Jason Calacanis

Mahalo Lays Off 25 Percent for Shift to Apps From Video

Liz Gannes in News on October 26, 2011 at 9:37 am PT

Mahalo, the often-pivoted company run by well-known entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, laid off a quarter of its staff earlier this month.

Exclusive: Backupify Closes $5 Million in Round Led by Avalon Ventures

Arik Hesseldahl in News on September 8, 2011 at 5:20 am PT

Even in the cloud, data gets deleted by mistake. Backupify aims to have your back.

Crowdsourcing Platform ChallengePost Raises $4 Million

Peter Kafka in Social on August 8, 2011 at 9:00 pm PT

Start-ups that rely on the Internet as a source of free labor are nothing new. But the idea keeps coming back, in different forms, because it seems to work.

Google: No, Government Investigations Have Not Frozen Our Manual Search Tweaks

John Paczkowski in News on May 27, 2011 at 2:05 pm PT

A report claiming that manual updates to Google’s search results have been frozen because of possible government investigations is entirely untrue, the search sovereign says.

News Byte

Citing Google Search Change, Mahalo Cuts Staff

Peter Kafka in Media on March 1, 2011 at 7:40 pm PT

Here’s one ripple effect from the change Google made to its search engine algorithm last week: Jason Calacanis’ Mahalo.com has cut 10 percent of its staff. The site, which started out life as a “human powered search engine” and which is now focusing on “how-to” videos, cited a “significant dip in our traffic and revenue” since Google made its change, which is supposed to “reduce rankings for low-quality sites”. Allen Stern has more details.

Early Adopter: Techie Teens Review Jason Calacanis’ Launch Conference

Drake Martinet in News on February 26, 2011 at 9:25 am PT

Early Adopter asked the three youngest attendees of Jason Calacanis’ Launch Conference to share their thoughts on the companies launched and on consumer tech, from their post-millennial perspective. They angstily obliged.

The Anti-Social Reviews Site: Skweal Keeps Negative Customer Feedback Private

Liz Gannes in Social on February 25, 2011 at 12:20 am PT

Tyler Crowley, who has long been tech rabble rouser Jason Calacanis’ right-hand man, is branching out and starting his own company. Called Skweal, it is a way for customers to give retailers feedback privately, rather than posting a negative review on a site like Yelp.

Early Adopter: Quick Hits from the Launch Conference

Drake Martinet, Associate Editor, D: All Things Digital in News on February 24, 2011 at 1:30 am PT

Yesterday was the launch of the two-day Launch Conference, a start-up demo orchestrated by entrepreneur Jason Calacanis. So here are some snippets from the event, along with the Early Adopter picks from the demo pit.

Bill Gross's UberMedia Raises $17.5 Million From Accel, Index and Steve Case

Kara Swisher in News on February 14, 2011 at 9:04 am PT

UberMedia, which just bought TweetDeck for $30 million in equity last week, has raised $17.5 million in a round led by Accel Partners. The valuation for the Pasadena, Calif., start-up founded by well-known entrepreneur Bill Gross–which was actually struck some month ago–is $40 million.

Enswers Acquires Soompi Korean Entertainment Community

Liz Gannes in Social on February 6, 2011 at 11:24 pm PT

Korean video fingerprinting company Enswers has acquired Soompi, a San Francisco-based company that runs the largest English-language Korean pop culture site.