SurveyMonkey, the quiet but profitable and fast-growing Web survey company, is buying online forms start-up Wufoo.

While the terms of the transaction for the Tampa, Fla.-based Infinity Box–makers of Wufoo–were not disclosed, sources said the price was $35 million in cash and stock.

Besides bringing together two delightfully kooky start-up names, the acquisition gives the Palo Alto, Calif.-based SurveyMonkey another tool to expand its offerings.

The Silicon Valley company’s most recent purchase was telephone-polling firm Precision Polling. And, in January, it acquired a minority stake in ClickTools, a U.K.-based survey provider on Salesforce.com’s AppExchange.

Here’s the official press release:

SURVEYMONKEY ACQUIRES WUFOO

Leader in online surveys adds leader in online forms to expand services for customers

Palo Alto, Calif. and Tampa, Fla., April 25, 2011– SurveyMonkey, the leader in Web-based survey solutions, today announced the acquisition of Infinity Box Inc., the makers of Wufoo, a web application to create online forms. As part of the transaction, the entire Wufoo team will relocate to Palo Alto to join the combined company and help fuel SurveyMonkey’s continuing growth. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Wufoo was created in 2006 to provide an easy and efficient process for creating online forms, one of the most essential and commonly used interfaces for collecting data on the web. The application’s HTML form builder automatically builds the database, backend and scripts needed to collect and understand data so users can create surveys, contact forms, registrations and other forms without writing code. In addition, customers frequently use Wufoo’s forms to process online transactions. With Wufoo, a process that previously required hours of work by web developers can now be done by anyone with web access in a matter of minutes.

“Wufoo is the market leader in online form creation and a perfect fit for SurveyMonkey,” said Dave Goldberg, SurveyMonkey CEO. “From the product and business model, to the team and culture, we are absolutely delighted to welcome the company into the SurveyMonkey family and look forward to increasing the reach and scale of an already outstanding product through our platform.”

“Everyone at Wufoo is very excited about joining the SurveyMonkey team, and the expansion opportunities for our business that will result from this combination,” said Wufoo co-founder Kevin Hale. “By leveraging SurveyMonkey’s international resources, knowledge scaling infrastructure and expertise with large data collection systems, we will be able to increase the scope, performance and reliability of Wufoo’s services.”

The acquisition will allow SurveyMonkey to offer online forms, in addition to surveys, to collect users’ insights and data. Over the past two years SurveyMonkey has continued to enhance services by actively evaluating opportunities to partner and invest in complementary businesses. In January, SurveyMonkey announced it had formed a strategic partnership with ClickTools, a leading survey provider on salesforce.com’s AppExchange. In 2010, SurveyMonkey successfully completed a $100 million debt financing and also acquired telephone-based survey company Precision Polling.

Sonos–the maker of innovative wireless music systems that has been boosted by its Apple iPhone and iPad Controller app–is set to roll out one for Google’s Android mobile operating system.

The Sonos Controller for Android will officially introduce the app at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week, although the Santa Barbara, Calif., company is announcing it today.

“It’s a no-brainer,” said Sonos CEO John MacFarlane in an interview with BoomTown yesterday. “It basically doubles our market space.”

The free app allows you to control Sonos’s various players wirelessly with a smartphone or tablet.

The impact of the iPhone and the iPad on sales of its various devices has been clear enough, said MacFarlane, as registrations of the app have escalated.

“There is more usage of the smartphone, but tablets are clearly happening, said MacFarlane. “But I have the same view of both that these devices are the Holy Grail everyone has always wanted.”

The move to Android will take longer to beta test, he said, since its ecosystem has a plethora of unit types from a variety of handset makers.

The app will be out in March.

Here’s an image of the app on an Android phone and the official press release:

ROCK THE HOUSE: SONOS INTRODUCES SONOS CONTROLLER FOR ANDROID

Wireless Music System for Android Provides Unlimited Music, Incredible Control and Amazing Sound in Every Room

SANTA BARBARA, CA–February 10, 2011–Sonos, the leading developer of wireless multi-room music systems for the home, today introduced the Sonos Controller for Android, a free app that transforms most Android™ smartphones into a wireless music controller for the award-winning Sonos Multi-Room Music System. The Sonos Controller for Android, available in late March as a free download from Android Market™, will make its public debut next week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. To watch a video introduction of the Sonos Controller for Android, please visit www.sonos.com/android.

With the award-winning Sonos S5 in any room and an Android phone in hand, music lovers will enjoy an unmatched wireless music experience in the home. You’ll be able to access and play all the music on earth–from the Internet and your personal music library–throughout the home, wirelessly. Use the free Sonos Controller for Android app to control all your music and rooms, all from the palm of your hand. And, Sonos Controller for Android features Sonos’ latest innovation in the home music experience–music voice search–allowing users to find any artist, album or track by simply speaking into the phone.

“Sonos’ mission is to fill every home with music,” said John MacFarlane, CEO, Sonos, Inc. “We are thrilled to bring the joy of music to the homes of Android fans worldwide.”

To get started enjoying music in any or every room of the home, all you need is a Sonos ZonePlayer and a Sonos Controller such as the free Sonos Controller for Android. The most popular Sonos ZonePlayer is the Sonos S5, an all-in-one wireless music system you can plug in anywhere. Now you can play any track you like, anytime you like, in any room you like. Wirelessly play the same song in every room of the house–perfectly synchronized. Or, mix it up and play different songs in different rooms.

When it comes to controlling Sonos, you simply reach into your pocket for your Android smartphone. With Sonos Controller for Android, you can search for songs and stations by typing or speaking, choose the music and control the volume in as many rooms as you like. And because your Android phone is controlling the music, and not the source of it, when a text comes in or you need to make a phone call, the music doesn’t stop.

Sonos connects directly to the Internet so you can access a world of music without ever turning on your computer. Search and play more than 100,000 Internet radio stations, shows and podcasts–from around the world. Play songs, playlists and radio from the most popular music services like Deezer, iheartradio, Last.fm, Napster, Pandora, Rdio, Rhapsody, SiriusXM Internet Radio, Spotify, Wolfgang’s Vault, and more. And of course, Sonos can play your entire digital music library (such as iTunes) stored on a computer or Network Attached storage drive.

The Sonos Controller for Android is designed to work on any Android smartphone running Android 2.1 or later with a screen size of HVGA 320 x 480, WVGA 480 x 800 or WVGA 480 x 854. Sonos Controller for Android joins the family of Sonos Controllers which includes free apps for iPhone and iPad, a dedicated touchscreen controller, the Sonos Controller 200, and free software for your Mac or PC, included with every ZonePlayer. All controllers work together seamlessly.

Sonos will be demonstrating the Sonos Controller for Android at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 13-17, 2011. For a demonstration in person, you’ll find Sonos at the following locations:
• Android: Hall 8; Booth 8C25
• Motorola: Hall 8, Booth 8A28
• Sonos: Hall 7; Suite 7HS11

For more information about Sonos or to locate an authorized Sonos dealer in your area, please visit www.sonos.com or call 877.80.SONOS.

But Mr. Goldman can’t get what he wants, even at a website he founded. The 40-year-old chief executive signs up for about 10 new networks and Internet services a week. Going through the online registration process that often, Mr. Goldman says, you want as few user names as possible, and ideally just one. The shorter, the better.

For a lot of people, social media is about image: the pictures you want others to see, the places you want to be known for frequenting. Nothing is more fundamental than a brand name.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

The company, called Ongo, filed a trademark registration in April. In the filing, Ongo describes itself as providing “computer and telecommunications software for use in aggregating and viewing news and syndication feeds.”

The reason for the Times’s investment in Ongo was unclear. As news organizations have grappled with how to deliver their content to digital devices and make money off of those readers, there have emerged a number of efforts to collaborate on packaging and selling content. News Corp. (NWS), which owns the Wall Street Journal, has been talking to media companies about creating a cable TV-type business for news, allowing consumers to set up one bill to access digital content from multiple media companies.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

According to a report initially posted on Gawker Media’s Valleywag site, the telecom giant had a flaw that allowed a group of computer experts to expose the email addresses and identity numbers of 114,000 owners of the popular tablet device.

Including mine.

That would be my personal one from Comcast (CMCSA), which you can see here in an obscured list of others–including some prominent officials in government.

AT&T (T) had my email because it was used to sign up for mobile service for the Apple (AAPL) iPad’s 3G version, automatically appearing during registration.

Now the Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the AT&T breach, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal, in what seems to be an early probe.

Oooh, the Feds are involved now.

I wish I could say it will make a difference. Because it won’t.

In fact, coming on the heels of privacy controversies at Facebook and Google (GOOG), it’s just another log on the digital fire that has been burning up privacy for a very long time now.

And now more than ever, it is part of a massive confluence of trends, including:

Consumers more interested than ever in sharing information about themselves in order to make ever better social networking connections online; a plethora of innovative devices–mostly mobile–and Internet tools available to seamlessly and easily allow those consumers to do so; and, perhaps most of all, Internet companies intent on hoovering up as much information as possible, in order to garner more consumers and sell it to advertisers.

In large part, this is all well and good, creating a range of valuable and entertaining services at little or no cost and making the computing experience more personal and relevant.

Because of that, I have to admit I was less tweaked than I thought I would be, although I wish I were not.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose email was also compromised, expressed the feeling best.

“It shouldn’t be pretty hard to figure out my email address,” he was quoted saying in the Journal article. “To me, it wasn’t that big a deal.”

That’s because all of us are thinking less that such information is private or will remain that way for long.

See this handy illustration, below, from the Journal, about how the iPads were hacked so easily and you get the picture quickly.

And, indeed, I am one of those who puts a great deal of information about myself out there for many to see, from my email on Facebook to my locations on Foursquare to my thoughts on Twitter to photos and videos everywhere.

That said, like others, I have also begun to rethink some of this, recently removing my phone number and other personal information from Facebook and other places where I had stashed them in plain sight, making them harder to find.

Of course, I also know that retrieving much of my personal information is now a lost cause, like trying to unmix cream poured into coffee.

Still, companies, especially those entrusted with this information, should not be quite so sanguine as consumers have become.

I still haven’t heard from AT&T, for example, which is somewhat irksome since the company has known about the issue for days now.

And as each of these incidents occurs, you get the feeling of execs either too obtuse or thoughtless or, yes, cynical to make this a priority.

They should, since the avalanche of information being made available will only increase, with possibly dire circumstances if not handled well.

Hollywood actress Joan Crawford had it right in a famous quote: “Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.”

Substitute “Digital living” for love and it’s the very same message.

Here is a video I did of former President Bill Clinton talking at an event related to the 25th anniversary of the first .com domain registration.

Clinton gave a keynote speech first–which was, inexplicably, about health-care legislation and global warming.

But after Clinton was done, he sat down with VeriSign (VRSN) CEO Mark McLaughlin to talk about a range of Web-related topics, in a very amusing interview exchange.

They included what devices he uses, broadband access and the dire state of traditional media.

Clinton talked about what sites–largely political–he likes. He mentioned Politico, Daily Beast and the Huffington Post for their analysis and outlook, as well as far-right ones, to keep track of his opposition.

Interestingly, he did not mention the Washington Post (WPO) or the New York Times (NYT) online, although he said their deep reporting was valuable.

Still, Clinton noted, “It’s almost impossible, given the economics of the modern world for newspapers to continue.”

And the 42nd President of the United States is an Apple (AAPL) fanboy, naming his iPhone as his fave gadget (although he said he also has a BlackBerry).

Clinton joked that his predecessor, No. 41, former President George H.W. Bush, is a maniac user of the Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry, likening him to a teenager.

Also, no Kindle from Amazon (AMZN), since Clinton said he still likes books.

Here’s the video (sorry about his shiny watch, but you can hear him!):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100318/president-clinton-talks-about-his-internet-legacy-btw-hes-an-iphone-dude-while-the-gops-41-is-a-blackberry-teen/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20100315/exclusive-yahoos-top-ad-money-maker-bradford-leaving-for-new-job-at-demand-media/ http://allthingsd.com/20100315/exclusive-yahoos-top-ad-money-maker-bradford-leaving-for-new-job-at-demand-media/#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:15:01 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=25581

According to several sources, Yahoo’s SVP of U.S. Revenue and Market Development Joanne Bradford (pictured here) is planning on leaving the Internet giant to take a new position as chief revenue officer of online content upstart Demand Media.

The surprise move is sure to have reverberations throughout the online advertising arena, but more so at Yahoo (YHOO), where Bradford’s job encompasses a wide range of key revenue-generating duties.

She has also been tapped as one of the execs to play a key role in the recently approved search and online ad partnership with Microsoft (MSFT).

Yahoo declined to comment. BoomTown has also contacted Demand and is awaiting comment.

Bradford had actually once been a Microsoft exec, serving as VP and chief media officer of MSN Media Network. She had worked at BusinessWeek before that.

Bradford came to Yahoo in the fall of 2008, at the tail end of the tenure of Co-founder Jerry Yang, who stepped in as CEO after the previous CEO Terry Semel departed.

Immediately previous to her job at Yahoo, she had been helming national ad sales at then-trendy Los Angeles-based ad services company Spot Runner.

Demand will be her second time going from a large company to more of a start-up.

But–unlike the troubled Spot Runner where Bradford worked for only six months–Demand has been on a growth tear of late with a social media strategy that is also being pursued by AOL (AOL) and others.

It owns heavily trafficked sites, such as how-to juggernaut eHow and the health- and fitness-focused Livestrong.com, putting Demand in the list of the top 20 Web properties.

It reportedly has about $200 million in annual revenue–mostly from advertising, but also from a domain registration business–and is profitable with several hundred employees.

The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company is headed by serial entrepreneur Richard Rosenblatt (pictured here), former chairman of Intermix Media. Intermix was the parent company of MySpace, which was sold to News Corp. (NWS).

Armed with an astonishing $355 million in funding from a range of prominent investors, he has been trying to fight some mainstream media depictions of his social media content company, especially one report that called Demand a “content mill.”

Via its Demand Studios, the company uses an army of freelancers to produce all kinds of content for its sites and others, using a complex automated system, but which also includes vetting and editing.

In fact, irked at the characterization of Demand as a content spammer, Rosenblatt even issued a manifesto for Demand in January.

“There has been so much misinformation about our model and what we actually do, that I thought it was a good idea for our company and those who work for us to lay out our principles,” said Rosenblatt in an interview with me at the time. “We are so different from traditional journalism, which I have nothing but admiration for, so it was time to make people understand that.”

The role of Demand Media, said Rosenblatt, was to help readers solve problems, laugh and get good advice, while figuring out how to create a profitable media business in the digital age.

(Walt Mossberg and I have invited Rosenblatt to share the stage at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference this June, along with former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, who is trying to save investigative journalism at a nonprofit called ProPublica, to talk about it all.)

If Rosenblatt is successful, Demand appears to be aiming for an IPO or merger with another company. Ironically, Demand has also been eyed by Yahoo in the past, as a possible acquisition.

Nabbing a top Web exec like Bradford from Yahoo is obviously a definite step in raising the stakes for Demand with big, established advertisers.

That’s because Bradford is well-regarded in the industry and is a prominent player. She recently signed a high-profile deal with Hollywood producer Ben Silverman to create premium content for Yahoo.

Bradford’s departure will be seen, both internally and externally, as a definite blow to turnaround efforts by CEO Carol Bartz. Bradford currently reports to Hilary Schneider, EVP of Yahoo’s U.S unit.

My reporting does not indicate that Yahoo’s top brass know about Bradford’s expected move, so it is not clear who would replace her at the Silicon Valley icon, which has been hard hit by an exodus of talent over the last two years.

Internal candidates could include 11-year Yahoo veteran Mitch Spolan, VP of North American sales, or Seth Dallaire, a former Microsoft exec whom Bradford brought to the company last fall as VP of mid-market sales, a newly-created role responsible for all mid-market sales efforts across search and display advertising.

More to come, obviously…

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100315/exclusive-yahoos-top-ad-money-maker-bradford-leaving-for-new-job-at-demand-media/feed/ 8 http://allthingsd.com/20100112/ces-attendance-up/ http://allthingsd.com/20100112/ces-attendance-up/#comments Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:02:35 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=32451 The International Consumer Electronics Show didn’t break any attendance records this year, but it did post a slight increase in visitors–which is something in a down economy.

Preliminary registration figures from the Consumer Electronics Association reveal a headcount of over 120,000 attendees. That’s up roughly six percent from 113,085 last year and far more than 110,000 the CEA predicted.

A small, but not inconsequential bump, and one that suggests the industry is indeed beginning to turn the corner.

“The innovations unveiled this week at the 2010 International CES brought new optimism and opportunity to our industry and the global economy,” said CEA president and CEO Gary Shapiro. “This show exceeded expectations with its innovation, optimism and excitement. What a great way to kick off the new decade.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100112/ces-attendance-up/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090401/ipo-market-just-really-really-lousy/ http://allthingsd.com/20090401/ipo-market-just-really-really-lousy/#comments Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:25:06 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=15825 To hear tell from the National Venture Capital Association, the VC landscape is as burned out and desolate as the ashen vistas of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.” According to its latest data, not a single venture-backed company went public in the first quarter of 2009 or the one that preceded it. That’s the first time the association has ever recorded two consecutive quarters with no issues. Worse, six venture-backed IPOs were withdrawn from registration in Q1. “We predicted that the venture-backed IPO market was going to get worse before it was going to get better, and we were unfortunately correct,” said NVCA president Mark Heesen. “Today our concerns are not limited to the zero IPO issues but have now expanded to the shrinking pipeline of companies in registration. Once we begin to see a recovery, there won’t be many companies prepared to take advantage of it, effectively extending the lackluster market until the pipeline rebuilds.”

Until then, the market will have to make due with merger-and-acquisition deals, which themselves aren’t doing so well. There were just 68 M&As in the first quarter of 2009, the lowest number since 1999. And they generated just $3.2 billion–down 65 percent from a year ago. Seems acquiring companies are on the lookout for bargain-basement deals and there are unquestionably few to be had given the souring economy. “Acquiring companies are simply looking to be very aggressive buyers and frankly are looking for rock-bottom pricing because that’s what they should be doing in this kind of environment,” Jim Watson, managing general partner at CMEA Capital, told VentureWire. “If you’re a seller now it’s because you have to be a seller.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090401/ipo-market-just-really-really-lousy/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081205/bailing-on-big-tech-trade-shows/ http://allthingsd.com/20081205/bailing-on-big-tech-trade-shows/#comments Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:00:43 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=9260

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081205/bailing-on-big-tech-trade-shows/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081205/belkin-no-booth-at-macworld/ http://allthingsd.com/20081205/belkin-no-booth-at-macworld/#comments Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:23:12 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=9200 Next month’s Macworld Conference & Expo show floor will be quite a bit easier to navigate than in years past. With registration down by 20 percent over last year, there are likely to be far fewer attendees at the annual marquee Apple (AAPL) event, and with a growing list of companies pulling out of the show, there’ll be fewer booths for them to crowd. Earlier this week, Adobe (ADBE) said it had decided against exhibiting on the show floor. And now a coterie of other companies is joining it, top among them, Belkin, long one of Macworld’s largest exhibitors.

Belkin has confirmed that it’s pulling its booth from the show floor as well. The company has opted instead to hold private meetings with its channel partners. It insists that this isn’t so much a financial decision, as a strategic one–”we’re reallocating show floor funds to hold private product meetings,” a spokesperson told me–but it’s hard not to view it that way, given the continued deterioration of the economy. Interesting to note, though, that sources tell AppleInsider that the company had already paid for its 2009 booth space.

Show organizer IDG must be offering Econalypse refunds….

UPDATE: Belkin won’t be exhibiting at the Consumer Electronics Show, either. “No booth at CES–and it’s for the same reasons why we’re not exhibiting at MacWorld,” a spokesperson tells me. “We learned that a smaller group of our channel partners will be attending CES, and those who are attending are focusing on driving incremental value in 2009. We believe that private meetings in hotel suites are more conducive for this type of discussion, as they are more intimate. So, we are redistributing our resources and funds to help support sell-thru for our retail partners and drive traffic into their stores. Examples: more holiday promotions and programs.”

As of this morning, no participants–potential or otherwise–have pulled out of Super Bowl XLIII, but the trend is looking grim for seasonal blockbusters. We’ll keep you posted.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081205/belkin-no-booth-at-macworld/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20081205/belkin-no-booth-at-macworld-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20081205/belkin-no-booth-at-macworld-2/#comments Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:23:12 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=9200 Next month’s Macworld Conference & Expo show floor will be quite a bit easier to navigate than in years past. With registration down by 20 percent over last year, there are likely to be far fewer attendees at the annual marquee Apple (AAPL) event, and with a growing list of companies pulling out of the show, there’ll be fewer booths for them to crowd. Earlier this week, Adobe (ADBE) said it had decided against exhibiting on the show floor. And now a coterie of other companies is joining it, top among them, Belkin, long one of Macworld’s largest exhibitors.

Belkin has confirmed that it’s pulling its booth from the show floor as well. The company has opted instead to hold private meetings with its channel partners. It insists that this isn’t so much a financial decision, as a strategic one–”we’re reallocating show floor funds to hold private product meetings,” a spokesperson told me–but it’s hard not to view it that way, given the continued deterioration of the economy. Interesting to note, though, that sources tell AppleInsider that the company had already paid for its 2009 booth space.

Show organizer IDG must be offering Econalypse refunds….

UPDATE: Belkin won’t be exhibiting at the Consumer Electronics Show, either. “No booth at CES–and it’s for the same reasons why we’re not exhibiting at MacWorld,” a spokesperson tells me. “We learned that a smaller group of our channel partners will be attending CES, and those who are attending are focusing on driving incremental value in 2009. We believe that private meetings in hotel suites are more conducive for this type of discussion, as they are more intimate. So, we are redistributing our resources and funds to help support sell-thru for our retail partners and drive traffic into their stores. Examples: more holiday promotions and programs.”

As of this morning, no participants–potential or otherwise–have pulled out of Super Bowl XLIII, but the trend is looking grim for seasonal blockbusters. We’ll keep you posted.

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