Notice I said “TV industry.”

Most observers and analysts believe that Siri’s voice commands could eliminate the need for those clunky TV remote controls. With the blurring and exponential proliferation of television and Web content, telling your TV what you’d like to watch, instead of scrolling through a nearly infinite number of program possibilities, makes a lot more sense.

But from my perspective, Siri’s greatest impact won’t ultimately be on users, or on device manufacturers (though they certainly risk losing market share to Apple). It will be on the TV industry’s content creators and packagers. Why? Because a voice-controlled television interface will fundamentally disrupt the six-decade-old legacy structure of networks, channels and programs. And that’s a legacy that — until now, at least — has been carried forward from analog to digital.

There’s an important underlying precedent here.

If the Internet can be generalized to have one effect across every industry that moves online, that effect would be disaggregation. Choices go from finite to infinite. Navigation goes from sequential to random access. And audiences choose content by the item far more than by the collection. We’ve gone from the packaged and channelized to the unbound and itemized. Autonomous albums are fragmented into songs; series into clips; and magazines and newspapers into articles and individual photos.

As much as we may think that has already happened with video, it is nothing compared to the great leveling that will occur in the voice-controlled living room. Voice-controlled TV means direct navigation to individual episodes, programs and clips. And it will almost certainly lead to a discernible deconstruction of the network and channel structure — not to mention the decomposition of even the aggregated marketplaces like Netflix, Hulu and YouTube.

Here’s the simple reason: No one is going to sit on their couch and say, “Siri, show me NBC’s ‘Community.’” In a voice-activated world, monikers like “NBC” become useless. They don’t stand for anything meaningful to the consumer. They’re just remnants of a decrepit channel structure that’s unraveling. And, in the end, they’ll simply connote the fast-fading allure of mid-20th century mass appeal.

To be sure, the TV majors will lose much of their ability to realize network effects. Already, you’re hearing less about “lead in” and “lead out.” What you are hearing more about, however, is disconnected videos. A program on YouTube, for instance, will sit on a level voice-controlled playing field with an NBC show, and that field will soon become even more level, because Siri will eliminate the menus that structure the artificial hierarchies of content collections.

So how will we be able to get network effects back in video? Let’s look at four possible ways:

• Branded Content — Players can build a strong brand that stands for something with their audiences. Break.com, Discovery and Oprah are all meaningful and build long-term customer loyalty. (“Siri, show me new TED Talks.”)
• Curation — Brand the collection with a curation strategy so that the curator’s name and stamp of approval means something to the audience. (“Siri, show me Jason Hirschhorn’s latest movie suggestions.”)
• Social — In the fully social world that we expect to see, focusing on the virality of content means you tap the human distribution network and social operating system. (“Siri, show me what videos my friends are watching.”)
• Personal — We’ve already seen the extraordinary value of well-tuned personalized recommendations, with Netflix’s notable prize and other famed stories of the benefits of great recommendations. Increasingly, our own patterns of individual videos and the brands we affiliate with, along with recommendations from friends, will be combined into personalized recommendations we won’t even have to ask for. I have no doubt that Siri will be as good a “Genius” as iTunes is at recommending what else to watch. Ultimately, in the age of data, whoever knows the most about us will be able to give us the best experience.

Beyond disaggregation, personalization is ultimately the most powerful consumer value of digital media. My mother’s TV experience was to walk over to her TV set and turn a dial to select among three channels to satisfy her individuality. But in the next generation, no two people will receive the same recommendations from the millions of content choices available.

Before he died, Jobs now famously told Walter Isaacson, his biographer, that he had finally cracked the TV code. It’s unclear what Jobs meant, what this entailed or what he thought it would lead to in the years to come. So, barring further posthumous disclosure, Jobs’s own predictions of his ripple effects will be a media mystery for now.

One thing that’s clear, though, is that Jobs’s Siri will start the dismantling — or creative destruction — of the TV industry as we’ve known it for the last 60 years.

This post originally stated that Siri was unveiled the day after Steve Jobs passed away. It’s been corrected to reflect that the announcement actually occurred the day before.

Ben Elowitz (@elowitz) is co-founder and CEO of Wetpaint, a next-generation media company that is reinventing the media model on the social web. Ben is also author of Digital Quarters, a blog about the future of digital media. Prior to Wetpaint, Elowitz co-founded Blue Nile (NILE).

Late yesterday, NASA announced the discovery of a planet just outside our solar system that is the most like Earth to be found so far.

Located using the Kepler universe-trotting telescope, the planet that has been named the poetic Kepler 22-b is a balmy 72 degrees.

That’s because it is in a habitable “Goldilocks” zone (see chart below) and seems to circle a sun much like our own.

Yes, I am hoping this Earth 2.0 is just like Counter-Earth from the comics, too.

But, at more than twice the size of Earth, it is likely all ocean and rock and gas at this point, and is more than 600 light years away. So, if any geek is planning a star trek, it will take a lot of rocket fuel.

(Photos courtesy of NASA)

On the site, shoppers add — or “follow” — celebrities and experts who share similar interests, to receive recommendations on the latest food, fashion, design and style.

In that way, OpenSky pushes product ideas to shoppers, somewhat in the way Twitter lets people discover information versus having to search for an answer on Google.

Caplan told me OpenSky has raised $30 million in fresh capital to continue building out the business.

The New York-based company, with offices in Los Angeles and Nashville, is only six months old and previously raised $19 million in two prior rounds.

New investor Providence Equity Partners led the financing. Existing investors Highland Capital Partners, Canaan Partners and the Raine Group also participated.

Some of the company’s talent includes celebrity chefs such as Bobby Flay and Italian food expert Lidia Bastianich, and pop culture figures like actress and reality TV star Kristin Cavallari, who will advise customers on the latest fashions.

In a recent offering, Flay, who has 164,626 followers, advised shoppers to purchase a spice bundle for $23. Fitness guru and motivation speaker Gabrielle Bernstein recommended a collapsible Hula-Hoop that’s easy to travel with.

Caplan said it’s an approach that’s really resonating with shoppers, particularly women in their 30s.

He said the company will break $1 million in sales this month and is on track for a $10 million run rate. Both order volume and revenues are growing 50 percent month over month.

The company already has 600,000 members signed up; they are now connecting to millions of shopping “experts.” It took the first 14 weeks for OpenSky to hit one million connections, 10 weeks to get its second million and three weeks to reach its third million. Customers are spending $50 on the average transaction, which is more than double Amazon’s average order of $22, Caplan said.

“This feels like such a modern way to shop, compared to the search box,” Caplan said. “There’s not a lot of soul in online shopping. We are putting the soul back into shopping.”

He added that walking into actual stores is engaging and entertaining. “I think Amazon is a fantastic company, and they have a lot of things they do really brilliantly, but I don’t think it’s the best way to shop.”

Many companies right now are challenging the original e-commerce model, and for good reason. Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker noted in a report last week that e-commerce makes up 8 percent of overall commerce in the U.S. today, and continues to climb.

Caplan said the capital will be used to add more shopping verticals and experts to the site. Today, it has 75, with hundreds more coming.

As the former president of About.com, which relied on a distributed workforce to contribute answers to the site, Caplan believes he knows exactly how to get the business to click.

To make money, OpenSky is splitting the gross profit from the items sold with the experts on the site. It’s free to join as a member, and there’s a 90-day money-back guarantee. So far, it has experienced a 1 percent return rate.

“I personally love businesses where you partner with talent and create talent,” he said.

AOL will fill Bronikowski’s position by promoting two of his deputies: Lisa Namerow will be responsible for most of the AOL Music properties, and Geno Yoham will oversee the company’s surprisingly durable Winamp platform.

At Echo Nest, Bronikowski’s job will be to generate new business for the the four-year-old start-up, which makes most of its money licensing data services to companies like MOG and Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio. One of Echo Nest’s key offerings: Tools that let music services create their own “discovery engines,” a la Pandora’s Music Genome Project.

Last year the company raised a $7 million round led by Matrix Partners.

Prior to AOL, Bronikowski had headed up Yahoo Music and put in time at Vivendi’s Universal Music Group. Earlier this year, AOL Music, which is primarily a free Web radio service, reintroduced a subscription offering.

The arena for news readers on tablets and smartphones is competitive, with high-profile efforts such as Flipboard, Livestand from Yahoo, AOL’s Editions and start-ups such as Pulse and Zite.

The reason for CNN’s acquisition interest — as well as look-sees from several other publishers — is not a surprise: As readers turn more toward using these mobile devices to consume content, big media companies are trying to acquire the technology to serve up their fare to them.

It is a dicey arena, though, where content aggregation meets (and crashes into) content lifting. Vancouver-based Zite, for example, was sent a cease-and-desist letter in March, by a panoply of media companies (not CNN!) alleging various copyright violations.

That happened right after it was launched, with $4 million in funding from angel investors and Canadian grants and an innovative personalized article-picking algorithm.

As Liz Gannes wrote then:

[Then] Zite CEO Ali Davar describes the iPad as a way to “emancipate the technology” his team originated at research at the University of British Columbia.

It had previously been put to work in a browser plug-in called Worio. And, as you might have guessed, browser plug-ins are a tough business.

The free Zite app imports a user’s Twitter tweets, follows and Google Reader subscriptions, offers lists of pre-made categories, and then solicits feedback and refines over time a list of topics and sources the user is interested in. It features articles based on their popularity, number of shares from a user’s network and topic relevance. (Davar said he thinks a person’s Facebook network data is too heterogeneous to reliably recommend articles, so it’s not included as an option.)

Last week, a Canadian site called Techvibes first wrote about the possibility of the sale of Zite to CNN, which is based in Atlanta and owned by Time Warner.

In a press release, CNN said Zite would remain a standalone unit, as a wholly-owned subsidiary of CNN, and that CEO Mark Johnson will continue to run Zite’s operations, but now in San Francisco. CNN also said that Davar will remain an executive director and Mike Klass will continue as CTO.

In a statement, Johnson said: “Zite is thrilled about combining forces with CNN to create a world-class news discovery platform. In CNN, we have found a partner who shares our vision and passion. Being part of the CNN family gives us the capital to grow Zite’s business and continue to innovate in the space.”

The tabs are labeled “@username” (insert your own user name) and “Activity.” The Activity tab also shows when a Twitter user that you’re following follows someone new.

The tabs are only available on Twitter.com and at the moment only for a small percentage of users.

Twitter does offer some exposure of favorites and other activities around a user’s personal tweets through its user stream’s API, which many developers incorporate. However, the new Activity feature exposes activity around other people’s content, which is intended to promote discovery and exploration, said Twitter spokesperson Carolyn Penner.

Common actions are collapsed into a summary line, in an interface that resembles the Facebook newsfeed. So for instance a user might see that “Kris, Trammel and Elyssa favorited your Tweet,” as in the screenshot below.

Penner said she did not know if the new features would be incorporated into Twitter’s APIs so other developers can use them.

Twitter is also in the process of rolling out its link-shortening service, t.co, to all links posted on Twitter. As of August 15, when Twitter users post URLs that are 20 characters long or greater, they will be shortened to a t.co link.

In an important deal for social reading app Flipboard, it has partnered with magazine giant Condé Nast to offer a slew of titles with branded advertising from major marketers American Express and Lexus.

The pair will share in the specially designed program, which will include the New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appetit. Additional magazines will be added, the companies said.

Flipboard, which is a popular and elegant app for the Apple iPad, has been trying to create strong ties with big publishers as it seeks to dominate distribution in the fast-growing social reading arena. It recently struck a deal with OWN, for example, the new cable network Oprah Winfrey has launched with Discovery.

Here is the official press release:

Condé Nast and Flipboard Launch
Brand Advertising On Flipboard for iPad with The New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appétit

American Express to launch today, Lexus in October

July 25, 2011 — PALO ALTO, Calif. — Today, Flipboard and Condé Nast bring brand advertising to the popular social magazine for iPad with web content from The New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appétit, with additional titles coming to Flipboard throughout 2011. American Express will be first to launch its campaign starting today in The New Yorker with Lexus following suit in October in Bon Appétit, The New Yorker and Wired.

Flipboard’s new program gives publishers and content creators a fresh way to offer magazine-like experiences of their web content with full-page ads to showcase advertiser brands. With a limited number of ad pages available within select content, advertisers benefit from an unprecedented share of voice within an immersive iPad reading experience. A simple tap on the magazine-style ad takes a reader to a brand’s website or Facebook page for additional information.

“Condé Nast is always looking for ways to take advantage of new channels that provide an environment in keeping with our editorial excellence, while offering unique opportunities for readers and advertisers,” said Lou Cona, CMO at Condé Nast. “Flipboard’s social magazine is a great example of that winning combination, while also giving us another way to market our own portfolio of tablet apps.”

Flipboard developed its brand advertising on the popular and groundbreaking iPad in collaboration with Condé Nast including the design and placement of the advertising inside the social magazine. Using a revenue share model, Flipboard will manage inventory and the publisher maintains its direct relationships with advertisers.

“Condé Nast continues to create new experiences for their content that also brings new reach to their advertisers. We are excited to be a part of this overarching strategy and bring their amazing stories, images, publications and advertisers to readers on Flipboard,: said Mike McCue, CEO of Flipboard.

“At American Express, we actively seek innovative partners that connect our Cardmembers with compelling and creative content through platforms that fit into their evolving digital lifestyle,” said Louis Paskalis, Vice President Global Media, Content Development & Mobile Marketing of American Express. “As such, we are proud to be an inaugural advertising partner for the groundbreaking New Yorker Flipboard edition, which will provide our Cardmembers and consumers everywhere a seamless, next-generation way to experience an iconic magazine in a tablet friendly adaptation.”

Could be!

But right now the industry is steaming merrily along. Today’s snapshot, via three earnings reports:

• Discovery Communications: Revenue up 9 percent, profits up 20 percent.
• Viacom: Revenue up 20 percent, profits up 47 percent.
• Time Warner Cable: Revenue up 5 percent, profits up 50 percent.

And those cheery results hold up when you dig into the reports, too: Discovery’s numbers are up because it’s getting more for both the ads and the subscriptions it sells–in the U.S., those numbers are up 6 percent and 9 percent, respectively. Viacom has the same story, plus “The Jersey Shore,” which remains astonishingly and distressingly popular.

(But don’t get me wrong: The boob tube has always been the boob tube. And, really, much boobier, in the old days of three (three!) networks. Here, via Bill Simmons, is a clip of Heather Locklear and Heather Thomas in a “Battle of the Network Stars” dunk tank. And at the bottom of this post, Telly Savalas and Gabe Kaplan and Farrah Fawcett. So great/bad.)

Okay, but those are programmers. What about Time Warner Cable, which merely owns pipe? Doing fine, too. The company did lose 66,000 video subscribers–about a half-percent of its 12.2 million base, so if you’re looking for evidence of cord-cutting, you can point to that.

But the cable industry’s consistent refrain is that any customers that are cutting the cord aren’t doing it to watch Web video on iTunes or Netflix or Hulu; they’re doing it because they don’t have any money for anything, period.

Here the numbers seem to bear out the argument: Time Warner’s video losses were outweighed by customers who added broadband and/or phone service to their packages, and the company ended up adding a total of 208,000 new subscription services for the quarter.

Next week we can check in with Comcast, which now has its hands in both the programming and pipe business. Those numbers should be instructive.

And now, because I can:

Late last month, BoomTown posted about a huge venture funding effort by the high-profile and even more highly designed social media reading app for the Apple iPad, Flipboard.

Today, its co-founder and CEO Mike McCue confirmed the $50 million round at an eye-popping $200 million valuation, in a wide-ranging interview at the start-up’s Palo Alto, Calif., HQ.

“We’re obviously thrilled, because we think it confirms our focus that people want a beautifully designed way to interact with content and to share it,” he said. “And there is a lot more to come–on a scale of one to 10, we’re just at a two or three.”

The bulk of the new second round of funding–Flipboard had previously raised $10.5 million–came from New York-based Insight Venture Partners.

Insight’s Jerry Murdock said in an interview that he was excited about the idea of “social endorsement” that Flipboard was pioneering.

“We back great entrepreneurs and Flipboard is that and also in an obviously unique position to solve a problem of media consumption in the digital age,” he said. “The sky is the limit. Or more precisely it is the best environment to consume curated real-time content for Twitter and Facebook, because of the user experience and social endorsement integration with the content.”

Insight is also an investor in Twitter.

Also stepping up in the new Flipboard round is Comcast’s venture arm, as well as previous investors, including Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures and a spate of well known angels, such as Twitter co-founder and product guru Jack Dorsey, Facebook co-founder and Asana dude Dustin Moskovitz, the ubiquitous Ron Conway, actor Ashton Kutcher and the investment company of former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin.

“From a Comcast perspective, we’re intrigued with Mike and what he’s doing with content aggregation,” said Amy Banse, Comcast Interactive Capital’s new head. “We think we can learn from him and he from us.”

Co-founded by longtime entrepreneur McCue (Netscape, Tellme) and former Apple iPhone engineer Evan Doll in January, Flipboard launched to much attention in July.

The elegant Flipboard–which McCue recently told me in an onstage interview at the South by Southwest conference in Austin had zero revenues thus far–has changed the game on the consumption of social media.

Its innovative social magazine concept is attempting to make the social networking universe more accessible, consumable and, perhaps most importantly, visually arresting via its rich app.

Essentially, Flipboard pulls information from media RSS feeds and sites such as Twitter and Facebook data streams and then reassembles it in an easy-to-navigate, personalized format in a mobile tablet touchscreen environment.

In its current offering, there are pull-quotes, photos, videos, status updates and even the first paragraphs of linked-out content. There is also the ability to comment and share, as if one were on a social networking or microblogging site.

McCue said the new giant pile of cash will be used to increase its 32-person staff to about 50, international expansion, small acquisitions and more product development on more platforms.

The next in the arena will be the iPhone version of Flipboard, said McCue, followed by one for the Google Android mobile operating system eventually.

Left unsaid, of course, was the need for funding to fight the likelihood of increased competition in the hot space for delivering both professional and social content to consumers on a wide range of devices.

Rivals are varied, such as Silicon Valley’s most adorable news reader start-up Pulse and also Zite, a news reader which was recently sued for copyright infringement by a group of major publishers.

There are bigger potential players, such as Google, which is trying to find various ways to move into the social space.

In fact, said several sources, Google and others have made acquisition approaches to Flipboard, which has instead opted for raising more funding and staying independent for now.

McCue declined to talk about that, but did note that he is not surprised by publisher interest, especially of the worried and wary kind, in the arena.

“Anyone not respectful of others’ content is going to get in that kind of trouble,” he said, noting Flipboard has struck deals with 17 big publishers so far, including this morning’s announcement about a partnership with Oprah Winfrey’s and Discovery’s OWN cable network. “There is not one half to this equation.”

Right now, the Flipboard app is free and the business plan is advertising and some possible subscription scenarios.

McCue said advertising will be the key to Flipboard’s business plan in the future, although it’s not clear if the company will ever sell advertising itself.

Rather, it will partner with publishers seeking better distribution in the explosive tablet and smartphone market, where Flipboard has been gaining traction quickly.

But until that is sorted out, there is now $50 million more in the Flipboard kitty to figure it all out.

“With this funding, we can grow at the right pace and have a lot of flexibility to get the product right,” said McCue. “And, that’s the most important thing.”

A panoply of big media giants sent a cease-and-desist letter today to Zite, the Apple iPad news reader app.

The Washington Post, AP, Gannett, Getty Images, Time, Dow Jones and many other media organizations were part of the action, which you can read all about below.

Zite bills itself as a “personalized iPad magazine that gets smarter as you use it.”

Not smart enough, it seems, to avoid copyright complaints from the content creators the app sucks in.

“The Zite application is plainly unlawful,” said the letter to Zite CEO Ali Davar, noting all kinds of copyright violations.

In a phone interview with BoomTown this afternoon, Davar said Zite would comply with the letter by shifting the content from its “reading” mode to a Web one, which points to publisher sites.

“It’s a bummer that they did this, but we expected it,” he said.

In a comment he posted below, Davar also wrote:

“Zite’s goal is to work with publishers, not to be antagonistic. The few publishers that have contacted us regarding the reading mode view we have complied with their requests and simply switched over to web view. We’re talking to publishers right now to find a win-win for them monetarily and to at the same time preserve the great user experience.”

For now, it’s lose-lose, and the letter is a dramatic shot across the bow of all the many news readers now hitting the market in the wake of the popularity of the Apple iPad tablet.

The social media-focused Flipboard and the news-oriented Pulse are two others, both of which have claimed they are working with publishers.

But Pulse wrangled with the New York Times over misuse of its RSS feeds and copyright issues, which has since been settled.

Zite showed up earlier this month, a product of a machine-learning technology start-up called Worio, which is based in Vancouver, Canada.

The aggregator of personalized content, which has $4 million in angel funding, gets its cues from a user’s interests.

Zite’s technology originated at research at the University of British Columbia several years ago.

In an interview with NetworkEffect’s Liz Gannes a few weeks ago, Davar seemed sanguine about publishers.

Wrote Gannes:

The free Zite app imports a user’s Twitter tweets, follows and Google Reader subscriptions, offers lists of pre-made categories, and then solicits feedback and refines over time a list of topics and sources the user is interested in. It features articles based on their popularity, number of shares from a user’s network and topic relevance. (Davar said he thinks a person’s Facebook network data is too heterogeneous to reliably recommend articles, so it’s not included as an option.)

Flipboard itself is likely to add more personalization features; the company bought real-time social discovery technology from Ellerdale and has yet to implement much of it.

Vancouver-based Zite is well-funded, with $4 million from angels and Canadian grants, but it doesn’t have business relationships with publishers. The app lays out pictures and articles, stripping out everything else, including ads. Davar said he doubted this would be a problem. “It would be shortsighted for publishers to think of Zite as us versus them,” he said.

Short-sighted maybe, but legally lethal definitely, as you can see by this cease-and-desist letter, as well as a video from Zite on how its app works:

Letter to Zite _03 30 11_ –

Zite: Personalized Magazine for iPad from zite.com on Vimeo.

(Full disclosure: New Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

Today, BoomTown braved the floods and skippered All Things Digital‘s S.S. Minnow through a Noah-like rainstorm in Silicon Valley to visit the HQ of Pulse.

Last summer, you might recall, co-founders Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta of the nifty visual news-reading app got publicly picked out by Apple’s Steve Jobs in a speech about third-party innovations on the iPad.

It was a high point for the pair of Stanford University students and newbie entrepreneurs–except that the very same day, the New York Times slapped them with a cease and desist for misusing its RSS feed.

Dramatic, for sure, but they have made nice with the Times since then and have also raised more than $1 million in funding from a range of notable venture players.

Compared to a similar start-up–the social news-reading app Flipboard–that’s a very small budget for Pulse, which was making a profit on a paid app but, since it went free in November, it’s not making a profit now.

The move–while it will require a new business plan at some point–allowed Pulse usage to explode, hitting three million users today from 250,000 paid users only four months ago.

A lot of that growth has been on Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android smartphones, rather than on the iPad tablet, where Pulse began.

And, although the Android mobile operating system was the last platform to be introduced, it is the fastest growing one, with over one million users on it, Pulse said.

Pulse launched a 2.0 update for the iPhone and Android today, with “enhanced performance, new content sources and improved sharing with social feeds and news discovery features.”

That means the app is speedier, has more news offerings in more categories and a bigger dollop of social content and sharing tools with Facebook, Twitter and other social networking companies.

Pulse now has eight employees squeezed into its small offices in downtown Palo Alto, CA–complete with the required start-up garage door.

Here’s a video interview I did with Kothari and Gupta this afternoon, just as the sun came out, along with one I did with them in cloudier times last June during the Times’ dopey assault:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110324/video-the-pulse-boys-to-men-talk-about-huge-growth-of-visual-news-reading-app/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110210/3-d-network-to-launch-on-directv/ http://allthingsd.com/20110210/3-d-network-to-launch-on-directv/#comments Thu, 10 Feb 2011 19:35:01 +0000 Beth Callaghan http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=36202 A new 3-D television network called 3net is set to launch Sunday on DirecTV. It’s the first distribution deal for the network, which is a joint offering from Sony, Imax and Discovery Communications announced in early 2010. 3net will reach 18 million homes in the U.S., and will debut with two original 3-D shows Sunday night, “China Revealed” and “Forgotten Planet.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110210/3-d-network-to-launch-on-directv/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101221/trying-out-a-revamped-myspace/ http://allthingsd.com/20101221/trying-out-a-revamped-myspace/#comments Tue, 21 Dec 2010 23:02:26 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/?p=1581 Thanks to the popularity of Facebook, it’s easy to assume that all social networks are designed primarily to connect friends with one another. But many of these networks—think Twitter, Yelp and LinkedIn—aren’t focused on that. Instead, they provide information from strangers, business contacts and group postings on a variety of topics. Myspace is now also shifting in this direction after Facebook decisively overtook it as the most popular social network.

Last month, the company rolled out a revamped version of Myspace, which is owned by News Corp., publisher of the Wall Street Journal. I’ve been testing it to see what has changed and if it’s worth using. Its interface is cleaner than the old version of Myspace and I found it easy to navigate. It’s also inviting for non-members or people who’ve long-since given up on Myspace. But I can’t definitely say I like it enough to add it to my large list of social networks.

Step one of this site’s rehab was a new focus. Myspace (myspace.com) was redesigned to serve as a source of information about entertainment. People who use it can follow five categories—TV, music, movies, celebrities and comedy—that include more than 100,000 topics. News about these topics comes from sites all over the Web and is arranged on users’ home pages to show loads of information at a glance. A Discovery tab at the top of the page shows content related to trends on Myspace makes suggestions based on a user’s preferences and taste. A spokesman said the Myspace topics can be expanded, but for now, if you’re fonder of, say, books, theater or hard news, Myspace won’t be a good fit.

Step two for Myspace included making nice with its old competitor. It now works with Facebook Connect to pull in people’s Facebook “likes” and interests, which automatically generate customized Myspace pages for new users.

The final step of the Myspace redesign was its emphasis on music. The site still contains one of the largest Web music catalogs that plays full versions of songs for anyone who visits Myspace. New versions of band profile pages look more organized. And all artists with band profiles will have ReverbNation’s FanReach email product integrated into their profile to help them create targeted email campaigns for fans.

Was Myspace’s rehabilitation worth the effort? I’ve been using it for a week and it has taught me a lot more than I knew about things I care about. I had no idea that one of my favorite TV shows, TNT’s “The Closer,” recently said that 2011 would be its last season. Nor did I know that Anthony Bourdain blogs about his role as a judge on “Top Chef Masters.” These items and others appeared on my Home page after I performed the process that the Myspace site refers to as a Facebook Mashup.

The Facebook Mashup does a few things automatically for you, in addition to generating a Myspace page filled with topic-related news. A playlist is created in the Music section of your page that contains artists whom you “like” on Facebook (or whom you indicated while setting up an account). And the Videos section of the Myspace page will reflect your tastes in a list of Followed Channels related to your Facebook preferences.

The Home page can be seen in one of three views—List, Grid or Play—and icons at the top of the screen let users toggle among these views. My favorite was Grid View in the Full Grid View format, visible by clicking a small box at the top of the page.

Some of the content displayed on my Home page was mixed up. For example, a tile representing the story about Mr. Bourdain’s blog (originally posted on Celebrifi.com) displayed with it a photo of actor Tom Cruise, who wasn’t mentioned in that post. Another Tom, Tom Colicchio, chef and a “Top Chef Masters” judge, was mentioned in the post, but that doesn’t explain the mix-up.

Anything that falls into the 100,000 plus topics of Myspace’s realm can be found via a search box in the top right corner of the page, but this box is confusingly labeled, “Search People.” Though Myspace still allows users to search for and friend one another, the label on this search box is puzzling, given the greater reach of the site.

You can watch video content from Hulu.com (of which News Corp. is part owner) without jumping to a new page. And videos also come from other sources like TMZ and the NFL.

Users can earn recognition badges—icons that show up on their page—for their involvement on Myspace, and can become curators of topics, awarded on the basis of users’ involvement and how much other people respond to their activity.

This week, a Myspace mobile app was launched in Apple’s App Store, and an Android app is due out next year.

Myspace successfully reinvented itself in a way that could very well get people using it again, but Facebook’s more personalized social network may be more valuable than a rich library of entertainment content.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101221/trying-out-a-revamped-myspace/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101206/ign-and-gamestop-combine-online-content-and-media-sites/ http://allthingsd.com/20101206/ign-and-gamestop-combine-online-content-and-media-sites/#comments Mon, 06 Dec 2010 13:15:06 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=38208

IGN Entertainment, the online gaming content site, and GameStop, the largely offline games retailer, are integrating their online media and retail offerings in an effort to target videogamers from discovery to purchase.

The partnership is an unusual effort, given content and retail are not often so explicitly combined.

As part of the deal, said the companies:

* IGN will be creating branded media advertising products on GameStop.com, and will be its sales representative online. Consumer advertisers will be able to buy branded ads on the retail site.

* IGN content will appear on GameStop.com, with all kinds of cross-linking, and there will be copious buttons for e-commerce on IGN.com.

* GameStop will be buying its ads on IGN.com.

* The traffic of both GameStop and IGN will be combined. Currently, GameStop has 7.2 million monthly uniques worldwide and IGN’s videogame content has 28.9 million.

IGN, which is profitable, has been pushing hard to grow its branded advertising recently, as well as its traffic.

And, over the summer, it introduced IGN Social, adding social elements, such as gamers talking with each other, to its content offerings.

(Full disclosure: IGN is a division of News Corp., which also owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101206/ign-and-gamestop-combine-online-content-and-media-sites/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20101201/pulse-news-app-gets-social/ http://allthingsd.com/20101201/pulse-news-app-gets-social/#comments Wed, 01 Dec 2010 23:00:15 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=928 Pulse, the visually engaging mobile news reader, is adding a social element today. To date, Pulse (for iPad, iPhone and Android) gave users an easily scannable and image-driven view of their favorite RSS feeds. Now, users will also be able to add their Facebook accounts and flip through material posted by their friends.

The social version of Pulse will be available only for iPad for now, and is to be released this afternoon at 3 pm PT.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Alphonso Labs, which makes Pulse, recently stopped charging for its apps and raised $800,000 in venture funding. CEO Akshay Kothari came up to San Francisco today and showed me the new iPad app.

The new Pulse for iPad gives users three feeds of Facebook information: Friends’ status updates, friends’ shared links and a historial look at the user’s own Facebook wall. In keeping with Pulse’s design, items are image driven and easily swipe-able, and expand into a second panel when users tap on them (see screenshots). Users can add comments or “Like” statuses and shared links as they would on Facebook, but this is more of an alternate way to consume content than a full-featured Facebook client.

As with other content feeds, Pulse caches the 25 most recent Facebook updates in each category, so a user who goes somewhere without Internet access could continue to read the content there.

As Alphonso grows from being some young folks with an interesting design approach into a real company, it is exploring closer relationships with publishers like the Huffington Post. “We don’t want to be a company that makes a news reader,” said Kothari. “We want to help people discover awesome content.”

Kothari added that with the influx of new users since Pulse went free two weeks ago, Alphonso is looking to improve content discovery by mining user data to show a “most-emailed” story list across all feeds.

He said his aim is to get away from the hierarchical structure of Web sites–where one must return to the homepage before moving on–and help people scan quickly through potential reading material. Ultimately, Kothari said, recommendations will be done through a balanced combination of machine and social factors.

Further reading: Earlier this year, Pulse was mentioned as an example app by Steve Jobs, then yanked from the App Store due to complaints about content usage by the New York Times. The app was quickly reinstated and Alphonso has an open dialogue with the Times about how best to send it new readers and subscribers, according to Kothari.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101201/pulse-news-app-gets-social/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101122/yardsellr-closes-5-million-series-a-round/ http://allthingsd.com/20101122/yardsellr-closes-5-million-series-a-round/#comments Mon, 22 Nov 2010 15:00:07 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=37580

Yardsellr is announcing today that it has closed a $5 million Series A funding round led by Accel Partners.

Harrison Metal, which is run by investor Michael Dearing and gave the social listings and transactions site seed financing last year, also participated in the round.

Yardsellr says it uses “social plumbing to power all interactions between buyers and sellers, although users create listings and consummate transactions.”

Welcome to eBay, Facebook-style!

Online shopping with a social element is starting to boom, at least in terms of financings.

Earlier today, Svpply–a social retail discovery site stocked with stuff you and your friends think are cool–got a $550,000 seed round investment led by Spark Capital and Founder Collective, along with high-profile angels like Ron Conway, Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley and former Myspace co-President Jason Hirschhorn.

And Topguest, a check-in loyalty service that was founded just five months ago, announced last week that it nabbed $2 million in Series A funding, as well as nabbing well-known Facebook investor Peter Thiel as an adviser.

Yardsellr takes yet another social tack, organizing the Internet shopping experience around “Blocks”–using the traditional neighborhood yard sale as an analog inspiration for innovation.

Blocks are micro-communities of people interested in the same products, determined via social networking, specifically following them on Twitter or liking them on Facebook.

Founder Daniel Leffel said in an email that it was better to organize this way “instead of categories, because categories organize products while Blocks organize people.”

Then, he said, when sellers list items, for free, they go out into the feeds of members who have joined the relevant blocks. Sellers can then buy additional traffic to their listings.

Yardsellr also handles payments for sales, with the buyer paying a small transaction fee.

That’s opposite from eBay, where Leffel once worked. Several former eBay execs are also working at the start-up.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101122/yardsellr-closes-5-million-series-a-round/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101027/saving-myspace-ceo-mike-jones-talks-about-rethink-relaunch-and-fingers-crossed-resurgence/ http://allthingsd.com/20101027/saving-myspace-ceo-mike-jones-talks-about-rethink-relaunch-and-fingers-crossed-resurgence/#comments Wed, 27 Oct 2010 12:24:14 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=36284

Mike Jones is perhaps one of the nicer Internet execs out there.

But, after much management turmoil at Myspace, it turns out the CEO is also the last man standing at the News Corp. unit, as it finally rolls out a new version aimed at reviving the troubled site.

That happened last night, as the yeoman’s work–under heavy pressure and intense scrutiny from inside and outside–done by Jones and his staff was finally launched.

The new beta version of Myspace moves dramatically away from its roots as a social networking site and distances itself from Facebook by becoming a “social entertainment” hub aimed directly at the Gen Y audience.

It’s a major niche play, in an arena Myspace was already well known for–with an emphasis on sharing and discovering music, television, movies, games, videos and photos from within and without.

As I wrote:

“It is a bold, if risky, move, which could result in a dramatic decline of users or–despite the grim reality of second acts on the Internet–reset Myspace to begin a new cycle of growth.”

Jones, a longtime digital entrepreneur, talks about all this and more in a video interview I did Monday at Myspace’s San Francisco office:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101027/saving-myspace-ceo-mike-jones-talks-about-rethink-relaunch-and-fingers-crossed-resurgence/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101026/the-my-fill-in-the-space-reset-is-here-as-social-network-morphs-into-entertainment-hub/ http://allthingsd.com/20101026/the-my-fill-in-the-space-reset-is-here-as-social-network-morphs-into-entertainment-hub/#comments Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:56:52 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=36209

Empty bracket or no empty bracket: Will it work?

That’s pretty much the big question at News Corp. tonight, as its much beleaguered social networking site, Myspace, rolls out a new beta version aimed at shifting its fortunes.

And how will it do that? By moving dramatically away from its roots as a social networking site–and far, far away from powerhouse Facebook–and becoming a “social entertainment” hub aimed directly at the Gen Y audience.

That means heavy emphasis on the sharing and discovery of music, television, movies, games, videos and photos from within Myspace and without. There is also an upcoming new mobile site and better apps for smartphones and tablets.

And it also includes a new logo that features “my” with an actual fill-in-the-space bracket after it.

By the way, it’s now “Myspace”–dropped second cap–rather than the old “MySpace,” and the new color palette is black, not blue.

It is a bold, if risky, move, which could result in a dramatic decline of users or–despite the grim reality of second acts on the Internet–reset Myspace to begin a new cycle of growth.

For sure, as you can see from the screenshots below, it is a cleaner, hipper and much more attractive offering, with a tile format, ridding Myspace of its longtime cheap and noisy feel.

You can still toggle to a list or video view of the homepage.

Still, Myspace continues with the irksome moving parts, such as continually updating live notifications and real-time rolling number tickers that move constantly as people share various content.

It sort of reminds me of that national-debt clock in Times Square in Manhattan, but not as riveting.

Amid the better ability for bands and artists to more easily attract fans and promote themselves on Myspace, regular users can also become social arbiters–called “curators”–by active and useful sharing of their tastes.

And, perhaps most important of all, you can bring in a lot of outside sources, broadcast out to Facebook and have a two-way feed with Twitter.

Behind the scenes, Myspace has also done a major overhaul of its tech structure, which has been much maligned. In fact, it was once described to me as being made of “bubblegum and baling wire.”

Here’s an appalling stat, for example: There have been 117 different Myspace logos created for the service.

We’ll see how it goes, but here are videos Myspace did about the launch, including a logo-ganza:

And here are more screenshots than you ever would want (click on the images to make them larger):

Finally, here is the official press release:

MEET THE NEW MYSPACE

Myspace Debuts New Brand, Beta Website and Suite of Products That Focus on Social Entertainment for Gen Y

Beverly Hills, October 27, 2010 – Today Myspace announced a new brand, beta website and a suite of products that together redefine the company as a social entertainment destination for Gen Y. Myspace is creating a rich, highly personalized experience for people to discover content and connect with other fans who share similar interests. The entertainment experience will span music, celebrities, movies, television and games and will be available through multiple platforms, including online, mobile devices and offline events.

“This marks the beginning of an exciting turning point for Myspace. Our new strategy expands on Myspace’s existing strengths–a deep understanding of social, a wealth of entertainment content and the ability to surface emerging cultural trends in real time through our users,” said Mike Jones, CEO of Myspace. “Myspace is unique in that it is powered by the passions of our users, who program the site by expressing interests, sharing tastes and knowledge around particular topics, and scouting out up-and-coming subcultures. This is the just the first step and there will be many more features, programs and improvements to come.:

Specifically, Myspace will provide people with the ability to:

• Discover and engage with Myspace’s broad array of programming, including originals, exclusives and content from around the Web.
• Express, collect, and display their creations and interests on their profiles and through sharing tools.
• Connect to other fans with similar tastes.

Myspace will also focus on promoting curators–a subset of its audience whose reputation and knowledge around particular entertainment topics and emerging cultural trends make them uniquely influential–by supporting them with the resources, tools and a platform to expand their reach within the Myspace community.

Newly Designed Beta Site

Myspace has completely rebuilt its website, with a new visual identity and product features that put content center stage. From the color palette to the way the site is organized to the improved navigation, everything has been redesigned to help people easily find relevant content.

The redesigned Myspace welcome page showcases fresh content as it bubbles up across the beta site in real time. Additionally, once a user logs in to Myspace, the page will instantly populate with content based on the individual’s interests, creating a unique, contextually relevant discovery experience.

Registered users can now also toggle between three different views of the homepage, each specifically designed to display their stream in the way that resonates most. These include:

• List view: Traditional view
• Grid view: A magazine-like format
• Play view: A video format that allows users to watch, forward and resize their updates to full screen

To complement the online experience, Myspace will soon release a mobile version of the beta site, accessible on any mobile browser. A new Myspace app for iPhone and Android devices will follow later this year.

New Products

Myspace has released a suite of initial features that empower people to discover, collect and display entertainment content, while also offering tailored recommendations. These features include:

Topics–Myspace features more than 20,000 entertainment-focused, dynamic pages organized around topics. These pages provide a centralized location to view aggregated information about specific subject matter from a wide variety of news sites and blogs including MTV, Los Angeles Times, Access Hollywood, New York Times, Village Voice and Just Jared.

Content Hubs–These comprehensive entertainment destinations are specifically dedicated to movies, television and celebrities. The pages combine programmed editorial with trending articles that feature news, videos and photos from various content partners. Additionally, each individual article within the hubs recommends related content and topics. Hubs focused on games, comedy, sports and fashion will be revealed in the coming months.

Personalized Stream–The new stream automatically learns what to feature based on a user’s preferences and habits, so they see more of what they love and less of what they don’t.

Recommendations–This feature recommends relevant topics and other fans based on algorithms that learn the type of content a user views, listens to or watches and from whom or where they discovered it.

‘Right now on Myspace’–This feature shows trending content in real time on Myspace, helps fans find recently added music and videos, and lets them listen or watch right from the interactive chart. Myspace uses these trends to inform recommendations that promote discovery and engagement.

Discovery Tab–This always accessible tab combines videos that friends are watching with what’s trending in real time on Myspace. Scroll to the top of any page and the new Discovery Tab drops down as a horizontal film strip.

My Stuff TabMy Stuff is an easy way to see all that’s personal to a user – their profile, photos, videos and uploaded content, structured as a drop-down menu with different content areas.

Badges–This feature recognizes and rewards curators and fans for their social activity around entertainment topics on the beta site and promotes them with badges – graphic icons that appear in a user’s stream.

New Brand Identity

Myspace has also introduced a new logo that captures its revamped brand identity and values. The bracket in the logo represents a space where people can express themselves, enabling users to personalize the logo and make it their own–just as they can throughout Myspace.

The newly-designed Myspace begins rolling out today in beta and will be available to all users worldwide by the end of November. New users will have immediate access to the beta site. For more information, please visit www.myspace.com/newmyspace

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101026/the-my-fill-in-the-space-reset-is-here-as-social-network-morphs-into-entertainment-hub/feed/ 7 http://allthingsd.com/20101025/digg-lays-off-22-percent-of-staff-as-it-seeks-to-cut-costs/ http://allthingsd.com/20101025/digg-lays-off-22-percent-of-staff-as-it-seeks-to-cut-costs/#comments Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:39:19 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=36154

Digg has announced it is laying off 25 of its 67 staffers today, part of an attempt by the San Francisco social news discovery site to rationalize its costs.

In an interview with BoomTown this morning, CEO Matt Williams noted that “the burn rate is just too high” for the company.

“We need to reset, in terms of stategy and get back in a start-up mode,” said Williams, referring to the recent turmoil at Digg, related to management upheavals and product snafus. “The cost structure is not in line with our business.”

Earlier today, I reported that Digg’s Publisher and Chief Revenue Officer Chas Edwards was departing to take a similar job at a photo-tagging advertising start-up called Pixazza.

Edwards is just one of many such issues at Digg, where Williams seems to have stepped into a very big mess since he arrived just six weeks ago.

That includes dealing with a new version widely derided by its passionate and opinionated users, for which Williams quickly apologized.

“I knew it was going to be a big job in terms of a product turnaround,” said Williams. “I think the users love Digg and want to see us succeed and we ultimately let them down.”

Williams said his goal was to get to profitability in 2011, which required the employee layoffs.

From there, he said, “We will be on good footing to be more innovative.”

That would be a nice change of pace, given Digg’s fall from Web 2.0′s hottest start-up to one that seems only to falter.

Those stumbles have included a failed sale to Google, previous layoffs and general product drift.

Here is a blog post that Williams just put on the news aggregator’s site:

Just wanted to share an important development at Digg. Here is a copy of an e-mail that I sent to the staff today…

Team,

When I joined Digg six weeks ago, we set an immediate focus on improving the web site. We listened carefully to user feedback and started making changes to generate momentum in our business.

As I mentioned in one of our first all-hands meetings, another top priority was to take a hard look at the entire business, across product, sales, and operations. Through the time I have spent with each of you, I’ve been impressed by the commitment and enthusiasm you’ve shown. I’ve also learned a great deal about what is working well at Digg, and what is broken.

Many things are working well. The team is listening and acting quickly on the feedback from our passionate community. We’ve been able to deliver nimbly on the new platform, with over 100 bug and feature releases to the web site in the past two months. Our Diggable ads product has seen a notable increase in use by advertisers and clicks by users.

Unfortunately, to reach our goals, we have to take some difficult steps. The fact is our business has a burn rate that is too high. We must significantly cut our expenses to achieve profitability in 2011. We’ve considered all of the possible options for reduction, from salaries to fixed costs. The result is that, in addition to lowering many of our operational costs, I’ve made the decision to downsize our staff from 67 to 42 people.

It’s been an incredibly tough decision. I wish it weren’t necessary. However, I know it’s the right choice for Digg’s future success as a business. I’m personally committed to help find new opportunities for everyone affected by the transition. Digg’s Board members have also offered to help find placements within their portfolio companies.

Let’s please use today to show our sincere appreciation for our friends and colleagues who will be moving on. Tomorrow, we’ll go forward with a new strategy for Digg.

Matt

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101025/digg-lays-off-22-percent-of-staff-as-it-seeks-to-cut-costs/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20101025/exclusive-digg-publisher-and-chief-revenue-officer-departs-for-start-up/ http://allthingsd.com/20101025/exclusive-digg-publisher-and-chief-revenue-officer-departs-for-start-up/#comments Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:04:11 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=36133

Chas Edwards (pictured here), the publisher and chief revenue officer for Digg, the social news discovery service, is leaving the San Francisco company, according to sources.

The exec, who came to Digg in May of 2009 from Federated Media, will move to a start-up called Pixazza, a photo-tagging site for advertising, “by enabling consumers to simply mouse over images to learn more and see related products.”

Edwards’ title at Pixazza–which confirmed the move–will be as Chief Revenue Officer and Publisher Development.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company has garnered almost $18 million in funding from Google Ventures, CMEA Ventures, August Capital, Foundation Capital and Shasta Ventures, as well as from angel investors Ron Conway, Gideon Yu and Maynard Webb.

The departure from Digg, sources said, is amicable, and Edwards will remain an adviser to the company, which has been undergoing some turmoil of late.

That’s been due to a much-criticized new version of the once-hot service, as well as some management upheaval.

Digg recently appointed Matt Williams as its new CEO. He quickly apologized for the bungled relaunch of the news aggregator and has promised to fix its problems.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101025/exclusive-digg-publisher-and-chief-revenue-officer-departs-for-start-up/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101019/presto-chango-kaching-becomes-wealthfront/ http://allthingsd.com/20101019/presto-chango-kaching-becomes-wealthfront/#comments Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:00:00 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=35771

Today, the execs at kaChing, a social investing site, are ringing the closing bell at the Nasdaq–actually, it is more of a button-pushing–to herald in a complete shift for the Palo Alto, Calif., start-up.

That includes a new name for the year-old company–it is now officially called Wealthfront–which signals a focus on linking professional money managers to customers and a move away from the “American Idol” investor talent discovery approach that kaChing had been founded on.

Now, Wealthfront is trying to solve the thorny problem of delivering good investment advice and actionable tools online.

Using a “methodology of the Ivy League endowments, to identify which money managers will outperform”–sounds fancy!–Wealthfront has vetted 25 investor options to be offered on its platform for anyone with a minimum of $10,000 to sink into equities (no bonds for now).

It’s certainly an interesting, if risky, move, for kaChing/Wealthfront, which has garnered $10.5 million in funding from a range of big Silicon Valley names, such as Marc Andreessen and OpenTable CEO Jeff Jordan.

Thus, here is a video interview I did yesterday with CEO Andy Rachleff and founder Dan Carroll explaining it all:

And here is the official press release on the switcheroo:

KACHING BECOMES WEALTHFRONT, APPEAL OF PERFORMANCE ATTRACTS MORE THAN $100M TO INVESTING SITE IN FIRST YEAR

Wealthfront Introduces Manager Recommendations, Makes it Even Easier for
33 Million American Households to Invest Well

Palo Alto, Calif., October 20, 2010–One-year after launching its investing platform, the company known as kaChing formally announced today that it has changed its name to Wealthfront and unveiled a host of new product features as the company continues to deliver on its promise to make it easy to invest well. An SEC Registered Investment Advisor, Wealthfront also announced more than 25 registered money managers have qualified and joined Wealthfront, and that it has attracted more than $100 million in assets to its investing platform.

Average American investors, made up of 33 million American households with a net worth of between $100,000 and $1.5 million, have collectively invested $7 trillion in the stock market. Yet the average American with a net worth of less than $1.5 million has long been conditioned to believe it is impossible to outperform the market. A recent study, commissioned by Wealthfront and conducted by telephone by Harris Interactive confirmed this attitude, finding that only 6% of all U.S. adults, and only 3% of those with a financial advisor, “strongly agree” that financial advisors know how to consistently outperform the market. This finding is unsurprising since access to quality money managers has been traditionally limited to wealthy individuals with a net worth of at least $1.5 million who can afford the high minimum investment requirements.

“People have been conditioned to believe outstanding performance is impossible, but we think it IS possible,” said Andy Rachleff, CEO of Wealthfront. “Everyone deserves a better way to invest, and with our ability to vet, select and recommend outstanding money managers for investors, we believe Wealthfront can meet this need.”

Wealthfront Managers Outperformed the Market in Last Twelve Months

Wealthfront has built its business on the fundamental belief that it is not only possible to consistently outperform the market, but that it is also possible, using the methodology of the Ivy League endowments, to identify which money managers will outperform.

Since launching as an SEC registered investment advisor one year ago, Wealthfront has applied its rigorous vetting process, for which an average of only one in ten managers qualify, to add 25 top professional money managers to its investing platform and make them accessible to anyone with a minimum of $10,000 to invest. Together over the past year, Wealthfront’s managers have collectively outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 6% net of fees.

Today’s announcement, that Wealthfront has attracted more than $100 million in assets to its platform, further demonstrates the company’s appeal to both average investors looking for a better way to invest and to top professional money managers looking to scale their business through cost-effective distribution.

“With Wealthfront, we can easily and cost-effectively access a new segment of investors by taking on accounts well below our historic minimums,” said Colin Higgins, president of The Golub Group, an investment management firm with more than $600 million under management. “There’s no reason average investors with a net worth of less than $1 million shouldn’t have more options to invest their money. Now with Wealthfront–they do.”

Recommendations Make Finding the Best Money Managers for You Easy

According to the Harris Interactive survey, about one in two U.S. adults believe they know how to evaluate financial advisors. Responding to the need to make it easier for the average investor to invest well, Wealthfront also unveiled today its new recommendation engine to match investors with the most appropriate money managers for them. Taking an algorithmic approach, Wealthfront first vets managers to qualify for its platform. Investors then answer a few short questions about their investing goals, and Wealthfront recommends the best money managers to suit their goals.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101019/presto-chango-kaching-becomes-wealthfront/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100812/diggs-kevin-rose-talks-about-new-look-new-ceo-and-how-to-turbocharge-an-old-web-1-9-company/ http://allthingsd.com/20100812/diggs-kevin-rose-talks-about-new-look-new-ceo-and-how-to-turbocharge-an-old-web-1-9-company/#comments Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:57:15 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=31938

Yesterday, BoomTown drove over to Digg’s San Francisco HQ to pay founder Kevin Rose a visit.

The 33-year-old Rose is one of the iconic entrepreneurs of recent years, since Digg’s founding in 2004, driving the growth of the news discovery service in the early years of Web 2.0 to heights of popularity and, yes, massive hype about what he calls a “Web 1.9″ company.

Inevitably, there came a wall of growing pains that Digg has tried to scale, included a very public failed sale to Google (GOOG), layoffs and the bumpy departure of its CEO, Jay Adelson.

Rose has been in charge since, as interim CEO, working to release a much-needed new version–V4–of the Digg service over the next weeks, even as he searches for someone to take over the leadership and tries to figure out what the future of the company should be.

A lot of the changes in V4, Rose acknowledges, have to do with catching up to what other services are offering and are aimed at making Digg–which has always had a passionate, and sometimes volatile and controversial, community–more easily social and innovative.

Thus, the “New Digg” will be more personal, giving users a “My News” look at Digg first, rather than just shoving the most popular stories forward. The changes also suggest profiles to follow, an ability to find friends, better commenting features and more.

Rose has been managing this product overhaul, even while Digg undergoes tough challenges to morale as it seeks to re-establish itself during massive change in the social media landscape and the entry of more and more heavyweight competitors, such as Twitter and Facebook.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the video interview below is Rose’s assertion that Digg needs to be more than a “big small company,” due to its ever-increasing challenges of helping readers make sense of the social Web and its flood of information.

With all the hype and swirl around Digg over the year, I had forgotten what a thoughtful and smart entrepreneur Rose is, but here it is on display, with him talking about it all, including how to avoid being a Silicon Valley cautionary tale:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100812/diggs-kevin-rose-talks-about-new-look-new-ceo-and-how-to-turbocharge-an-old-web-1-9-company/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20100715/where-in-the-world-is-owen-van-natta-try-zynga/ http://allthingsd.com/20100715/where-in-the-world-is-owen-van-natta-try-zynga/#comments Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:15:40 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=30704

After longtime Internet tech exec Owen Van Natta was ousted from his job as CEO of MySpace last February, after clashing with News Corp. (NWS) digital chief Jon Miller and also the other two top execs at the troubled social networking site, he seemed to drop off the map a bit to chillax and regroup.

Not for long, though, as the high-profile Van Natta (pictured here)–he was also a top exec at Facebook in its early days, as well as at Amazon (AMZN) before that–soon began doing mentoring and also unofficial consulting work with various start-ups in which he was an angel investor or had developed an interest.

Most especially, according to numerous sources, that effort has now been largely focused on Zynga, the red-hot social gaming company that has been on a growth and revenue tear of late.

Under CEO and founder Mark Pincus, that has included big new rounds of investment, renewing its partnership with Facebook after some contention, striking another deal to put its popular games such as Farmville throughout Yahoo (YHOO) and, reportedly, working on an even bigger deal with Google (GOOG).

It’s been a very active time for Zynga, which has been contemplating an initial public offering.

All that, sources said, has prompted Pincus to increasingly bring in Van Natta as an adviser to the start-up, focused mostly on strategy and operations.

And, said sources, that could eventually result in a more formal role, such as Van Natta joining Zynga in an official job, like COO. Many say that both have been seriously contemplating such a move in recent weeks.

In fact, at the recent Allen & Co. media confab in Sun Valley, which both attended, Van Natta and Pincus told many of Van Natta’s more substantive advisory role.

A COO job like that would not be a big leap for Van Natta, who was COO and close advisor to Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg at the nascency of the company.

Van Natta was key to some important early deals, such as bringing on Microsoft (MSFT) as an investor and staffing the young service.

In doing so, he formed a close bond with the then less experienced Zuckerberg.

Eventually, though, that relationship cooled, and Van Natta’s job shifted as more execs joined.

Van Natta left the social networking giant in early 2008.

He did a short stint as CEO of music discovery site Playlist later in 2008, but was put in charge at MySpace as part of an awkward troika of leadership by the following April.

Although he moved to reinvigorate the tarnished service, Van Natta’s job there was short-lived, After much internal wrangling with COO Michael Jones and product head Jason Hirschhorn, Miller suddenly fired him in a tense meeting earlier this year.

To be sure, to grab a big job at Zynga would be a splashy move for both the company and Van Natta, who has clearly seen quite a few of them in his Internet career.

When I contacted them to ask about Van Natta’s role, Pincus declined comment and Van Natta has yet to respond.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100715/where-in-the-world-is-owen-van-natta-try-zynga/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100526/booyah-ceo-keith-lee-talks-about-social-gaming-moolah-and-more-with-accels-jim-breyer-as-sidekick/ http://allthingsd.com/20100526/booyah-ceo-keith-lee-talks-about-social-gaming-moolah-and-more-with-accels-jim-breyer-as-sidekick/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 12:15:19 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=28843

Earlier this week, BoomTown motored on down to the HQ of Booyah in downtown Palo Alto, Calif., for a chat with its CEO and co-founder, Keith Lee.

Also there: Jim Breyer, the Accel Partners moneybags who recently joined the board of the mobile social gaming start-up, forking over $20 million in new funding for the privilege.

Best known for its MyTown iPhone app, now with upward of two million users, Booyah is made up of a team of gaming industry veterans, especially from Blizzard Entertainment, which is now part of Activision Blizzard (ATVI).

Started in 2008, the company had previously raised $9 million in venture funding, mostly from the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers $100 million iFund, as well as from DAG Ventures.

MyTown, which is about to come out with a new version, is one of the most popular and innovative location-based social games on Apple (AAPL) mobile devices.

That compares with other social check-in services, such as Foursquare (just over one million users) and Gowalla (250,000).

MyTown is slightly different from these services, though, focusing on gaming in its check-ins and virtual goods versus emphasis on a discovery element.

Lee and Breyer talk about all this and more in the video of my interview, which includes a short tour of Booyah’s Silicon Valley HQ (it is soon moving to San Francisco):

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