BoomTown motored on down the lovely Highway 280 in Silicon Valley to Facebook to hear execs talk about a new geo-location feature the powerful social networking site is rolling out today.

And, the new name of the service, which will be deeply integrated into its current update system, as I reported earlier, will be “Places.”

The service seems to be basic and useful–it is reviewed here by Walt Mossberg–allowing people to post their location on the Wall of their Facebook profile, much as you might a photo or video.

There will be no games, no mayors and no special discounts either in Facebook Places–just plain and simple checking in and, presumably, taking names.

Privacy is a big focus of the launch of Places, which will allow users to decline to be placed by others.

The $100 million question is how much Facebook will allow the integration of other competing services including Foursquare.

A lot, it seems, as sources said Foursquare Founder and CEO Dennis Crowley was invited to appear for the announcements, perhaps to minimize the idea that this is a Foursquare-killer.

It’s not. Today.

4:30 pm PT: Of course, I and a badillion other reporters arrived on time, to 1050 Page Mill Road in Palo Alto, Calif. in a mass of media force that would probably better be deployed on more weighty topics than the particulars of checking in from some hip dive bar in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco.

After some waiting, we were finally bussed–or perhaps the better word is geo-located–to the actual HQ of Facebook nearby, and shepherded (just like sheep that we are!) into its cafeteria.

Except it had been duded up like a tiki lounge with palm trees and a driftwood stage. I felt as though I was suddenly on an episode of “Gilligan’s Island.” Cue Ginger for her big song number with the coconut bra!

Hey, Skipper…

5:18 pm: That skipper would be CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who was–as usual–dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and was endearingly awkward as always. It’s kind of touching that Zuckerberg still tries to have the just-us-guys posture, despite all the fame and fortune.

He quickly announced Facebook Places, across the U.S. tomorrow, on an Apple (AAPL) iPhone app and a mobile Web site.

He talked about deciding to finally launch Places after a dinner out with his girlfriend, when, deploying a test version, they realized another Facebook exec, Chris Cox and his fiance were nearby at another restaurant.

It was an earth-shaking moment, implied Zuckerberg.

Ahem, knock, knock…that’s Foursquare! Have you heard of it?

Yes, Facebook has been ogling the hot New York location start-up for a year, which is precisely why we are all here.

5:28 pm: Michael Sharon, the product manager of Places gave us a little run-through of the service, which was about what you would expect.

Foursquare except cleaner. Booyah except no games. Gowalla except, well, not Gowalla.

What’s important is that it is very integrated into Facebook’s current features, such as the Wall and status updates. Which is the right thing to do since Facebook has no business being all trendy.

The plains are covered with the bodies of pioneers, as they say, so what Facebook Places is, essentially, is a fast follow.

Sharon moved onto privacy, the big gorilla in the room. You have to opt-in and agree and click here and default to off and you can only tag your friends and you can also block them too.

Also, per Woody Allen’s “Bananas,” all Facebook citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside, so we can check.

Next, lots of info about APIs, so partners can also be part of Facebook’s geo-locating universe.

Up trotted Gowalla’s CTO and Co-founder Scott Raymond, who showed off Gowalla and Facebook integration.

Then a Foursquare exec–not Crowley, who has apparently checked in at a Chipolte in New York at the time of the places launch–loped up to say how great it all is. Just great! Really! Frankly, what else would the Foursquares say at this point.

Next: Yelp dude. Great! Just great! Integration! Check-in and pull your Facebook friends into the Yelp app.

Of course, it would not be a set without Booyah’s Keith Lee. Loves it! Fun! Just great!

This felt like a slow-moving version of invasion of the geo-location snatchers, a parade of glassy-eyed hostages, some scurvy mates walking the platform plank. Aaaaarrrr.

5:50 pm: Finally, Facebook’s product head Chris Cox, who is perhaps one of the more fetching geeks out there, bounded onstage to be all fetching and smart.

He talked about places like home, work and, um, bars. Well, actually, community locations, quoting Ray Oldenburg.

I was honestly not really listening to him at all, because I was riveted on his new haircut, which is just like the buzzed one Vince got on “Entourage” this season.

Errant thought: Those guys on “Entourage” would never check in from a bar! They are totally busy getting their groove on with the ladies–even Johnny Drama–and chillaxing with the doobies and tequila!

When I checked in again mentally, Cox was still chattering away about some glowing phone that tells you everything that happened in that bar forever and ever, since everyone was checking in and memorializing the place over time.

Good god, isn’t it enough that Facebook has all those drunkey-drunk photos from college students nationwide.

No! It wants it all! Yay, all our our drunkey-drunk moments will now be preserved in check-ins for all eternity!

Honey, remember when I ended up in the gutter here? Fun times for our grandkids to unearth one day!

5:58 pm: The Skipper Zuckerberg was back to moderate the Q&A.

Privacy questions about making private places public. If a lot of people are there, it becomes public.

Next: What up with monetization with deals? Zuckerberg notes that Places is at its starting point and “certainly you can imagine these things in the future.”

There was a question about how Places started. Well, IMHO, the moment when Facebook saw Foursquare’s innovation and freaked out.

A very goofy question about what happens when drunkey-drunk places shut down and all those memories are gone, which made me wonder if the reporter asking was drunkey-drunk.

“That’s not a problem we can solve,” said Cox.

Good answer.

Now, the Skipper wants to show us a Facebook custom, which made me suddenly nervous. Sacrifice of the media? No, just some switch-pulling thing.

There was apparently also another tradition–for a six-year-old company, that is–of hitting some gong.

Aha, it’s “The Gong Show.”

Geo-locate that.

Later today, as BoomTown previously reported, Facebook is likely to show off what it has been working on for a while now in the geo-location arena.

We’ll see whassup at 4:30 pm PT, when Facebook will hold a “news event” at the social-networking powerhouse’s HQ in Silicon Valley. (I will be liveblogging from it, natch.)

While most agree that the unveiling of the powerful social-networking site’s geo-location plans will have big impact, it will be much more interesting to see precisely what Facebook will do and how it innovates.

The company has certainly been talking about some sort of location feature for a long time–even as start-ups such as Foursquare and Booyah have grown like gangbusters–so much so that it has become a mini-waiting game in Silicon Valley.

But how Facebook integrates the hot trend into what it has built rather than bought–Facebook considered buying the New York-based Foursquare–is full of all kinds of complexities and possible sand traps.

Here is what I think it might–and should–show off:

NO PLAYING GAMES

There is plenty of that kind of silliness offered by others, and the badge, mayorships and general gaming is not really Facebook’s style.

In fact, gimmickry, which eventually becomes tiresome, is not really one of the tools in Facebook’s arsenal. Creating features–such as the Wall–that have become daily helpers is the ticket here.

In fact, it would be great if Facebook could go radically useful with a check-in feature, which would be for the rest of us who are not interested in broadcasting our presence at New York clubs into the wee hours.

Still, it would be nice to get all kinds of offers and freebies for using the service and giving up even more personal information to the hungry maw of this–still–Mark Zuckerberg production.

SEAMLESS THIRD-PARTY AGGREGATION

A must, given Facebook is all about integration and coordination for its users. It has already easily welcomed in all kinds of third-party services, and it must give developers on its platform geo-location capabilities.

So, any Facebook offering would need to integrate all the current location services, both on the Web site and in its mobile app.

That said, it is also important that Facebook also has a strong and effective offering of its own.

PLEASE MARK, I WANT SOME MORE

Location-sharing needs to be more than location-sharing, IMHO.

That’s because check-ins can become as inane as some Twitter posts.

In my bedroom! Now, in my bathroom! Now, in my kitchen. Hey from the 7-11! Aaaaaagh!

In fact, what is most useful about Foursquare is a part the service seems to give little attention to–user-generated info about various places.

Facebook could give truly helpful on-the-go info if it did a good job here, letting me know–for example–that I need to avoid the shrimp-puff appetizer at all costs or alerting me to the joys of some esoteric spa service.

Best of all, it would be nice if this info were not generated just by my friends, but by everyone. Because my friends are really boring.

WHAT HAPPENS ON FACEBOOK CHECK-IN, STAYS ON FACEBOOK CHECK-IN

Facebook has a long-running and much-deserved reputation for not treating privacy issues with enough concern and care.

While it is one thing to have a status update that you are enjoying 43 cold ones by the Jersey Shore with Snooki, it is quite another to geo-locate your trashy sojourn without a terrific level of control.

And, of course, controls that are comprehensible and easy to use.

Thus, some rules:

Any location service must be opt-in only.

Any location service must be set to private to start and allow users to change settings with each update.

Check-ins must be verified, so people cannot lie and manipulate the system.

The entire Facebook community of 500 million users must know exactly where Mark Zuckerberg is at every moment–wait, that’s just my secret wish.

Well, not a wish: All Facebook execs should publicly and actively be using the check-in services to let us all know that everyone is on the exact same page.

Foursquare might want to stock up on the Mylanta on Wednesday.

That’s because a multitude of sources indicate that Facebook will finally be rolling out its own geo-location offering, and the date now looks set for the day after tomorrow.

In fact, BoomTown was just ginning up a post on the likelihood Facebook would be unveiling a check-in service this week when an invite to a “news event” at the social networking powerhouse’s HQ in Silicon Valley dropped into my email box.

The new feature–the development of which has been the biggest open secret in the digital space–has been a long time coming, as Facebook has noodled on how to incorporate the hot trend that was pioneered by Foursquare and other start-ups.

In fact, Facebook even considered buying the New York-based company before deciding to build largely in-house.

But fear not–Facebook’s service is likely to integrate other third-party services and give developers on Facebook’s platform geo-location capabilities.

Whatever the launch, I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ve got to show off–which is what the real news is–and assume it will be in line with Facebook’s more conservative and useful design ethos.

In other words, let’s hope I don’t need to be the mayor of anything to play, and–given Facebook’s privacy woes on many of its feature rollouts–I am not embedded with a geo-tag at the event so Facebook PR can keep track of me.

Here’s my invite, so tune in Wednesday for more:

You are invited to attend a news event at Facebook this Wednesday at 4:30 pm. During the event, Facebook representatives will provide an update on the service’s features and products.

Immediately following, there will be a community event from 6:00pm–9:00pm which you are welcome to attend at Facebook’s office at 1601 California Ave.

Please RSVP to me at your very earliest convenience.

What: Facebook Press Event

Who: Facebook executives

When: Wednesday, Aug. 18
4:30 pm–6:00 pm

And, if you want to know how Foursquare is going to fend off Facebook’s incursion, check out MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka’s video interview with founder and CEO Dennis Crowley here.

The opening line of the classic J.M. Barrie book “Peter Pan” reads, “All children, except one, grow up.”

Actually, that one grew up, too, and now the whole Internet is angry at Google (GOOG) and taking shots, because of the Silicon Valley search giant’s recent joint public-policy proposal with Verizon (VZ) over net neutrality.

Many are claiming Google–in the most cynical of ways–sold out its long-standing commitment to the open Internet to make a corporately favorable deal.

Thus, Google–in this case, Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel–took to the corporate blog yesterday to explain it all away in a post titled “Facts About Our Network Neutrality Policy.”

It practically begs for translation, so BoomTown shall not disappoint:

Google wrote: Over the past few days there’s been a lot of discussion surrounding our announcement of a policy proposal on network neutrality we put together with Verizon. On balance, we believe this proposal represents real progress on what has become a very contentious issue, and we think it could help move the network neutrality debate forward constructively.

We don’t expect everyone to agree with every aspect of our proposal, but there has been a number of inaccuracies about it, and we do want to separate fact from fiction.

Translation: Wait, the hypnotic multicolored letters aren’t working anymore? What about the cute logos on the homepage–didja see our whimsical “Wizard of Oz” montage? Hey, our founders still wear wacky shoes!

And look over here at the Googleplex: Segways with wings and coconut-water lattes for all!

Okay, we’ll come clean: This band of Lost Boys–and Wendy who runs search–didn’t want to grow up, either.

But Sheryl Sandberg did an Indian talent raid and convinced Tinkerbell to take all her fairy dust to work on magical social-marketing features at Facebook. Also, Captain Hook and that alligator are working up some geo-location thing with the ticking clock over at Foursquare.

In other words, that’s Mr. Peter Man to you now.

Google wrote: MYTH: Google has “sold out” on network neutrality.

With that in mind, we decided to partner with a major broadband provider on the best policy solution we could devise together. We’re not saying this solution is perfect, but we believe that a proposal that locks in key enforceable protections for consumers is preferable to no protection at all.

Translation: We caved. In fact, we spelunked. All right, we journeyed to the center of the earth. Second to the right and straight on till morning, times a google.

But it is not technically selling out, since we got no money in the deal. I mean, not yet.

That comes later, when we and Verizon control all the tolls on the private and exclusive Schminternet, named for Fearless Leader and CEO Eric Schmidt (pictured here), coming to you in 2020!

We’re not saying the solution is perfect. But we believe that a proposal that locks in key moneymaking fees for us is preferable to having to struggle later–like those losers at Microsoft (MSFT) do today–when the search business goes the way of boxed software.

Google wrote: MYTH: This proposal represents a step backwards for the open Internet.

* Newly enforceable FCC standards
* Prohibitions against blocking or degrading wireline Internet traffic
* Prohibition against discriminating against wireline Internet traffic in ways that harm users or competition
* Presumption against all forms of prioritizing wireline Internet traffic
* Full transparency across wireline and wireless broadband platforms
* Clear FCC authority to adjudicate user complaints, and impose injunctions and fines against bad actors
* Verizon has agreed to voluntarily abide by these same requirements going forward–another first for a major communications provider. We hope this action will convince other broadband companies to follow suit.

Translation: Did you ever do the Hokey Pokey? Jockeying for political power in Washington is like that, except someone always loses an eye.

You put your eternal soul in,
You put your ethics out;
You put your corporate standards in,
And you shake them all about.
You do the Hokey-Pokey,
And you turn yourself around.
That’s what it’s all about!

Which is why they say you should never watch sausage being made.

Google wrote: MYTH: This proposal would eliminate network neutrality over wireless.

It’s also important to keep in mind that the future of wireless broadband increasingly will be found in the advanced, 4th generation (4G) networks now being constructed. Verizon will begin rolling out its 4G network this fall under openness license conditions that Google helped persuade the FCC to adopt. Clearwire is already providing 4G service in some markets, operating under a unique wholesale/openness business model. So consumers across the country are beginning to experience open Internet wireless platforms, which we hope will be enhanced and encouraged by our transparency proposal.

Translation: By transparency, we mean a backroom deal so covered in the fog of compromise that it was like the Smoke Monster in “Lost.”

And you know what happened when he (she? it?) showed up. Not pretty.

Neither was the fact that we had to throw wireless–the most promising of networks–under the bus right now. While there is likely to be some crushing of competition and mangling of the bones of this little baby, you can be sure Congress can always step in to protect consumers’ interests with regard to wireless broadband.

In fact, Congress just hired Kate and Jon Gosselin to give parenting tips on how not to completely take advantage of the wired Internet’s most valuable offspring.

Google wrote: MYTH: This proposal will allow broadband providers to “cannibalize” the public Internet.

So we believe there would be more than adequate tools in place to help guard against the “cannibalization” of the public Internet.

Translation: Yes, the very same government that protected its citizens from the sub-prime mortgage mess by monitoring those giant, risk-mad banks so well.

The same government that was making sure oil giants like BP adhered to strict safety standard for its offshore wells.

The same government…well, you get the general idea, but you should have no fear of cannibals.

Of sharkish telcom companies, yes. Of man-eating lions from the cable business, certainly.

But of multicolored, letter-decorated piranhas who look harmless with their big squishy balls and organic guava smoothies but will cut you as soon as you stick one consumer finger in the digital pond?

Let’s just say: Don’t go in the water.

Google wrote: MYTH: Google is working with Verizon on this because of Android.

FACT: This is a policy proposal–not a business deal. Of course, Google has a close business relationship with Verizon, but ultimately this proposal has nothing to do with Android. Folks certainly should not be surprised by the announcement of this proposal, given our prior public policy work with Verizon on network neutrality, going back to our October 2009 blog post, our January 2010 joint FCC filing, and our April 2010 op-ed.

Translation: Rachel, are you in London or back in Mountain View? Please ring us up asap, as you need to come up with some fancy new talk. I don’t think they are buying this policy-proposal-not-a-business-deal pablum.

In fact, I am even giggling every time I write it.

Google wrote: MYTH: Two corporations are legislating the future of the Internet.

We hope this helps address some of the inaccuracies that have appeared about our proposal. We’ll provide updates as the situation continues to develop.

Translation: Indeed, two corporations are not legislating the future of the Internet.

In point of fact, there were at least a half-dozen of us on the G5 on the way back from divvying up the Web in D.C.

And we’re not so presumptuous to think that any two businesses could–or should–decide the future of this issue.

We are planning on including at least six or seven more businesses, since it will cost an awful lot of money to peddle all that influence in D.C.

Of course, that Mark Zuckerberg over at Facebook seems to be holding out and even criticizing our Verizon bear hug.

That kid has some guts all right–but he can’t live in Neverland forever.

At some point, you’ve got to grow up. You can’t clap your hands and believe you can fly. Even pixie dust eventually runs out.

And that’s something we at Google know very, very well by now.

And until the magic returns, please relish the incomparable Mary Martin in the famous stage version of “Peter Pan” singing “Never Never Land.” As Peter Pan described himself, “I’m youth, I’m joy. I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.” Martin is all that and more:

"Never Never Land"
Uploaded by computergirl07. – Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

Earlier this week, BoomTown headed to downtown San Francisco to the hip HQ of Yelp to talk to its CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman, about a range of issues related to the local business review site.

That included his thoughts about the explosion of social location services such as Foursquare, Yelp’s burgeoning mobile efforts, controversial lawsuits alleging questionable advertising sales practices, future features to come and more.

What he declined to discuss in detail was what happened with failed acquisition talks with Google (GOOG) late last year.

Stoppelman also opined on Yelp’s international expansion efforts, including its entry into Germany, a service announced earlier this week.

Here’s the video of the interview, which includes a quick tour of Yelp’s offices:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100723/yelps-stoppelman-talks-about-geo-location-international-expansion-and-not-google/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100715/location-location-actually-geo-location-boomtown-talks-digital-real-estate/ http://allthingsd.com/20100715/location-location-actually-geo-location-boomtown-talks-digital-real-estate/#comments Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:05:35 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=30683

Here’s an interesting video interview I did earlier this week with Sherry Chris for the Better Homes and Gardens blog on the impact of digital technology on the real estate industry in the age of consumer empowerment and ubiquitous information availability.

The reason: I was a speaker at the Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco, where about 1,500 real estate professionals gathered to talk apps, cloud computing, tablet devices, mobile innovations and more.

It’s a good idea, since real estate is one of the industries that has been massively disrupted by digital shifts.

Here’s the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100715/location-location-actually-geo-location-boomtown-talks-digital-real-estate/feed/ 15 http://allthingsd.com/20100701/loco-about-location-or-just-plain-crazy/ http://allthingsd.com/20100701/loco-about-location-or-just-plain-crazy/#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:14:46 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=30138

After the much anticipated news yesterday that Foursquare would finally grab a big piece of change from the powerful Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz–$20 million simoleons, in fact–BoomTown was much entertained by two very different blog post that went up about the deal.

The first was by one of the hot social location start-up’s early VCs, well-known New York investor Fred Wilson of Union Square Partners.

In a post on his blog A VC, titled “Some Thoughts on Foursquare,” Wilson disagreed with my assessment that the deal to fund the company–which included acquisition interest from Yahoo (YHOO) and Facebook–was “a very long and decidedly strange funding journey” and that it came “after a series of missteps and switchbacks over what’s next for Foursquare.”

His essential argument about what he thinks of as criticism on my part: Wrong!

Wrote Wilson:

“The conversations with potential acquirers were very beneficial to the founders and the company in many ways. It helped them to understand what the risks of going it alone were versus the risks of selling….And it allowed the founders to develop close working relationships with some of the most important Internet companies who can not only be acquirers but also distribution partners and monetization partners.”

Okay, I’ll bite. It’s all been a terrific learning experience for Foursquare’s young management team, especially its CEO, Dennis Crowley. Like college but without the tests and, instead of forking it out, you get handed a big pile of money at the end!

Plus you meet all these nice people along the way, who–even if they don’t scoop you up in a big acquisition hug today–are now super good pals who might also hand you a pile of money tomorrow.

Maybe so, but that does not mean they didn’t wince at the process they got drawn into.

Actually, from numerous interviews with all the players involved, even those who like Crowley and think there is something innovative at Foursquare, pretty much everyone thought the whole process a tad sloppy, a bit arrogant, a lot noisy and, perhaps most of all, gave everyone a little too much time to consider the many competitive challenges the company faced.

Does that matter? Probably not, as everyone in the Internet business is very much used to VCs and others treating entrepreneurs as delicate hothouse flowers who must be revered, coddled and indulged in their noble quest to bring us all kinds of cool stuff, such as the ability to check in from my garage.

And, of course, some of them deserve that attention and petting up and down, transforming into digital geese laying golden eggs for all.

But some definitely do not. Because for every Facebook, there is a plethora of not so successful companies that get quickly and copiously feted and then hit the inevitable wall.

Slide, run by an extraordinarily gifted entrepreneur, Max Levchin, is a good case in point. After its $50 million funding in early 2008, the company was valued at $550 million and seemed ready to take over the widget universe.

It was, if you recall, very hot.

But things cooled and Slide has since regrouped. It is now plugging away at the tough part of building its social entertainment business into a real business.

Perhaps not as hot, where the real heat is.

And, that’s the underlying point Microsoft (MSFT) Director of Social Engagements Mark Drapeau seemed to be making in his post, “It’s About Trust: Thoughts on Location-Based Services, Especially FourSquare.”

His premise: Who knows yet who is going to succeed in the geo-location space.

Wrote Drapeau:

“I don’t necessarily see why FourSquare or Gowalla or even Facebook will necessarily be the market leader. People generally speak of these three as if they’re predetermined….Deploying the app and making it cool isn’t the real challenge. Building trust among the user base is.”

While you can easily dismiss any complaint from a Microsoft dude–who even admitted to a frustrating experience of trying to reach Crowley to do a small deal–you still cannot ignore the simple idea that these fundings are all crapshoots a lot of the time.

Which is why I do agree with Wilson in a way about his bromide about taking time to deliberate big decisions:

“So the moral of this story, if you will, is don’t let conventional wisdom force you into making decisions you don’t need to make and you aren’t ready to make, particularly about very big decisions that you will be living with the rest of your life.”

Indeed, but let’s perhaps take it one step further:

Don’t let Silicon Valley conventional wisdom force you into making mountains out of molehills too early, particularly very big mountains that you will be waiting to form for the rest of your life.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100701/loco-about-location-or-just-plain-crazy/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20100524/yahoo-acquires-indonesian-geo-location-service-called-koprol/ http://allthingsd.com/20100524/yahoo-acquires-indonesian-geo-location-service-called-koprol/#comments Tue, 25 May 2010 05:07:31 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=28779

If you can’t buy Foursquare–as Yahoo did not after aggressive efforts to do so–then…buy the Indonesian version of it!

BoomTown has to be honest and say I have never heard of Koprol, a Jakarta-based social geolocation service that bears striking similarities to the hot New York-based one Yahoo (YHOO) offered $100 million for recently to no result.

But that’s just what Yahoo snapped up, announcing the purchase of the mobile-focused start-up for an undisclosed sum tonight.

It is not clear what Yahoo intends to do with the technology from Koprol, but execs called it an emerging-market play.

And, indeed, Koprol could be used to bolster Yahoo “check-in” features globally, especially in Asia.

Frankly, Koprol sounds more robust, innovative and fun than Foursquare.

Yahoo already made another splashy mobile announcement today by unveiling a partnership deal with Finnish handset giant Nokia (NOK).

Here is a video Yahoo posted on the company’s Yodel Anecdotal blog with Kopral’s founders:

And here’s the full Yahoo press release on the Koprol acquisition:

Yahoo! Acquires Koprol; Extends Social and Mobile Strategy With Location-Based Community
Expands Offerings in Rapidly Growing Emerging Markets

SUNNYVALE, Calif. and JAKARTA, Indonesia –May 24, 2010–Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) today announced the acquisition of Koprol. Headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia, Koprol extends Yahoo’s social, mobile and local offerings and focuses on the intersection of location, community expertise and mobile experiences that have become important trends around the globe. Koprol enables users to interact and share knowledge about their community in a way that is uniquely tailored to mobile phones.

Koprol allows people to connect and share photos, reviews and additional information about locations in real-time using just their mobile phone browser, making the service accessible to a larger percentage of mobile users. Once on Koprol, people can “check-in” to their current location and see where others are and what they are doing. The service helps people find local businesses, such as popular shops or restaurants, based on user ratings including a “thumbs-up” feature to elevate favorite places to the top of the ranking. Users can also start or join discussions based on particular locations and invite friends to participate, creating a unique city-based social mobile community resource.

“Users are increasingly relying on mobile devices to communicate and access the Internet and they are looking for seamless integration between those devices and PCs. This is especially true in many emerging markets where we are introducing the Yahoo! brand to many new-to-Net users,” said Rose Tsou, senior vice president, Asia Region at Yahoo!. “Koprol was uniquely designed for mobile phones and within a year has already built a strong user base. Yahoo! provides the global scale and technology to accelerate growth in Indonesia as well as introduce the service to new markets.”

Yahoo! is focused on providing personally relevant content to its global users on multiple devices and access points. Koprol aggregates a database of locations within a city, created through its community, so that people can find friends or discover new local businesses, neighborhood resources and discussions that are important to them. Yahoo! plans to leverage the rich community of information generated by Koprol users to make its properties and applications, including its homepage and media and communications products, even more locally relevant.

“We are excited to join Yahoo! and look forward to the opportunities being part of a global Internet leader presents,” said Fajar Budiprasetyo, CEO and co-founder of Koprol. “From the beginning, we have leveraged Yahoo!’s open technologies to help build our business, and it was just six months ago when we were showcased at the Yahoo! Hack Day held in Indonesia. This is a great success story for the online community in Indonesia and demonstrates that innovation is recognized wherever it occurs.”

Yahoo! will continue to invest in evolving Koprol’s service, such as the new BlackBerry™ application introduced today, and expects to announce new mobile applications for both local and global mobile platforms in the future.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100524/yahoo-acquires-indonesian-geo-location-service-called-koprol/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20100419/boomtown-reimagines-hamlet-soliloquy-for-foursquare-founder-crowley-as-yahoo-deal-stays-alive/ http://allthingsd.com/20100419/boomtown-reimagines-hamlet-soliloquy-for-foursquare-founder-crowley-as-yahoo-deal-stays-alive/#comments Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:49:22 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=27068

Much to the chagrin of valuation-hyping Silicon Valley VCs, Yahoo is still in the running to acquire Foursquare, the hot social geolocation start-up, much longer than expected.

Foursquare’s board met last week about the possible acquisition deal. But, so far, it’s turned it down flat.

Nonetheless, (YHOO) is still interested, sources said.

Yahoo declined to comment, and I have an email into Foursquare, which has yet to respond.

But sources close to the situation said that Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley is holding his cards very close to the vest about whether Foursquare will reconsider the offer–which could reportedly go up to $125 million to $150 million in cash–from the Internet giant.

Crowley’s alternatives are two powerful venture firms–Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures–which had put lucrative funding deals on the table, trying to entice Foursquare to remain independent and turbocharge its fast-growing status-update service.

Other big firms have dropped out of the race, although sources said more are now sniffing around, including free-spending Russian moneybags, Digital Sky Technologies. It has already sunk copious funds into social networking giant Facebook, game powerhouse Zynga and, today, social buying site Groupon.

The VC selling point is freedom, the ability to sell for more later and perhaps a more modest payout for talent, including Crowley, by buying some of their common shares. Their valuation is hovering around $80 million.

Crowley (pictured here) controls a large chunk of the shares of the start-up and has so far turned down the $100 million offer from Yahoo, despite the fact that Foursquare is still small (about one million users) and unprofitable.

But it has grown dramatically and raised $1.35 million last August, valuing it at $6 million. Funds came from O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and Union Square Ventures, as well as a spate of well-known angel investors.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz hopes to best all VC offers after having recently made some significant noise about starting to engage in aggressive M&A to attract talent and inject innovation into the company.

She has mentioned mobile start-ups specifically, and Foursquare is indeed among the hottest in the space, offering its growing base of users an ability to “check in” from a variety of places.

But the location-based services arena is heating up, with multiple competitors to Foursquare, such as Gowalla, as well as recent efforts by Facebook and Twitter to enter the space in a big way.

In fact, Wednesday at its F8 developers event, some expect Facebook to talk about its own version of Foursquare.

Still, Crowley may welcome the challenge after selling a similar location service called Dodgeball to Google (GOOG) in 2005 and ending up with very little. He left the search giant on bad terms two years later, and Dodgeball was closed down by Google in early 2009.

At the time, Crowley called the experience of being at a large company “incredibly frustrating.”

Which is why it will be interesting to see the choice he makes in what one person close to the situation called: “A very deft Hamlet act.”

Until he does, this is a perfect time for my Foursquare version of the indecisive Prince of Denmark’s most famous soliloquy–with apologies to Shakespeare–redone for a New York-based hipster Web 2.0 dude:

Dennis Crowley Does Hamlet:

To sell, or not to sell, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous Facebook,
Or to take arms against a sea of Twitters,
And by opposing end them? To die, sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we become Digg with
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That over-hotness is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be avoid’d. To die, to become Friendster;
To sleep, perchance to be crammed down:
Ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what hotter start-ups may come,
When we have shuffled off this overhyped coil,
Must give us pause to check in constantly:
there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long it takes for funding;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of bloggers,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despis’d love by Andreessen and Yu,
the law’s delay,
The stalker ways of those scary Russian investors,
and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy lowball offers,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin of no profits?
Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a Yahoo life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d acquisition, from whose bourn
No Flickr returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to VCs that we know naught of?
Thus overvaluation does make greedy piggies of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of Pets.com;
And Web 1.0 enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And as was predicted by Economics 101.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100419/boomtown-reimagines-hamlet-soliloquy-for-foursquare-founder-crowley-as-yahoo-deal-stays-alive/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100419/wsj-coms-digits-show-yahoofoursquare-silicon-valley-hiring-and-more/ http://allthingsd.com/20100419/wsj-coms-digits-show-yahoofoursquare-silicon-valley-hiring-and-more/#comments Mon, 19 Apr 2010 07:30:06 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=26945

Here’s a video of BoomTown’s appearance Friday on WSJ.com’s “Digits” online tech show.

In it, we discuss my post on the machinations about whether Yahoo (YHOO) can get its mitts on social geolocation phenom Foursquare or if venture capitalists will swoop in with a bag of cash.

Also on the dock: Tech hiring has returned and tricked-out buoys.

Here’s the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100419/wsj-coms-digits-show-yahoofoursquare-silicon-valley-hiring-and-more/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100416/can-yahoo-nab-foursquare-for-125-million-or-will-vcs-prevail-the-race-for-the-hot-mobile-start-up-nears-its-end/ http://allthingsd.com/20100416/can-yahoo-nab-foursquare-for-125-million-or-will-vcs-prevail-the-race-for-the-hot-mobile-start-up-nears-its-end/#comments Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:54:48 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=26841

You have to give Yahoo an A for effort, if perhaps the ultimate grade in its ongoing quest to buy hot mobile social network Foursquare is an F.

While Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley–who controls a large chunk of the shares of the start-up–has so far turned down several $100 million-plus offers from Yahoo, sources said the company’s newish head of mergers and acquisitions, Andrew Siegel, is back in New York today still trying to convince him to sell.

So far, especially because the effort has dragged on for a while and Yahoo (YHOO) has not made an overwhelmingly massive show of financial might, Crowley appears to have develop a case of cold feet about marrying the Internet giant.

Sources said Foursquare has so far turned down Yahoo flat.

Meanwhile, two powerful venture firms–Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures–are putting lucrative new funding deals on the table, trying to entice Foursquare to remain independent and turbocharge its fast-growing status-update service.

Other big firms have dropped out of the race, although sources said more are now sniffing around, including free-spending Russian moneybags, Digital Sky Technologies, which has already sunk copious funds into social networking giant Facebook and games powerhouse Zynga.

Their selling point is freedom, the ability to sell for more later and perhaps a more modest payout for talent, including Crowley, by buying some of their common shares. Their valuation is hovering around $100 million.

“Why sell now, when they are on a roll no one is going to catch them for a year at least,” said one person involved in talks with Foursquare. “There is a lot of benefit in waiting to cash in totally.”

Foursquare has grown dramatically, from 50,000 users less than a year ago to closing in on one million soon.

Despite negligible revenue, Foursquare raised $1.35 million last August, valuing it at $6 million.

Foursquare’s VCs include O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and Union Square Ventures, as well as a spate of well-known angel investors.

The choice for Crowley: Take the big pile of money from Yahoo–which is offering all cash, giving Crowley a huge windfall–and run, or double down with VCs.

“Yahoo should just pay a huge premium and scare away the VCs to become relevant among the cool kids again,” said one person close to the situation. “”In my mind, it’s a litmus test for Yahoo.”

Yahoo is well known in the tech space for hemming and hawing over acquisitions. Dithering over price and copyright issues, it famously lost a nearly completed purchase of YouTube to Google (GOOG), which swooped in with a bigger and cleaner offer almost overnight.

A similar scenario played out when Yahoo tried to buy Facebook when it was very small. Facebook not only remained independent but is considered to have surpassed the once mighty company in innovation and consumer appeal.

In addition, as many big companies have, Yahoo has bungled purchases of hot start-ups before, such as Flickr, the pioneering online photo service.

But CEO Carol Bartz has recently made some significant noise about Yahoo starting to engage in some aggressive M&A to attract talent and inject innovation into the company.

Internally, sources said she has told staff that Yahoo has to start engaging externally and with force.

She has mentioned mobile start-ups specifically, and Foursquare is indeed among the hottest in the space, offering its growing base of users an ability to “check in” from a variety of places.

The location-based services arena is heating up, with multiple competitors to Foursquare, such as Gowalla, as well as recent efforts by Facebook and Twitter to enter the space in a big way.

Still, Foursquare is the start-up of the moment among the digerati, striking deals with a wide range of partners, as well as tech giants like Microsoft (MSFT).

Thus, it has attracted a lot of look-sees, from AOL (AOL), Twitter and Google, although none have made a serious effort to buy Foursquare.

Even Facebook has contemplated the start-up, although it is more likely to try replicating its own version of Foursquare, which is could announce at its F8 developers event next week.

Twitter also indicated at its own conference this past week that it will continue to offer similar location features.

The challenge for Foursquare’s Crowley is in the timing, and deciding if he can look such a large gift horse in the mouth.

He sold a similar location service called Dodgeball to Google in 2005, but left the search giant on bad terms two years later. Dodgeball was closed down by Google in early 2009.

At the time, Crowley called the experience of being at a large company “incredibly frustrating,” while Google sources said Crowley was a bit of a frustration to them.

Translation: No tears were shed on either side by his leaving.

In any case, he rebounded with Foursquare and is now being pursued again in the throw-caution-to-the-wind manner some entrepreneurs enjoy.

“It’s an insane offer, in a lot ways, but big enough that we all have to take it seriously,” said one person close to Foursquare.

Insane is what some think Yahoo has to be.

“Yahoo needs to kneecap everyone near Foursquare,” said one with knowledge of the situation. “This is a strategic purchase, not one based on any metric of revenue or users, so it’s just as crazy at $100 million as at $150 million.”

Well, a little crazier, but you get the point.

Yahoo declined to comment, and I have an email into Foursquare, which has yet to respond.

Silicon Alley Insider first wrote about Yahoo’s interest in Foursquare about two weeks ago.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100416/can-yahoo-nab-foursquare-for-125-million-or-will-vcs-prevail-the-race-for-the-hot-mobile-start-up-nears-its-end/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20100416/andreessen-horowitzs-ben-horowitz-talks-about-fat-start-ups-being-a-new-vc-and-whats-hot-and-not/ http://allthingsd.com/20100416/andreessen-horowitzs-ben-horowitz-talks-about-fat-start-ups-being-a-new-vc-and-whats-hot-and-not/#comments Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:08:14 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=26856

Yesterday, BoomTown motored down lovely I-280 to meet with (relatively) newly minted VC Ben Horowitz, the other half of the high-profile venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Started last summer by the pair–who have worked together since they met not-so-cute at Netscape Communications, with co-founder Marc Andreessen flaming worker-bee Horowitz in an email–it’s a $300 million fund that has plunked itself in the middle of just about every hot thing in Silicon Valley and beyond of late.

That includes being part of a recent huge round in online games rocket ship Zynga, a controversial consortium that grabbed Skype (Horowitz is on the Internet telephony giant’s board), as well as being a key investor in smoking stealths such as Kakai and RockMelt.

Of course, the pair is also in the race to fund mobile geolocation phenom Foursquare against a possible Yahoo (YHOO) acquisition.

Horowitz, who has long had a much lower profile than one-time digital golden boy Andreessen, is now emerging a little more publicly via a new blog, called simply Ben’s Blog.

With the apt quote at the top of the homepage by legendary mathematician and computer pioneer John von Neumann, “There’s no sense in being precise when you don’t even know what you’re talking about,” it’s a pretty saucy effort, especially if Horowitz keeps it up.

Recent posts included “Four Things Some VCs Do That I Don’t Like” and “The Case for the Fat Start-Up,” which he first published on All Things Digital.

We talked about this and more in a breakfast interview at the Rosewood Hotel on Sand Hill Road near Andreessen Horowitz’s offices, so here’s the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100416/andreessen-horowitzs-ben-horowitz-talks-about-fat-start-ups-being-a-new-vc-and-whats-hot-and-not/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20100415/liveblogging-googles-earnings-call-ou-est-eric/ http://allthingsd.com/20100415/liveblogging-googles-earnings-call-ou-est-eric/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:41:28 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=26792

BoomTown liveblogged Google’s earnings call this afternoon.

Earlier today, Google (GOOG) beat Wall Street’s expectations in its first-quarter earnings, signaling that online advertising spending is back on track.

Here we go:

1:30 pm PT: Investor lady went over investor stuff. Zzzz.

1:33 pm: First up: Patrick Pichette, CFO of Google, whose delightful French accent livened up what was an almost entirely newsless event.

In fact, it turned out that the biggest news was changes in how Google presents its earnings calls going forward: No more CEO Eric Schmidt!

Instead, it will be Pichette from here on out, along with sidekick and head products dude Jonathan Rosenberg. Who was not around today, so top Google execs Susan Wojcicki and Jeff Huber filled in.

Also making an appearance, Nikesh Arora, president of Global Sales Operations and Business Development.

Thus, a parade of Google execs replaced Schmidt–all of whom said as little as he used to!

Pichette went through the numbers–lots and lots of them.

“Very strong performance, across the board, in terms of revenue,” he concluded.

1:44 pm: Next up, Wojcicki–fun fact about the VP of Product Management: Google was started in her garage–talking about improvements to ad search results.

They are going to get fat and detailed, apparently, with all kinds of stuff attached to them.

“The idea is for them to be more useful and therefore more high performing,” she said.

In display, Wojcicki said there was “very strong momentum.” More DoubleClick integration, more analytics.

Mobile: “Doing very well.” (I look forward to the first analyst question about its regulatory approval problem with Google’s $750 million AdMob acquisition.)

There will be an ability to “call through” on ads in smartphones, which sounds kind of cool.

1:51 pm: Next, it was Huber’s turn. He is SVP of Engineering.

He started with mobile and geolocation features Google is working on, some of which sounded a bit stalkerish. To the all-seeing eye of Google, they are fabulous, of course.

Its Android and Chrome operating systems are growing, Huber said, noting that there are now 34 Android devices.

Take that, Apple!–which has but one (which is doing pretty well on its own, Huber declined to add).

1:55 pm: Arora joined the call with the others for Q&A.

Questions about international advertising. All was well, said both Pichette and Arora.

Next question was about the percentage of revenue from enterprise and mobile. Also what up with Nexus One?

Pichette was not saying, of course, as that information would be useful.

Also no data on the profits of Nexus one, which Pichette noted was indeed profitable. But Google wasn’t saying how much! More non-news.

Finally, a good question about whether Google will remain on Apple (AAPL) products–given growing corporate rivalry between the two–and why the heck Schmidt is not on the call anymore and whether there is more to it.

Pichette became slightly agitated about the CEO question.

Eric has been everywhere! Abu Dhabi! Washington, D.C.! Jetting around on the GooglePlane like it was nobody’s business!

“It does not mean that Eric is not available,” said Pichette, explaining that the move is simply a question of “streamlining.”

Huber declined to comment about Apple, of course!

But, blood in the water: What’s up with Facebook competition?

This is a true oucher for Google internally, with execs quite concerned about the social networking site’s growth, even if Huber did not admit it and called it “not a significant issue.”

Translation: It’s significant.

2:04 pm Back to the sleepy questions on marketing and how the company feels about upcoming quarters compared with previous ones.

Hey, the colorful letters of Google and Googley goodness are just not cutting it anymore! You need some pretty ads! You have to promote! After all, Google has actual products now, like the Nexus One.

The next questions were on the number of Nexus One phones sold and, finally, on China.

Huber was not disclosing! If there were a badillion devices sold, you know he would, of course.

Pichette took the China question.

“This was a tough situation, but we really think we made the right decision,” he said, noting that the company is kind of still in China from Hong Kong.

Well, not really, but it was the right decision.

2:10 pm: Another good question on the News Corp. (NWS) deal and the AdMob situation.

Pichette pointed out the the mobile ad market is “nascent,” naturally noting that Apple announced its recently announced iAd network.

In other words, let’s keep pointing to what Apple is up to to save our bacon with the government.

“Google wants every partner,” said Pichette about renewing the deal over MySpace, but added that economics have changed since the first one was done with the then-hot-and-now-not social networking site.

Translation: Don’t expect a big check, Rupert Murdoch!

More in-the-weeds questions, which provided some insight, but not much.

2:28 pm: Another China question about whether serving its results from Hong Kong is sustainable.

Yes, said Pichette.

More about search advertising innovations and targeting. Google is all over it, said Wojcicki in many, many, many more words.

This line of questioning continued until someone asked whether the reported tensions between Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brin over China are behind his absence.

Juicy, but completely ridonkulous.

“Non,” laughed Pichette, answering in a jaunty way.

The lack of Schmidt, he added, was not a negative, but part of a review of stuff Google could do better. In fact, it was an innovation!

Mais oui or mais non, it was the most interesting news of the day.

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