Kazaa

BoomTown Will Have What Marc Andreessen Is Having–Investors' Splashy Win in Microsoft-Skype Hookup

Kara Swisher in News on May 10, 2011 at 12:28 am PT

When a group of powerful investors, including Silver Lake Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, waded into the mess at Skype less than two years ago with a $1.9 billion cash investment for a big chunk of the company, it was–how can BoomTown put this delicately–a hot mess. Now–with Microsoft poised to pay over $8 billion for the Internet telephony and voice communications company–it is a lucrative one.

Kara Visits Joost HQ in London: Restarting the Start-Up (With a Little Help From Its "Friends")!

Kara Swisher in News on September 24, 2008 at 10:15 am PT

Well, here’s a good reason not to write off Joost quite yet: When it officially debuts its new Web-based service in mid-October, the London-based company will have some pretty hot content with its half-dozen seasons of the former NBC hit, “Friends.” Also, there will finally be no more irksome plug-ins. There will also be cooler social-networking elements. While all this is not going to make up for the lost time the online video service has wasted with its annoying P2P-based desktop client download, going to a Web-based, all-Flash service with more robust content is certainly the right way to stop rival service Hulu from continuing to clean Joost’s clock.