5 posts and columns on business models

Another Bet on Video: How-To Start-Up 5min Raises $7.5 Million

in Media on July 23, 2009 at 6:43 am PT

Web video companies that wanted to take on YouTube are having a very hard time. But Web video isn’t going away, either, and there has to be some way to make it work for users, publishers and investors. Right? Hence, another round of funding for 5min, a video start-up that just raised a $7.5 million B round. New investor Globespan Capital Partners led the round, and Spark Capital, the VC shop that has made several video bets (along with a big one in Twitter) made a second investment.
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Web 2.0 Expo: eBay Tells Developers to Embrace Making Money

in News on April 3, 2009 at 4:47 am PT

EBay is on a mission to woo developers at the Web 2.0 Expo this week in San Francisco. During a keynote speech Wednesday, eBay CTO Mark Carges told an audience filled with Internet start-ups that “nothing matters more than getting paid for the hard work that you do.” EBay knows a thing or two about making money, he said, before unveiling a new program to open up the company’s marketplace platform and PayPal services to outside developers.