny Kerr — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:15:00 -0800

If you're a business trying to sell a product, I suppose making the claim that your 800-pound competitor won't have a leg to stand on in a year might be an efficient strategy.In an interview with ZDNet Asia, Google's President ... [Read more]

vator story - Voxeo raises $9 million

Chris Caceres — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:05:57 -0800

Voxeo, a company which provides Internet and VoIP communication services, announced a $9 million minority investment by North Atlantic Capital and the Florida Growth Fund. The Florida-based company previously raised $48 million from Crosspoint Venture Partners and the Mayfield Fund.Founded ... [Read more]

vator story - Sarbanes Oxley small business "Relief" a joke

Lorenzo Carver — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:00:00 -0800

I got very excited for startups, VCs and angel investors last week when I heard "small companies wouldn't be subject to Sarbanes Oxley." Then I read the fine print. It's disappointing on multiple levels. Perhaps the biggest source of disappointment ... [Read more]

vator story - In search of underhyped VCs

Matt Bowman — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:31:00 -0800

I’ve been doing a lot of research on recent liquidity events and the thing that keeps jumping out at me is the difference between recent success and media hype. Take Kevin McQuillan. Have you heard of him? That name’s probably ... [Read more]

vator story - Facebook growing hugely in Taiwan, Thailand

Ronny Kerr — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0800

Facebook is growing in Asia. A lot.According to investigations by Inside Facebook, at least four countries saw the site's usage grow by 25% or more between October 1 and November 1. Indonesia and the Phillipines both saw 25% growth, the ... [Read more]