profitable

Talk About Discounting: Groupon Gets a Pre-IPO Smackdown

Kara Swisher in Commerce on June 13, 2011 at 6:15 am PT

It has only just announced its IPO plans, but Groupon is already getting a good taste of the brutality of being more public in an increasing series of negative reports aimed at its business prospects and execs, just as the social buying phenom starts to market itself to Wall Street investors.

Video: After Cisco Sacrifices His Baby to the Gods of Wall Street, Flip Founder Jon Kaplan Speaks!

Kara Swisher in News on April 12, 2011 at 1:08 pm PT

Right after BoomTown heard the sad news this morning that Cisco was jettisoning its Flip digital video camera division–part of a transparent effort to assure Wall Street that it was no longer serious about its wacky foray into the consumer market–I lobbed in a call to its founder Jonathan Kaplan to get him on video talking about the loss. The Flip, of course, has been my go-to tool to harass and annoy Silicon Valley moguls, since it appeared on the scene many years ago. The technique for the simple device was to essentially stick it up someone’s nose until they cried “Uncle!” and told me what I wanted to know.

Kayak's IPO Filing: We Don't Depend on Search Engines

Liz Gannes in Social on November 17, 2010 at 8:48 am PT

Travel search provider Kayak today filed with the SEC for an IPO worth $50 million, with no price per share specified. But it did specify a bunch of stuff about its business in its S-1.

Google's Victory Dance: Check Out Our Go-Go Numbers!

Peter Kafka in Media on October 14, 2010 at 3:45 pm PT

After showing off financial numbers that blew away Wall Street’s earnings estimates, what could Google do for an encore? Trot out even more numbers, via a tantalizing but not-that-revealing striptease.

Zillow's COO Rascoff Becomes CEO; Co-Founder Barton to Exec Chairman

Kara Swisher in News on September 14, 2010 at 12:00 pm PT

In an interesting corporate move, the COO of online real-estate site Zillow, Spencer Rascoff (pictured here), has been promoted to CEO, replacing founding CEO Rich Barton. Barton will remain executive chairman of Zillow, a private company that is based in Seattle and has raised $87 million in funding since its founding in 2005.

The Profits Will Come Out Tomorrow? Ning CEO Rosenthal Talks About Premium Changeover

Kara Swisher in News on July 19, 2010 at 5:15 am PT

Last week, BoomTown moseyed on down to the Palo Alto, Calif. HQ of Ning–the high-profile social networking platform co-founded by Silicon Valley icon Marc Andreessen–to talk to CEO Jason Rosenthal about a dramatic shift in the start-up’s business plan tomorrow. As in, go all-premium, trying to find a way to turn the start-up–which has raised $120 million in venture funding since its late 2004 founding–into a profitable enterprise. Translation for Web 2.0: Profits are when you make more money than you spend.

What's Up With Foursquare, Doc? Try a Bridge Investment, Facebook Talks and More!

Kara Swisher in News on June 11, 2010 at 5:10 am PT

Memo to Dennis Crowley: BoomTown has not forgotten you! In fact, I have been tracking the popular social location service he helms the way Elmer Fudd chases Bugs Bunny, since my last update in April. And there’s a lot of stuff up, doc.

Blip.TV Raises $10 Million for More Web Video You (Probably) Won’t See on Hulu

Peter Kafka in Media on May 19, 2010 at 5:00 am PT

It’s no YouTube, but Blip.TV is turning five, too. That’s impressive enough for any Web video outfit, but CEO Mike Hudack also has a good story to tell: He’s figuring out how to make money from the clips small-time producers make–and how to get the producers enough money to make more clips. Repeat.

Twitter Turns Fire Hose on Little Guys

John Paczkowski in Social on March 2, 2010 at 5:19 am PT

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are no longer the only ones drinking from Twitter’s fire hose of real-time data. On Monday, the company granted seven real-time search and discovery ventures access to it as well.