Mitch Kapor

955 Dreams Jazzes Up iPad With Interactive Music History App

Liz Gannes in Social on January 12, 2011 at 6:00 am PT

The tablet interface can’t help but make your brain think of the future of books dancing across the screen. A little startup called 955 Dreams is bringing some of that imagination into reality today with the release of its History of Jazz iPad app.

Password Manager LastPass Acquires Xmarks

Kara Swisher in News on December 2, 2010 at 2:10 am PT

LastPass, a cross-platform password manager and form filler, has acquired the social bookmarking and browser synchronization service Xmarks. The San Francisco-based Xmarks has been in the midst of some tumult of late, as it closed down in September and then quickly opened back up again in an effort to keep its service running for a large group of active users and to find a new home.

Bit.ly URL Shortener Raises $10 Million

Peter Kafka in Media on October 7, 2010 at 1:24 pm PT

Bit.ly, the start-up you’ve probably used recently to send someone a shorter version of a Web address, has raised another round of funding. The service, spun out of the Betaworks incubator, says that the RRE VC fund led the round, and that partner Eric Wiesen will join the company’s board.

Yahoo Acquires Ad Start-Up Dapper

Kara Swisher in News on October 5, 2010 at 1:17 pm PT

Yahoo doesn’t just shed top execs–it actually buys stuff related to its core online advertising business! Thus, today, it announced the purchase of Dapper. Dapper, Yahoo said, “enables advertisers and agencies to quickly and easily build dynamic ad creative, leveraging data to automatically show the right product, offer, or message with each impression.”

The Long Goodbye: Xmarks Tried to Sell Twice, Before Closing Down With Class

Kara Swisher in News on September 28, 2010 at 5:15 am PT

Yesterday marked the end for Xmarks, the Mitch Kapor-backed social bookmarking start-up that was founded in 2006. What was most remarkable to BoomTown was the classiness and honesty of the goodbye, especially in Silicon Valley, which is loath to call a failure just that. Read on.

Novelty? Sure. Business? Could Be! Stickybits Raises Another $1.6 Million.

Peter Kafka in Media on May 19, 2010 at 6:05 am PT

Stickybits is the kind of thing that might make more sense if you’re not entirely sober: It’s a funky, practical-joke-from-the-future concept that involves stickers, scannable bar codes and geo-tagging. It might also be a business.

Xmarks the Spot? Kapor Says Start-Up Can Find Buried Treasure in Bookmarks for Advertisers.

Kara Swisher in News on April 8, 2010 at 12:19 am PT

Social bookmarking start-up Xmarks, which has been growing its user base and bookmarked Web addresses strongly, launched a new advertising product today called SearchBoost, which it hopes will finally give it a viable business model. Using a tool that displays user ranking and review information from the free syncing service, Xmarks Chairman Mitch Kapor said in an interview with BoomTown that the ad offering essentially “decorates” a paid search ad, thereby boosting click-through rates by 15 percent.

RealNetworks' Rob Glaser Talks About Giving the Internet a Voice and, Yes, Woolly Mammoths!

Kara Swisher in News on January 15, 2010 at 5:20 am PT

Rob Glaser called BoomTown when he landed in Washington, D.C., only a few hours after he announced Wednesday he was stepping down as longtime CEO of RealNetworks…Although execs come and go in various and sundry ways–you simply have to give Glaser credit for his pioneering work in bringing both audio and video to the Web.

BoomTown's 1998 Rob Glaser Profile: A Web Pioneer Does a Delicate Dance With Microsoft

Kara Swisher in News on January 14, 2010 at 11:48 am PT

BoomTown did an interview last night with outgoing RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser after the announcement yesterday of his departure from the company he founded and led for 16 years. That will be posted later today, but here is a profile I wrote about Glaser when I was covering the Internet for The Wall Street Journal. It’s from Feb. 12, 1998, and focuses on Glaser’s decidedly complicated relationship with his former employer, Microsoft.

StumbleUpon Stumbles Out of eBay's Arms to Be Reborn as a Start-Up (Plus the Entire Press Release)

Kara Swisher in News on April 13, 2009 at 1:20 pm PT

The content-discovery service, StumbleUpon, has gotten itself back to start-up status, after being bought by eBay two years ago. It announced today that it was returning to being an “investor-backed startup” by a roster of well-known Silicon Valley investors, including Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Partners and August Capital. Its founders, Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith, are also back, with Camp now in place as CEO. “We are grateful to eBay for its guidance. However, we realized there were few long-term synergies between the two businesses. It is best for us to part ways and focus on our respective strengths,” said Camp, stating the very obvious. That’s quite a boomerang since it was acquired by the auction giant in 2007 for $75 million.