Semantic Apps, Semantic Web, Technology, Web 2.0

Freebase: open, shared database of the world’s knowledge

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Freebase, created by Metaweb Technologies, is an open database of the world’s information. It’s built by the community and for the community – free for anyone to query, contribute to, build applications on top of, or integrate into their websites.

Already, Freebase covers millions of topics in hundreds of categories. Drawing from large open data sets like Wikipedia, MusicBrainz, and the SEC archives, it contains structured information on many popular topics, including movies, music, people and locations – all reconciled and freely available via an open API. This information is supplemented by the efforts of a passionate global community of users who are working together to add structured information on everything from philosophy to European railway stations to the chemical properties of common food ingredients.

By structuring the world’s data in this manner, the Freebase community is creating a global resource that will one day allow people and machines everywhere to access information far more easily and quickly than they can today.

Freebase  aims to “open up the silos of data and the connections between them”, according to founder Danny Hillis at the Web 2.0 Summit. Freebase is a database that has all kinds of data in it and an API. Because it’s an open database, anyone can enter new data in Freebase. An example page in the Freebase db looks pretty similar to a Wikipedia page. When you enter new data, the app can make suggestions about content. The topics in Freebase are organized by type, and you can connect pages with links, semantic tagging. So in summary, Freebase is all about shared data and what you can do with it.

The Company behind

Metaweb Technologies, Inc. is a company based in San Francisco that is developing Metaweb, a semantic data storage infrastructure for the web, and its first application built on that platform named Freebase, described as an “open, shared database of the world’s knowledge”. The company was founded by Danny Hillis and others as a spinoff of Applied Minds in July, 2005, and operated in stealth mode until 2007.

Reach

According to Quantcast, which we believe is very accurate, Freebase is basically not popular site, despite the press attention it gets, and is reaching less than 5000 unique visitors per month. Compete is reporting for slightly more than 8000 uniques per month.

The People

William Daniel “Danny” Hillis (born September 25, 1956, in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American inventor, entrepreneur, and author. He co-founded Thinking Machines Corporation, a company that developed the Connection Machine, a parallel supercomputer designed by Hillis at MIT. He is also co-founder of the Long Now Foundation, Applied Minds, Metaweb Technologies, and author of The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work.

Investors

In March 2006, Freebase received $15 million in funding from investors including Benchmark Capital, Millennium Technology Ventures and Omidyar Network.

Freebase is in alpha.

Freebase.com is the first Semantic App being featured by Web2Innovations in its series of planned publications where we will try to discover, highlight and feature the next generation of web-based semantic applications, engines, platforms, mash-ups, machines, products, services, mixtures, parsers, and approaches and far beyond.

The purpose of these publications is to discover and showcase today’s Semantic Web Apps and projects. We’re not going to rank them, because there is no way to rank these apps at this time – many are still in alpha and private beta.

[ http://freebase.com ]
[ http://roblog.freebase.com ]
[ http://www.crunchbase.com/company/freebase ]
[ http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/10_semantic_apps_to_watch.php ]
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Hillis ]
[ http://www.metaweb.com ]
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaweb_Technologies ]

Semantic Apps, Semantic Web, Technology, Web 2.0

The Semantic Web and its Applications Today

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Since Web 2.0 Innovations is all about discovering and showcasing the innovation on web, we think the Semantic Web is playing a significant role of the next web transformation. Therefore in a series of publications we will try to discover, highlight and feature the next generation of web-based semantic applications, engines, platforms, mash-ups, machines, products, services, mixtures, parsers, and approaches and far beyond.

We are not going to try to explain in details what Semantic Web is after all. There has been plenty of information on web as to what does really that term mean. First off it is the Tim Berners-Lee W3C led initiative that touts technologies like RDF, OWL and other standards for metadata. Basically it promises to change how the web works in first place, to meaningfully connect the different datasets around web in a readable and usable format for both humans and robots.

The Semantic Web is a web of data. There is lots of data we all use every day, and it’s not part of the web. One can see his/her bank statements or travel arrangements on the web, and the photographs and one can see his/her appointments in a calendar. But can one see his/her photos in a calendar to see what one was doing when she or him took them? Can one see the bank statement lines in a calendar?

Why not? Because we don’t have a web of data. Because data is controlled by applications, and each application keeps it to itself.

The Semantic Web is about two things. It is about common formats for integration and combination of data drawn from diverse sources, where on the original Web mainly concentrated on the interchange of documents. It is also about language for recording how the data relates to real world objects. That allows a person, or a machine, to start off in one database, and then move through an unending set of databases which are connected not by wires but by being about the same thing.

Some of the very basics Semantic components include:

— XML provides an elemental syntax for content structure within documents, yet associates no semantics with the meaning of the content contained within.

— XML Schema is a language for providing and restricting the structure and content of elements contained within XML documents.

— RDF is a simple language for expressing data models, which refer to objects (“resources”) and their relationships. An RDF-based model can be represented in XML syntax.

— RDF Schema is a vocabulary for describing properties and classes of RDF-based resources, with semantics for generalized-hierarchies of such properties and classes.

— OWL adds more vocabulary for describing properties and classes: among others, relations between classes (e.g. disjoint ness), cardinality (e.g. “exactly one”), equality, richer typing of properties and characteristics of properties (e.g. symmetry), and enumerated classes.

— SPARQL is a protocol and query language for semantic web data sources.

Here are some more links to plenty of resources that can get you to the basics and fundaments of the Semantic Web.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web

http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/

http://www.w3schools.com/semweb/default.asp

http://infomesh.net/2001/swintro/

http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/Primer (Getting Into RDF & Semantic Web Using N3)

http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Semantic (Semantic Web Roadmap)

http://purl.org/swag/whatIsSW (What Is The Semantic Web?)

http://uwimp.com/eo.htm (Semantic Web Primer)

http://logicerror.com/semanticWeb-long (Semantic Web Introduction – Long)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/2001/0501issue/0501berners-lee.html (SciAm: The Semantic Web)

http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/03/07/buildingsw.html (Building The Semantic Web)

http://infomesh.net/2001/06/swform/ (The Semantic Web, Taking Form)

http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Activity (SW Activity Statement)

http://www.w3.org/2000/01/sw/ (SWAD)

If by any chance you are working for or being a part of, or just know about, a company or a team deploying Semantic Web in one way or another drop us a short note at info [at] web2innovations.com and we would love to feature your work here.

Acquisitions, Business, Public Companies

Intuit Acquires Homestead for $170m

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Small business website creation service Homestead, started out in the web 1.0 era, announced tonight that it has been acquired by Intuit for $170m. In addition to Intuit’s personal and small business accounting software, and the company’s partnership with Google to integrate services like Maps listing and AdSense buys, Intuit customers will now presumably be able to put up websites quickly and easily with Homestead. This transaction will enable Intuit to offer Web site creation and e-commerce.

The cash transaction is valued at approximately $170 million, including the assumption of Homestead’s outstanding options and restricted stock units.

The transaction is expected to close during the first calendar quarter of 2008 and is subject to regulatory review and other customary closing conditions. Intuit expects the acquisition to be slightly dilutive in fiscal 2008 and 2009.

“This acquisition supports our growth strategy in small business by addressing an underserved need, and continues Intuit’s move beyond financial management solutions into helping small businesses solve other important problems,” said Brad Smith, senior vice president of Intuit’s small business group. “Homestead helps us solve one of small businesses’ highest priorities – attracting customers – by helping them succeed on the Web.”

The backstory is a bit more interesting as per what the Homestead’s CEO says below:

Ever since I started Homestead in 1997, I have kept two lists.  The first list is all the acquisition offers we have received over the years (it’s nineteen long, not counting this one).  The second list is a “wish list” that contains companies I would actually consider selling our “baby” to; companies that have resonated with me and the Homestead philosophy of doing business over the span of my career (this list has four members).  Intuit is on the first list twice and, as you might guess, a member of the illustrious second list. You can read the full story on the Homestead’s blog over here…

Intuit is the company behind QuickBooks, Quicken and TurboTax software.

[ via BW ]

[ via Homestead Blog ]

[ via Bizjournals ]

[ via Mashable ]

[ via Tradingmarkets ]

Business, Nintendo, Nokia, Society

What’s common between Nokia, Motorola and Nintendo?

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Nope, it is not a new mobile gaming platform the two companies are planning and working on.

The 3 companies, among others, are being slammed by Greenpeace in their ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’. While we are all waiting for the major companies to adopt the web 2.0 principles and enter the sector, it seems they are having serious green issues (environmental issues) to deal with rather than wasting time and resources on web 2.0 companies and technologies.   

The full list is enclosed below:

7.7 Sony Ericsson – New leader due to improved takeback reporting, new models PVC free, but falls down on takeback practice. More
7.7 Samsung – Big improvements, with more products free of the worst toxic chemicals. Loses points for incomplete takeback practice. More
7.3 Sony – More products free of toxic PVC and improved reporting on recycling and takeback especially in the US. More
7.3 Dell – Unchanged since the last version, still no products on the market without the worst chemicals. More
7.3 Lenovo – Unchanged since the last version, still no products on the market without the worst chemicals. More
7 Toshiba – Much improved on toxic chemicals but still lobbies in the US for regressive takeback policies. More
7 LGE – Unchanged since the last version, need better takeback for products other than phones. More
7 Fujitsu-Siemens – Unchanged since the last version, needs toxic elimination timelines, better takeback coverage and reporting of amounts recycled.
More
6.7 Nokia– A steep fall! Strong on toxic chemicals but penalty point deducted for deficiencies in takeback practice in Thailand, Russia and Argentina during our testsing. More
6.7 HP – Finally provided timelines for eliminating worst toxic chemicals, though not for all products; needs to improve takeback coverage. More
6 Apple – Slightly improved with new iMacs and some iPods reducing the use of toxic chemicals, takeback programme still needs more work. More
5.7 Acer – Unchanged since the last version, needs better takeback coverage and reporting of amounts recycled. More
5 Panasonic – Unchanged since the last version, need better takeback coverage and reporting of amounts recycled. More
5 Motorola – Big faller due to penalty point for poor takeback practice in Philippines, Thailand and India revealed by our testing. Still no timelines for eliminating the most harmful chemicals. More
4.7 Sharp – New to the guide – some plus points on toxic chemicals elimination but poor takeback policy and practice. More
2.7 Microsoft – New to the guide – long timeline for toxic chemicals elimination (2011) and poor takeback policy and practice. More
2 Philips – New to the guide – no timeline for toxic chemicals elimination and zero points on e-waste policy and practice. More
0 Nintendo – New to the guide – first global brand to score zero across all criteria! More

Nokia fell from first place to ninth and Nintendo placed last in the Greenpeace’s latest guide to green electronics from .

Nokia’s rank dropped mainly because Greenpeace claims the company fails to support its stated recycling programs in many countries arould the world. A Greenpeace video shows a mobile user entering a shop in Argentina that Nokia referred the user to in order to recycle an old phone. The shopowner says she doesn’t take back used phones and doesn’t know where to refer the person to do so.

Greenpeace awards scores to companies on the list based on many factors including recycling programs and toxic substances used in products.

Motorola also fell in the ranking for similar reasons as Nokia. Greenpeace found that Motorola staff in the Philippines, Thailand and India were poorly informed about the company’s phone take-back program. Also, Motorola doesn’t have a take-back service in Russia, Greenpeace said.

For the first time Greenpeace included gaming consoles on the list. Nintendo became the first company to score a zero for having no environmental credentials at all.

[ via Greenspace ]

[ via PC World ]

Business, Deutsche Bank Securities, Goldman Sachs, IPO, JP Morgan Sercurities, Social Networking

Classmates prepares for an IPO

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Classmates Media has just filed to go public at a valuation of $600 to $700 million. Compared to Facebook’s $15 Billion valuation, which the company took as a private entity, it ranks the company more in the bottom level of the Internet sector rather than within the top 100. It appears that Classmates is trying to cash in on the social netwrking market craze.

Classmates Media Corp., which operates the online social networking site Classmates.com, (when the company started they did not call themselves social networking site) expects its planned initial public offering to total 12 million Class A shares and price between $10 and $12 each.

Based on the anticipated price range, Classmates would have a market capitalization of $600 million to $720 million. Assuming an offering price of $11 per share, the company expects to raise net proceeds of about $117.7 million after fees and expenses from the IPO. Mark Goldstone will be the CEO of Classmates Media, and he is personally getting 2.8 million options at the IPO price.

Here are some facts at a glance as taken from the Security Exchange Commission:

—Revenues the first nine months of 2007 weer $140 million. (Full-year 2006 revenues weer $139 million; 2005 revenues were $85 million).
—Net income the first nine months was $1.6 million. ($1.9 million loss in 2006; $8.2 million loss in 2005).
—50 million registered users as of September, 2007. Only 12.8 million of which are active and 3 million of which pay on average $3.33 a month to email and connect with old friends directly.
—Monthly churn of 4.6 percent

Classmates makes money primarily from subscriptions. It also relies on MyPoints, which is a loyalty program. The company also owns a French based social network, Trombi, and Sweden’s Stayfriends.

Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Sercurities are serving as joint book-running managers for the IPO. Deutsche Bank Securities is also underwriting the offering. The underwriters have an option to buy up to 1.8 million shares from the company to cover any overallotments.

The company plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol “CLAS”.

In an another story the FTC is investigating Classmates membership subscription auto-renewal policy, where it just keeps charging your credit card until you tell it to stop, reports Techcrunch’s Erick Schonfeld.

comScore’s October 2007 social networking numbers reveal Classmates had 14.4 million U.S. visitors, which represents a one percent year-over-year decline.

The company’s overview:

We operate leading online social networking and loyalty marketing services under our Classmates and MyPoints brands. Our leadership position is based on a number of factors, including the number of unique visitors to our Web sites, brand awareness and the number of registered members. Our success is driven by our expertise in growing and monetizing large online audiences in a cost-effective manner and enabling advertisers to reach relevant online consumers effectively. Revenues from our social networking services are derived from subscription and advertising fees, and revenues from our loyalty marketing services are derived from advertising fees.

On our social networking sites, we enable users to locate and interact with acquaintances from school, work and the military. Led by our flagship Classmates Web site, our social networking properties are comprised of a large and diverse group of users, with over 50 million registered accounts as of September 30, 2007. Social networking pay accounts at December 31, 2005 and 2006, and at September 30, 2007, were approximately 1.8 million, 2.2 million and 3.0 million, respectively. Using our interactive tools and features, our members have contributed to our social networking Web sites a substantial number of distinct, relevant pieces of content, such as names, school affiliations, profiles, biographies, interests and photos.

MyPoints, our online loyalty marketing service, provides advertisers with an effective means to reach a large online audience with targeted marketing campaigns, while also enabling consumers to earn points-based rewards by responding to email offers, completing online surveys, shopping online and engaging in other online activities. During the last year, we marketed the products and services of over 400 advertisers to our MyPoints members, including NetQuote, Inc., Office Depot, Inc., VistaPrint Limited and Waterfront Media, Inc. As of September 30, 2007, over 8.8 million members were registered with MyPoints, over 6.0 million of whom were registered to receive email marketing messages from us.

From all this it becomes clear for us that calling yourself a social networking site might be profitable these days.

[ via Techcrunch ]

[via Yahoo Biz ]

[ via SEC ]

Advertising, Funding, Galleon Crossover Fund, Rho Ventures, VantagePoint Venture Partners

ReachLocal Stands at Good Chances When it Comes to Location Based Advertising

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As we wrote yesterday a couple of months ago a company called ReachLocal raised a massive amount of money – $55 million at a pre-money valuation in the $300 million range.

ReachLocal provides online advertising services for small businesses. The company’s investors include Rho Ventures, with Galleon Crossover Fund also participating, and VantagePoint Venture Partners as return investors. This recent round of funding comes after the $12.7 million the local ad company has raised since its inception in 2004. This gives ReachLocal an estimated valuation at $305 million, which is $55 million more than its previous valuation.

With that amount in its pockets ReachLocal stands at very good chances to reach a good market share in the location based online advertising market where mature companies like Yellowpages and SuperPages dominate the sector. Nokia has recently been seen to deploy location based mobile services and ads.  Google and Yahoo are also serious about serving ads on the local markets too.

On the ReachLocal’s video, it seems that their real value proposition is that they’ve integrated online and offline touch points (points of contact), and can track and report on this for small & medium businesses, which in most cases do not have high hurdles of integration.

ReachLocal has only one purpose as they claim: getting businesses in front of local buyers and converting “searchers” into customers.

The company is said to have patent-pending campaign optimization, management and tracking technologies, which offer unique benefits for advertisers and make it possible to follow a prospect’s progress from searcher to customer in unprecedented detail.

ReachLocal is a privately held, venture capital-backed company headquartered in Woodland Hills, CA.

Competition include Yodle, SquidBids and upspring.

[ via Mashable ]

[ via MarketingPiligrim ]

Advertising, Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Funding, Galleon Crossover Fund, Rho Ventures, VantagePoint Venture Partners

$12 million more for online local advertising. No it’s not ReachLocal it is now Yodle

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Yodle has raised a whopping amount of money in its second round – $12 million for its web-based local advertising business. The company manages online advertising campaigns for small businesses on all of the big search engines and drives traffic to pages designed specifically to attract new leads. Yodle also employs customer management tools for tracking both incoming calls and emails that your small business is generating from its web presence.

Yodle helps your company generate new business by connecting you with customers searching online for the services you offer. First, Yodle advertises your business online to customers in your local area. Second, Yodle directs these customers to your website so they can learn about your business and view your offers. Third, interested customers call into your business to set an appointment.

According to the company, Yodle grew 400% in the third quarter. The company also estimates that every dollar spent with them generates an average of $8 in additional profit for small businesses. Yodle’s new round of funding was led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, with Bessemer Venture Partners also participating in the round. Yodle got founded under the name Natpal in 2005.

A couple of months ago a major competitor called Reach Local raised a massive amount of money – $55 million at a pre-money valuation in the $300 million range.

ReachLocal provides online advertising services for small businesses. The company’s investors include Rho Ventures, with Galleon Crossover Fund also participating, and VantagePoint Venture Partners as return investors. This recent round of funding comes after the $12.7 million the local ad company has raised since its inception in 2004. This gives ReachLocal an estimated valuation at $305 million, which is $55 million more than its previous valuation.

On the ReachLocal’s video, it seems that their real value proposition is that they’ve integrated online and offline touch points (points of contact), and can track and report on this for small & medium businesses, which in most cases do not have high hurdles of integration.

The location based advertising market seems to be hot these days after Nokia snatched Navteq for $8B and is seen to be using some of the technologies in an effort to tap into the huge market of mobile value-added services, both location based mobile services and location targeted mobile ads.

Other similar companies include SquidBids and upspring.

Leaders in the location based online advertising and leads are Yellowpages and SuperPages (owned by Idearc Media). Superpages.com is the expert in local search receiving over 17 million monthly unique visitors and completing over 200 million searches per month. Idearc Media has also recently acquired LocalSearch.com.  

[ via Mashable ]

[ via Mashable ]

[ via MarketingPiligrim ]

[ via Private Equity Hub ]

Business, Dell, Money, Technology

Michael Dell is returning; reshaping the industry?

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As we have seen today across multiple news reports Michael Dell is returning to the company and is in charge again of the troubled computer company he founded 23 years ago.

After a two-year absence, Michael Dell is back as CEO of the PC maker he founded in 1984.

Why troubled? Here are some facts as we know them explaining the situation behind Dell, Incorporated.

In August 2006 his company ordered the recall of 4.2 million batteries. Dell launched an internal investigation into accounting practices, which uncovered padding of profits by midlevel managers; after the SEC announced its own investigation the company restated its books to erase more than $92 million in net income.

In late January 2007 Dell booted Kevin Rollins, who was the chief executive since 2004, and James Schneider, the company’s chief financial officer. More startling, perhaps, was what he told his 82,000 employees: “The direct model has been a revolution but is not a religion.” It amounted to a repudiation of the gospel Dell himself wrote years ago, a business built on dealing directly with customers via the phone and Dell.com — brashly cutting out all retailers and wholesale dealers. For years the model worked brilliantly. Since going public in 1988 Dell has seen sales, net profit and share price all climb at compound annual rates between 28% and 33%.

The company is also overhauling customer service division after struggling with complaints. Also lowered PC prices, dropped Intel-only policy.

A little bit more about the company: Dell, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, markets, sells, and supports computer systems and services that are customized to customer requirements. The company is based in Round Rock, Texas. Their stock information is enclosed below:

Price $ 26.13 Change 0.00
Open 0.00 % Change 0.0%
Prev Close 26.13 Volume 500
Market Value 58 bil P/E Ratio 20.7
Bid 26.25 EPS 1.26
Ask 26.28 Dividend 0.00
High 0.00 Yield 0.0
Low 0.00 Shares Out 2.24 bil
52wk High 30.77 52wk Low 21.61
Industry: Personal Computers
Sector: Technology

How Dell appears on the Forbes Global 2000: Sales Rank: 90; Profits Rank: 201; Assets Rank: 603 and Market Value: 142.

In less than ten months Michael Dell has made many changes, some of them drmatic, focusing on flashier products and marketing, new Web sites to handle customer complaints and ideas and a bigger push to sell value-added services. During that short timeframe the company has managed even to achieve a handful of interesting acquisitions. Nonetheless Dell is slimming down, starting to cut 10% of its workforce on every level, a move that could save $750 million a year, says Christopher Whitmore, a tech analyst at Deutsche Bank.

On the other side Dell has attracted a number of high profile names as executives. Mark Jarvis, the former marketing chief at Oracle. Steven Schuckenbrock, former president of EDS. Michael Cannon who was president of components maker Solectron.

The biggest step however seems to be the Dell’s push to move into the retain space by putting products in 10,000 outlets like Wal-Mart, Staples and chains in Japan, China, Russia and the U.K.

In other news Hypermarket chain Carrefour said it will sell Dell’s consumer PCs through its stores in France, Spain and Belgium beginning next year. Dell chose Carrefour because it is the world’s second largest supermarket chain, after Wal-Mart, and is present in numerous European countries. Carrefour also has operations in Latin America and China, which would be useful if Dell ever wanted to extend the relationship there.

Dell is also in a virtual war with Apple CEO Steve Jobs starting when Jobs first criticized Dell for making “un-innovative beige boxes”. On October 6, 1997, when Dell was asked what he would do if he owned then-troubled Apple Computer, he said “I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.” Dell would regret these words after Jobs returned as Apple CEO in 1998. By early 2006 Apple was worth more (based on market valuation) than Dell. By October 2007 Apple was worth more than twice Dell’s value (AAPL:$160B – DELL:$62B). Dell resumed the CEO duties (replacing Kevin Rollins) at his troubled company in January 2007, and market value increased 11% in 9 months. During that same time Jobs’ Apple increased its market value 92%. Michael Dell said in late January of 2007 that his company would be worth more than Apple by the end of the year.

What’s intersting here to pay attention to is the fact that since Dell returned and replaced Rollins the company’s market value increased 11% in 9 months.

As of 2007, Forbes estimates Michael Dell’s net worth at $15.8 billion, making him the 30th richest person in the world and the 9th richest American. Dell currently resides in Austin, Texas with his wife, Susan, and their four children. Dell also owns one of the most expensive houses built in Texas. He is also rumored to be buyer in International Paper’s recent sale of 900,000 acres of timberland.

Videos from Dell, Inc.  

Here are some Videos form the Dell Vlog account on YouTube which highlights some of the transformations takign place at Dell, Inc.

Dell about the Re-Generation

Walk in Video from Dell Oracle OpenWorld Keynote

Opening video from Dell’s Oracle OpenWorld Keynote

Complexity in the Industry – OOW Keynote Section 1

The Future is Simple – OOW Keynote Section 2

The Future is Virtual – OOW Keynote Section 3

The Future is Connected – OOW Keynote Section 4

The Future is Green – OOW Keynote Section 5

~~~~ 

[ via Forbes ]

[ via Forbes List ]

[ via reseller.co.nz ]

[ via Wkipedia ]

[ via Michael Jung ]

[ via USATODAY ]

Acquisitions, Google, Mayfield Funds, Redpoint Ventures

Google acquires wiki project JotSpot, one year later

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CNN reported (story has expired) in 2006 on a tiny deal where Google has acquired a small wiki based start-up company called JotSpot. Google says they are expanding their efforts at providing software that helps users create and post their own materials on the Internet. JotSpot is (was) a California startup that develops online collaboration tools known as wikis. Wikipedia is the most prominent example of what wiki software does.

JotSpot was a software start-up that offered enterprise social software – a structured wiki. The product was targeted mainly to small- and medium-sized businesses. The company was founded by Joe Kraus and Graham Spencer, co-founders of Excite. JotSpot is now owned by Google. 

The compamy closed Series A round of funding in the $5M range. Participants were Redpoint Ventures, Mayfield Funds, some private investors and the founders Joe Kraus and Graham Spencer.  

The announcement came Tuesday Nov 03, 2006 through separate postings at Google’s and JotSpot Inc.’s Web journals. Pricing details were not disclosed.

JotSpot Chief Executive Joe Kraus said JotSpot would be able to tap into the Internet search leader’s large user base and robust data centers capable of handling any growth. “Our vision has always been to take wikis out of the land of the nerds and bring it to the largest possible audience,” Kraus said in an interview.

Earlier in the year, Google said it bought Upstartle, the maker of the online word-processing program Writely. Google has since packaged Writely with an online spreadsheet it developed in-house.

The free tools could help groups simultaneously work on documents over the Web and provide alternatives to Microsoft Corp.’s dominant business-software applications, which largely run on computer desktops rather than the Internet.

Kraus said Google’s acquisition of JotSpot “validates the notion that people want to do more online than just read. The Web is moving from a monologue to a dialogue.”

JotSpot since then has stopped billing for paid accounts. By that time JotSpot was said to have more than 30,000 paid accounts.

JotSpot had 27 employees later moved about six miles from Palo Alto, California, to Google’s Mountain View headquarters.

An year later JotSpot seems to have been integrated within what’s called now Google Docs which is free web-based word processor and spreadsheet, which allow you share and collaborate online. In an another news Google announced that Jotspot would be integrated into Google Apps and part of the suite of online office applications Google is developing or acquiring.

Please note this posting is reporting a deal for JotSpot that took place in 2006. Web 2.0 Money is a new initiative of Web 2.0 Innovations to discover, report and analyze the money behind the Technology and Internet Industries. We start from some of the earliest funding/acquisition deals we know about.

[ via CNN ]

[ via Zee News ]

[ via The Geek Librarian ]

[ via Demo ]

Ban Capital, Brookside Capital Partners, Charles River Venture, Funding, Sutter Hill Ventures

China-based video-sharing Youku takes $25 million, totals $40M

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In its the third round of funding for the company Youku raised $25 million which is pretty large amount for a China based web site. We remember large scale funding happened before for a couple of other China Internet companies one of which is Maxthon, the China based browser organized as donateware (part of Charles River Venture’s portfolio). Brookside Capital Partners, a subsidiary of Ban Capital, led the round with previous investors Sutter Hill Ventures, Farraloon Capital Management and Chengwei Ventures also participating. Youku’s previous two rounds were for $3 million and $12 million, giving the video-sharing site a total of $40 million in funding to date.

Youku.com is a rapidly growing Chinese YouTube-style video sharing site. It is one of the larger Chinese video sites, with more than 70 million video plays a day according to Pacific Epoch. Youku also has a lot of big-time connections. Victor Koo, the chief executive of Youku, used to be the chief executive of Sohu, and the two companies have a business relationship. Farallon Capital, the hedge fund, led an initial round of $3 million in March 2006. Bain Capital venture subsidiary Brookside Capital Partners led this latest round, with other investors including Chengwei Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures. Also the well-known Sutter Hill partner Len Baker is on Youku’s board.

The investment money is said to be used towards infrastructure and operations, according to the company. There is a belief that part of the money will go for improving the copyright protection methods, which for a country like China are more than important. Google’s YouTube is also heading towards the Chinese market trying to increase its market share there.

The site was hard to open from outside China.

In other news Sohu.com Inc. (Nasdaq: SOHU), China’s leading online media, communications and search company and Youku.com, China’s leading online video website, announced today that they entered into strategic cooperation to jointly foster the development of the online video industry in China and to promote video-based citizen journalism and user generated content among Chinese online users.

[ via Mashable ]

[ via Paidcontent ]

[ via Venturebeat ]

Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Funding, Sequoia Capital

Meebo received funding from Sequoia Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson

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Meebo confirmed (Dec ’05) that they have received funding from Sequoia Capital on their blog. Meebo.com is a website for instant messaging from absolutely anywhere. Whether you’re at home, on campus, at work, or traveling foreign lands, hop over to meebo.com on any computer to access all of your buddies (on AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ and Jabber) and chat with them, no downloads or installs required, for free!

Meebo launched in September 2005 and received funding from Sequoia Capital in December 2005 and Draper Fisher Jurvetson in January 2007. Today, Meebo’s users exchange over 100 million instant messages daily.In early 2007, Meebo gets another $9 million from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Sequoia Capital. Skype’s lead investor and YouTube’s lead investor are teaming up. Tim Draper, one of the early investors in Skype, did the deal for DFJ. Meebo’s total funding is now $12.5 million.

Please note this posting is reporting a funding which happened in 2005 and 2007. Web 2.0 Money is a new initiative of Web 2.0 Innovations to discover, report and analyze the money behind the Technology and Internet Industries. We start from some of the earliest funding deals we know about.

[ via meebo.com’s blog ]

[ via business2.com ]

[ via Techcrunch ]

Acquisitions, Funding, Uncategorized

Web2Innovations.com Launches Web 2.0 Money

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Web 2.0 Money is a new initiative of Web 2.0 Innovations to discover, report and analyze the money behind the Technology and Internet Industries. We will start from some of the earliest funding deals we know about as discovered by us at the following web addresses through out the past year and a half:

Web 2.0 Innovations We do believe there is a significant correlation between the web 2.0 industry at all and the money within. Although the vast majority of the great web 2.0 innovations that took place over the past 2 years were either funded or acquired we still see a pretty large number of web 2.0 innovative projects, start-ups and companies with little to no money allocated to them.

Based on our observation and despite that many people are claiming that no location plays any role where innovation happens (although some do), it appears that 90% of all funding and acquisition deals that took place within the web 2.0 industry sector since 2005 happened to be in California and Silicon Valley in particular. 5% or something did happen in the rest of US as again only a few states dominated like New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Virginia, Texas and one, as far as we know, in Indiana, a deal on a company, which many IT experts and influencers disagreed to be considered web 2.0 innovation. The rest of the deals appeared on the business map of just a few more countries such as U.K., Sweden, Norway, France, China and one in Singapore.

Basic conclusion: while it might be true that web 2.0 innovation is happening all over the world, it clearly seems the money from web 2.0 innovations can only be made within the US.

 

The Money & Business Behind the Web 2.0 Innovations