AllThingsD » Japanese

Go Far West, Young Startup: SoftBank Capital and Yahoo Japan in $20M Fund to Bring U.S. Entrepreneurs There

Kara Swisher — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:00:58 +0000

SoftBank Capital and Yahoo Japan said they had created an unusual $20 million fund to help U.S. startups break into the Japanese market, while also upping a presence in the U.S.

The partnership between Japan’s largest Internet company — which is also a joint venture with Yahoo — and the venture arm of the giant SoftBank Corp. will invest in companies from early-stage funding to later-stage expansion and focus on mobile applications, social media, e-commerce, online advertising, gaming and cloud computing.

The new funds for that are being put into SoftBank Capital’s $100 million Technology Fund ’10. As part of the deal, Toshiaki Chiku will become head of U.S. operations in Manhattan. SoftBank Capital also recently announced a $250 million PrinceVille Fund, aimed at growth-stage startups in Asia.

Among the firm’s recent exits: Bluefin Labs went to Twitter, Buddy Media to Salesforce.com, Huffington Post to AOL, Hyperpublic to Groupon and OMGPOP to Zynga.

Now, it will be focusing even more on helping U.S. startups in Asia.

“Japan can be challenging for many U.S. companies, and given our scale and affiliation with SoftBank Corp., we’re in a great position to help them grow and succeed,” said Chiku in a statement.

SoftBank Capital and Yahoo Japan used performance display advertising company Criteo as an example of a successful investment, in which it also helped the company enter the Asian market (although, technically, Criteo is HQed in France).

Jerry Yang Is Back (And Investing More Than Ever)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:39:49 +0000

If truth be told, Jerry Yang never really disappeared from the Silicon Valley scene, even though he did leave Yahoo rather suddenly just over a year ago — resigning from the board and all other positions at the iconic company he co-founded with David Filo in 1995, and then going very quiet.

When I met him last week at the airy and newish office space of Ame Cloud Ventures, off Camino Real, he politely declined to talk about that Yahoo tenure and departure, although Yahoo and he are inextricably linked in the history of tech.

That’s because the former Chief Yahoo has moved onto the next stage of his career, which perhaps could be called Jerry 2.0 — a term he’d hate (and give me a hard time for using).

Still, in many ways, Yang has launched a new digital life by focusing on what made him interested in tech in the first place: Entrepreneurs.

“I feel like the thing I missed the most is what really early entrepreneurs were doing,” he said of his latest efforts, which have been well known among techies, even if Yang has never been one to toot his own horn much in general. “I’m not sure at all that I’m any good at this mentoring/investing business — that’s why I’m using my own money, and that’s why it’s not a career.”

Yet. Yang is calling his nascent investment business — he’s more than an angel, but not quite a VC — a “work in progress” that might morph into something more.

“There are no LPs — just me, myself and I,” said Yang. “I invest in things for the long term and have a long horizon and the flexibility.”

That said, via Ame — which means rain (雨) in Japanese and happens to be the acronym of the names of his wife and kids — Yang has already invested in about two dozen startups in which he has typically puts in $100,000 to $500,000.

Explaining the name, Yang said: “Without rain, there is no life.”

And it’s clear that Yang has been very busy dousing the startup sector with a wide range of interesting investments, including:

dotCloud, an application platform for developers
AeroFS, a private file syncing and sharing service
Impermium, an Internet security offering
Jetpac, a travel app for the Apple iPad
Lex Machina, IP litigation data and analytics
Tomfoolery, which is aimed at improving mobile enterprise apps

Yang said what informs his investment choices centers on the activity around mobility, sensors, cloud and big data that is enabling the next generation of computing.

“The main investing premise is the idea that devices are more and more network connected,” said Yang, who noted that data that is being collected is now at another order of magnitude than ever before. “The cloud has become the next-generation supercomputer, and the smartphone has provided the revolution to spur its use.”

To select from the companies he sees, Yang has only one young associate, Nick Adams, who codes, helps on deal mechanics, interacts with entrepreneurs and also has had extensive experience in Asia.

That has been important, since Adams also leads business development for China’s Cloud Valley, which is run by Edward Tian, one of Yang’s strategic partners there. It was with Cloud Valley that Evernote, the hot productivity app in which Yang is also an investor, partnered to create a business there.

Still, Yang is not completely alone. He has weekly meetings with another former Yahoo, Ash Patel — who started the $10 million micro-venture fund Morado Ventures, which means “purple” in Spanish, and has a lot of ex-Yahoos as investors — as well as individual angel and former Yahoo CTO Farzad Nazem.

The trio trade ideas and deal flow, sometimes making bets together and sometimes not. Most of all, they leverage their time in the tech sector, both good and bad.

“I might not have better ideas, but I think my experience is unique and helpful [to entrepreneurs] and there is a value to my network,” said Yang. “I think what I have to contribute, besides money and a network, is that I am very candid about the experience I have had.”

That is indeed the case, because it is clear that Yang has a lot of wisdom to impart from his long and eventful history at Yahoo, as well as his stature as one of the Internet’s most important pioneers.

And, having covered the often circumspect Yang for much of that time, I would have to say that these days he looks about as energized, excited and enthusiastic as I have ever seen him.

“I’m truly humbled by the talent that’s out there, and at the same time recognize it’s a very crowded space,” said Yang. “It is not a career yet, but I’m having a lot of fun, and we’ll see.”

Around the World in 80 Ways: Huffington Post Now Lands in Japan

Kara Swisher — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:00:50 +0000

As part of what is beginning to feel like a global takeover, the Huffington Post Media Group said it will be launching a Japanese-language version of the service in that country.

The AOL-owned content arm will be partnering with the well-known Japanese publisher, Asahi Shimbun, in what will be its first Asian effort. The Huffington Post currently has versions in the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Spain and Italy.

As in previous efforts across the globe, the site will include news, blogging, community, video and social tools. The Huffington Post Japan joint venture is currently looking for an editor in chief, and is still formulating how the arrangement will work.

The partnership with Asahi is key, said Jimmy Maymann, CEO of the Huffington Post Media Group, in an interview yesterday.

“One of the things is that the Japanese market is one of the largest newspaper markets, and they are still doing well,” he said. “So, big media companies have not had to think about the next iteration of new media, and that’s a huge opportunity for us.”

Right now, he said, the Huffington Post Japan’s main news competition would be Yahoo News from Yahoo Japan.

Arianna Huffington, president and editor in chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, noted that the site would be up soon, even as she looks for more markets. Next up: Latin America.

“International momentum and global presence is a big win for us,” she said. “It’s a great model for us to partner with great media companies, so we can move very fast.”

After Pinterest, Japan's Rakuten Makes Another U.S. E-Commerce Investment -- This Time in Daily Grommet

Kara Swisher — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:01:34 +0000

Rakuten, the Japanese e-commerce giant which recently made a $50 million investment in Pinterest, is making another online retail bet on Daily Grommet.

Rakuten will be the lead investor in a Series B round for the Lexington, Mass.-based online marketplace, whose motto is “fresh finds, true stories.” The site highlights a new daily product by featuring it with a story about its origin.

Daily Grommet said it would use the new funding for expansion. It declined to say how much Rakuten is investing, but the start-up has raised about $6 million since its launch in 2008.

Both Daily Grommet and Rakuten have focused on linking small and medium retailers directly with consumers, using discovery and social tools and large marketplaces. Daily Grommet was already working with Rakuten’s U.S.-based Buy.com site.

Since its start, Daily Grommet has featured about 1,000 unusual products, dubbing its platform “Citizen Commerce.”

That is more than just a catchy buzzword, said Jules Pieri, co-founder and CEO of Daily Grommet, which she likens to a Kickstarter for products.

“We are combining Main Street store shopping and journalism, trying to help products succeed and de-risk them by building distribution and awareness,” she said, noting Daily Grommet operates with the same motto of Buy.com that you buy from people and not the Internet.

Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said he was attracted to this concept of making online retail more personal and informational than transactional.

“[Daily Grommet] has a higher mission,” he said. “We think creative curation and discovery are very important.”

Here’s the official press release about the investment:

DAILY GROMMET ANNOUNCES SERIES B FUNDING LED BY JAPANESE E-COMMERCE COMPANY, RAKUTEN

Investment Builds on Both Companies’ Missions to Empower Small to Medium Businesses to Connect Directly with Consumers via Discovery Shopping and Personal Interactions

Lexington, MA; September 17, 2012 – Daily Grommet, an online shopping site and marketing platform for innovative and undiscovered products, today announces a round of Series B funding led by Rakuten, one of the world’s largest online marketplaces. Daily Grommet plans to use the capital to further expand its highly curated e-commerce site and product launch platform.

Together, the companies provide significant benefits to one another, as Daily Grommet will allow Rakuten to advance its sourcing, curation, and storytelling capabilities and deepen consumer connections to its merchant partners. Daily Grommet has gained a large and influential following because of its proven ability to expertly source and vet high potential unknown products. Since its launch in 2008, over 1,000 products and emerging companies have been featured on DailyGrommet.com, many of which have become household names. The company’s “Citizen Commerce” movement creates connections between inventors and consumers, by enabling product purchases that express powerful contemporary values around sustainability, quality, technology and social enterprise.

“Tens of thousands of new products are launched in the U.S. every year, so it’s not hard to believe that many go unnoticed or are simply hard to find,” said Jules Pieri, co-founder and CEO of Daily Grommet. “Our goal is to bridge the gap between traditional marketing and e-commerce by connecting inventors and undiscovered companies with consumers. Their stories are heroic and inspiring and we succeed at leveling the playing field, so the best products and companies can win, not just the biggest ones. Championing the independent creator builds great trust within our community. Working with Rakuten, with its longstanding empowerment mission, will allow both of our businesses to share knowledge and collaborate on product discovery, disrupting and improving the tired old ways of launching products.”

Daily Grommet, with its online editorial and video capability, showcasing the story around a particular product, has already been proven complementary to Rakuten’s Buy.com site, as the two have worked together to help expand Daily Grommet’s reach.

Daily Grommet began using Pinterest in mid-2011 as an extension of its community sourcing for high-quality Grommet submissions. Usage of the “Finds YOU want to see featured on Daily Grommet” Pinboard continues to rise rapidly and consistently represents one of Daily Grommet’s top referral sources. In May 2012 Rakuten led a strategic round of investment in Pinterest.

“Our investment in Daily Grommet supports our overall global strategy of creating an enhanced consumer experience in e-commerce,” said Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Rakuten. “Particularly in light of our recent Pinterest investment, we’re excited to be working with a company that shares our view of curating new, innovative and unique products across the web and the world. Daily Grommet is a perfect fit with the Rakuten family, as its team has shown great vision and passion for launching undiscovered products and companies. Our core business model of empowering merchants aligns perfectly with the goals and vision of Daily Grommet.”

Mine! Mine! All Mine! Yahoo Says It Might Just Keep Those Alibaba Billions, Rather Than Giving the $ Back to Shareholders.

Kara Swisher — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 20:50:48 +0000

Yahoo just filed a regulatory document noting that it might not give back the bulk of the $4 billion-plus that it is expecting to get from its sale of a chunk of its Alibaba stake to shareholders, as it had previously said it would, either via a stock buyback or dividend.

Instead, CEO Marissa Mayer looks like she wants all that dough to buy some tasty companies.

The filing noted that Mayer’s recent look-see review of Yahoo, “may lead to a reevaluation of, or changes to, our current plans, including our restructuring plan, our share repurchase program, and our previously announced plans for returning to shareholders substantially all of the after tax cash proceeds of the initial share repurchase.”

Yahoo’s stock is down about five percent on the news, in after-hours trading, to $15.28. It had been moving up slowly in recent weeks.

That’s because, for investors, this is a drastic reversal of previous Yahoo statements on what it was going to do with the windfall. At the time of the deal and then later in several statements by its top execs, Yahoo said it would return the most of the money to shareholders.

“We look forward to delivering the proceeds of the near-term transaction to our shareholders,” said CFO Tim Morse at the time of the deal’s announcement in May, which he later reiterated on an earnings call.

Related to the deal, the Yahoo board had also recently authorized its execs to conduct a larger stock buyback, although the company was under no legal obligation to do so.

In addition, in a recent letter to his investors, Third Point’s Dan Loeb — now a Yahoo director and in charge of a six percent stake — said the company “has indicated that it will return substantially all of the expected $5B of cash it will receive from this transaction to shareholders.”

No longer — at least for most of the incoming pile of moolah from China.

Still, the move probably should come as no surprise, given Mayer is already on the prowl for innovative companies to buy and talent to “acqhire.”

She’ll certainly need a bigger war chest, since Yahoo only has just above $2 billion in cash now, not all of which is available (long accounting reason I will go into later).

The big slug of Alibaba money, from selling half of Yahoo’s stake in the Chinese company, will obviously give her more heft.

So, too, would any money she might get from a deal around Yahoo’s Japanese assets. The company has been in protracted talks with SoftBank, its partner there, about such a sale. While sources said it was close to completion, there appears to still be some roadblocks to its final settlement.

Depending on how such a transaction is completed — tax-free or not — Yahoo could get about $3 billion in cash and perhaps another asset worth $1.5 billion.

That would certainly give Mayer a bigger kitty to do acquisitions — and presumably make lots of friends in Silicon Valley in the process.

Here is the pertinent section of the filing:

New Chief Executive Officer and Review of Business Strategy

On July 17, 2012, Marissa Mayer became the Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Yahoo! Inc. (the “Company”). As reported in our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2012 filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ms. Mayer is engaging in a review of the Company’s business strategy to enhance long term shareholder value. As part of that review, Ms. Mayer intends to review with the Board of Directors, among other things, the Company’s growth and acquisition strategy, the restructuring plan we began implementing in the second quarter of 2012, and the Company’s cash position and planned capital allocation strategy. This review process may lead to a reevaluation of, or changes to, our current plans, including our restructuring plan, our share repurchase program, and our previously announced plans for returning to shareholders substantially all of the after tax cash proceeds of the initial share repurchase under the Share Repurchase and Preference Share Sale Agreement we entered into on May 20, 2012 with Alibaba Group Holding Limited.

And here is the whole filing:

YHOO-20120809-8K-20120809

Fat Lady Finally Sings: Yahoo and Alibaba Officially Shake on $7 Billion Stock Sale Deal (Updated)

Kara Swisher — Sun, 20 May 2012 22:34:03 +0000

As AllThingsD reported several days ago they would, Yahoo and Alibaba Group have finally reached an agreement for the Silicon Valley Internet giant to sell back half its stake in the Chinese Web company in a $7 billion deal.

The taxable shares sale agreement, which is now being approved by both boards, is part of a larger and more complex arrangement, which will also include a multibillion-dollar stock buyback by Yahoo and an eventual IPO of Alibaba.

And, perhaps most importantly, it will bring to an end what could be the longest running global cat fight in Internet history, in which the long-time partners have bickered over the terms of their relationship for years now.

It has mostly been over how they could get to the transaction they should be announcing later tonight (or morning in Hong Kong, which it is there now). While it could fall apart at the last minute, that is highly unlikely at this point.

(Update: The Yahoo board has approved the deal unanimously, said sources, so it is done done.)

(Update 2: Yahoo and Alibaba both confirmed the deal in a joint press release, which is below.)

Thus, after many failed attempts to strike a tax-free deal — also involving Yahoo’s Japanese partner, SoftBank — collapsed, the pair have finally settled on a taxable deal, which could net Yahoo upwards of $4 billion.

The transaction values Alibaba at $35 billion and is subject to a number of funding issues that could change the value of the deal.

But here is the overall situation, as I previously reported:

Yahoo is set to sell half of its roughly 40 percent stake in Alibaba, in a taxable deal. The transaction is likely to value that portion of Yahoo’s holdings at about $7 billion — or 20 percent of Alibaba’s $35 billion enterprise valuation. Alibaba is in the midst of raising capital to fund the sale.

After taxes of upward of 35 percent are paid on the long-term gains — remember that Yahoo bought the now-lucrative Alibaba stake for just $1 billion in 2005 — the company will use the funds to buy back its own shares. That stock has been caught in the mid-teens doldrums for quite a while, so this could help boost shares significantly.

A shareholder dividend is also being considered by the Yahoo board, but it is unlikely. It’s also not clear if some of the cash will be held back for acquisitions by Yahoo, sources added, but it is also unlikely.

As part of the deal, sources said, medium-term incentives have been put in place for Alibaba to move forward with a public offering, which sources stressed is without contractual obligation or a time frame. Alibaba execs have already been publicly indicating such a direction recently, but this will put them more firmly on that path.

Although there are no plans to go public as yet, the IPO incentive revolves around several terms, including the right to buy back half the remaining stake, which expires in December of 2015. As I previously reported, Yahoo will be required to sell back half of the 20 percent remaining stake upon IPO and the other half after that if Alibaba goes public in the time frame agreed to.

Lastly, the Alibaba voting rights for both Yahoo and SoftBank are much diminished in the new deal, according to sources, to under 50 percent.

Translation: Alibaba CEO Jack Ma is now in the driver’s seat completely.

Once close, the pair have been wrangling over the large Yahoo ownership, which Ma has been trying to dislodge in a variety of nice and not-so-nice ways. It has resulted in a number of very public disagreements.

That included a nasty back-and-forth over its Alipay unit with now-fired CEO Carol Bartz, threats of takeover of Yahoo with private equity firms and, more recently, making friendly with its just-ousted CEO, Scott Thompson.

Those talks with him in recent weeks, which included a visit to China by Thompson, led to the new deal, which was negotiated primarily between Yahoo’s CFO Tim Morse and legal head Mike Callahan and Ma and Alibaba’s Joe Tsai.

The talks continued even as Thompson was suddenly engulfed in a controversy over a fake computer science degree on his resume that quickly led to his departure from Yahoo.

Ironically, the error was first discovered by activist shareholder Daniel Loeb, who is now voting on the deal as a newly named director of Yahoo, after successfully helping to oust Thompson.

He owns almost 6 percent of Yahoo.

The final decision to approve the deal was in the hands of a very new board of Yahoo, which has been drastically reshaped in recent weeks. It met to decide on the deal this weekend.

While the deal with Alibaba is finally nearing an end, Yahoo’s talks to sell its 33 percent stake in Yahoo! Japan is not part of this agreement. That’s due to what Thompson had called a “valuation gap,” which sources said is still an outstanding issue.

New interim CEO Ross Levinsohn has not been involved in the Alibaba deal in any significant way. But he certainly will benefit from its halo effect, if approved, especially given that it will likely boost Yahoo shares.

It also puts Yahoo in a unique situation, in which it must sink or swim more largely based on the value of its troubled core business.

That could mean a lot of things, including the eventual sale of the company, whose most lucrative asset recently — its Alibaba holding — will matter much less.

As soon as I get the press release, I will post it here, but no one is commenting, despite the inevitable happy ending to this long-running story.

And here’s the press release, finally:

Yahoo! and Alibaba Reach Agreement on Comprehensive Plan for Alibaba Stake Agreement Realizes Significant Value, Immediate Liquidity and Path to Future Monetization

Yahoo! Board Increases Share Repurchase Plan by US$5 Billion

May 20, 2012 — Sunnyvale, California and Hangzhou, China – Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Alibaba Group Holding Limited today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement for a staged and comprehensive value realization plan for Yahoo!’s stake in Alibaba.

The first step is the repurchase by Alibaba of up to one-half of Yahoo!’s stake, or approximately 20% of Alibaba’s fully-diluted shares. The purchase price will be based on a valuation of Alibaba to be established through equity financings that Alibaba intends to undertake to finance the transaction, subject to a floor valuation of approximately US$35 billion. The agreement includes substantial financial incentives for Alibaba to raise the additional equity at a valuation higher than US$35 billion. At the minimum price and assuming the initial repurchase of the full 20% stake, Yahoo! would receive from Alibaba consideration of approximately US$7.1 billion, composed of at least US$6.3 billion in cash proceeds and up to US$800 million in newly-issued Alibaba preferred stock.

The agreement also establishes a framework for Yahoo! to monetize its remaining interest in Alibaba in stages. First, at the time of an initial public offering (IPO) of Alibaba in the future, Alibaba will be required either to repurchase one-quarter of Yahoo!’s current stake at the IPO price or allow Yahoo! to sell those shares in the IPO. Second, following such an IPO, Yahoo! has registration rights and rights to marketing support from Alibaba to enable Yahoo! to dispose of its remaining shares, at times of Yahoo!’s choosing following a customary lock-up period.

This agreement is a result of extensive discussions between the two parties and a comprehensive review of both taxable and tax-efficient alternatives. Yahoo! and Alibaba believe this agreement to be the best path to align incentives and maximize value for shareholders of both companies and it paves the way for Alibaba to achieve future public market liquidity for all of Alibaba’s shareholders. For Yahoo!, the agreement provides for a staged exit over time, balancing near-term liquidity and return of cash to shareholders with the opportunity to participate in future value appreciation of Alibaba.

“Today’s agreement provides clarity for our shareholders on a substantial component of Yahoo!’s value and reaffirms the significance of our relationship with Alibaba,” said Ross Levinsohn, Interim CEO of Yahoo!. “We look forward to continued collaboration with the Alibaba team on business initiatives as we explore joint opportunities for growth and benefit from Alibaba’s future. I want to thank Jack Ma, Joe Tsai and the Alibaba team, as well as Tim Morse, Michael Callahan and our Yahoo! team for their dedication in achieving this successful outcome.”

“This transaction opens a new chapter in our relationship with Yahoo!,” said Jack Ma, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba Group. “I look forward to working with Ross Levinsohn and the Yahoo! team as Alibaba builds China’s leading e-commerce company. Yahoo!’s global audience reach will provide attractive partnership opportunities for Alibaba to explore markets outside of China. The transaction will establish a balanced ownership structure that enables Alibaba to take our business to the next level as a public company in the future.”

“We look forward to delivering the proceeds of the near-term transaction to our shareholders, and to the further enhancement of value and the additional monetization in the future that this agreement enables,” said Timothy R. Morse, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Yahoo!.

In addition to the share repurchase, the companies have also agreed to amend their existing technology and intellectual property licensing agreement. Among other things, this amendment will result in Yahoo! granting Alibaba a transitional license to continue to operate Yahoo! China under the Yahoo! brand for up to four years, while restrictions on Yahoo!’s ability to make other investments in China will be terminated. Alibaba will make an upfront lump sum royalty payment of US$550 million to Yahoo! and continuing royalty payments for up to four years. In addition, Alibaba will license certain patents to Yahoo!. Upon closing of the repurchase transaction, the Alibaba shareholders’ agreement will be amended so that the parties’ respective rights will be commensurate with the parties’ post-closing level of ownership in Alibaba. Yahoo! will continue to be represented on Alibaba’s board of directors with the right to appoint one of four existing directors.

Yahoo! intends to return substantially all of the after-tax cash proceeds to shareholders following the closing of the transaction. While the form of the return of capital to shareholders has not yet been finalized, Yahoo!’s board has increased Yahoo!’s share buyback authorization by US $5 billion concurrently with this transaction.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. Alibaba will be required to close the repurchase with respect to at least one-quarter of Yahoo!’s current stake in Alibaba regardless of the amount of financing raised, and up to one-half of Yahoo!’s current stake if it obtains the requisite financing. Alibaba intends to finance the repurchase through a combination of its own cash resources, debt, equity and equity-linked financing. The transaction is expected to close within approximately six months.

UBS Investment Bank acted as lead financial advisor to Yahoo! and Allen & Company LLC and Goldman Sachs & Co. also served as financial advisors. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP acted as lead legal counsel to Yahoo! and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP also acted as legal counsel. Munger, Tolles, & Olson LLP acted as legal counsel to the Yahoo! Board of Directors. Credit Suisse acted as lead financial advisor to Alibaba and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz acted as lead legal counsel to Alibaba. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP acted as counsel to Alibaba on certain financing and Hong Kong legal matters and Fenwick & West LLP acted as counsel to Alibaba on intellectual property matters.

Exclusive: Yahoo Finally Set to Strike Alibaba Share Deal -- Half Now, Then Half of What's Left After Eventual IPO

Kara Swisher — Fri, 18 May 2012 06:39:00 +0000

Yahoo is in the final stages of selling a large chunk of its stake in the Alibaba Group back to the company — in a complex deal that is set to include a multibillion-dollar share buyback to investors of the Silicon Valley Internet giant and an eventual IPO of the Chinese company — according to multiple sources close to the situation.

The deal has yet to be officially approved by the boards of both companies, but sources said it is likely to be, and could be announced as early as Monday.

This all could change, of course, since negotiations between Alibaba and Yahoo have taken place in a variety of ways in recent years, without success and with much acrimony. Talks over a tax-free deal — also involving Yahoo’s Japanese partner, SoftBank — collapsed in February, for example.

But the 324th time is apparently the charm — so here are the details of what looks to be a nearly complete agreement that I have ferreted out thus far from lots of relieved sources familiar with the situation:

Yahoo will sell half of its roughly 40 percent stake in Alibaba, in a taxable deal. The transaction is likely to value that portion of Yahoo’s holdings at about $7 billion — or 20 percent of Alibaba’s $35 billion enterprise valuation. Alibaba is in the midst of raising capital to fund the sale.

After taxes of upward of 35 percent are paid on the long-term gains — remember that Yahoo bought the now-lucrative Alibaba stake for a fraction of that, many years ago — the company will likely use the funds to buy back its own shares. That stock has been caught in the mid-teens doldrums for quite a while.

A shareholder dividend is also being considered. It’s not clear if some of the cash will be held back for acquisitions by Yahoo, sources added, but it is unlikely.

As part of the deal, sources said, incentives have been put in place for Alibaba to move forward with a public offering, which sources stressed is without the contractual obligation or a time frame. Alibaba execs have already been publicly indicating such a direction recently, but this will put them more firmly on that path.

In return, Yahoo has agreed to sell the remaining quarter of its current holdings when that IPO does occur. It would then have an only 10 percent stake of Alibaba, which it could sell at any time after the IPO.

If finally struck, the transaction will finally bring to an end one of the more protracted and disputed relationships in the Internet world.

Once close, the pair have been wrangling over the large Yahoo ownership, which Alibaba CEO Jack Ma has been trying to dislodge in a variety of nice and not-so-nice ways. It has resulted in a number of very public disagreements.

The talks continued even as Thompson was suddenly engulfed in a controversy over a fake computer science degree on his resume that quickly led to his departure from Yahoo on Sunday.

Ironically, the error was first discovered by activist shareholder Daniel Loeb, who will now vote on the deal as a newly named director of Yahoo, after successfully helping to oust Thompson.

He owns almost 6 percent of Yahoo, and is expected to approve the transaction.

But the final decision to approve the deal will be in the hands of a very new board of Yahoo, which has been drastically reshaped in recent weeks. It is meeting tomorrow and perhaps over the weekend to vote on it.

While the deal with Alibaba looks to be nearing an end, Yahoo’s talks to sell its 33 percent stake in Yahoo Japan is not part of this agreement. That’s due to what Thompson had called a “valuation gap,” which sources said is still an outstanding issue.

Next up for Levinsohn, who has just rejiggered Yahoo management again, other sources said, is an effort to settle the patent-infringement lawsuit with Facebook, and also to renegotiate its search deal with Microsoft.

And, oh yes, fix Yahoo’s rocky core-advertising business, which is still in distress and needs a major overhaul to push it back to growth.

But that, as they say, is yet another episode of Yahoo’s ongoing reality show.

Sony's Kazuo Hirai on Reviving the Iconic CE Brand and More: The Full AsiaD Interview (Video)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:45:28 +0000

We are now posting the full videos from the recent AsiaD conference, which took place in Hong Kong in October.

We’ve been following the schedule of the actual event. Up now: Sony’s Kazuo Hirai.

Hirai is a key figure at the Japanese consumer electronics giant, which has been struggling to revive itself after dominance turned to years of decline; he is widely considered the second in line to CEO Howard Stringer.

In an onstage interview with Walt Mossberg, the elegant exec, who was a longtime gaming exec at Sony, talked about the next-generation (but delayed) Vita game player, smartphones and Sony’s first Google Android tablets, which are now launching.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

As Yahoo Ponders Its Fate Endlessly -- Selling Off Yahoo Japan Stake Is Suddenly Its Easiest Option

Kara Swisher — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:49:54 +0000

I have called Yahoo the Hamlet of the Internet many times, for its seemingly endless ruminating on what it should do and what it should be.

And that is true on a lot of fronts — from its strategic direction to rejiggering its advertising business to finding solid leadership to whether or not it will sell itself and how to a variety of bidders.

It’s no small irony then that perhaps it’s only easy move right now and the one most likely to happen soon — and which could temporarily assuage its always restless shareholders — is to finally settle a long and arduous effort to sell its Japanese assets.

Sources close to the situation said that the deal — as has been reported — is the closest to a deal compared to any other that Yahoo is contemplating.

Sale or outside investment discussions remain mired, while similar share sale discussions with its Chinese partner, Alibaba Group, remain a constant roundelay of dashed deals.

It has not always been thus recently between Yahoo and Yahoo Japan. Just over a year ago, the company shifted its paid and algorithmic search from Yahoo to Google, raising tensions between the companies.

Now, though, Japan has become the easy one.

In actuality, striking an actual deal is not and has been a task is on that Yahoo has been working on for many years, trying to figure out the best tax-free way to shed its 35 percent stake.

It makes sense, since the asset is no longer a strategic plus it once was.

It also frees up a lot of cash. As of September 30th, according to Yahoo, the pre-tax value of its Yahoo Japan stake was worth $6.4 billion. Presumably, Yahoo would either use the money to bolster its business or, more likely, give its shareholders some kind of dividend.

In such a deal, Yahoo’s longtime Japanese partner — and one of its very first investors — SoftBank would buy out Yahoo’s stake.

That’s the simple way of putting a deal that only an accountant can grok. But one plus is that if Yahoo does pull it off, it would be rid the company of one complication too many.

That said, any Japanese asset sale could also be impossible without a larger settlement of Yahoo’s globally connected issues — or, as I like to call it, the hairball.

And SoftBank, which already owns a lot of Yahoo Japan would certainly need more than just cash — perhaps more of Alibaba than it already owns — to be enticed to buy even more.

Also, for all intents and purpose, SoftBank is the only buyer of Yahoo’s Japan asset, so there’s that issue.

But if it could show some progress in some part of its hopelessly complicated world, for Yahoo, that is always a good thing.

Yahoo for Sale: Possible Bidders Circling -- Including Marc Andreessen -- as Board Pressure Mounts

Kara Swisher — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:28:49 +0000

A range of major players interested in acquiring all or a large piece of Yahoo have been prepping possible bids and have been in touch with the Internet giant’s board over the last several days.

While Yahoo has publicly said it was not for sale, according to numerous sources both inside and outside the company, it has been receptive to the interest and its Chairman Roy Bostock and Co-founder Jerry Yang have spoken to several.

Among the possible players: Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, which is working with private equity firm Silver Lake, in a deal that also might include Russia’s DST Global and Yahoo’s Japanese partner Masa Son; former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin, who is partnered with Providence Equity Partners; and the possibility that Yahoo’s Chinese partner, Alibaba Group, might consider entering the fray in what could be a reverse merger of sorts.

Also being rung up by some of the parties: Microsoft — Yahoo’s advertising and search partner — which is being seen as a possibly moneybags in any deal.

The movement among these investors is against a backdrop of increasing pressure for Yahoo’s board, after it fired CEO Carol Bartz last week. In the wake of the dramatic move, shareholders have upped criticism of Bostock and the board and have been looking hard for alternatives.

Today, that included hedge fund investor Daniel Loeb of Third Point, which has a 5.1 percent stake in Yahoo. In a filing this morning, he said he might increase that amount, and described a testy hour-long phone call he had earlier this week with Bostock that ended abruptly with a hang-up from Yahoo.

Sources said Loeb called Bostock a “fool,” among other not-so-nice names, on the call and asked for Yang’s help in dumping him.

This comes as exactly no surprise, given his previously strong letter in which Loeb called for Bostock’s ouster.

Loeb has been calling out Bostock — who is also on the boards of Morgan Stanley and Delta Airlines — for a series of gaffes at Yahoo since he became chairman in 2008 (he’s been on the board since 2003).

Those have included: Yahoo’s bungled effort to stave off a takeover by Microsoft several years ago; the too-long enthusiasm for Bartz, who was hired in early 2009 and fired last week; sitting unusually still as competitors such as Facebook, Google and more have out-innovated and outgrown Yahoo; and, of course, the falling knife of a stock, which has dropped precipitously since Bostock has been in charge of the board.

As Loeb wrote in a letter he sent to the company last week:

“It is time that certain members of this Board were held accountable for its past failures and their individual roles. Accordingly, we insist that Mr. Bostock, who championed Ms. Bartz’s hiring and led the charge against the Microsoft deal, promptly resign from the Board.”

Loeb is likely to add to that later today at a high-profile investor conference in New York, where the colorful but tough-talking investor is sure to add more logs to the fire.

But it not only him. Other major shareholders of Yahoo are also in touch with possible outside buyers, seeking a change at the long-troubled company, after its shares have remained in the doldrums, its attrition rate of employees has spiked and its product pipeline has slowed to drip.

This has all been taking place — of course — during one of tech biggest and most innovative booms, in which Yahoo competitors have grown strongly.

Enter Marc Andreessen, the well-known entrepreneur who has transformed himself into one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful venture capitalists.

He and his partner Ben Horowitz recently pulled off another similar deal — with Silver Lake — to take control of a then-troubled Skype. They later flipped it to Microsoft for a large return.

Sources familiar with the situation said the pair have become increasingly intrigued by the situation at Yahoo and believe that its assets and brand are still strong, despite its management turmoil in recent years.

One problem is the huge cost of almost any kind of takeover and also the complexity, given much of Yahoo’s $18.5 billion valuation is due to its Asian assets.

The sale of those shares, as well as the selling off of some of Yahoo’s less core properties, makes for a very complicated situation for anyone.

Said one person looking at the company: “It is one of the more massive hairballs around.”

That is a common sentiment among many of those looking at Yahoo, which has hired Allen & Co. to manage the process.

Also of worry is a bid that would include too many players. Yahoo has long been plagued by indecisiveness on the part of its execs and, mostly, its board.

But one thing all the possible buyers of Yahoo, as well as an increasing number of its shareholders, agree on: The Yahoo board needs a major shake-up.

As Loeb wrote last week, which many I interviewed also echoed:

“This letter details our principled demands for sweeping changes in both the Board of Directors (the “Board”) and Company leadership, and outlines the hidden value of Yahoo, which has been severely damaged — but not irreparably — by poor management and governance.”

Viral Video: The Wacky Japanese Dance

Kara Swisher — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 07:45:16 +0000

I have no idea what to make of this group of kooky dancing Japanese men, except to say you must watch it.

No, really:

More AsiaD Speakers: Sony, Google+, Microsoft, Hollywood, Huawei and Hot SV Start-Ups!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:33 +0000

After our grand tour of Asia last week — with stops in Korea and Japan — it seems like a perfect time to update the speaker list for our upcoming AsiaD conference in Hong Kong in October.

As Walt Mossberg and I said, we are trying to mix both U.S.-based speakers with a pan-Asian selection of speakers from across the region, and the new additions are just that.

For the international confab — this one will be held Oct. 19-21 — we’ve already announced a great lineup, including Alibaba’s Jack Ma; Google Android head Andy Rubin; Twitter inventor and product guru, as well as Square co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey; Nvidia founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang; and Asus Chairman Jonny Shih.

Now, to add to that terrific lineup:

Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai is widely considered the second in command at the consumer electronics giant Sony, in charge of its key computer entertainment division, as well as now serving as executive deputy president of the whole company. In that role, the dynamic exec is at the nexus of the Japanese company’s efforts around tablets, smartphones, gaming and more. As Sony struggles to reassert its dominance over the arena, Hirai will be a key player in that effort.

Bradley Horowitz — as head of product management for Google+, the search giant’s aggressive effort to break Facebook’s hammerlock on social networking — has a perfect perspective to talk about the fast-growing area and where it is going globally. With locally-based social companies springing up all over Asia, can Google establish one the whole world will use? It’s an important question and Horowitz’s job No. 1.

At Microsoft, Andy Lees is leading one of the software giant’s most important initiatives, as president of its Windows Phone division. His come-from-behind job includes mobile software and hardware, as well as its key partnership with Nokia. With Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android far in the lead, Lees will need to win in markets globally, especially in Asia.

Peter Chernin is one of Hollywood’s top players and execs. The former top News Corp. exec is now a movie producer — his first effort, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” is a big hit. But he’s also been increasingly active in media investing in Asia of late, and has a lot to say about the global nature of entertainment in the digital age.

John Roese heads the North American R&D team for Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant making everything from heavy-duty gear for networks to mobile phones and tablets. The former CTO of Nortel, he’s heading up global development of Huawei’s cloud services for both businesses and consumers. Roese will also talk about the phenomenon of a Chinese-owned company emerging on the world technology stage.

Even in the midst of an economic downturn, there is no denying that it has been a golden time for Silicon Valley start-ups, which have enjoyed unprecedented growth and funding in the Web 2.0 era. But as they seek to expand beyond the U.S., a critical move for them all, we’ve assembled a panel of entrepreneurs to discuss it, including:

Brian Chesky is the CEO and co-founder of Airbnb, the popular online vacation rental site that recently got a huge dose of funding and an equally large amount of controversy. How Airbnb can take the company to the next level, including across the world, while dealing with the kinds of challenges the small management team has to face, will be an interesting topic for discussion.

After stints as president of Asia Pacific and Latin America operations at Google and co-founder of the online personal finance company Yodlee, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is trying her hand at a small start-up again. She’ll talk about how the recently funded Joyus, a new premium video commerce site trying to pioneer a new way to shop online, plans to expand globally.

Finally, longtime tech exec David Goldberg is now running one of tech’s most successful start-ups at SurveyMonkey, the dominant online survey company. With stints as founder of music site Launch Media, which was bought by Yahoo, and as an Entrepreneur in Residence with Benchmark Capital, he is the perfect person to explain what it’s like being an entrepreneur today in Silicon Valley.

We have even more speakers for AsiaD we’ll be announcing in the coming weeks, so get ready for what’s next.

Yahoo-Alibaba-SoftBank Settlement Call: At Least It's Not 100 Percent of Zero!

Kara Swisher — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 13:01:12 +0000

As these companies are wont to do in the middle of the night, Yahoo, SoftBank and the Alibaba Group have reached an agreement in their nasty dispute around the Alipay payments unit, and they are ready to talk about it.

Well, not Alibaba’s CEO Jack Ma (pictured here), Yahoo’s CEO Carol Bartz or SoftBank’s Masa Son, but their functionaries are all set to discuss the deal.

The issue has revolved around the spinning out of Alipay by the Chinese Internet giant Alibaba, without the approval of large stakeholders Yahoo and Japan’s SoftBank, which the pair felt was a big no-no.

Much mishegas followed, but the trio has been hard at work on a settlement, which is here now.

Of course, had the three companies cooperated in the first place as joint owners and board members of Alibaba, this all would have been unnecessary.

5:48 am PT: The call starts without all kinds of regulatory info about what can and cannot be said, before being thrown to Yahoo CFO Tim Morse.

One interesting wrinkle is that SoftBank’s Ron Fisher cannot speak at all, due to some Japanese laws, which are unexplained. But, said Morse, he’s there to show his support.

Go, Ron!

Alibaba’s CFO Joe Tsai is up first to talk about the deal over Alipay, which he stresses does not really make much money now. As he says, it is “marginally profitable.”

Tsai walks through the facts that they have already outlined earlier today, including a variety of payments from Alipay to Alibaba, since — let’s be clear — it used to be part of Alibaba.

But Alibaba said it had to spin it out in order to get critical regulatory approvals from the Chinese government, which caused this mess.

Morse now comes on, noting the whole squabble really had “no direct impact” from a financial point of view on Yahoo or SoftBank at this time related to its Alibaba assets.

Well, shareholders of Yahoo might beg to differ, considering the huge hit the stock has taken due to the fight. Wall Street has long considered Yahoo’s Asian assets its most valuable part.

But Morse is pleased the complex agreement has finally been reached — I am guessing it was not easy to negotiate among three different countries with so much pressure.

5:59 am: Time for Q&A!

The first question is about more deets and also about the possibility of a liquidity event for Alibaba or its various units.

Tsai underscores that there might not be one or there might be one. In other words, the Chinese assets of Yahoo may or may not ever pay off.

The next question is about why Yahoo and SoftBank should have a cap on an asset they used to own 100 percent of. Good point!

Neither Morse or Tsai really answers the question, except for Tsai talking about how certain rules over foreign ownership of payment companies in China means it had to be like this.

“If you own 100 percent of the business that cannot operate, you own 100 percent of zero,” said Tsai.

Translation: That’s China, folks, so suck it up!

The next question is a promissory note, which Tsai says has value, even though it actually does not have value right now. China!

The analysts still are stuck on this fact that, under terms of the agreement, Yahoo will only get 37.5 percent of an IPO or other liquidity event, when it used to be owner of 100 percent of Alipay.

Good point: Will this happen to other Alibaba units, such as its Taobao commerce unit?

China is a good place to be, assures Tsai, which is cold comfort right now.

A lot of swirl around preferential terms in the deal for Alipay with Alibaba’s units, which seem to be the same as before. In other words, nothing has changed, except a lot of stock loss for Yahoo and less technical ownership of Alipay.

The Wall Street analysts on the line continue to be riveted to the idea of a liquidity event for Alipay and other Alibaba units, especially Taobao, and keep asking different versions of this question.

The last question is about more deets of the deal and new business ideas for Alibaba.

Tsai talks about a cloud-based system rolling out, for example.

The questioner moves to, you guessed it, a liquidity event.

“I don’t think we want to get into it at this point,” says Tsai.

Well, we do, but apparently Yahoo shareholders are not going to.

That said, the deal is finally settled, which has already given Yahoo shares a small bump today. And that’s not nothing.

SCVNGR Goes Global (Sort Of!)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 08:00:03 +0000

BoomTown likes the sassiness of SCVNGR, the location-based service that’s not Foursquare, including the rank enthusiasm of its founder, Seth Priebatsch, to do whatever it takes to stand out in the competitive space.

Today, it is by “leveraging the most comprehensive places database in the world–the Google Places API,” which will essentially take the start-up global.

It’s part of a lot of moves by the Cambridge, Mass.-based SCVNGR, which tries to go beyond simple check-ins by emphasizing the game aspect and posing real-world challenges for users to complete.

Recently, hunting for ways to keep pace in the fast-moving social location space, the start-up released revamped versions of its Apple iPhone and Google Android apps.

And, earlier this summer, SCVNGR was one of the first to integrate with Facebook Places.

I did a video interview with Priebatsch a few months ago at SCNVGR’s office, which you can see below, as well as the official press release for the Google Places integration (nice Klingon joke!):

[ See post to watch video ]

SCVNGR Goes Global
Willkommen! Bienvenue! Yokoso!

Boston–November 2, 2010–“Hello World!”

That’s the badge SCVNGR users unlock after checking-in for the first time on SCVNGR. And today we’re excited that anyone in the world can start unlocking it. Because today we’re going global!

Hot on the heels of our update for iPhone and Android, and having just broken the half-million user number in record time, we’re making sure that everyone everywhere can play SCVNGR. SCVNGR is a real-world game played via iPhone and Android apps. It’s a social game all about going places, checking-in and completing challenges and earning points. You can unlock badges and real-world rewards (think free coffee, discounts and more!) and easily share where you are and what you’re up to with your friends on SCVNGR, Facebook and Twitter. It’s very social, very fun and as competitive as you want it to be.

Today this mobile social game is going live all across the world by leveraging the most comprehensive places database in the world–the Google Places API. This integration will instantly bring SCVNGR right to your fingertips at millions of locations across the globe so you can check-in, snap pics, do the social check-in, complete and build challenges, unlock badges and rewards and most of all, have fun!

“Our goal has always been to build the game layer on top of the world. But until today, we were missing a critical component…the rest of the world,” said Seth Priebatsch, SCVNGR’s Chief Ninja. “We’re excited to go live globally today, and to do so with the best location database on the planet.”

SCVNGR’s default interface will be presented in English but the content that players can create (the custom challenges to try at each place) can be added in any native language. SCVNGR adapts itself naturally to different places by enabling everyone who plays the game to also have the opportunity to build the game by creating their own fun things to do (we call them “challenges”) at each place. So get excited to start seeing challenges in German, French, Japanese, Chinese and maybe even Klingon! (Disclaimer: Probably not Klingon.)

So hello world and welcome to SCVNGR! Just grab the free app for iPhone and Android and start playing!

Another Wiif for Nintendo

John Paczkowski — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:51:29 +0000

Nintendo warned last month that its first-half results would be lousy, and this morning the company delivered on that promise, posting its first half-year loss in seven years.

For the six months to September 30, the Japanese gaming giant reported a $24.7 million loss as sales of hardware and software slipped. Nintendo sold 6.69 million DS units during the half, down significantly from the 11.7 million it sold during the same period last year. And it sold fewer Wiis as well–4.97 million, down from the 5.75 million it shipped last year. On the software side, things were equally dismal. DS software sales declined to 54.84 million units from 71.15 million units in 2009; Wii software sales fell to 65.21 million units from 76.21 million units in the same period a year earlier.

The beginnings of an ugly trend for Nintendo, which is fast losing momentum in a motion-enhanced gaming market in which its rivals are gaining it. With Sony’s PlayStation Move motion controller already at market and Microsoft’s Kinect for XBox 360 (Project Natal) headed there next month, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Wii–now about four years old–needs a full-on refresh.

Game On: DeNA Buys iPhone Developer Ngmoco for $400 Million

Peter Kafka — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 13:35:37 +0000

In case you needed another data point about the booming app economy: Ngmoco, the software company known primarily for its Apple iPhone and iPod games, has been snapped up by Japanese gaming company DeNA. The deal could be worth up to $400 million, depending on earnouts.

Like BoomTown Said: Cisco Announces "Umi" Consumer Telepresence

Kara Swisher — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 16:37:34 +0000

In a post last week, BoomTown wrote that Cisco would introduce a consumer telepresence product.

It did today in San Francisco at a press event. It is called, inexplicably, “Umi” telepresence.

I’ll be honest, it sounds like the kind of sushi I typically refuse to eat, because I am not as adventurous as I like to pretend I am.

Actually, it seems to be a variation on you-me.

Get it? You and me and telepresence. As in “Star Trek” for non-geeks.

According to Wikipedia, here are some other definitions for the word:

“Umi may refer to: Umi, ‘sea’ in Japanese language; UMI, Universal Mobile Interface; Umi, Fukuoka, a town in Japan; Umi-a-Liloa, the king of the island of Hawaii; Umi Ryuzaki, a character in the fictional manga series ‘Magic Knight Rayearth’ by CLAMP.”

“Connect with a touch of the button,” is the motto for the giant Silicon Valley networking company for Umi.

And, frankly, I wish I could have telepresenced from my bed at home with it.

You can, using Umi with your existing high-definition television and high-speed broadband. It’s in three parts: A camera, a remote control and, ugh, yet another set-top box to pile on the rest on the shelf in your home living room, as you can see below.

Cisco said the device is scheduled to be available to consumers on November 14 in Best Buy (BBY) Magnolia Home Theater stores, as well as at bestbuy.com and umi.cisco.com “for the suggested retail price of $599 with a monthly fee of $24.99 for unlimited ?mi calls, video messaging and video storage.”

At the short and sweet event, Cisco execs touted their entry into the crowded consumer video-conferencing arena.

“It’s all about tasting the chocolate,” said Cisco exec Gina Clark about her box of Umi, which will work with Google Voice Chat–but not Skype and Apple (AAPL) iChat yet.

It also has the seal of approval from Oprah Winfrey, who will doubtlessly use it in some Oprah manner on her talk show.

Clark mentions tasting the chocolate several more times to knock the point home that if you try it, you’ll like it.

I can’t believe I ate the whole Umi!

Now, Cisco–which really is obsessed with the chocolate metaphor today–is making me have a chomp in a demo.

And, while I am no reviewer, it is pretty sweet, and looks great, well beyond what is available via Internet video chat.

Until the inevitable shaky video appears, here is the full press release from Cisco (CSCO):

Cisco umi Press Release

Liveblogging Google's SF Mobile Event: Voices Actions, Chrome to Phone, No Video-Calling, But Will There Be Donuts?

Kara Swisher — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:05:46 +0000

BoomTown was sitting front row center–better to scare Google Mobile Product Manager Hugo Barra–at the Silicon Valley search giant’s press event in San Francisco this morning.

Google (GOOG) called together a group of reporters to discuss some “cool new features” for its Android operating system.

While many have been expectantly waiting for Google to announce a video-calling offering, to match the Apple (AAPL) FaceTime service, that was not to be here.

Instead, it was a low-key rollout of a few whiz-bang features to ooh and ahh at.

Happily, Google provided unusually delicious donuts, which was my entire reason for coming, because donuts are the pastry to the gods.

Let’s get to it:

10:05 am PT: PR dude Mike Nelson introed Barra, who said there will be two new features announced.

Ooh and Ahh.

First though, we were forced to endure yet another lecture on how important mobile is and where the future is headed that comes from every single company that throws a mobile event.

Mobile is the big show now?

Really? We had no idea this cell phone thing was going to take off! Thanks, Professor Barra!

Barra pressed on with lots of talk about MIPS (millions of instructions per second, which you should care less about, but is important).

Barra said that innovative smartphones were becoming “super-computers in your pocket.”

Again, master of the obvious!

I obviously needed to have a bite of my lovely sprinkle-laden donut to gain some balance.

10:12 am: Barra moved onto voice recognition. He asked the phone movie times in Palo Alto, Calif. and how high the Empire State Building, results which were promptly delivered.

(When my kid asked me on a trip to New York, I just said it was a badillion feet high, which also worked as an answer.)

But such technology is cool, for sure.

But Barra upped the ante by speaking four languages–Spanish, French, Italian and Japanese–to get results. It worked! Get this guy on “The Amazing Race” pronto!

Now, tricks over, it was onto the first product announcement!

And, drum roll…it was a new feature that Google is a calling “Voice Actions” in Voice Search, available today for Android 2.2 Froyo devices.

This sounded like a band name from the 1980s.

Instead, it is the ability to speak into the phone and have it instantly do things, such as sending text messages, automatic dialing and mapping and more, all via speech commands in English.

Speech recognition, natural language processing and semantic Web search–you could kind of do this before on Android, but it was neither seamless nor automatic, said Barra.

He did not say, but Voice Actions is an awful lot like Siri, the mobile app assistant start-up that Apple bought recently.

But there were more on Voice Actions, according to the adorkable demo dude Mike LeBeau, a baker’s dozen (13!) of actions, and there will be more.

He spoke into the phone a request to “Listen to the Decembrists.” Presto (and also props for the hip musical choice)!

Then, LeBeau spoke an email about some scuba diving trip. Presto!

But then he added a smiley face! Unfortunate and decidedly unhip, but presto!

After that, LeBeau kept showing off, setting the alarm clock, going to Wikipedia, doing a search for art galleries in Amsterdam.

10:28 am: Now for product announcement #2.

Barra brought up engineering manager Dave Burke, who built it in his 20 percent time.

It’s a synching feature called “Chrome to Phone.”

This sounded like a 1990s band name.

“It is a low latency way to push information to the phone,” said Burke, using Google’s browser and an app for the mobile device.

There is a little icon on the Chrome browser you click that sends a variety of stuff to the app on an Android phone.

It’s certainly helpful.

10:35 am: Onto Q&A about the two perfectly fine, though hardly earth-shaking, announcements.

Questions about the languages, bookmarking Chrome to Phone (not yet) and what’s coming next.

More!

It was all about solving “pain points” said the Voice Actions dude LeBeau.

All I know is donuts are the only thing that solves my pain points. Presto!

(And here is a post of some videos and screenshots of both Voice Actions and Chrome to Phone to enjoy.)

Walt and Kara Tour the New MIT Media Lab: Geektastic!

Kara Swisher — Fri, 07 May 2010 11:44:44 +0000

Earlier this week, Walt Mossberg and I visited the new geek wonderland at the MIT Media Lab.

Officially opened in early March and designed by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki, the Cambridge, Mass.-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology complex has been in the works for a dozen years.

The open and airy building screams digital innovation, with seven interlocking “cubes” around a main atrium. It is connected to the original Media Lab cube, designed by I.M. Pei, called the Wiesner Building.

Walt and I visited some of the new labs with Director Frank Moss, checking out everything from a foldable City Car in the Smart Cities group to some really strange opera gloves in its music group, to…well, you’ll see.

Here’s the video, which is kind of long, but has lots of robots (of course!):

[ See post to watch video ]

[Photo credit: Andy Ryan/MIT]

Almost Famous: Harold Smith IV of OWLE

Drake Martinet — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:59:21 +0000

A feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.

This week: We we had a Skype visit with, asked some questions of and gathered a few pertinent stats about Harold Smith IV and OWLE: Optical Widget for Life Enhancement, a superbeefy accessory for the Apple (AAPL) iPhone that attempts to bridge the gap between a camera on a phone and professional camcorder.

Who: Harold Smith IV

What: CEO and co-founder

Why: After early prototypes and iPhoneDevCamp, Harold patented a product that uses off-the-shelf lenses and microphones coupled with nearly a pound of custom-machined aluminum to stabilize and supercharge videos taken by iPhones. Harold and his team just finished churning out the first 500 OWLE Bubos (Bubo is the model name), which shipped at the end of 2009.

Where: wantowle.com (Web site); @wantowle (Twitter); Scottsdale, Ariz. (analog place)

Who else: A Japanese company called Factron makes a case, called Quattro, with detachable lenses, although similarities are thin. The OWLE is a one-of-a-kind product at this point, but Harold sees competition on the horizon as video apps improve.

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile

Worst Job: I worked at Taste of Chicago, a hot dog shop. I guess it was my first experience in the truth of what goes on behind the scenes at a restaurant. This one day, I spilled a bucket of diced tomatoes on the floor, and my manager just kicked them back into the bucket and put it back on the counter. I didn’t last very long.

Has a Geek Crush On: Jim Jannard, he founded Red, the digital cinema camera company. Basically, he just saw a need and a product that didn’t exist yet and he just made it. That’s basically what we are trying to do.

Gadget of the Moment: You are gonna laugh because it’s so simple. I got this iPhone battery from Tumi for Christmas. It’s great. It holds five full charges and recharges the phone in two hours.

Wishes There Was an App For: Well, I really want to have more control over iPhone video. There’s no reason why we can’t have control over white balance, selective focus and everything. I mean, it’s all digital, and we have the tools. Truthfully though, I’d really love to play Halo on my iPhone in augmented reality. That’s coming.

Fails At: Spelling and grammar. I rely on the Internet to fix my mistakes. I think it would be the greatest prank ever to turn off all the spelling and grammar check in the world for one day to see how we all really type.

Bio in 140 Characters

Split his early years between Scottsdale and San Francisco. Couldn’t decide on a college major. Sold software, sold vitamins, invented OWLE.

The Five Questions

Give us the short history of how you decided the iPhone needed to be better at shooting video.

It all started with my day job at Natural Partners, a vitamin distribution company. They wanted to use video to reach customers in a way that competitors weren’t, so they started doing a Web TV show. We got into broadcasting trade shows live and wanted a mobile camera. The Nokia (NOK) N95 had just come out and Qik [online mobile streaming service] was around. I ended up building a rig to make live broadcasting with the N95 better. It just looked awful, all brackets and tape. When the iPhone came out, it was so thin and nice, I wanted to build something nice for it. That was the first OWLE prototype.

What exactly is the OWLE now?

Well, the OWLE Bubo is the current model. It is a custom-machined piece of billet aluminum, anodized black. We tried a lot of different sizes, and we settled on a version that weighs 0.9 pounds. You want it to be heavy enough so that you get stability without being a pain to carry around. The second component is the lens that it comes with. The body itself has 37-millimeter threading, the largest standard when it comes to camcorder lenses. These are things you can get at Best Buy (BBY) as add-ons for your camcorder. The lens even comes in two parts, and the first stage can be used alone for close-up shots. It also has an add-on microphone from Vericorder, so that you can hear what’s going on in front of the phone while it’s in the OWLE. You get the whole thing for $129.99.

Where do you hope people will be seeing these for sale in the future?

Well, we just launched a new Web site last week, and we are already filling orders from that. Right now, we are based out of a distribution center in Scottsdale, so we are filling orders ourselves today, but we could ramp up very quickly to larger order fulfillment. In my last job, I was running a $6-million-a-year e-commerce site, so when we are ready to ramp up, that’s my world, I’m ready for that.

We just struck a deal with ThinkGeek.com, so you can buy an OWLE there right now. Nothing is official yet, but we are currently in talks with Apple about selling OWLEs in Apple stores. That would be the dream location, I guess.

Picard or Kirk?

Picard for sure, I mean that’s what I grew up on–that was the touchscreen stuff. That was my first real exposure to touchscreens and HD video. It wasn’t shot in HD or anything, but Captain Picard would stand there, and there was that huge screen in full quality with a Klingon on it or something. We were there watching it on our little CRT televisions. That was the future. That’s what I thought when I first got an iPhone. I mean, it was a tricorder, that was “Star Trek.” I’m still waiting for my transporter.

What’s the OWLE story that beats them all?

Well, we just got this video from our marketing team–I’m not sure we’re going to release it. It’s basically of the team taking an OWLE Bubo with an iPhone inside and throwing it off a building like five times. The iPhone was, like, totally fine, but we don’t want to endorse people chucking their iPhones like that.

The In Living Color Interview

[ See post to watch video ]

Sony's E-Reader Opens New Chapter in Kindle Rivalry

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:03:18 +0000

Sony, the Japanese electronics giant, was a pioneer in the current wave of electronic book readers, introducing its first Sony Reader model back in 2006. But, it has been overtaken by Amazon.com, whose Kindle e-book reader, introduced in 2007, has become almost synonymous with the category. Now, Sony (SNE) is out with a much-improved model that could make it more competitive.

Unlike the Kindle, Sony’s readers weren’t wireless and their owners couldn’t download books or newspapers directly to the device, instead of via a computer. Now, that problem has finally been solved with Sony’s new Reader Daily Edition, a handsome $400 wireless model that I’ve been testing.

[ See post to watch video ]

The Daily Edition can be bought at Sony’s stores; at its Web site, sonystyle.com; and at Best Buy’s (BBY) site, bestbuy.com. It was sold out for the holidays, but Sony says it expects new stock soon.

The Daily Edition isn’t a mere clone of the Kindle. It has a different design philosophy and is stronger in some areas, weaker in others. In general, I enjoyed using it, once I mastered its user interface, which took several days. I especially liked the fact that it packs a larger screen into a comfortably small device, and mostly uses touch navigation instead of all physical controls. For instance, while the Sony does have a small page-turning button, you can more easily turn pages by just swiping your finger across the screen. It’s also better at navigating digital newspapers, something I’ve never found very satisfying on the Kindle.

(Full disclosure: Sony has struck a special deal with Dow Jones, which owns The Wall Street Journal and this Web site. Under the deal, a special late-day edition of the Journal, containing updated news, will be available on the Daily Edition for an extra charge starting later in January.)

On the downside, the Daily Edition has three main flaws when compared with the Kindle. First, it’s much more expensive—$400 versus just $259. Second, it has only about half of the commercial, copyrighted digital books that Amazon (AMZN) does—around 200,000 versus the Kindle’s roughly 400,000. Sony also throws in a million out-of-copyright, old books, for a total of 1.2 million.

But many of these added million titles are obscure and of little interest to mainstream consumers. The Reader also has just eight newspapers, versus 92 for the Kindle, though Sony says 10 more are coming soon.

Third, the technology that makes the screen touch sensitive also dims it a bit, so the Daily Edition’s screen is darker than the Kindle’s. (Both are unlit monochrome screens with gray-scale graphics.) I found the Sony screen adequate, but it’s tougher to read in lower light.

The Daily Edition is a slender device with a black metal body that contrasts sharply with the wider, white plastic body of the Kindle. While both products use the same basic screen technology, and the same screen width, the Daily Edition’s screen is longer; it measures 7 inches versus 6 inches for the Kindle. In my tests, I found this a big advantage, because, when both devices were set for roughly comparable text sizes, the Sony could hold more text on a page, cutting down on the need for page turns, which interrupt reading.

In addition, the Daily Edition is narrower than the Kindle, because the borders around the screen are thinner, since they don’t have to accommodate the Kindle’s various large buttons or physical keyboard. (You can enter text for notes or searches on the Daily Edition using a stylus for handwriting or a virtual onscreen keyboard.) This longer, narrower shape gives the new Sony a nice feel in the hand.

I also preferred the Sony’s method for presenting newspapers, which allowed more headlines to be viewed at once and required fewer steps to navigate through the paper.

Sony’s new Daily Edition Electronic Reader

The Sony also claims more battery life with wireless turned off, comes with a cover included—an extra-cost item on the Kindle—and can handle more book formats, including the free digital books offered by public libraries. Built-in memory is the same, but the Daily Edition’s can be expanded while the Kindle’s can’t.

Like the Kindle, the new Sony also allows you to drag songs, pictures and some personal documents onto the device from your computer. I did this with no problems.

The Daily Edition has companion software for buying, reading and storing books on both PCs and Macs. But it has no app for a smart phone, and doesn’t synchronize your last-read place in your book among the reader and the computer.

Also, I found the Daily Edition required a harder learning process than the Kindle. First, it takes awhile to get the hang of the touch gestures, partly because they require much more pressure than on, say, an iPhone. Second, using touch to bring up features and menus can be a mystery until you consult the manual. For instance, it took days to discover that you could set a bookmark by double-tapping on the upper right corner.

But, all in all, despite its higher price, the Daily Edition is a big leap for Sony and adds another good choice for consumers.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email mossberg@wsj.com.

Video: Google Real-Time Search Event (Plus Noshing!)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:03:34 +0000

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Here is a short video BoomTown did at the Google search event yesterday, where the company launched a number of new features to its flagship offering–most of all, comprehensive real-time search.

Innovations also included a hopped-up mobile translation service, voice-querying in Japanese and Google Goggles, which searches from pictures you take on your mobile device.

This video includes one of the real-time data partners that Google (GOOG) announced today, MySpace’s Chief of Products Jason Hirschhorn, as well as Google PR dude Nate Tyler and a view of the superior spread the company put out for the occasion–unlike the food-free Bing search event by Microsoft (MSFT) a week ago.

Here is the video of Google’s presentation, which took place at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley:

[ See post to watch video ]

Walkman Outsells iPod in Japan–Sort Of

John Paczkowski — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:07:09 +0000

Sony’s Walkman outsold Apple’s iPod in Japan for the first time in more than four years last week, according to a report from research outfit BCN.

The Japanese company’s share of the portable music player market rose to 43 percent, surpassing Apple’s 42.1 percent and ending the iPod’s 241-week run as Japan’s top portable media player.

A noteworthy victory for the Japanese electronics giant, but one that says more about just how far the once great company has fallen than anything else. That it took Sony (SNE) this long to unseat Apple (AAPL) in its home market is astonishing–all the more so given the vast success of the Walkman and the mindshare it once commanded.

And one could argue that Sony hasn’t actually beaten Apple at all. BCN’s survey didn’t include the iPhone because it views that device as a phone. But obviously, it’s an iPod as well–BCN notes that the handset has clearly cannibalized iPod sales. Had BCN classified the iPhone as the media player that it is, Apple would almost certainly have maintained its lead over Sony in the Japanese market.

NEC, Hitachi and Casio Deny Three-Way

John Paczkowski — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:16:34 +0000

With a combined share of over 20 percent of the Japanese handset market, a joint cellphone venture between NEC, Hitachi (HIT) and Casio might be a wise move for the companies, which are struggling in an increasingly saturated domestic market. So reports in the Yomiuri Shimbun and The Wall Street Journal that claim the three have decided to consolidate their mobile-phone operations aren’t wide of the mark at all. Such a move would eliminate overlap in product lines. And it would create a company second only to domestic industry leader Sharp, one that would have enough clout to expand into emerging markets like China.

But NEC, Hitachi and Casio are denying these reports anyway. Or rather, they’re denying that they’ve hammered out any sort of deal. “The media report out today is not something that the company has released,” NEC said in a statement. “It is also not true that we have made a decision regarding our cell phone operations.”

Yet.

Japan Alerts Amazon to Life's Two Certainties

John Paczkowski — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:17:39 +0000

Amazon’s days of booking sales from its business in Japan back to the United States may be coming to an end. The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau has demanded back taxes of $119 million from Amazon’s Japanese affiliates, Amazon Japan and Amazon Japan Logistics.

Typically, U.S. companies that do business in Japan without offices in the country aren’t required to pay taxes to the Japanese government. And Amazon (AMZN) has long counted itself among them, claiming purchases made through Amazon Japan are technically transacted in the states. Yet the company does have some retail infrastructure in the country through which it handles merchandise distribution, logistics and whatnot. And, according to the Bureau, that means Amazon has “permanent establishment” in Japan and should be taxed in the country under the U.S.-Japan tax treaty.

Another nasty tax headache for Amazon.com, which also faces calls for tax payments back in the U.S. and in Britain, France, and Germany as well. From the company’s annual report:

We Could be Subject to Additional Income Tax Liabilities
We are subject to income taxes in the United States and numerous foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in evaluating our worldwide provision for income taxes. During the ordinary course of business, there are many transactions for which the ultimate tax determination is uncertain. For example, our effective tax rates could be adversely affected by earnings being lower than anticipated in countries where we have lower statutory rates and higher than anticipated in countries where we have higher statutory rates, by changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities, or by changes in the relevant tax, accounting and other laws, regulations, principles and interpretations. We are subject to audit in various jurisdictions, and such jurisdictions may assess additional income tax against us. Although we believe our tax estimates are reasonable, the final determination of tax audits and any related litigation could be materially different from our historical income tax provisions and accruals. The results of an audit or litigation could have a material effect on our operating results or cash flows in the period or periods for which that determination is made.