8 posts and columns on Pasadena

Exclusive: Chegg Buys Cramster

in News on December 8, 2010 at 12:02 am PT

According to sources close to the situation, online textbook rental company Chegg has acquired Cramster, a social online homework help platform. The Cramster purchase is one in a series of start-up buys that Chegg has been making of late, part of a strategy to be a central place for student needs.

3M Dips Into Its Cash Pile

in News on August 31, 2010 at 5:00 am PT

3M Co. said Monday that it will bid $943 million for a maker of fingerprint-recognition technology, the latest in a series of moves by big companies to dip into their cash hoards to fuel growth through acquisitions. The industrial conglomerate, whose products range from health-care supplies to abrasives and Post-it notes, said it will offer $10.50 a share for Cogent Inc., Pasadena, Calif., whose board recommended that shareholders accept the bid.

Exclusive Video: Bill Gross Talks About TweetUp and Gives a Tour of Idealab

in News on April 11, 2010 at 9:01 pm PT

Bill Gross is widely considered the man responsible for the invention of paid search advertising, which heralded such Web powerhouses as Google. Now, in a can-lightning-strike-twice effort and armed with $3.5 million in venture funding from a group of leading investors, the well-known entrepreneur talks about his decision to monetize Twitter on his own and gives a tour of his well-known Idealab incubator where his newest start-up, TweetUp, is being cooked up.

Paid Search Inventor Bill Gross Moves to Monetize Tweets With TweetUp–And Without Twitter (Plus Screenshots)

in News on April 11, 2010 at 9:00 pm PT

Just as Twitter finally prepares to announce its plans to make money–after what has seemed an eternity–the man responsible for the invention of paid search is beating the microblogging site to the potentially profitable punch, and without its involvement. Armed with $3.5 million in venture funding from a group of leading investors, well-known entrepreneur Bill Gross is launching a public beta of TweetUp, a bidding marketplace akin to Overture/Goto.com, the first paid search system he created a decade ago.

Palm Analysts, Best Buy Suffering From Pre-Mature Elaboration

in News on July 27, 2009 at 11:19 am PT

Add another voice to the chorus of analysts claiming that sales of the Palm Pre have been on the decline these past few weeks. In a research note published this morning, CL King analyst Lawrence Harris, speaking to the controversy over sell-though numbers for the Pre, cast his lot with those who feel sales are slowing.
prethumb

Liveblogging Fortune Brainstorm Tech: AOL CEO and Chairman Tim "The Plumber" Armstrong

in News on July 23, 2009 at 12:09 pm PT

It did not start out too well for AOL CEO and Chairman Tim Armstrong, with a poll on the screen showing most of the attendees in the ballroom at Fortune Brainstorm Tech voting that the Time Warner online unit was either out of juice or irrelevant. Armstrong did not break any news in the interview with Fortune’s lively interviewer, David Kirkpatrick, relying more on projecting an I’m-in-charge-here attitude and saying confident things like “a challenge is also an opportunity.” In general, Armstrong tried to be upbeat about the prospects for AOL, which has for too long been the Web’s sad sack of an Internet company.
marke_1125

Liveblogging Fortune Brainstorm Tech: Disney CEO Bob Iger Has "One Hand in the Present and One Hand in the Future"

in News on July 22, 2009 at 4:55 pm PT

Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company, is the kickoff interview onstage at Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Tech conference, which is taking place over the next three days in Pasadena, Calif. The event is packed full of Web and media luminaries. So, BoomTown will be sitting in the front row and liveblogging some of the sessions here, including this one, titled, “Digital Kingdom: New Business Models for a Media Giant.” Translation: When you Twitter upon a star, makes a–big–difference what you earn. Which, right now, is not a whole lot, as Iger and others in the media business know all too well.
80206882_kesas-m-3jpg