Postmates Inc., a San Francisco Internet start-up that launched its same-day delivery service in December, is hoping to succeed by tying its business to the proliferation of smartphones.

“We want to do for intracity commerce what FedEx did for overnight shipping across the country,” says Postmates Chief Executive Bastian Lehmann. “We’re definitely not blind” to the history of failed delivery start-ups, he says, “but we’re not afraid.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Google’s move into fulfilling delivery of physical goods is motivated largely by Amazon, these people said. Amazon’s growth has surged in recent years with a service called Prime that allows people to receive many items they order from the site in a day or two for a $79 annual fee, analysts said.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The Washington, D.C.-based company will also be trying out a poorer-man’s option, called Instant Ordering, that offers takeout and delivery from a wider selection of restaurants.

Both services will be offered at full price, breaking the company’s tradition of offering deep discounts to restaurants, spas and other experiences.

Initially, the services will be available in LivingSocial’s hometown as the kinks get worked out of the system, but the company has ambitions to take it wider.

“We think it’s going to really resonate with people,” said Tim O’Shaughnessy, co-founder and CEO. “If merchants can figure out how to expand their tables outside their restaurant, that’s a whole new revenue stream and introduction to people for them.”

The Instant Ordering service will leverage restaurants that already have existing delivery or takeout options, but Room Service will be for restaurants that have never tried it before. LivingSocial will provide the vans and the delivery personnel, and will drop off the food at a designated time. It will also pick up the plates the next day.

It sounds a little bit like Kosmo, the venture-capital-backed free delivery service that exploded during the dotcom boom, but Room Service is working with high-end restaurants, which probably have larger margins to play with than a movie rental or a pack of cigarettes.

In a description of the service, LivingSocial writes: “Along with an elegantly plated meal on ceramic dishware, we’ll provide you with everything you need, from a cloth napkin to candles. As for those dirty dishes? We’ll take care of those, too. Just place them in a LivingSocial Room Service container, leave them outside your door the next day, and we’ll pick them up.”

We hear there’s chocolate for dessert, too. Just not on your pillow.

Starting on Tuesday, 70 merchants will be participating in the company’s Instant Ordering service; Room Service will kick off on Thursday and Friday with just one. The service’s guinea pig is D.C.-based Kushi, a sushi restaurant co-owned by Ari Kushimoto Norris.

Kushi will offer two set menus for $66 each. The first offers several small plates, including shrimp and pork skewers, with a plate of sushi. The second offers vegetarian small-plate options, such as mushrooms and soba noodles with a plate of sushi.

Kushimoto said the price compares to a meal at the restaurant, with tip included. An undisclosed portion of the revenue will go to LivingSocial. O’Shaughnessy explained that the value of Room Service is not in the discount that the company is typically known for giving, but in the convenience and experience of the service.

Kushimoto said she believes it will be an attractive service for working families that don’t have a babysitter, but have the capacity to spend money on a regular basis in restaurants.

One of the challenges she dealt with in early trials involved retaining the quality of the food — in other words, keeping the warm plates hot and the cold plates chilled. But delivery is something Kushimoto has always wanted to try. Since LivingSocial is hiring the delivery drivers and promoting the service, she doesn’t have to worry about taking on the risk of hiring extra personnel before it takes off.

Both new services will be part of the company’s “Instant” offering, which include being able to buy a discount via a mobile phone and redeem it in a matter of minutes. Instant is currently live in 22 metropolitan areas.

So far, the variety of merchants offering deals in any particular neighborhood can be low, but by offering a list of options, where you can get take-out or delivery, the catalog will grow, albeit at full price. Of course, merchants will have the option of offering a discount, and users will be able to redeem prior offers.

The firing of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz leaves open one of the bigger and more difficult jobs in tech — one that has taken its toll on many.

Nonetheless, rapper Snoop Dogg stepped right up to the Twitter plate yesterday, as soon as news broke of the ouster.

Tweeted Snoop Dogg:

“Im takn over as tha CEO of Yahoo. Need sum of tha Snoop Dogg content ya digg. Nuff Said.”

Not nearly nuff!

Thus, while the Yahoo board has yet to begin a search, I have already been hard at work on selecting the next CEO.

(Last time, the company took none of my suggestions, but after the most recent result, the directors might want to pay mind!)

Sources said Yahoo is looking for an experienced Internet type, either from inside or outside the company.

“Yahoo has put its flag in the ground as a digital media company with a technology base,” said one source. “The job requires big buckets of expertise and needs someone who will grow the company.”

Here I go with the outsiders:

Peter Chernin: The former News Corp. exec has been eyeing Yahoo for a possible takeover with other investors. Both Yahoo and I had picked him when co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down as CEO almost three years ago, and he had declined the offer. This time, perhaps a big chunk of the company and total autonomy would work, even if making a hit like “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is more fun.

Sheryl Sandberg: The COO of Facebook is sort of the anti-Bartz, with a smooth and efficient persona, and she is an experienced tech exec. But the former Google exec is at a place of growth at the social networking site, and is unlikely to want to leave the big show, especially since a blockbuster IPO is looming.

Jason Kilar: The Hulu CEO is in the midst of the process of selling the premium video service, with Yahoo as a bidder. While he has some tense relations with the studios, Kilar is top notch in his dedication to consumer products, and has a lot of experience from his stint at Amazon, too.

Dan Rosensweig: Currently CEO of IPO-headed Chegg textbook rental service, the former Yahoo exec never got a chance to run the company as its top leader. Well-connected and still well-liked by the troops at Yahoo, it still would be pretty hard for him to go home again.

Dave Goldberg: Sure, he’s married to Sandberg (see above), but the savvy CEO of polling phenom SurveyMonkey is one of the sharpest thinkers in Silicon Valley. He sold his music company to Yahoo many years ago and has a strong background in consumer online services.

Jon Miller: The chief digital exec at News Corp. almost got the CEO spot years ago when Carl Icahn was agitating for change at Yahoo, before Time Warner blocked him via a noncompete. With the mishegas at the media giant, and dwindling digital businesses there, it might be a good escape hatch for Miller.

Susan Wojcicki: The accomplished Google exec, who runs all its ad products, has the kind of calm, cool, collected persona that Yahoo could use right about now. The search giant was founded in her garage, and she has been a key part of its success since then. Wojcicki is also an understated class act in hey-look-at-me Silicon Valley.

Todd Bradley: The Hewlett-Packard exec just got blindsided when the company kicked webOS to the curb. While he is in line to run a possible spinoff of the device business, Bradley might also want to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.

Mike McCue: The CEO of Flipboard would certainly energize Yahoo with his intense focus on quality and consumer delight. The news app start-up could be a good addition to Yahoo, and McCue, the former Netscape and Microsoft exec who is well-liked in the Internet scene, would be, too.

Joanne Bradford: The former Yahoo advertising head bolted Bartz’s regime early on to run revenue for Demand Media. Well-liked in the ad business, she also knows where all the bodies are buried at Yahoo. Since ads and media are key at the company, she’d make an interesting choice.

Yusuf Mehdi: The Microsoft online exec would also be a left-field candidate to run Yahoo, given his even-keeled personality and longtime experience in the sector. And, though pricey, Mehdi’s impact on Bing search has been important. But he’s also been involved in the software giant’s lackluster ad and search partnership and still has not turned around the situation at MSN.

Kevin Johnson: The former Microsoft exec and current CEO of Juniper was once slated to be the CEO of Yahoo, had Microsoft managed to win the company in its hostile takeover attempt. In fact, Johnson was the architect of the idea of Yahoo running the media and Microsoft running the tech.

Tim Armstrong: Well, he might have been a good candidate before the downward slide of AOL and a recent series of questionable judgments. If Armstrong can’t keep a loud tech blogger in line, it’s not clear he can wrangle the Yahoo beast.

And here’s the insider scoop:

Ross Levinsohn: The former News Corp. exec is running the Americas for Yahoo, which puts him in charge of the company’s key businesses. But he’s still struggling to turn the ad business around, and how well he does that could be a major determinant of his success. But fantastic hair!

Blake Irving: The former Microsoft exec has an amiable nature and is well-liked at Yahoo, but he still needs to show that the company can ship some innovative products, and quickly. Like Livestand, the news reader, which is muchly late.

David Kenny: The Yahoo board member is now president of Akamai, which might preclude him from the job. But the well-regarded exec — he’s a snazzy dresser, too — ran one of the Internet’s top digital ad agencies and now has tech chops from the content delivery network.

Memo to Yahoo board: I have a million more ideas, from former Viacom exec Tom Freston to former Yahoo board member Eric Hippeau. Or why not bring back a passel of former Yahoos to advise, such as former CEO Terry Semel or former president Sue Decker?

Or Oprah! I hear Winfrey will be in Silicon Valley later this week, and she has a lot more free time now.

Like Snoop Dogg, she would fo shizzle be the bomb to cover.

Related posts

• As Yahoo Continues to Wobble, Investors (And Board) Eye Options
• Exclusive: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Tim Morse Named Interim CEO
• Carol Bartz’s Last F%*& You — Now Aimed at Yahoo Board
• Yahoo’s Statement on Bartz Ouster
• Wall Street Likes Bartz’s Firing — Yahoo Stock Spikes on News
• My Picks for Yahoo’s Next CEO — Maybe Snoop Dogg, Ya Digg?

According to sources close to the situation, Intel Capital and Advance Publications will lead a $30 million investment round in Kno, the high-profile student tablet start-up.

In addition to the funding from its venture capital arm, Intel itself will consult with Kno on its tablet design. Kno, which is getting out of the hardware business, will now focus on its software to manage the devices that are aimed at the college market.

Intel will not manufacture tablets either. Instead, its engineers will consult with Kno on power management, graphics, display, systems integration, which it does for a variety of its customers.

Along with Intel Capital and Advance, current investors will also participate in the round, said sources. But Intel Capital and Advance, the owner of the Condé Nast publishing empire, make up a big part of the funding.

Sources said Intel Capital’s investment is $20 million and Advance and others make up the rest of it.

BoomTown reported in February that the much-funded and high-profile Silicon Valley start-up–aimed at making tablet computers focused at students–was considering selling off the entire hardware part of the business.

Sources said Kno execs have recently decided that the quicker-than-expected uptake in tablet production by a multitude of powerful device makers had made its efforts to package a seamless offering less critical.

Instead, the company will now focus on its robust software and services to offer students on the Apple iPad, as well as upcoming tablets based on Google’s Android mobile operating system and others.

The move is a dramatic shift for the company, which had not shipped significant numbers of the touchscreen device as it has long touted.

In fact, Kno said in November that it would ship a $599 and $899 version of the tablet by the end of the year.

The lower price was for its single-screen device, while the clamshell double-screen version was more expensive.

And, although it has been reported no pre-orders were fulfilled, Kno did indeed ship several hundred of them, built by China’s Foxconn, before stopping doing so earlier this year.

Many have been dubious about Kno’s ambitious hardware efforts.

That’s because marketing a new and complex product like the Kno takes a lot of effort and cash, especially since it is an increasingly competitive market for mobile and portable computing products that includes Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Amazon, Dell and many others.

Before this $30 million, Kno has raised another $46 million in funding to add to an earlier $10 million round.

Sources in February said that the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company considering going back out to raise even more.

Its current backers include prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with angel investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

Sources said the shift to deliver textbook and other student-related delivery system would be a better path for all that investment money, since Kno has established a wide range of partnerships with colleges and universities.

In addition, Kno co-founder Osman Rashid has a lot of experience in digital education market. He was also the co-founder of Chegg, the textbook rental business that is reportedly aiming for an IPO soon.

BusinessWeek was first to report that Intel Capital was making the investment in Kno, but the post did not mention Advance’s involvement or that Intel itself was licensing the hardware design business from Kno.

A spokesperson told us today that Amazon Tote launched in the Seattle area in July 2010 as a new experimental customer delivery option and confirmed “This pilot program will no longer take orders as of 6 p.m., Thursday, March 3.”

The Tote service offered a free weekly delivery on a specified day. The perk was that it didn’t require a minimum-order size and you got to keep the reusable totes, however, the delivery day could not be changed.

It was a hybrid between Amazon’s Prime service, which offers free two-day shipping with an annual fee, and the company’s Amazon Fresh grocery service, which delivers food and some regular items directly to some houses in Seattle, also for a fee. Customers of Tote will continue to have those two options.

The discontinuation of the service appears to be a reversal for the Seattle-based company, which said in January that the program “will be expanding soon.” The Financial Times reported separately that the e-commerce company was headed for a national roll-out.

The spokesperson did not return requests for comment as to why the service was shutting down.

This debut was supposed to happen a few weeks ago in San Francisco, with Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs sharing stage time. Instead, Murdoch will show off his new publication at the Guggenheim in New York, with Apple content boss Eddy Cue stepping in for Jobs.

We’ve got a very good idea of what to expect: A newspaper that’s both old-fashioned and cutting-edge, which will sell for 99 cents a week or $40 a year. And the best way to experience the new publication will be on an iPad, not at a museum.

Still, it will be interesting to hear News Corp. pitch this one in real time, and to see how it leverages all of its resources and a very rare Apple endorsement. (This Web site, we should note, is owned by News Corp. as well.)

10:40 am: Greetings! So excited to be in the Guggenheim that I’m starting this one a few minutes early.

10:44 am: And here’s Jon Miller, who has been shepherding this thing at News Corp. Here’s some fresh scoop! The Daily will be be live onstage for the demo, he says, but won’t appear at the app store until noon.

[Note: The Daily can be found here at the Apple App Store]

10:47 am: Miller is working the room very well; now chatting up Reuters’ Ken Li.

10:48 And Steve Rubenstein, who has been handling PR for the Daily launch. He semi-taunts me by noting that there were tasty canapés at Rupert Murdoch’s private party Tuesday night.

10:49 am: If you’d simply like to watch a livestream of the event, minus my commentary, head to thedaily.com at 11 ET.

10:50 am: That sound you hear is the rustle of departing page views.

10:51 am: Cunning of the News Corp./Rubenstein/event-planning crew to split up the press by species. Gives us something to talk about.

10:52 am: BREAKING NEWS! Jon Miller says Wi-Fi here at the Guggenheim has been working “intermittently.”

10:52 am: WAAAAAAY More interesting is that Engadget’s Joanna Stern being hassled for daring to take out a camera during a press conference. She is being moved three seats back. Where that’s OK, apparently.

10:56 am: Pre-launch music, btw: Some kinda samba thing going on. Festive and, dare I say, a smidge bit sexy. Rowr!

10:58 am: Slightly curious is that registration staff told media that they’ll have “review units” available after presser. But everyone in media has an iPad, right? It’s required, no?

Perhaps the notion is that the presser will end before noon, and the Daily won’t be available until then, so if you want to get hands-on in the meantime, that’s the way to go. Which would be smart!

On the other hand, if they’re simply handing out free “review” units to the press, well, that’s kinda smart too. Because the press likes free stuff.

11:03 am: Our crack tech guy Adam Tow tells me TheDaily.com site is now saying that the app will be available at noon ET. I can’t see that on my screen, but I’ll take his word for it.

Especially because that’s what Jon Miller said a few minutes ago.

11:05 am: Given News Corp. pub WSJ’s focus on privacy, and Apple’s, interesting to review the Daily’s:

When you use the Services, we may collect certain non-personally identifiable information about that use. For example, in order to permit your connection to the Services via the Internet, our servers receive and record information about your computer and browser, including potentially your IP address, browser type, and other software or hardware information. If you access the Services from a mobile or other device, we may also collect transactional information such as a unique device identifier assigned to that device (“UDID”), your geolocation, or other transactional information for the device in order to serve content to it. We also may use cookies and other tracking technologies (including browser cookies, pixels, beacons, and Adobe Flash technology including cookies), which are comprised of small bits of data that often include an anonymous unique identifier. Websites send this data to your browser when you first request a web page and then store the data on your computer so the web site can access information when you make subsequent requests for pages from that site. We may use these technologies to collect and store information about your use of the Services, such as pages you have visited, search queries you have run, and advertisements you have seen.

11:06 am: And we’re live. Here’s Rupert Murdoch, iPad in hand.

“Good morning. I’m Rupert Murdoch.”

Thanks for the “amazing Steve Jobs,” a man who has “single-handedly changed the world” of technology and media.

“Steve has been a champion of the Daily from day 1.”

“New times demand new journalism.” [hrm]

Trying to take best of traditional journalism, including “shoe-leather reporting” editing, “a skeptical eye” [hrm!] and combine them with awesome tech.

“”Simply put, the iPad demands that we completely re-imagine our craft”

Shooting for audience that is sophisticated and reads a lot, but not print.

We have that, but it’s niche. No “true news discovery.” The magic of newspapers “and great blog” lies in “serendipity.”
True!

Similarly, we must make the business of news-gathering viable again.

Goal is to be indispensable source for news and entertainment. “A robust new voice.”

Shout-outs to Jesse Angelo and Greg Clayman, who run editorial and business, respectively, for the new pub.

Daily will be 14 cents a day–99 cents a week–because no printing, delivery costs, etc.

More superlatives for the Daily, including a “sense of fun.”

Target audience is “tablet” audience–[note emphasis on tablet, not iPad].

And a shout-out to Jon Miller, too.

[Unless I misheard and it was News Corp. CTO John McKinley.]

“We believe the Daily will be the model for how stories are told and how they’re consumed.”

And another shout-out to “all our friends at Apple”

Okay. Here are Miller, Angelo, Clayman.

11:13 am: Miller starting off. Not a demo–this is live production.

Trying to figure out how to produce new news for tablet era. “We think we’ve developed that.”

Angelo shows off home screen of the Daily, with Egypt as main headline. Applause.

Have been doing live production for about six weeks.

11:14 am: They have a reporter on the ground in Cairo right now. Josh Hirsch [sp?].

Lots of big pictures, video embedded in text.

And here’s one of the 360-degree photos. Which look cool!

Can put audio behind them, etc.

HD video–here’s a clip about prisoners making toys in Angola prison. Note the bluesy background music. ’Cause it’s about a prison, duh.

11:16 am: Back to Miller. Have rethought navigation.

11:17 am: Back to Angelo, showing off swipey carousel. Sorta silly to describe this to you in a liveblog, but there’s a “play” function and a “shuffle function,” and a video anchor who will discuss the main stories of the day.

11:18 am: Back to MIller. “The Daily is not an island” can share to Facebook, Twitter, email.

11:18 am: Angelo: We can also pull HTML5 pages into device. Can also link out. [Subtext--we are TOTALLY NOT ignoring the Web, you dummies. We're not idiots.]

Bringing Twitter feeds directly into app. So you can see what Lily Allen (used to be semi-famous a couple of years ago) has to say about something.

11:19 am: Miller: We have apps and games section, with a link directly to Apple Store.

And we have an awesome sports section [sounds familiar!].

11:20 am: Angelo: Yes, check out our awesome sports section. Troy Polamalu talking about Clay Matthews’s hair.

“For sports fans, we really think this is the showstopper”–customizable sports filter by team/sport, brings in scores, tweets, etc.

11:21 am: Miller: Publishing once a day, with updates throughout the day “as the news warrants.”

Verizon sponsoring first two weeks of free subscriptions.

11:22 am: The art in this liveblog, by the way, is coming directly from livestream. Nice job, Adam Tow.

11:22 am: Here’s Eddy Cue. Never seen him before. A very, very, very big deal in media circles.

Running through iPad, iOs success. iPad customers are huge news eaters. 200 million news apps downloaded so far.

I’ve been using the Daily for the last two weeks. “It’s amazing.” Amazing that it’s done every single day. More superlatives, etc.

Basically, a repeat of what Miller et al just said.

Okay. Here are the new details on push subscriptions. First time Apple has used this tech. 99 cents a day, $40 a year. [ahem].

11:26 am: And now, oddly, press conference comes to a halt for a photo opp.

11:26 am: Waiting for them to set up chairs for Q&A.

Questions and Answers

How will back issues be handled? Where will old copies be stored?

Angelo: Best thing to do is to save articles you care about. And it will also be archived on the Web. Internal archiving not there for 1.0.

Q: When will other pubs start using subscription option?

Announcement “very soon for other news publications.”

Q: How will you measure impressions, etc. for advertising?

Miller: Will have tech built into app for that. I should have mentioned during presentation that we love advertisers.

Q: For Rupe: How will you measure success?

A: We want to sell millions. But keep costs low. We have spent $30 million so far, “all of which has been written off in figures we’ll announce today.” But overall costs $500,000 a week going forward.

Q: Another question about subscriptions.

A: A non-answer from Cue.

Q: Who/what does Daily compete with? And how will other News Corp. properties be integrated?

A: Miller: Gotta compete with everything. “you’re competing with Angry Birds at some level.” [Hey that's my line!]

Murdoch: In NY, for example, we already have multiple outlets competing with each other. This is another.

Q: What about breaking news? How will that work?

A: Angelo talking up twitter feeds, sports scores, but “we can drop in a new page if we want to, and we will.” BUT! As a conusmer, I don’t like Web sites that change constantly. It’s not a great experience. [THAT IS: This is a newspaper, not a Web site.]

Q: What’s the political tone of this thing. Centrist, right?

A: Murdoch: “The editorial position will be in the hands of the editor.” Cue Angelo, who sorta hedges. On op-ed page, “We’re patriotic.”

Q: Someone wants to know if Rupert is really into this. Also, will there be an Australian version?

Murdoch. Duh.

(An Australian version “always a possibility.”)

Q: Why do this with the Daily instead of existing brands. Also, what’s up with your phone hacking newspapers in the U.K.?

A: Murdoch: Existing tablet apps are what got me excited about launching a new one. No comment on “the other matter.”

Q: You’ll be working with other tablets besides iPad, right?

A: Murdoch. Yes. And “we’ve been quite honest with Apple about that.” We’ll defnintely be on all platforms. But Apple will be the dominant one this year, in my opinion.

[Sorry, missed a Q. Seems to be about what apps Murdoch likes.]

Q: More about the editorial voice, please.

A: Angelo: Thinking it through. We know that people spend a lot of time with these apps–35 minutes, 40 minutes. “It’s unbelievable.” So how do you create content rich enough to keep people there?

Q: What did Steve Jobs say about this in the last couple of days?

A: Murdoch: “He did call me last week” and told me app was “really terrific. He was extremely flattering.”

Q: How will people find this stuff, since it’s not on the Web?

A: Cue: We’ve downloaded 10 billion apps. People can find this stuff.

Miller: We feel really good about this. We didn’t want to make compromises.

Q: I ask about what’s available on the Web.

A: Some of it will be mirrored on the Web, when it can be done technically. [Sorry, hard to type and write.]

[Sorry, now even more confused about what's available on the Web and what isn't. Going to have to follow up with the gang later.]

[Where's Greg Clayman, by the way?]

11:47 am: Q: How do you balance a subscription model with a large audience that advertisers want?

Murdoch: “They’d pay a much lower rate per thousand if it was free. They realize it’s something that people want.” And we can tell them more about who sees it. “It’s not just scattered out there….We’ll draw a better class of advertiser, and a better rate.”

11:48 am: Q: What’s the split between ad and subscription revenue?

Miller: Subscription will be larger at start, and then eventually 50-50, “which is the magic number.”

And we’re done. Will try to follow up, may have more answers/comments here, or in a separate post. Thanks for checking in!

Here is the press release announcing the Daily:

Introducing The Daily

First National Daily News Publication Created for iPad Launches today in the Apple App Store

New York, NY, February 2, 2011 – Today Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of News Corporation, unveiled The Daily — the industry’s first national daily news publication created from the ground up for iPad.

“New times demand new journalism,” said Mr. Murdoch. “So we built The Daily completely from scratch — on the most innovative device to come about in my time — the iPad.”

“The magic of great newspapers — and great blogs — lies in their serendipity and surprise, and the touch of a good editor,” continued Mr. Murdoch. “We’re going to bring that magic to The Daily — to inform people, to make them think, to help themengage in the great issues of the day. And as we continue to improve and evolve, we are going to use the best in new technology to push the boundaries of reporting.”

The Daily’s unique mix of text, photography, audio, video, information graphics, touch interactivity and real-time data and social feeds provides its editors with the ability to decide not only which stories are most important — but also the best format to deliver these stories to their readers.

“News Corp. is redefining the news experience with The Daily,” says Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think it is terrific and iPad users are really going to embrace it.”

Led by Editor-in-Chief Jesse Angelo and Publisher Greg Clayman, The Daily is the first application made available on the App Store as a subscription — which will be billed directly to an iTunes account. And because this paperless paper requires no multi-million dollar presses or delivery trucks, it will be priced at just 99 cents a week (or $39.99 for an annual subscription).

“The Daily launches at a moment when advances in technology are changing the job of the modern editor,” says Mr. Angelo. “These advances are giving us new ways to tell stories. We intend to take advantage of all of them, and make The Daily the new voice for a new era.”

Each day The Daily will publish up to 100 pages focused on six key areas: news, sports, gossip and celebrity, opinion, arts and life, and apps and games. It will offer views from across the political spectrum. They will come from across cultures and generations, across America and the world.

The Daily will feature Sudoku and crossword puzzles, localized weather reports, and a customizablesports package that captures news on the user’s favorite teams. Subscribers will also be able to leave comments on Daily stories in either written or audio form — as well as bookmark them in-app to read later.

As readers move through The Daily’s content, they will be helped by several highly intuitive navigation tools. And while The Daily lives on the iPad, most of its articles can be easily shared via Facebook, Twitter and email. The Daily will link out to the web, as well as bring the web into the app.

“In short, says Mr. Murdoch, “we believe The Daily will be the model for how stories are told and consumed in this digital age.”

The Daily has bureaus in New York and Los Angeles, as well as stringers across the country. Full companybios are available at TheDaily.com/about. Executive staff includes:

John Kilpatrick – Executive Creative Director
Steve Alperin – Managing Editor
Mike Nizza – Managing Editor, News
Richard Johnson – LA Bureau Chief
Sasha Frere-Jones – Editor, Arts & Life
Chris D’Amico – Editor, Sports
Elisabeth Eaves – Editor, Opinion
Peter Ha – Editor, Apps, Games and Technology

The Daily is also changing the way advertising is offered and consumed within a news publication. Full-page ad units are completely interactive, customizable, and offer a rich mix of branding and direct response opportunities. Launch advertisers include HBO,Macy’s, Paramount, Pepsi Max, Range Rover, Verizon, and Virgin Atlantic Airways.

“With The Daily, Rupert Murdoch has given us the chance to rethink the entire experience of news delivery and consumption,” said Mr. Clayman. “The ability to actively listen to and engage with our audience means we can continually provide an experiencethat consumers value in this fast-evolving tablet space. Together with our customers, our advertising partners, and the team at The Daily, we are excited to create a new form of media.”

About The Daily
The Daily is a first-of-its-kind daily national news publication built exclusively as an application for tablet computing. It provides readers the engaging experience of a magazine combined with the immediacy of the web and the need-to-know content of a newspaper, all while elevating user experience beyond the printed word. The Daily is a subscription-based news product, published 365 days a year, at the cost of $0.99 cents a week or $39.99 a year. For more information on The Daily go to: www.thedaily.com.

Finally, here are screenshots from The Daily’s listing in the App Store:

[CLICK HERE FOR LIVE COVERAGE OF THE PRESS EVENT]
But a select crowd will get to see the iPad newspaper tonight, at an equally notable Manhattan location: Rupert Murdoch’s apartment, where the News Corp. CEO is hosting a “low key” cocktail party.

Although News Corp. owns this Web site, my email invite to tonight’s pre-launch launch event hasn’t arrived, and I’m told it never will. The company hasn’t offered me a peek at the Daily, either.

But at this point I’ve still got a pretty decent sense of what Murdoch’s guests will see this evening, and the rest of us will see tomorrow: A newspaper that’s both old-fashioned and cutting-edge.

People who have gotten up  close to the the Daily describe a digital paper where many of the news stories look just like news stories you’d see anywhere else.

Others will look more like iPhone apps, featuring interactive graphics or videos, or photos you can swipe, pinch and zoom–with perhaps almost no text at all.

And there’s more! There’s no 3-D video yet, though it’s on the agenda. But there will be an audio feature so you can have stories read aloud to you. And there’s a crossword puzzle! And Sudoku!

A Daily-watcher who thinks the thing is amazing compares it to the Daily Prophet, the magical newspaper read by Harry Potter and his wizard pals.

More jaded observers tell me it’s more or less what they’ve seen in existing iPad magazine apps, particularly Hearst’s Popular Mechanics and Condé Nast’s Wired. The big difference is that those magazines come out monthly, and the Daily will get beamed to your iPad… daily.

Still, the most striking thing about the Daily has nothing to do with any technical bells and whistles. It’s Murdoch’s insistence that he can sell a digital newspaper app to consumers trained to expect that digital news is what you get on the Web, for free.

The Daily is almost defiantly anti-Web: It will have a free site, with a grudging sample of perhaps 10 percent of the newspaper’s stories, but that’s it. While Web news sites increasingly focus on aggregation and filtering of other people’s content, the Daily will focus on making its own stuff, even though plenty of other people are already doing it.

And while News Corp. officials have tried to argue that the Daily isn’t a newspaper but something else, it is most definitely produced using a newspaper model: Six sections, written once a day–the Daily team is particularly excited about its sports coverage–and delivered in the wee hours of the morning.

The Daily will allow for some midday updates, but it’s really designed to land with a digital thud on your virtual doorstep, just like the newspapers Murdoch has loved all his life.

Murdoch will charge 99 cents a week for a subscription, and he’s certainly going to get some takers at the start, especially since the Daily will be free for the first two weeks after tomorrow’s launch.

Which will be a noisy one. The press will give it plenty of free promotion, and News Corp. will augment that with a digital ad campaign, in addition to offline marketing donated and/or bartered from other Murdoch properties. Perhaps there’s a way to mention it once or twice during Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast on Fox.

Much more important will be the endorsement from Apple, which is using the Daily to roll out a new “push” subscription feature.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who was supposed to appear onstage in San Francisco with Murdoch to bless the launch, will send content boss Eddy Cue to New York tomorrow instead.

That’s still Apple’s seal of approval, though, and I can’t think of another time the company has so conspicuously blessed a single third-party product. That alone will be enough to prompt an enormous number of people to try it out.

Remember that Apple already has a customer base of  some 125 million iTunes users–if you do want to buy this thing, you won’t need to pull out a credit card. A few button clicks will do.

The real question, of course, is how many people are going to pay for the Daily a month down the road, when the buzz is gone. And there’s no way to guess at that when you get your first look at the thing. No matter when that happens.

In the first 40 days of the holiday shopping season, comScore estimates that more than $21.95 billion has been spent online, increasing 12 percent vs. last year.

The most recent week saw a spike in sales with $5.15 billion in spending, an increase of 11 percent over last year, as two days each pushed passed $900 million.

But still, it’s likely that the biggest shopping day online has yet to occur. The industry would like you to believe that its “Cyber Monday,” the Monday following Thanksgiving, is the busiest, and while spending hit an all-time record of $1.03 billion on that day this year, procrastinators typically spend more as we get closer to Christmas.

This Monday, Dec. 13, has been coined “Green Monday,” presumably after the color of money. EBay came up with the term after the second Monday in December 2007 kicked off one of the busiest shopping weeks online.

This year seems particularly robust, as shoppers become even more comfortable seeking discounts online. ComScore chairman Gian Fulgoni, surmised: “This coming week, beginning with Green Monday, should see some of the heaviest online shopping activity of the season and we expect at least one more day to surpass the billion dollar spending threshold.”

But the holiday shopping season will naturally slow down starting on Friday, Dec. 17, as free delivery offers expire and it becomes more difficult to get guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve. Until then, the post office can assume its sleighs will be packed full of cardboard boxes.

Amazon.com is offering free shipping on purchases of $25 or more until Friday, unless you have an Amazon prime subscription. Wal-Mart is offering free shipping–with no minimum–on 60,000 items until Dec. 20. And, Dec. 17 has been coined Free Shipping Day with lots of merchants trying to get shoppers to do last-minute spending online without the penalty of shipping costs.

In fact, the 10-year-old venture capital firm General Catalyst Partners is moving out two of its partners from Cambridge, Mass., to Palo Alto, Calif.–just in time to avoid the Boston winter.

On Tuesday, I met up with Neil Sequeira, a managing partner at the firm, who arrived in town a few months ago and is focused on the social Web and new media.

Sequeira said his fellow managing partner Hemant Taneja, who invests in cleantech companies, will be joining him out here soon.

Sequeira’s kids are too young to be in school, he’s from the Bay Area and none of his portfolio companies are based in Boston, so for him it was a relatively easy move.

General Catalyst’s Palo Alto office will soon have 11 people, up from no presence whatsoever a year ago. Sequeira and Taneja account for about a third of the core partnership of the small VC firm.

Sequeira, whose investments include the Internet television delivery company Boxee and the social media marketing company Vitrue, recently had two of his companies sold–Hot Potato to Facebook and ScanScout to Tremor Media– so he’s looking to find a few more board seats to occupy.

He said General Catalyst was happy with its two-x return on selling Hot Potato to the social networking giant shortly after it invested. But to find the really big opportunities on the consumer Internet, the place to be is in Silicon Valley, he said.

I recorded a very quick interview with Sequeira in which he revealed he’s getting the hang of this Palo Alto VC thing pretty well: He’s already done a seed investment deal at the bustling Coupa Café, where we met up.

Here it is:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101124/general-catalyst-heads-west-to-find-some-young-men-and-women-to-fund/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101002/would-that-the-real-mark-zuckerberg-talked-as-much-as-the-facebook-movie-mark-zuckerberg/ http://allthingsd.com/20101002/would-that-the-real-mark-zuckerberg-talked-as-much-as-the-facebook-movie-mark-zuckerberg/#comments Sat, 02 Oct 2010 23:01:37 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=34730

Mark Pincus can sure talk a blue streak. Mark Cuban can easily be classified as a chatterbox, both online and off. And Marc Andreessen certainly knows how to keep up his end of the conversation.

In other words, the pantheon of famous digital entrepreneurs is full of blabby Marks.

But Mark Zuckerberg, not so much.

So, when watching “The Social Network”–the movie about the rocky origins of Facebook–a person who has known the co-founder and CEO of the social networking powerhouse even longer than BoomTown has leaned over and said, “The Mark in this movie has said more in 15 minutes than I have heard the real Mark say in the first few years I knew him.”

And how.

If you want to know, although critics are raving over it, it’s like a very talky, very geeky version of “The West Wing.”

The Mark Zuckerberg in the movie, as penned by master wordsmith Aaron Sorkin, is able to parry with top-notch lawyers and deliver perfectly crafted rejoinders one after the next to friend and foe alike.

He can conduct several conversation streams at once–so much so that a soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend remarks that talking to him was like “being on a StairMaster.”

I’d agree with that statement about the real Mark, except that the effort is quite the opposite of being dazzled by wild verbal gymnastics.

In fact, unlike a lot of Internet moguls, it has often been a struggle to get him to be fully articulate about the company, due mostly to a more taciturn, awkward and incredibly precise way of speaking.

When Zuckerberg famously asked Leslie Stahl of “60 Minutes” in a television interview–”Was that a question?”–right after she asked a question, I shuddered in recognition at the exchange.

In that way, he is a lot like the original leader of AOL (AOL), Steve Case, a person who created the first major social explosion online while also being incredibly shy and terse in real life.

Actor Jesse Eisenberg (pictured here) playing Zuckerberg in “The Social Network” certainly has the clipped delivery and often furrowed brow down–but the rest is a dude I certainly would love a chance to interview.

That said, he also plays Zuckerberg as a dour and wary person, also nothing like the real thing.

While I am in no way a personal friend of Zuckerberg’s, I have spent enough time with him to say that he strikes me as someone who generally tries to get along with people and makes a big effort to seem like a regular Joe, despite his fame and, well, billions of dollars worth of stock.

That does not mean he can’t be a bit robotic in tone or that he is not very much in charge at Facebook–indeed, one thing the movie does show is how very much the company is a creation of his single-minded devotion, restless innovation and intense forcefulness.

What I found perhaps most interesting about the movie was that it seems to, in fact, make the very case it is not trying to make.

Which is that, as the movie Zuckerberg says to the trio suing him for stealing the basic idea for Facebook: “If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook.”

Exactly. Because even if Zuckerberg did swipe the kernel of an idea about making a social network about friends from the Winklevoss twins at Harvard University–which seems obvious that he did indeed do– they were still incapable of creating what he created, even if they had gotten bigger head start.

Though hysterically played by actor Armie Hammer (pictured here, who does both of the Winklevii), these two seem more like rich kids with good chins, great bods and not much else.

So too Eduardo Saverin, Zuckerberg’s original partner in Facebook, who got left behind and then diluted out of his stake in the start-up.

While that move by Zuckerberg and his new investors was probably too cute by a half–and they had to pay up later for it–the movie makes clear that Saverin did almost nothing to make Facebook what it was, except write an early check.

In fact, in one scene, it’s clear he does not even know how to use it enough to change his relationship status. This, I believe.

(Also, incredibly, that Justin Timberlake–who plays the devilish Sean Parker–can actually act.)

Finally, there is the part about the impetus for Zuckerberg to make Facebook–which opens the movie–over a bad breakup with a girlfriend.

Again, it would be great for the origins of Facebook to be that interesting, but that trick is only there to provide a good ending shot of Zuckerberg hitting the refresh button.

And, of course, to lay out the big question of whether or not Zuckerberg is an “asshole” or not.

That’s from “The Social Network” and not me, which at the end twists that grand theme again.

Instead, it posits via a woman lawyer–the only truly positive portrayal of a woman in the entire film, by the way–to the Zuckerberg character that: “You are not an asshole, Mark. You’re just trying so hard to be one.”

I am afraid that is not really true either, at least in my experience.

Sure, Zuckerberg has been diffident, has treated some friends shabbily (even recently) and has even been borderline disingenuous once or twice with me.

But that’s not that different from a lot of people I cover in tech and that does not make him that proverbial “asshole” of the movie.

Oh, I sure have known a few of those in my time covering Silicon Valley, but that’s a list I’ll keep for my movie.

Kidding. Sort of. (You know who you are.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101002/would-that-the-real-mark-zuckerberg-talked-as-much-as-the-facebook-movie-mark-zuckerberg/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20100628/que-thats-spanish-for-where-the-hell-is-my-e-reader-right/ http://allthingsd.com/20100628/que-thats-spanish-for-where-the-hell-is-my-e-reader-right/#comments Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:08:46 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=43728 Customers who pre-ordered Plastic Logic’s Que ProReader expecting delivery June 24 received something else instead: An order-cancellation notice.

“We’ve been working hard to bring the world’s first product based on plastic electronics technology to market–and have decided that delaying the device a bit longer will result in a better product for you,” Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta said in a message to pre-order customers. “With that in mind, we need to let you know that since your unit will not ship on June 24 as planned, our automated ordering system has automatically cancelled your order.”

Archuleta didn’t specify a new ship date, which was probably wise since the Que has now missed two of them. Nor did he offer any detail on the company’s rationale for further delaying the product.

A spokesperson for Plastic Logic, however, insists the company is simply refining it. “The market for e-readers is changing rapidly, and they want to make sure that the product they deliver is the right one for their target business customers,” she said. “They continue to refine the product, technology and features.”

Let’s hope they continue to refine the price as well. At $650 and $800, the Que seemed a bit pricey for a standalone e-reader, even one targeted at enterprise. Now, with Apple’s (AAPL) iPad redefining user expectations for multipurpose e-readers and Amazon (AMZN) and Barnes & Noble (BKS) dropping prices on the Kindle and Nook to well below $200, Plastic Logic seems to be pricing itself out of a market it hasn’t even managed to enter yet.

Below, Plastic Logic shows off a Que prototype at D7.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100628/que-thats-spanish-for-where-the-hell-is-my-e-reader-right/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100622/super-early-iphone4/ http://allthingsd.com/20100622/super-early-iphone4/#comments Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:12:49 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=43279 “Xmas has come early because my iPhone 4 just arrived.” So reads a post to Twitter written by attorney Gil Cabrera, who received his new iPhone this morning–two days before it was expected and a day ahead of the early delivery Apple (AAPL) promised in an email message to some customers this morning.

Sadly for Cabrera, receiving the device early didn’t mean he could start using it early. “Oh cruelty,” he wrote in some later posts to Twitter. “Apparently, the #iphone4 arrived in error early and I cannot activate it until tomorrow! That’s just wrong!…Called Apple and the rep was like you have the iPhone 4? Yea, that’s a mistake.”

UPDATE: Looks like Gabe finally got his iPhone 4 up and running. “Apple Rep just got me activated. Had to restart my computer (felt like I had a windows machine for a minute) and presto,” he said in a post to Twitter this afternoon.

[Image credit: Gil Cabrera]

Read Walt Mossberg’s iPhone 4 Review »

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