Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner John Doerr has joined the board of Flipboard, the mobile-based social media magazine, as an adviser.

“John has been a long-time supporter and adviser to Flipboard and it is fantastic to have him on the board,” a Flipboard spokesperson told AllThingsD. “We feel very fortunate to be working with him and everyone at KP.”

Doerr’s move into an advisory role at Flipboard, first noted by Owen Thomas at Business Insider, is a natural one, as Doerr has had an existing relationship with Flipboard CEO Mike McCue over the years. McCue founded and subsequently sold Paper Software to Netscape in 1996, where he went on to work on and evolve the Netscape browser with Doerr again acting as adviser. McCue also founded TellMe, backed again by Doerr and Kleiner’s funds.

Another Kleiner partner, Eric Feng, recently joined Flipboard as the startup’s new CTO.

McCue was a board seat holder at Twitter before he was asked to leave over what the microblogging site saw as eventual conflicts of interest. Doerr often showed up to Twitter board meetings in an advisory role, but never held an official seat.

The news also comes in the wake of the departure of former Kleiner partner Ellen Pao, who was terminated from the investment firm for “performance issues.” (Pao also happens to be suing the firm, alleging long-standing sexual harassment issues.)

“It’s Time. Demand a Plan to End Gun Violence,” reads the ad, which was signed by a plethora of major digital players.

They include, in part: Lerer Venture’s Ken Lerer (who organized the effort); SV Angel’s Ron Conway, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, Skype President Tony Bates, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, adviser Bill Campbell, Flipboard CEO Mike McCue, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley, Findery’s Caterina Fake, Emerson Collective’s Laurene Jobs, Code Advisors’ Quincy Smith, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and Zuckerberg Media’s Randi Zuckerberg.

In addition, there is a large-scale social media effort under way for Demand a Plan, which signee and venture capitalist Fred Wilson likens on his blog to other Internet-wide campaigns.

“Like the PIPA/SOPA efforts last year, this effort is diverse, distributed, chaotic, and hopefully effective and powerful,” he wrote.

Here’s the ad itself:

As AllThingsD has previously reported, the microblogging service has been interviewing a series of media executives, including Chernin, for a possible board position with the company.

The media mogul has held key roles at News Corp. (AllThingsD’s parent company), and was a major player in the formation of streaming video service Hulu. Chernin also holds a seat on the board of Pandora, the online music service.

So, naturally, as Twitter has moved increasingly toward a more consumption-based, media-centric company, Chernin is an easy choice for a board seat.

Over the past two years, the company has made major strides into more traditional forms of mainstream media turf, making hashtags and its little bird logo a now-ubiquitous part of watching or promoting TV shows and films.

But more than that, Twitter’s ever-expanding sales and monetization teams want a larger slice of the ad dollars — and the eyeballs — that big media companies bring to the table.

Funny enough, Twitter is currently in the midst of its annual global sales conference, where co-founder Jack Dorsey took the stage on Thursday morning to speak about the state of the company.

As it stands, Twitter’s current board is largely tech-centric in its membership, with Valley veterans Dick Costolo, Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams holding seats, along with others like Benchmark Capital’s Peter Fenton, Peter Currie of Currie Capital, and former DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt.

Chernin’s appointment also serves to replace former Twitter board member Mike McCue, CEO and co-founder of the popular media-centric start-up Flipboard.

As I reported last month, Twitter’s search for a new board member had also focused heavily on naming a woman candidate, which the company’s all-male board currently lacks. Twitter had already interviewed a number of female candidates, according to sources, though it has not chosen one yet. It is unclear whether Twitter will appoint another member after Chernin.

A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on any new or potential board appointees.

In its continued search to strengthen the company’s board of directors, Twitter has placed top priority on adding a woman to the current all-male roster, according to sources close to the situation.

A number of female candidates have already been interviewed, but none have been selected, these sources say.

It’s an obvious logical step for the microblogging service.

As Kara Swisher noted nearly two years ago, Web 2.0 companies have few women board members, unlike a number of public tech companies.

That includes Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, LinkedIn and eBay — major technology companies whose boards include one or more women.

But Twitter does not.

It has not been alone. Facebook added its first female director only recently, with COO Sheryl Sandberg being appointed to the board over the summer. That was soon followed by Zynga, which named longtime digital exec Ellen Siminoff recently.

Twitter’s search for a female director does not sideline the company’s continued search for other seasoned media players to join its board.

As previously reported, sources say that Hollywood exec Peter Chernin has been on Twitter’s short list for a seat. Along with years of experience at News Corp., Chernin played a role in the formation of the Hulu streaming video service, and currently sits on the board of Internet radio Web site Pandora.

Currently, Twitter’s board includes CEO Dick Costolo, company founders Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams, and investors such as Peter Fenton of Benchmark Capital and Peter Currie of Currie Capital. Former DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt also holds a seat.

After conflicts of interest arose, Flipboard CEO Mike McCue stepped down from his board position over the summer. McCue’s seat is presumably the one being filled, but the size of the board might also expand by two or more.

Considering the company’s recent push into the mainstream film and television arena, along with seeking more advertising revenue, the lack of at least one major media exec on the board could be seen as a deficiency.

Twitter declined to comment on this report.

And one of the top director candidates is well-regarded Hollywood exec Peter Chernin, said several sources.

He is an obvious choice, having been a top exec at News Corp. for many years. Since he left in mid-2009, Chernin has forged a successful film and television career, producing such hits as “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and “New Girl.”

But, unlike many media execs, he has also focused on garnering much deeper digital experience.

Chernin was key to the formation of the Hulu premium online service, for example, and is also a board member of the Pandora streaming music service. He has also been making digital and media investments in Asia.

(And, interestingly, although apropos of nothing, Chernin’s former boss, Rupert Murdoch, has become an avid tweeter, too.)

Sources said Chernin has not decided if he even wants such a board seat, and Twitter management is still only in the early stages of its board effort, presumably to replace Flipboard’s Mike McCue.

The entrepreneur left the board earlier this year, after it was clear that his social media app and Twitter were on a collision course (or an acquisition one, depending how you looked at it).

But the addition of a media-savvy director — or even two — also makes sense in the context of the past year of Twitter’s evolution.

The brainchild of Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, Twitter first began as a microblogging social network.

While it did attract a lot of attention due to its celebrity tweeters — such as actor Ashton Kutcher and famebot Kim Kardashian — the management and board of Twitter is largely tech-centric in experience.

But, more recently, the service has taken its shape as a consumption-based media company, where some 40 percent of its user base read and consume content rather than create it. That is to say, they watch, but they don’t tweet.

Such a strategic direction is a natural extension for bringing in more advertising spending from outside partners, especially big media companies that have both the eyeballs and dollars that the company is hoping to attract.

Twitter is now commonly used throughout the media space in a variety of roles, from branding to audience-gauging, and also sometimes even as a plot device.

(That said, you won’t catch CEO Dick Costolo outright admitting Twitter’s media-company status; he still wants the Silicon Valley cred of being valued as a technology giant first.)

A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on any effort to bring in new directors; Chernin has not yet responded to a query for comment.

According to sources close to the situation, Flipboard co-founder and CEO Mike McCue has approached Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and co-founder Jack Dorsey about moving off the board of Twitter.

It is not clear when McCue — who became a director of the San Francisco social communications company in late 2010 — will step down, but it could come soon.

The reason, sources said, is McCue’s growing feeling that the companies are on a product collision course, with a possible troubled or perhaps more attractive result.

In other words, Flipboard will either face increasing rivalry from Twitter or will end up as a possible acquisition target for it or other companies.

“How users consume and use Twitter is a key part of its future, and that is what Flipboard does well already,” said one person with knowledge of the situation. “There is going to be an inevitable crossroads for the two companies.”

Indeed, Twitter has bought several companies that help users read and discover, such as Summify.

The goal has been to better make sense of the massive amount of data that the service produces daily; to that end, Twitter has pushed to improve its user interface design on a number of devices.

And Twitter is a big part of Flipboard’s app, which is very dependent on the tweet feed and accounts for 70 percent of its links, sources said.

Flipboard is also more of a “mobile first” company, which is where Twitter is also headed even more aggressively.

Already popular on the Apple iPad, Flipboard launched its iPhone app late last year and it is prepping a version for Google Android soon.

That’s why, in addition to being a rival, it is also an obvious acquisition target for Twitter, as well as others such as Yahoo and Microsoft.

In fact, Google already tried to buy it last year, before Flipboard did a massive $50 million fundraising round that valued it at $200 million.

Its investors include Insight Venture Partners, Comcast’s venture arm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Index Ventures and a spate of well known angels, such as Dorsey, Facebook co-founder and Asana dude Dustin Moskovitz, Ron Conway, actor Ashton Kutcher and the investment company of former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin.

Co-founded by longtime entrepreneur McCue (Netscape, Tellme) and former Apple iPhone engineer Evan Doll, Flipboard launched to much attention in mid 2010.

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

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

Google has mounted a competitor, called Currents, as has Yahoo with its Livestand offering, neither of which have gotten much traction. In fact, sources said, Yahoo is likely to shut Livestand down completely.

There have also been a spate of other similar readers, such as Pulse and Zite.

Spokespersons for both Flipboard and Twitter politely declined comment.

After promises to get it out midyear, Flipboard is finally releasing its much-anticipated mobile app for the Apple iPhone.

The popular social reader is perhaps the most high-profile available on the iPad, in an ever-crowded field that includes such offerings as Yahoo’s recently launched Livestand; another one code-named Propeller, still upcoming from Google; AOL’s Editions; as well as existing news readers like CNN-owned Zite and Pulse. (Katie Boehret takes a look at the new Flipboard app along with some of those competitors in The Digital Solution this week.)

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based Flipboard, which has raised a pile of money from prominent funders at a big valuation, has been beefing up its advertising business, and a move into mobile was critical.

The new iPhone app, said Flipboard CEO Mike McCue, was built from the ground up, and is different than the iPad version.

For example — don’t get all excited — it flips up rather than side to side. Wheeeeee!

It also introduces “Cover Stories,” which gives you a curated-for-you look at news and social updates.

In related news, after being banned, Flipboard announced earlier this week that its iPad app was now available in China.

Oh, why hear all about it from me? Here’s McCue in a video interview, at the end of which he also dismisses my offer for him to be CEO of Yahoo (apparently, life is too short!):

(You can read a review by The Digital Solution’s Katherine Boehret of the Flipboard app here.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111206/mike-mccue-talks-flipboard-finally-launches-app-for-apple-iphone-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110907/yahoos-next-ceo-maybe-snoop-dogg-ya-digg/ http://allthingsd.com/20110907/yahoos-next-ceo-maybe-snoop-dogg-ya-digg/#comments Wed, 07 Sep 2011 14:00:32 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=117602

The firing of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz leaves open one of the bigger and more difficult jobs in tech — one that has taken its toll on many.

Nonetheless, rapper Snoop Dogg stepped right up to the Twitter plate yesterday, as soon as news broke of the ouster.

Tweeted Snoop Dogg:

“Im takn over as tha CEO of Yahoo. Need sum of tha Snoop Dogg content ya digg. Nuff Said.”

Not nearly nuff!

Thus, while the Yahoo board has yet to begin a search, I have already been hard at work on selecting the next CEO.

(Last time, the company took none of my suggestions, but after the most recent result, the directors might want to pay mind!)

Sources said Yahoo is looking for an experienced Internet type, either from inside or outside the company.

“Yahoo has put its flag in the ground as a digital media company with a technology base,” said one source. “The job requires big buckets of expertise and needs someone who will grow the company.”

Here I go with the outsiders:

Peter Chernin: The former News Corp. exec has been eyeing Yahoo for a possible takeover with other investors. Both Yahoo and I had picked him when co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down as CEO almost three years ago, and he had declined the offer. This time, perhaps a big chunk of the company and total autonomy would work, even if making a hit like “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is more fun.

Sheryl Sandberg: The COO of Facebook is sort of the anti-Bartz, with a smooth and efficient persona, and she is an experienced tech exec. But the former Google exec is at a place of growth at the social networking site, and is unlikely to want to leave the big show, especially since a blockbuster IPO is looming.

Jason Kilar: The Hulu CEO is in the midst of the process of selling the premium video service, with Yahoo as a bidder. While he has some tense relations with the studios, Kilar is top notch in his dedication to consumer products, and has a lot of experience from his stint at Amazon, too.

Dan Rosensweig: Currently CEO of IPO-headed Chegg textbook rental service, the former Yahoo exec never got a chance to run the company as its top leader. Well-connected and still well-liked by the troops at Yahoo, it still would be pretty hard for him to go home again.

Dave Goldberg: Sure, he’s married to Sandberg (see above), but the savvy CEO of polling phenom SurveyMonkey is one of the sharpest thinkers in Silicon Valley. He sold his music company to Yahoo many years ago and has a strong background in consumer online services.

Jon Miller: The chief digital exec at News Corp. almost got the CEO spot years ago when Carl Icahn was agitating for change at Yahoo, before Time Warner blocked him via a noncompete. With the mishegas at the media giant, and dwindling digital businesses there, it might be a good escape hatch for Miller.

Susan Wojcicki: The accomplished Google exec, who runs all its ad products, has the kind of calm, cool, collected persona that Yahoo could use right about now. The search giant was founded in her garage, and she has been a key part of its success since then. Wojcicki is also an understated class act in hey-look-at-me Silicon Valley.

Todd Bradley: The Hewlett-Packard exec just got blindsided when the company kicked webOS to the curb. While he is in line to run a possible spinoff of the device business, Bradley might also want to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.

Mike McCue: The CEO of Flipboard would certainly energize Yahoo with his intense focus on quality and consumer delight. The news app start-up could be a good addition to Yahoo, and McCue, the former Netscape and Microsoft exec who is well-liked in the Internet scene, would be, too.

Joanne Bradford: The former Yahoo advertising head bolted Bartz’s regime early on to run revenue for Demand Media. Well-liked in the ad business, she also knows where all the bodies are buried at Yahoo. Since ads and media are key at the company, she’d make an interesting choice.

Yusuf Mehdi: The Microsoft online exec would also be a left-field candidate to run Yahoo, given his even-keeled personality and longtime experience in the sector. And, though pricey, Mehdi’s impact on Bing search has been important. But he’s also been involved in the software giant’s lackluster ad and search partnership and still has not turned around the situation at MSN.

Kevin Johnson: The former Microsoft exec and current CEO of Juniper was once slated to be the CEO of Yahoo, had Microsoft managed to win the company in its hostile takeover attempt. In fact, Johnson was the architect of the idea of Yahoo running the media and Microsoft running the tech.

Tim Armstrong: Well, he might have been a good candidate before the downward slide of AOL and a recent series of questionable judgments. If Armstrong can’t keep a loud tech blogger in line, it’s not clear he can wrangle the Yahoo beast.

And here’s the insider scoop:

Ross Levinsohn: The former News Corp. exec is running the Americas for Yahoo, which puts him in charge of the company’s key businesses. But he’s still struggling to turn the ad business around, and how well he does that could be a major determinant of his success. But fantastic hair!

Blake Irving: The former Microsoft exec has an amiable nature and is well-liked at Yahoo, but he still needs to show that the company can ship some innovative products, and quickly. Like Livestand, the news reader, which is muchly late.

David Kenny: The Yahoo board member is now president of Akamai, which might preclude him from the job. But the well-regarded exec — he’s a snazzy dresser, too — ran one of the Internet’s top digital ad agencies and now has tech chops from the content delivery network.

Memo to Yahoo board: I have a million more ideas, from former Viacom exec Tom Freston to former Yahoo board member Eric Hippeau. Or why not bring back a passel of former Yahoos to advise, such as former CEO Terry Semel or former president Sue Decker?

Or Oprah! I hear Winfrey will be in Silicon Valley later this week, and she has a lot more free time now.

Like Snoop Dogg, she would fo shizzle be the bomb to cover.

Related posts

• As Yahoo Continues to Wobble, Investors (And Board) Eye Options
• Exclusive: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Tim Morse Named Interim CEO
• Carol Bartz’s Last F%*& You — Now Aimed at Yahoo Board
• Yahoo’s Statement on Bartz Ouster
• Wall Street Likes Bartz’s Firing — Yahoo Stock Spikes on News
• My Picks for Yahoo’s Next CEO — Maybe Snoop Dogg, Ya Digg?

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110907/yahoos-next-ceo-maybe-snoop-dogg-ya-digg/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110506/flipboard-triples-daily-usage-in-two-months-after-speed-improvements/ http://allthingsd.com/20110506/flipboard-triples-daily-usage-in-two-months-after-speed-improvements/#comments Fri, 06 May 2011 11:00:20 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=6386 Flipboard, the leading social news app for iPad, has tripled daily usage in the last two months, CEO Mike McCue said in a chat on Thursday. The app now sees eight to nine million daily “flips.”

Flips are Flipboard’s swiping motion utilized to view additional content, so the figure could be taken as a loose equivalent for page views.

Two months ago, Flipboard got three to four million flips per day, McCue said.

McCue attributed the jump in usage to various factors that made his company’s iPad app faster. March 10 was the release date of Flipboard’s 1.2 version, which among other improvements boosted speed. That was also the day before the launch of the iPad 2, which Apple has said is up to two times faster than the first iPad, with graphics that can be nine times as fast.

Plus, after all the hype around Flipboard, many iPad 2 owners probably downloaded the app first thing after picking up their new device–I know I did.

McCue said the number of Flipboard users has doubled in the same time period, but he did not specify a number.

Flipboard, which syndicates and prettifies content from publishers, curators, and users’ friends, is hard at work on its first iPhone version, which is planned for release this summer.

The iPhone version will be catered to power users more so than the iPad app, said McCue.

I mentioned to McCue that Flipboard might now be part of my weekend routine but it’s too lightweight for my weekday thirst to tap into real-time news and conversation. McCue responded that the new iPhone app is designed to be a weekday tool for people like me.

So if Flipboard for iPhone is a power-user social news tool, will it replace the leader of that category, TweetDeck–which Twitter is now reportedly close to buying?

McCue, who happens to be on the board of Twitter, said for some users that may indeed be the case.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Flipboard recently raised $50 million at a $200 million valuation.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110506/flipboard-triples-daily-usage-in-two-months-after-speed-improvements/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20110421/pre-200-million-valuation-flipboards-mike-mccue-at-sxsw-the-full-onstage-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20110421/pre-200-million-valuation-flipboards-mike-mccue-at-sxsw-the-full-onstage-video/#comments Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:30:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=42950

In March, BoomTown travelled hipster-Texas-style for the South by Southwest festival in Austin.

I was there to check out the geek-packed scene, but also to interview Flipboard’s Mike McCue in an onstage interview there.

The Silicon Valley start-up, which makes an innovative and highly designed social media reading app for the Apple iPad (iPhone and Google’s Android mobile operating system to come), recently raised $50 million in new funding, giving it a $200 million valuation.

This interview with McCue took place before that, but it’s still a wide-ranging map to where the much-touted Flipboard is headed.

Here’s the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110421/pre-200-million-valuation-flipboards-mike-mccue-at-sxsw-the-full-onstage-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110414/exclusive-flipboard-confirms-50-million-funding-at-200-million-valuation/ http://allthingsd.com/20110414/exclusive-flipboard-confirms-50-million-funding-at-200-million-valuation/#comments Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:23:12 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=42652

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

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

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

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

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

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

Insight is also an investor in Twitter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110414/exclusive-flipboard-confirms-50-million-funding-at-200-million-valuation/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20110323/pretty-flipboard-fundraising-at-an-even-prettier-200-million-valuation/ http://allthingsd.com/20110323/pretty-flipboard-fundraising-at-an-even-prettier-200-million-valuation/#comments Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:15:12 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=41854

Flipboard, the high-profile and highly designed social media reading app for the Apple iPad, is out raising another round of funding at an eye-popping $200 million valuation, according to numerous sources close to the situation.

The Palo Alto, CA, company declined to comment on its new funding efforts, which sources said had recently accelerated.

While that valuation might change, several sources considering the investment said it is unlikely to go down in the current frothy financing market in Silicon Valley, especially given Flipboard’s splashy profile and top-drawer pedigree.

Co-founded by longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur Mike McCue and former Apple iPhone engineer Evan Doll in January, Flipboard launched to much attention in July.

That included $10.5 million in venture funding from Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures and a spate of well known angel investors, such as Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey, Facebook Co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, the ubiquitous Ron Conway, actor Ashton Kutcher and the investment company of former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin.

At the time, it was unclear what Flipboard’s valuation was. But now, said several sources, it’s clocking in at a hefty $200 million, which is perhaps no surprise at a time of increasingly lofty investments in tech start-ups.

Suddenly, Foursquare’s $95 million valuation seems like a bargain! (Sorry, Dennis Crowley, for comparing you to the Kool-Aid pitcher dude.)

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

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

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

In this offering, there are pull quotes, photos, videos, status updates and even the first paragraphs of linked-out content. There is also the ability to comment and share, as if one were on Twitter or Facebook.

Flipboard has since added a number of features and will be launching its new iPhone app later this year.

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

It will be interesting to see who will jump into this leader in a nascent market, besides its current investors. Sources said one likely target group for Flipboard could be a large traditional media company.

Until the financial dust settles, here is the video of an onstage interview by the Digital Solution’s Katherine Boehret with McCue at the All Things Digital event, D: Dive Into Mobile, in December:

(Full disclosure: ATD is part of Flipboard’s publisher beta program.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110323/pretty-flipboard-fundraising-at-an-even-prettier-200-million-valuation/feed/ 8 http://allthingsd.com/20110307/viral-video-attack-the-block-and-boomtown-debut-at-sxsw/ http://allthingsd.com/20110307/viral-video-attack-the-block-and-boomtown-debut-at-sxsw/#comments Mon, 07 Mar 2011 08:15:42 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=41306

Like many a geek–and after a decade away–I’m headed to South by Southwest later this week.

To get in the mood for the well-known multimedia festival in Austin, here’s one of the films making its debut this coming weekend.

It’s called “Attack the Block,” and is about a teen gang fighting an alien invasion. Plus, it has the best tag line ever: “Inner City Versus Outer Space.”

Which is just about how I am feeling about SXSW!

In any case, despite my lack of hipster cred, I will be there for a party hosted by WordPress with drinks by The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and All Things Digital on Friday, as well as to interview Flipboard Co-founder and CEO Mike McCue on Saturday in an afternoon session with the subtitle: “Game-Changer or Passing Fad?”

NetworkEffect’s Liz Gannes and The Digital Solution’s Katherine Boehret will also be at SXSW, so expect plenty of coverage from Texas.

Until then, enjoy this movie trailer, y’all:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110307/viral-video-attack-the-block-and-boomtown-debut-at-sxsw/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110103/apples-jobs-tops-boomtowns-10-most-fascinating-techies-in-2010-survey/ http://allthingsd.com/20110103/apples-jobs-tops-boomtowns-10-most-fascinating-techies-in-2010-survey/#comments Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:02:00 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=39049

Of course, he won.

Dominating tech’s mindshare and press coverage in 2010, Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs also handily took the No. 1 slot of a reader poll conducted by BoomTown in the last days of year.

Jobs–who introduced a range of innovative products, such as the iPad, over the course of the 2010–garnered just over 30 percent of the votes for the question that asked: “Who are the 10 Most Interesting People in Tech in 2010.”

Among the reasons he was selected, from comments posted by those who took the survey:

“With the iPad, he’s re-inventing the personal computer. Again.”

“Because he never stops.”

And my favorite: “Because if he had to be dictator of the world, he’d actually take doing a good job of it seriously.”

And, despite not acing him out for Time magazine’s “Person of the Year,” WikiLeaks head Julian Assange got 16.3 percent for the No. 2 spot, followed by Facebook’s co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at 10.1 percent.

Said one voluble commenter: “Whether one agrees or not with the how, governments and the individuals in power tend to do things that, we as a public, need to know, given that their actions, ultimately, impact how we must live our lives. Assange, is merely bringing to light things that many would rather not have brought into the light of day. One could argue that we do not need to know, for security or other reasons. However, negotiations, diplomacy and conflict, are all simply ways or resolving issues. Since, as a public, we allow these people into power, should we not know they are acting on ‘our behalf’?”

Arguing for Zuckerberg and his increasingly powerful social networking site, one person said: “Changed the way we looked at the Web and added another layer of connection between user and the Web, as well as sites connecting to each other.”

A wide range of people, not included by name on the list I compiled, got the No. 4 slot with 7.3 percent. They included Google Android head Andy Rubin, Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, Demand Media co-founder and CEO Richard Rosenblatt, Arianna Huffington and, um, me!

Longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur-turned venture capitalist Marc Andreessen was No. 5 at 6.3 percent.

“Visionary as a grad student, very successful as an entrepreneur, now doing some really interesting things as a VC,” said one person.

The red-hot attention around social buying start-up Groupon–and its gutsy choice not to take Google’s offer of billions of dollars–got co-founder and CEO Andrew Mason the No. 6 slot with 5.7 percent.

Pure curiousness about the future outcome spurred one choice: “Is he really lucky or really good? I’m guessing 2011 is a fairly decisive year. I’d like to know more about him…”

The mishegas around Yahoo and its voluable CEO Carol Bartz put her in the No. 7 position.

Said one commenter: “She’s taken the impossible job and will succeed. However, rewiring is taking more times than expected…”

Innovation put social magazine iPad app Flipboard co-founder and CEO Mike McCue at No. 8 with 2.3 percent.

No. 9 was Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg at the same percentage, with the inevitable Betty White clocking in at No. 10 with 2.1 percent.

The reason for picking the longtime Hollywood movie and television star, after lobbying by rabid Facebook fans got her a gig on “Saturday Night Live”?

Simply put: “She rocks.”

And, indeed, she does.

Here’s my lovely bar chart showing the winners, which, perhaps most fascinating of all, did not include anyone from search topper Google or software giant Microsoft or microblogging leader Twitter (click on the image to make it larger):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110103/apples-jobs-tops-boomtowns-10-most-fascinating-techies-in-2010-survey/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101221/the-men-and-no-women-of-web-2-0-boards-boomtowns-talking-to-you-twitter-facebook-zynga-groupon-and-foursquare/ http://allthingsd.com/20101221/the-men-and-no-women-of-web-2-0-boards-boomtowns-talking-to-you-twitter-facebook-zynga-groupon-and-foursquare/#comments Tue, 21 Dec 2010 22:44:05 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=38810

In one memorable episode of the famous old short films “The Little Rascals,” after not getting invited to a party, the Our Gang little dudes decided to form their own group, comically called “The He-Man Woman-Haters Club.”

In other words: No girls allowed!

While it was wink-wink cute when Spanky, Alfalfa and Buckwheat huffed and puffed about keeping out Darla–which they never ever could do–back in the last century, it’s not quite as adorkable when it comes to the boards of all the major Web 2.0 hotshots these days.

That would be Twitter, Facebook, Zynga, Groupon and Foursquare, none of which have any women as directors.

As in zero.

What’s most remarkable is that most of these start-ups are run by what I consider enlightened and open-minded entrepreneurs, mostly young enough to be part of a generation more inclined to value equality and diversity in the workplace.

In addition, each of these companies has a massive base of women consumers, in some cases well over 50 percent of its audience.

Thus, it would seem logical that in casting about for those to help guide these companies, one or two women leaders might slip in.

To be fair, it’s not for lack of trying, but of completion, as was the case with Twitter’s recent addition of three new board members.

They were longtime Silicon Valley exec Peter Currie, Flipboard CEO and co-founder Mike McCue and former DoubleClick leader David Rosenblatt.

All are deeply qualified for the Twitter board, which is obviously prepping for its next stage of growth and maturity.

But in its search, the San Francisco microblogging site did not manage to cast the net quite wide enough.

While sources said at least one prominent online woman exec was considered, there were some legitimate issues with her appointment, and it was not completed.

Still, one might imagine Twitter could have tried harder to find other workable choices.

Currently, the Twitter board is made up of the new trio, as well as Benchmark Capital’s Peter Fenton, Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson, Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital, CEO Dick Costolo and co-founders Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey.

Things are not any better over at Facebook, which has several prominent women execs running the show, most especially its high-profile COO Sheryl Sandberg.

But, inexplicably, though she does attend board meetings, she is not yet a director of Facebook, nor is any other woman.

In fact, here is Sandberg on topic at a recent TED event for women, in an eloquent speech titled “Why We Have So Few Women Leaders”:

Instead, the Facebook board is all men, all the time, composed of CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, prominent techie and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, investor Peter Thiel, Accel Partners’ Jim Breyer and Washington Post head Don Graham.

It is no better at three of the most prominent recent Web 2.0 start-ups, which one source attributes to the lack of woman VCs, who are often the first board members after major investment rounds.

At Zynga, the hot social gaming company in San Francisco, it continues, with an all-male board, despite a very heavily female audience for its casual social games.

That would be co-founder and CEO Mark Pincus, COO Owen Van Natta, investor Bing Gordon of Kleiner Perkins, investor Reid Hoffman and Brad Feld of the Foundry Group.

The same is true at woman-targeted–spas, spas and more spas–social buying site Groupon, which has an unusually large board for a start-up and made up of–as per usual–all men.

The list: Co-founder and CEO Andrew Mason, Accel Partners’ Kevin Efrusy, former AT&T President and COO John Walter, New Enterprise Associates’ Harry Weller and Peter Barris, former AOL exec Ted Leonsis, 37Signals co-founder Jason Fried and early investors Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell.

And, much smaller, is Foursquare’s board, which is the trio of co-founder and CEO Dennis Crowley, co-founder Naveen Selvadurai and Union Square Ventures’ Albert Wenger.

New investors–Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures’ Bryce Roberts–have observer status and both are, needless to say, dudes.

There is no question it is tough to make sure there is a good balance of qualified women leaders to men in tech–it is an issue we wrestle with every single year for the program of speakers at our own All Things Digital conference, although we are most excellent on this issue on our Web site and conference staff.

But it can be done, especially at public tech companies. Google has two women on its board of nine directors; Yahoo has three of 10; even Oracle has two of a dozen.

But a grand total of zero at the leading companies of Web 2.0 is not just a coincidence.

It’s a shame.

Tomorrow, BoomTown will post a list of great women who would be superb directors for any of these companies, but until then, let’s not follow in Spanky’s steps:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101221/the-men-and-no-women-of-web-2-0-boards-boomtowns-talking-to-you-twitter-facebook-zynga-groupon-and-foursquare/feed/ 60 http://allthingsd.com/20101221/flipboard-mike-mccue-dive-full-interview/ http://allthingsd.com/20101221/flipboard-mike-mccue-dive-full-interview/#comments Tue, 21 Dec 2010 17:15:23 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=38763

As promised, All Things Digital will be publishing the full videos of the interviews we did two weeks ago at our D: Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco.

The first extension of the event, it produced some very newsy sessions. We’ll be posting them all.

Here’s Flipboard CEO and co-founder Mike McCue, a longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose latest Apple iPad app is giving publishers and readers a glimpse of what digital reading could be.

The effort is not without some controversy, as how content is being delivered on the new devices is an ongoing debate.

(Full disclosure: ATD is part of Flipboard’s new publisher beta.)

Here’s the video of the interview that the Mossberg Solution’s Katherine Boehret did with McCue:

Next up: Former Palm CEO and now Hewlett-Packard mobile kingpin Jon Rubinstein.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101221/flipboard-mike-mccue-dive-full-interview/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101216/d-dive-into-mobile-the-full-interview-video-of-spotifys-daniel-ek/ http://allthingsd.com/20101216/d-dive-into-mobile-the-full-interview-video-of-spotifys-daniel-ek/#comments Thu, 16 Dec 2010 17:05:59 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=38664 As promised, All Things Digital will be publishing the full videos of the interviews we did last week at our D: Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco.

The first extension of the event, it produced some very newsy sessions. We’ll be posting them all this week and next.

And today, here’s Spotify’s Daniel Ek (pictured here) singing for his supper.

Well, not in the U.S. as yet, where the Swedish CEO and co-founder of the innovative streaming music service has not been able to make good on his promise to strike deals with music labels, which fear the popularity of Spotify could cut back on sales of CDs and digital downloads.

In Europe, the popular service offers unlimited tracks for free, or users can subscribe for an advertising-free version.

Ek talks about all this and more in his interview with MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka.

Here’s the video:

Next up: Flipboard’s Mike McCue (who just joined the Twitter board).

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101216/d-dive-into-mobile-the-full-interview-video-of-spotifys-daniel-ek/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101216/q-why-no-twitter-board-seat-for-kleiners-john-doerr-a-his-google-board-seat-plus-is-the-star-vc-looking-at-spotify-and-groupon-next/ http://allthingsd.com/20101216/q-why-no-twitter-board-seat-for-kleiners-john-doerr-a-his-google-board-seat-plus-is-the-star-vc-looking-at-spotify-and-groupon-next/#comments Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:14:41 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=38683

Yesterday, star venture capitalist John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins forked over $150 million in funding to Twitter.

At at $3.7 billion valuation, that got him a big chunk of the San Francisco microblogging site.

But what it didn’t get him was a seat on the board of Twitter, which many figured he would be given for after handing over so much moolah.

According to sources familiar with the situation, that’s due to Doerr’s being a director on another board: Google.

Several sources who BoomTown spoke to, after breaking news of the massive funding, said that his being on the board of the search giant was seen as too much of a conflict of interest.

A conflict because Google has plans to wade deeply into the social space. And also, of course, because it is the No. 1 potential acquirer of Twitter, as the Silicon Valley company seeks to gather more tools to fight its latest rival, Facebook.

Doerr has very deep ties at Google, having been on its board since mid-1999.

He got that seat, along with Sequoia Capital’s Mike Moritz, after he ponied up a critical $25 million equity round for Google in June of that year.

Interestingly, no other Kleiner partner was named to a Twitter board seat either.

But, some speculate, it might make sense for Mary Meeker–who just joined Kleiner to head up digital investing efforts, after a long-time stint as a Wall Street analyst for Morgan Stanley–to eventually become a Twitter director.

Meeker has, of course, deep IPO and M&A experience.

And, frankly, after adding Flipboard’s Mike McCue and former DoubleClick exec David Rosenblatt yesterday and former Netscape exec Peter Currie recently to its all-boy board band, a woman director might be a good idea to consider.

Other directors at Twitter include Benchmark Capital’s Peter Fenton, Union Square Venture’s Fred Wilson, Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital, Co-founders Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey and CEO Dick Costolo.

I reached out to Doerr for a comment, but he has not yet replied; Twitter declined to comment.

Even more interesting to consider is what Kleiner will invest in next after this mega-funding, given how aggressively many sources said Doerr had pushed to lead the Twitter round.

And, in fact, sources said that Kleiner is looking closely at new funding rounds for both the Spotify music streaming service and Groupon, the social buying start-up that recently decided to turn down a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google and an earlier $3 billion one from Yahoo.

Groupon is now seeking more funds to remain independent and hold onto its lead in the fast-growing local discounting market, sources said.

(Bloomberg also reported on Groupon’s new fundraising efforts, although it was written about after it turned down the Google offer.)

And Spotify, which is hugely popular outside the U.S., is trying to enter this market, but needs more funding to expand and perhaps strike better deals with music labels.

Both are the just the kind of companies Doerr has targeted in what looks like a serious effort to compete with other firms–especially Andreessen Horowitz and Russia’s DST Global.

They have garnered the heat Kleiner used to have, largely by backing more of the top entrepreneurs recently.

Doerr has already put money into social gaming phenom Zynga and also started an sFund for social-focused investments.

Add Twitter to the pile and you can see where this is headed: Except for the board seat, John Doerr will no longer be denied.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101216/q-why-no-twitter-board-seat-for-kleiners-john-doerr-a-his-google-board-seat-plus-is-the-star-vc-looking-at-spotify-and-groupon-next/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101215/flipboard-caves-to-user-demand-adds-rss-feeds-and-flickr-and-web-previews/ http://allthingsd.com/20101215/flipboard-caves-to-user-demand-adds-rss-feeds-and-flickr-and-web-previews/#comments Thu, 16 Dec 2010 05:01:05 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=1336 Flipboard, the social content display application for the iPad, is releasing an update tonight that adds users’ No. 1 most-requested feature: RSS feeds.

Flipboard had resisted adding feeds because its mission is to curate content through social channels. However, said co-founder Evan Doll, the company decided Google Reader wouldn’t be too much of a compromise, because it is synched through the cloud and has social sharing features.

Also, now that Flipboard has access to RSS feeds, it will display the full text of many articles when they are shared by a Flipboard user’s contacts on Facebook or Twitter.

(If publishers provide only excerpts in their RSS feeds, that’s all Flipboard users will get. If publishers are part of Flipboard’s Pages program, their stories will be displayed in specially formatted “magazinified” pages no matter where they appear in the app.)

(Full disclosure: All Things Digital is a beta partner in the program.)

Flipboard is also adding Flickr feeds, something that had long been on the company’s list, said Doll. For users who curate their Flickr contacts and favorite pictures, viewing them on Flipboard will be a “personal life magazine,” as Doll put it.

The other big change Flipboard is making is that it will load full Web pages as soon as a user clicks on a story, rather than asking users to take the extra step of clicking a “read on Web” button.

And for good measure, Flipboard will now allow readers to update Facebook and Twitter (as pictured), rather than just consume their content.

Now that Flipboard has caved and added RSS feeds to its app, I asked Doll if it would ever add search to complement social discovery.

“That’s a great question,” he said, before not really answering it.

Flipboard launched last July and has received wide acclaim, including being named Apple’s top iPad app of 2010. However, it has not yet disclosed user numbers.

For more on Flipboard, see our D:Dive Into Mobile interview with CEO Mike McCue (who was also named to Twitter’s board today).

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101215/flipboard-caves-to-user-demand-adds-rss-feeds-and-flickr-and-web-previews/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101215/exclusive-twitter-raises-200-million-at-3-7-billion-valuation-adds-mccue-and-rosenblatt-to-board/ http://allthingsd.com/20101215/exclusive-twitter-raises-200-million-at-3-7-billion-valuation-adds-mccue-and-rosenblatt-to-board/#comments Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:15:48 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=38535

Twitter has completed its latest round of funding–$200 million at a $3.7 billion valuation–with Kleiner Perkins as the lead investor, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Sources said the San Francisco microblogging service is also adding two new board members: Flipboard’s Mike McCue and David Rosenblatt, who ran DoubleClick until a bit after it sold to Google.

Twitter recently added former Netscape exec Peter Currie to the board, as BoomTown previously reported.

A Twitter spokesman confirmed the funding and the board appointments, but declined further comment.

The moves are big ones for Twitter, which is moving fast to upgrade its management and business model under CEO Dick Costolo, who just posted a blog (see below) on the new funding and directors, titled “Meaningful Growth (although it was first curiously called, “Stocking Stuffers,” and was much funnier).

But, indeed, a big slug of cash will surely help the start-up’s expansion efforts and essentially declares it is not for sale to bigger companies such as Google (quite yet, that is).

As I reported last week, Kleiner partner John Doerr has been pushing hard to fund Twitter, beating out Russia’s DST Global.

Kleiner is the only new investor in the latest round, which brings its funding total to $360 million since it was founded about five years ago.

The storied Silicon Valley venture firm, which has been aggressively moving into the Web 2.0 space of late, put in $150 million, with the remaining $50 million coming from existing investors.

Past investors include Benchmark Capital, Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital and several other venture firms and angel investors.

Adding Currie, McCue and Rosenblatt are very strong choices for the board. Currie has deep financial and IPO experience, McCue is a well-connected and innovative entrepreneur and Rosenblatt brings much-needed online advertising heft.

As it happens, Costolo will appear at our D@CES event in January, where I am interviewing him and we can talk about all the changes.

(Thank goodness the funding is done, since I was worried about all those awkward pauses.)

Here is new version of Costolo’s blog post on McCue and Rosenblatt (the old one is below it for you to compare and contrast):

Meaningful Growth

In the past 12 months, Twitter users sent an astonishing 25 billion Tweets and we added more than 100 million new registered accounts. In that time, our team has grown from 130 people to more than 350 today. We’re thankful for every Tweet, every account, and every talented employee who has decided to join the Twitter team. This week, we’ve got some big news to share.

As part of a significant new round of funding with investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and existing investors, we’ve added two new members to Twitter’s board of directors. Please join us in welcoming Mike McCue and David Rosenblatt. The experience these new directors bring to Twitter, along with this renewed investment, will help us continue to grow as a company and business.

2010 was one of the most meaningful years since Twitter, Inc. was founded in 2007. We operate on a principle that people are basically good–when you give them a simple way to express this trait, they prove it to you every day. We’re proud of what Twitter users have accomplished, we’re proud of our work, and we’re very proud of our team. Thanks for being a part of this work; it means a lot to us.

Stocking Stuffer

Growth is fun. In the past 12 months, Twitter users sent an astonishing 25 billion Tweets and we added more than 100 million new registered accounts. In that time, our team has grown from 130 people to more than 350 today.

This week, we added two new members to Twitter’s board of directors who have strong experience running technology companies: Mike McCue and David Rosenblatt. Mike was the CEO of Tellme Networks, is currently CEO at Flipboard and also worked for Netscape and Microsoft (which acquired Tellme in 2007). David is the former CEO of DoubleClick and an ex-Google executive.

We also closed a significant new round of funding, with new investor Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byers leading the round. KPCB brings to Twitter a track record of helping build great companies, ranging from Amazon to Zynga (get it? A to Z? See how we did that?), and a team with expertise in Internet, mobile and social platforms. The additional resources and expertise will be extremely helpful as Twitter continues to grow as a company and business.

Thank you to Twitter users everywhere for making 2010 such a good year.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101215/exclusive-twitter-raises-200-million-at-3-7-billion-valuation-adds-mccue-and-rosenblatt-to-board/feed/ 8 http://allthingsd.com/20101207/flipping-through-digital-pages-with-mike-mccue-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20101207/flipping-through-digital-pages-with-mike-mccue-video/#comments Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:19:01 +0000 Ina Fried http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/?p=561 Although Flipboard is Mike McCue’s latest venture, in some ways it’s old hat. After all, if you loosely define Flipboard as a browser of sorts, it’s the fourth browser he has been involved with. (Paper Software, Netscape and Tellme were his earlier forays.)

McCue downplayed concerns that Flipboard appropriates others’ content. He said he gets more requests from publishers looking to share more content than from those seeking to have Flipboard include less stuff. He said that the company is looking to make money with publishers, not ride on their backs.

He also talked about the company’s current pilot program, in which publishers can work with Flipboard to customize their publications on the iPad app. (Disclosure: All Things Digital is part of Flipboard’s new publisher beta.)

Flipboard remains an iPad-only proposition, but McCue said the company is tinkering with other platforms in the labs, such as the iPhone. They haven’t worked with Android tablets, however, because that would mean hiring a bunch of Android engineers.

Below are some video highlights, but you can get even more of what McCue said by checking out Liz Gannes’s excellent liveblog.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101207/flipping-through-digital-pages-with-mike-mccue-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101207/flipboard-ceo-mike-mccue-live-at-dive-into-mobile/ http://allthingsd.com/20101207/flipboard-ceo-mike-mccue-live-at-dive-into-mobile/#comments Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:01:05 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=991 Flipboard CEO Mike McCue has seen the future, and it looks like the past: print magazines. He’s appearing today at D:Dive Into Mobile in conversation with Wall Street Journal columnist Katie Boehret to talk about the Flipboard iPad app that’s giving publishers and readers a glimpse of what digital reading could be.

Disclosure: All Things Digital is part of Flipboard’s new publisher beta.

11:01 am: Personal bio stuff: McCue says he’s a product guy. A friend pointed out to him that this Flipboard is his “fourth browser company”–Paper Software, then Netscape, then TellMe, a voice browser, and Flipboard, a social media browser.

Flipboard is a social magazine. The idea is to bring the aesthetics of print to the world of social media.

When McCue left Microsoft after it bought TellMe, started brainstorming with (Flipboard co-founder) Evan Doll, who was formerly at Apple. HTML5 and the tablet mean “information can take a major step up in terms of how it looks.”

11:05 am: Katie: Isn’t this designed for lurkers? You’re not generating anything on your own.

McCue: This is the first snapshot of our vision, and we didn’t focus on publishing, but rather the lean-back experience that the iPad is great at. We wanted to focus on a new kind of way to consume social media. Our peak hours are between 8 and 11 p.m. People just leave Flipboard on all day and browse through when they have time.

This is not for the power user, says McCue, illustrating by gesturing a set of vertical columns with his hands (the universal hand signal for TweetDeck, I believe).

People post stuff on my Facebook wall that’s amazing, and Flipboard is for when I have time to consume that.

11:08 am: Katie asks about the new Flipboard Pages product for publishers. McCue explains the Web is cluttered, slow, and “the content doesn’t have enough room to breathe.” Wanted to leverage three trends: HMTL5, social media and the iPad. “Now we have the opportunity to present Web sites like magazine pages.”

Instead of going to a Web page when you double-click on an article, you go to a formatted version.

11:12 am: It’s hard to read long articles on the web, McCue says.

11:14 am: McCue: We definitely do not plan to charge for Flipboard itself, but publishers will find value.

Ads in Flipboard are likely to be from the same advertisers as they already have a relationship with, just a different form. We may be able to help them sell more or target the ads they have.

“The Web is at the point in time when I think it needs a game-changer. It needs a face lift. It needs a new approach to monetization.”

Katie: Other sites like Twitter are going toward infinite scrolling, but you like pages.

McCue: In an ideal world, you paginate. It allows designers to build beautiful content because they know what the alignment of that content is going to be.

11:17 am: It’s also better for ads, he says, because a full-page ad doesn’t work on the Web.

Katie: How are you going to bring in lots more publishers?

McCue: It’s going to be HTML5 (so everyone can build for it). We spent about an hour on each template so far. We’ll publish tools and mechanisms for how to do this. Our goal is to open this to the Web at large sometime next year.

Katie: What about non-iPad form factors?

McCue: The iPad is an amazing device, an incredible development environment, and Apple’s been great to work with. From a start-up perspective, you have to first prove out the concept for users (in our case, publishers), and after you’ve gotten that far enough along, then you scale.

11:22 am: We’re working in the lab on other platforms, things like iPhone–not quite Android yet because we’d have to hire Android engineers. You can see the HTMLification of our app coming.

First we’re thinking about integrations with other services, says McCue. You could imagine an integration with Foursquare, with a magazine about where you are at the moment. (Hmm, that sounds neat!)

Katie: You acquired the Ellerdale Project, are you using that now?

McCue: We actually use RSS now for excerpts after getting links from Twitter. It’s publisher-friendly and a way of getting clean excerpt content. Ellerdale helped us put that together. But the real application is dealing with the information overload of social media.

11:26 am: There are literally billions and billions of links on these social networks, and that’s overwhelming.

Katie: I can’t use groups or differentiate between social sources of content in Flipboard.

McCue: That will change soon. We’ll prioritize more important events–like a friend gets engaged–rather than just a chronological order like we do today. That’s a really hard problem, and that’s what the Ellerdale guys have been working on. We’ll show context with your social screen.

11:28 am: Katie: Who’s your competition? Pulse?

McCue: There are traditional news RSS aggregators, and Pulse is an iPad version of those. There are Seesmic and TweetDeck doing iPad versions. Bigger idea is moving from a publisher-centric view to a person-centric view, merging these two ideas.

Audience question: What about other sources of content?

McCue: Video social networks like YouTube and Vimeo would be nice, but we don’t want too many flashing things.

Audience question: Do you have the rights to your content?

McCue: Yes. Looking for win-win-win with publishers, readers, us.

And that’s it for this session

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101207/flipboard-ceo-mike-mccue-live-at-dive-into-mobile/feed/ 0