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Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt Joins Kno Board

Kara Swisher — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 12:01:45 +0000

Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt will join the board of Kno, the online education start-up.

He is currently the principal at REH Advisors.

The Silicon Valley-based Kno began its life offering a student-aimed tablet and education platform, but now is focusing solely on the software part of its business.

The company announced plans this summer to allow those who buy textbooks from Kno to read them on Facebook and via the Web. It also has an Apple iPad app that takes the product beyond just an electronic version of a traditional textbook.

Kno’s current backers include prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway. Marc Andreessen, as well as co-founders Osman Rashid (also CEO) and Babur Habib (also CTO), are also on its board.

Here is the official press release about Hundt’s appointment as a Kno director:

FORMER FCC CHAIRMAN REED HUNDT JOINS KNO INC.’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Hundt Brings Unparalleled Experience in Education and Communications

Santa Clara, CA, November 1, 2011 — Today, Kno, Inc., www.kno.com, a pioneer in education software, announced that the company has named Reed Hundt, former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to its Board of Directors.

“I’m very excited to join Kno’s Board of Directors because the company shares my passion for education,” said Reed Hundt. “While I was at the FCC, one of my highest priorities was making sure our nation’s classrooms were connected to the Internet, precisely in order to foster a software revolution in learning. I believe that Kno’s student-focused software will bring education into the 21st century and help transform the way students learn now and in the future.”

Hundt brings decades of relevant experience to Kno’s Board and is a long-time advocate for technological innovation in education. He is currently the Principal at REH Advisors, an advisory firm that serves clients on a variety of issues. Prior to establishing REH Advisors, Hundt served as an Adviser to McKinsey and Company for more than 10 years, as well as a Member of the National Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, among other distinguished roles.

Hundt served as Chairman of the FCC from 1993-1997 and played a major role in implementing the Snowe-Rockefeller program that directs more than $4 billion annually to connect all classrooms to the Internet and is hailed as one of the largest single national commitments to K-12 education in American history.

“The work Reed accomplished while Chairman of the FCC makes him an exceptional addition to our Board and his expansive knowledge of the education technology space will serve Kno tremendously in its efforts to improve how students learn,” said Osman Rashid, co-Founder and CEO of Kno, Inc.

Babur Habib, co-Founder and CTO of Kno, Inc. continued, “Hundt brings decades of relevant experience to Kno’s Board and is a long-time advocate for technological innovation in education. We look forward to working closely with Reed to help guide us as we extend our reach to professors and administrators.”

Hundt has also taught seminars at the Yale Law School, Yale School of Management, Yale College, and Columbia Business and Law Schools, demonstrating his passion of education. He also serves on the Boards of Intel Corporation, Serious Energy and UNCF, an educational assistance organization.

Hundt holds a B.A. in History from Yale College and a J.D. from Yale Law School. He also is the author of “In China’s Shadow: The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship and You Say You Want a Revolution: A Story of Information Age Politics.”

Chegg Buys Zinch in Another Move Toward a "Social Education Platform"

Kara Swisher — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:00:03 +0000

Chegg — best known for online rentals of textbooks to college students — said it has just bought Zinch, a start-up that links high school students and college recruiters.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The purchase of the San Francisco-based Zinch, said CEO Dan Rosensweig in an interview earlier this week, is part of a larger plan involving a series of acquisitions aimed at “how we move from two-day relevance to relevance all year around for students.”

By that, he meant the short time period when students either buy or rent their textbooks for the semester.

That’s certainly been a good business for Chegg, which is the leader in the online textbook-rental arena, including digital distribution.

But to further solidify its relationship with students and expand its market base to include high schoolers along with college consumers, Chegg has picked up a number of start-ups like Zinch, using its stock and also the whopping $220 million in funding from a number of venture firms, including Kleiner Perkins.

In late September, for example, the company bought CourseRank, which helps students share course schedules, take classes with friends, and read and write reviews on classes and professors, as well as find out how they grade.

Also scooped up by Chegg: Notehall, which is a student-to-student note-taking trading market; Cramster, a social homework helper; and Student of Fortune, a homework-answers site for student questions (which a recent filing by Chegg noted was bought for $5.9 million in stock).

Also being tested are such offerings as deals for students and other ways to leverage the original textbook relationship.

“This is the beginning of a connected student network that we hope to build into a giant platform,” said Rosensweig. “We want to have a student using us all the way through for a 10-year span, from high school on.”

In related news, Chegg said it has hired former Palm CFO Andrew Brown as its new CFO. Prior to Palm, he served as the CFO of Pillar Data Systems Inc., a storage start-up funded by Oracle’s Larry Ellison.

While a CFO hiring often indicates a soon-to-happen IPO, Rosensweig said that Chegg has more than enough capital, needs to focus on building up its offerings and is in no rush to go public.

We’ll see, but here’s the official press release from Chegg about Zinch:

Chegg Plans to Expand into $7 Billion College Recruiting Market and Increase Student Base By Over 3.5 Million

Chegg enters into a definitive agreement to acquire Zinch, the leading digital network that helps high school students research, connect with and pay for college

SANTA CLARA, Calif., September 15, 2011 – Chegg today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Zinch. The acquisition is subject to standard closing conditions and is expected to be completed by the end of this month. The acquisition will expand Chegg’s social education platform into high schools. Zinch, founded in 2007, connects prospective college and graduate students to scholarships, admissions officers and other students who have been through the same process.

The acquisition of Zinch, with over 3.5 million members, $1.9 billion in scholarships and over 5,000 school profiles, will significantly expand Chegg’s customer base and its social education platform. Colleges and students will be able to connect more effectively for less through Chegg, helping to streamline the college recruiting process globally. In addition, unlike any other company in the education space, Chegg will provide resources to students at every major milestone before, during and after their college career — including bridging the gap from high school to college.

“Our mission has always been to save students time, money and help them get smarter,” said Dan Rosensweig, president and CEO of Chegg. “With our acquisition of Zinch, we’re extending our mission to high school students through the $7 billion college recruiting market, while continuing to break down the barriers of a college education, from the high cost of tuition and textbooks to helping students make money, pick their courses and get the academic help they need.”

At Zinch, over 3.5 million students have built online profiles to showcase themselves as “more than test scores” to shine in the admissions process, and to be matched with schools and scholarships that might be a good fit. Colleges and universities worldwide, including more than half of the US News top ranked national universities, use Zinch for cost-effective student recruiting and outreach.

“Getting in and paying for school is daunting. Together, Chegg and Zinch can not only make higher education more affordable and accessible, it gives students an edge in finding the right school, getting admitted and reducing the cost. Students can put their best foot forward, be recognized for their achievements and be discovered by programs that fit their interests,” said Anne Dwane, CEO of Zinch.

The acquisition is subject to standard closing conditions and is expected to be completed by the end of this month.
To learn more about Chegg’s social education platform and its network of services, go to www.chegg.com.

Now Is the (Larry) Summers of Our Silicon Valley VC: Economic Guru Joins Andreessen Horowitz as "Special Advisor"

Kara Swisher — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 22:00:37 +0000

In an unusual appointment for the longtime public servant, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will join Silicon Valley venture powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz as a part-time “Special Advisor.”

Summers got to know the firm with an assist from Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who was a student of his when he was a professor at Harvard University.

Summers was later president of Harvard, as well as director of the White House National Economic Council in the Obama administration until late last year.

“I am doing this because I feel technology in general and information technology in particular is now having a real pervasive macroeconomic impact in our time,” said Summers in a phone interview this afternoon from his home in Boston. “Long after people have lost their memory of the dramatic financial crisis in recent years, they will remember what technology has done to transform our economy in these same years.”

Summers said he increasingly wanted to become closer to this important trend and thought he could contribute to the innovation in Silicon Valley by helping its portfolio companies better understand the global economy.

He was introduced to Andreessen Horowitz at first by Sandberg, who was also Summers’ chief of staff while at the Treasury Department, and was attracted to its investment philosophy.

“They have distinctive elements of strategy that seemed to be a good fit, such as their emphasis on market disruption,” said Summers. “They also have an audacity of the vision and were really supporting transformation.”

Summers said he would serve as an advisor to Andreessen Horowitz companies, focusing on global opportunities they should take advantage of.

He will not become a VC, though. “My life to date has been as a professor and public servant, so I am not in a position to be a major investor,” said Summers.

That said, Marc Andreessen quickly noted in the interview that “if Larry brings in a company, we are going to take a serious look at it.”

While he was not a partner, Andreessen said Summers’ compensation would be linked to the long-term performance of the firm.

Summers will travel between Massachusetts and the West coast, but will also continue to work on outside projects.

What he will not be doing is giving any long-winded economic lessons to entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.

“I am not sure there is the attention span for some of my lectures out there,” he joked.

Here is Andreessen’s blog post about the Summers appointment:

Meet Larry Summers, Our New Special Advisor

By Marc Andreessen

Today I’m delighted to announce that economist and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is joining our team as a part-time Special Advisor.

A lot of people already know who Larry is, but here are the highlights of a remarkable career to date:

* Admitted to MIT at age 16, originally to study physics — clearly our kind of nerd.

* Became tenured professor of economics at Harvard at age 28, where he first started mentoring a young undergraduate named Sheryl Sandberg, who ultimately became his chief of staff at the US Treasury.

* Received John Bates Clark Medal for his research at age 38, one of the two most prestigious awards in the field of economics (the other is the Nobel).

* On the staff of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors in 1982-1983. (For those of you too young to remember, Reagan was a noted Republican.)

* Undersecretary for International Affairs and then Deputy Treasury Secretary for President Clinton between 1993 and 1999. Intimately involved in resolving major macroeconomic crises in Mexico, Russia, and elsewhere. Became US Treasury Secretary in 1999.

* President of Harvard from 2001 to 2006.

* Until late 2010, served as President Obama’s director of the White House National Economic Council.

* And, most importantly, a pivotal character in the recent movie “The Social Network”.

Larry will be an advisor to our firm and our entrepreneurs on several topics:

First, as technology continues its relentless colonization of broad swaths of the global economy, Larry will help us understand the scope and nature of the opportunities in front of us and our industry.

Second, many of our companies are seeking to restructure and revolutionize various markets — such as telecommunications, advertising, entertainment, education, health care, and financial services — and Larry will help us and our entrepreneurs analyze and understand the economics and dynamics of those markets.

Third, Larry’s deep insight into global economics and geopolitics will be highly useful to our companies that intend to expand globally — which is to say, all of them.

According to the New York Times, “Years ago, Henry Kissinger suggested that Mr. Summers be given a White House post in which he was charged with shooting down or fixing bad ideas.” We can’t arrange that, but we are excited to have him on our team, both to do that and to contribute lots of new ideas to us and to our companies.

Intel Capital, Condé Nast Owner Invest $30 Million in Kno; Intel to Consult on Student Tablet Hardware

Kara Swisher — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 02:17:57 +0000

According to sources close to the situation, Intel Capital and Advance Publications will lead a $30 million investment round in Kno, the high-profile student tablet start-up.

In addition to the funding from its venture capital arm, Intel itself will consult with Kno on its tablet design. Kno, which is getting out of the hardware business, will now focus on its software to manage the devices that are aimed at the college market.

Intel will not manufacture tablets either. Instead, its engineers will consult with Kno on power management, graphics, display, systems integration, which it does for a variety of its customers.

Along with Intel Capital and Advance, current investors will also participate in the round, said sources. But Intel Capital and Advance, the owner of the Condé Nast publishing empire, make up a big part of the funding.

Sources said Intel Capital’s investment is $20 million and Advance and others make up the rest of it.

BoomTown reported in February that the much-funded and high-profile Silicon Valley start-up–aimed at making tablet computers focused at students–was considering selling off the entire hardware part of the business.

Sources said Kno execs have recently decided that the quicker-than-expected uptake in tablet production by a multitude of powerful device makers had made its efforts to package a seamless offering less critical.

Instead, the company will now focus on its robust software and services to offer students on the Apple iPad, as well as upcoming tablets based on Google’s Android mobile operating system and others.

The move is a dramatic shift for the company, which had not shipped significant numbers of the touchscreen device as it has long touted.

In fact, Kno said in November that it would ship a $599 and $899 version of the tablet by the end of the year.

The lower price was for its single-screen device, while the clamshell double-screen version was more expensive.

And, although it has been reported no pre-orders were fulfilled, Kno did indeed ship several hundred of them, built by China’s Foxconn, before stopping doing so earlier this year.

Many have been dubious about Kno’s ambitious hardware efforts.

That’s because marketing a new and complex product like the Kno takes a lot of effort and cash, especially since it is an increasingly competitive market for mobile and portable computing products that includes Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Amazon, Dell and many others.

Before this $30 million, Kno has raised another $46 million in funding to add to an earlier $10 million round.

Sources in February said that the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company considering going back out to raise even more.

Its current backers include prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with angel investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

Sources said the shift to deliver textbook and other student-related delivery system would be a better path for all that investment money, since Kno has established a wide range of partnerships with colleges and universities.

In addition, Kno co-founder Osman Rashid has a lot of experience in digital education market. He was also the co-founder of Chegg, the textbook rental business that is reportedly aiming for an IPO soon.

BusinessWeek was first to report that Intel Capital was making the investment in Kno, but the post did not mention Advance’s involvement or that Intel itself was licensing the hardware design business from Kno.

Exclusive: Kno Student Tablet Start-Up in Talks to Sell Off Tablet Part of Its Business

Kara Swisher — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 08:16:00 +0000

Kno–the much-funded and high-profile Silicon Valley start-up aimed at making tablet computers focused at students–is considering selling off the entire hardware part of the business and is in talks with two major consumer electronics manufacturers to do so, according to sources close to the situation.

Instead, the company will focus on its robust software and services to offer students on the Apple iPad, as well as upcoming tablets based on Google’s Android mobile operating system and others.

BoomTown could not determine which two companies Kno was in serious discussions with about unloading its hardware business, but the company has signed an NDA with one of them.

But, if a deal is struck, the move would be a dramatic shift for the company, which has yet to ship significant numbers of the student-focused touchscreen device as it has long touted.

In fact, Kno said in November that it would ship a $599 and $899 version of the tablet by the end of the year.

The lower price was for its single-screen device, while the clamshell double-screen version was more expensive.

And, although it has been reported no pre-orders were fulfilled, Kno did indeed ship several hundred of them, built by China’s Foxconn, before stopping doing so recently.

Many have been dubious about Kno’s ambitious hardware efforts.

Kno recently raised another $46 million in funding to add to a $10 million round, and sources said that the Santa Clara, Calif., company was considering going back out to raise even more.

Its current backers include prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

A Kno spokeswoman declined comment.

But sources said the shift to deliver textbook and other student-related delivery system would be a better path for all that investment money, since Kno has established a wide range of partnerships with colleges and universities.

In addition, Kno Co-founder Osman Rashid has a lot of experience in digital education market. He was also the co-founder of Chegg, the textbook rental business that is reportedly aiming for an IPO soon.

You can see Rashid here, along with the Kno tablet prototype in the full demo video that the company did last year at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference:

[ See post to watch video ]

(Want to see it bigger? Click here.)

Waiting for the Big Fish? The Next Web IPOs Might Surprise You

Kara Swisher — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:00:18 +0000

No, not Facebook.

Not Zynga.

And probably not Groupon.

At least not yet, when it comes to the blockbuster Web IPOs that Wall Street and investors have been waiting for, and now expecting to roll out sooner than later in the wake of the return of the Web IPO in recent weeks.

Not so fast.

That’s what multiple sources with knowledge of the situation said when queried by BoomTown after the successful public outing by Demand Media, followed by LinkedIn’s S-1 regulatory filing last week.

While these events spurred a great deal of speculation about which Web wunderkind would belly up to the public trough next, sources said that those looking for IPOs well above the $5 billion range will have to wait a little longer.

Because, while companies such as social networking giant Facebook, social buying phenom Groupon and social gaming’s Zynga have all been courted heavily by investment bankers such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others–all remain well-funded and willing to hold off opening their books for all to see until the last possible moment.

“There’s not a lot of reason to expose all kinds of information that is keeping these companies ahead too early,” said one person close to the situation. “In fact, once that much data is out there, you could argue that they lose a lot of their magic to investors.”

Some of that financial information is already out there, although in small bites, which has only been a taste for investors.

Full-scale sunlight will be different. While it can be cleansing, it can also be disappointing to those with too-high expectations of these companies.

Thus, expect to see more small IPOs–at least in comparison–from outfits such as Chegg, which has also been deep in talks with bankers for a while now.

Chegg, like LinkedIn, has been highly successful in a niche arena–in its case, online rentals of textbook to college students.

In the fall, the Silicon Valley company raised another $75 million in funding, on top of a previous $144 million.

Venture firms, such as Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital, Insight Venture Partners and others have presumably handed over that money in hopes of big returns in disrupting a $10 billion college textbook business.

Chegg got its start in 2005 at Iowa State University as a classified rental service, where books were the dominant item, but evolved its business to focus on actually doing the textbook rentals.

Typically, a rental costs a fraction of what buying a book outright does. It is ordered online and then sent to a renter, who then returns it.

The company’s unusual name, Chegg, is a mashup of “chicken and egg,” and its model is similar to that of innovative video rental outfit Netflix.

And a Netflix-like business is what presumably may keep Wall Street investors interested–at least until the bigger fish arrive.

Kno Prices Its Student Tablets at $599 and $899 to Ship by End of the Year

Kara Swisher — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 05:00:01 +0000

Kno, the high-profile Silicon Valley start-up trying to jump-start a market for tablets focused on students, announced tonight that it will have a limited number available by the end of the year for sale at prices of $599 and $899.

The lower price is for its single-screen device, while the clamshell double-screen version is more expensive.

Kno would not say exactly how many it has ordered for its first tablet production run–the device is being built by China’s Foxconn–but co-founder and CEO Osman Rashid said in an interview earlier today with BoomTown that units would number “in the thousands.”

Rashid said the Kno tablet will initially be aimed at 10 college campuses across the U.S., although he also declined to name them.

“We are going to do online and offline marketing, in a very focused approach,” he said, noting that Kno would be working with some college bookstores too.

Marketing a new and complex product like the Kno will take a lot of effort and cash, especially since it is an increasingly competitive market for mobile and portable computing products that includes Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Amazon, Dell and many others.

Kno recently raised another $46 million in funding to add to a $10 million round, and sources said that the Santa Clara, Calif., company could be back out raising even more early next year.

Its current backers include prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

Kno’s Rashid said his company pushed the go button after getting good feedback from students in a beta test, half of whom used the single-screen device and the other half the two screens, along with its related education platform software.

“We found that 85 percent of those using the single screen wanted the dual-screen version and that those using two screens took three times more notes,” said Rashid. “Students said they love the fact that they can write in the textbook itself and it appears the way it needs to be, even in digital form.”

The first Kno will have an aluminum body, and the company will also offer a set of accessories, such as a cover and a stand.

And Kno will watch initial sales carefully. “As a start-up, we want to make sure we are meeting demand, but also that we roll it out in a careful approach,” said Rashid.

Indeed–and it will be interesting to see how that goes for the ambitious and innovative Kno.

Until the results are in, here is the official press release from Kno:

Kno Announces Pricing and Pre-Order Availability for Tablet Textbook; Pays for Itself in 3 Semesters

Delivers Significant Student Impact for Less than 1% the Cost of a 4-Year College Education

Santa Clara, CA–November 9, 2010–Kno, Inc., a powerful, groundbreaking tablet textbook designed specifically for students and the education market, today revealed the price of its 14.1 inch single and dual-screen tablets at $599 and $899, respectively. The company also announced that it is now accepting a limited number of pre-orders for an initial shipment that is expected to be on customers’ doorsteps by the end of the year.

“Kno’s extraordinary benefits represent only a tiny fraction of the overall cost of college, but its impact on the student’s career–and the energy it adds to the experience, the thrill of learning, and the ultimate grade–is dramatic,” said Osman Rashid, Co-Founder and CEO of Kno, Inc. “Even better, when you do the math, it actually pays for itself and still saves $1,300 in digital textbook costs.”

Kno has been beta-testing the product with students and the response has been overwhelmingly positive for both the single and dual screen devices. Far more than just a digital textbook, Kno is creating a powerfully effective new learning environment that will make students at all levels more successful at processing, grasping and retaining both facts and concepts.

“My experience with Kno has been really incredible. My books have become more interactive and the ability to hand-write electronic notes on the book pages themselves has changed how I retain information,” said Melissa Lin, a sophomore majoring in Biology at UC Berkeley that has been beta-testing the Kno tablet. “I see a ton of difference with the Kno. I can carry everything with me including my books, my notebooks and a browser for research. And, with the lower cost of digital textbooks, it will pay for itself in three semesters which is really great.”

Digital textbooks, which typically cost between 30 and 50 percent less than physical textbooks, will be priced separately and will be sold through the Kno bookstore, which will be accessible on every Kno device. Starting today, students will be able to browse Kno’s bookstore at www.kno.com/store/books, which will include tens of thousands of the most popular textbooks and supplement materials. Kno has previously announced that it is working with major textbook publishers including Cengage, McGraw Hill and Pearson. The company recently added publishers including Macmillan, Bedford, Freeman & Worth and Holtzbrinck as well as BarCharts Publishing, Kaplan, Random House and a large number of the University Presses.

“According to the not-for-profit College Board’s 2010 report, the average college student spends approximately $1,100 a year on book and supplies,” said Babur Habib, CTO and Co-Founder of Kno, Inc. “Kno can reduce that cost while bringing education into the 21st Century, providing students with a far superior learning experience than they have today.”

To learn more about Kno, please visit the Kno blog at http://blog.kno.com or visit us on Facebook www.facebook.com/GoodtoKNO, Twitter www.twitter.com/GoodtoKNO and YouTube www.youtube.com/GoodtoKNO.

Kno Hires Fancy CFO, as It Preps Tablet Launch (And Possible New Funding Search)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:00:51 +0000

Kno, the start-up attempting to make and market a student-aimed tablet and learning platform, has hired Stuart West as its new CFO.

West (pictured here) has worked at Yahoo, InfoSpace, TiVo and J.P. Morgan.

Kno is continuing to make key hires as it prepares to ship the product by the end of the year, after recently raising another $46 million in funding to add to a $10 million round.

Sources said that the Santa Clara, Calif., company could be back out raising even more money early next year.

Its current backers include prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

Kno to Also Make a Single-Screen Tablet Textbook

Kara Swisher — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:40:50 +0000

Kno, the start-up that is creating a digital tablet for students, said it is also planning on releasing a single-screen version.

The company–which was started by the founder of Chegg, the online textbook rental service–had debuted a double-screen tablet (pictured here) at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June.

The current clamshell device has a pair of touchscreens that open and shut like a book, and Kno will offer an online store linked to the tablet for the purchase of materials.

Some felt the double-screened device might be too cumbersome, given the plethora of tablets in a variety of sizes that are being planned and released soon, all influenced by the popular Apple (AAPL) iPad.

Kno said its single-screen tablet will be smaller and sold at a lower price point, but will be shipped at the same time as the original double-screen, by the end of the year.

The company will be announcing pricing and ship dates soon.

When it does, Kno will be headed right into a competitive and increasingly innovative tablet market that now also includes Amazon (AMZN), Samsung, Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Google (GOOG).

Kno is certainly girding for battle in this portable arena. It nabbed an additional $46 million in venture funding from a panoply of Silicon Valley bigs earlier this month.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based Kno previously raised almost $10 million in funding from prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

In addition, well-known techie Marc Andreessen is now on Kno’s board.

Here is the video of a prototype of the double-screen Kno in action at D8:

[ See post to watch video ]

Want to see it bigger? Click here.

And here is the official press release from Kno:

Kno Breaks New Ground with the World’s First
Single Screen Tablet Textbook

Kno Continues the Pace of Innovation in Integrated Learning with a Smaller Version of the Kno

San Francisco, CA–September 27, 2010–Kno, Inc., the groundbreaking tablet textbook and dynamic learning platform, today announced its further commitment to the education market with a single screen version of its tablet textbook. The single screen version extends the breakthroughs and functionality of the dual screen version announced in June.

“Kno fundamentally improves the way students learn,” said Osman Rashid, the CEO and Co-Founder of Kno, Inc. “We are driven to innovate in a category that has been static for too long. Even though the Kno pays for itself in 13 months, the smaller up front investment of the single screen version will allow more students to use our learning platform.”

Kno, short for knowledge, is a transformative learning platform that blends a touch-screen tablet, digital textbooks, course materials, note-taking, web access, educational applications, digital media, sharing and more into a powerful and engaging educational experience that is not available on any other tablet or eReader today.

“From day one, we designed the Kno with flexibility in mind,” said Babur Habib, CTO and Co-Founder of Kno, Inc. “We developed the product to have multiple configurations and meet different student needs. The single screen maintains the elegance of our fluid, intuitive interface while capturing the richness and ‘page fidelity’ of the original textbook.”

The company plans to ship both the single and two-screen tablet textbooks to consumers by the end of 2010. Pricing and pre-order announcements will be made in the coming months.

A Hollywood Ending? The Timing of Zuckerberg's $100 Million Donation to Newark Schools Debated at Facebook

Kara Swisher — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 09:55:12 +0000

The question is: Which movie was Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinking about when he decided recently to fork over $100 million to public schools in Newark, New Jersey?

Was it a bid to spiff up his image–with a splashy announcement on Oprah Winfrey’s popular television talk show tomorrow?

That would be the very same day of the New York premiere of “The Social Network,” a movie that rakes the now-26-year-old Silicon Valley wunderkind over some very hot coals in the sordid tale of how he founded the powerful social networking site while at Harvard University.

Or was it actually the impact of another film, “Waiting for Superman,” a just-released gripping documentary about the crisis in public education?

It’s become a topic that has apparently become of great interest to Zuckerberg, as he has been considering his approach to big-time philanthropy in anticipation of huge wealth after Facebook eventually has its long-anticipated IPO.

In fact, said sources, the timing of the donation was hotly debated within the company, with worries that it would look like Zuckerberg was trying to counter the flood of negative press from “The Social Network.”

And for good reason.

After seeing a screening of the movie recently, MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka noted that “the film portrays him as an insecure jerk who screws over people and becomes a much-richer insecure jerk…He’s the bad guy in his own creation myth.”

In fact, said sources, Zuckerberg actually has been cooking up the deal since he and high-profile Newark Mayor Cory Booker started kibitzing over the idea while both attended the Allen & Co. conference in July.

From there, Zuckerberg decided it was best to flood the zone–in this case, the deeply troubled Newark school system, which had previously been taken over by the state.

Now, it will instead get a big dose of friending–um, funding–from a foundation that Zuckerberg is funding with $100 million worth of Facebook stock, which will be sold off in secondary markets as needed.

Sources said his interest in the area was apparently sparked by watching the up-and-down experience of his longtime girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, whose first job out of college was as a teacher. She is now a medical student.

It’s all an unusual bipartisan effort, with Zuckerberg working with the Democratic Booker and also New Jersey’s new Republican Governor Chris Christie.

The pair of politicians, who will formulate a plan, pushed for the announcement this particular week on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” in order to give the topic national attention.

Winfrey has been focusing on education reform this week on her show, and the Obama administration is reportedly going to do the same in the weeks ahead.

Thus, Zuckerberg himself decided to move forward now, sources said, apparently concluding that even if a prominent movie was portraying him as the villain, he did not have to act like one in real life.

Here's What VCs Get for $46 Million: The Kno Tablet D8 Demo

Kara Swisher — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:55:13 +0000

Today, Kno, a start-up that is taking on the textbook by replacing it with a tablet aimed at students, nabbed another $46 million in venture funding from a panoply of Silicon Valley bigs.

And what are those moneybags getting for their dough?

Well, here’s the demo for Kno, which debuted at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June.

The clamshell device has a pair of touchscreens that open and shut like a book, and Kno will offer an online store linked to the tablet for the purchase of materials.

In fact, Kno shares a co-founder with Chegg, the online textbook-rental service.

That would be Osman Rashid–and you can pretty much draw a straight line from Chegg to Kno.

But rather than focusing on making an old business better via the Web, as Chegg does, Kno will be headed right into the competitive tablet market that now includes Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Samsung, Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and, reportedly, Google (GOOG).

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based Kno has previously raised almost $10 million in funding from prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

In addition, Marc Andreessen is now on Kno’s board.

Andreessen Horowitz is upping the ante this new round too, as you can read in the press release below.

Kno Funding FINAL FINAL Release

And, here is the full demo video for Kno at D8:

[ See post to watch video ]

(Want to see it bigger? Click here.)

Chegg's Dan Rosensweig Talks About the Next Wave of Online Textbook Rentals and More!

Kara Swisher — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:58:21 +0000

Earlier this week, BoomTown went down to Santa Clara, Calif. to the offices of Chegg, the online textbook rental leader, to pay a visit on longtime Silicon Valley exec Dan Rosensweig.

The voluble Rosensweig has had a series on interesting posts, from stints at CNET Networks and Ziff-Davis before a top job at Yahoo (YHOO). After that, it was as a partner at the Quadrangle Group and then running the Guitar Hero division of Activision Blizzard (ATVI).

Now he is CEO of Chegg, where he arrived in February.

After raising $144 million in funding, Chegg has become the front-runner in the increasingly competitive online textbook rental space.

Venture firms, such as Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital and, most recently, Insight Venture Partners, have presumably handed over that money to co-founders Osman Rashid and Aayush Phumbhra in hopes of big returns.

And, of course, the inevitable IPO.

Chegg got its start in 2005 at Iowa State University as a classified rental service, where books were the dominant item, but evolved its business to focus on actually doing the textbook rentals.

The company’s unusual name, Chegg, is a mashup of chicken and egg and its model is similar to that of innovative video rental outfit Netflix (NFLX).

Chegg now serves close to 7,000 schools across the U.S., with 120 employees in Silicon Valley and more at a warehouse operation in Louisville, Ky.

Typically, a rental costs a fraction of what buying a book outright does. It is ordered online and then sent to a renter, who then returns it.

All this activity has attracted a lot of interest from both big and small players, especially given the $10 billion college textbook business.

That makes for lots of competition. The Barnes & Noble (BKS) College division recently began testing a textbook rental program, for example, and is rolling it out to 25 U.S. colleges. And BookRenter is a smaller competitor.

Today, in a bid to expand its offerings beyond books, Chegg said it had acquired CourseRank, a Mountain View, Calif. start-up that helps students “share their course schedule, take classes with their friends, read and write reviews on classes and professors as well as find out how professors grade.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Rosensweig talks about all that and more, such as digital downloads, in the video interview below, which includes a tour of Chegg:

[ See post to watch video ]

And here’s the official press release about Chegg’s acquisition of CourseRank:

CHEGG.COM ACQUIRES COURSERANK

Popular college course planning site that helps students with course and professor selection, hopes for rapid expansion

SANTA CLARA, Calif., August 19, 2010–Chegg.com, the number one online textbook rental company, today announced that it has acquired CourseRank, the Mountain View-based start-up that provides college students an easy and convenient way to create and share their course schedule, take classes with their friends, read and write reviews on classes and professors as well as find out how professors grade.

“We are excited about adding CourseRank to the portfolio of content and services we can offer students to make college easier and more affordable,” said Dan Rosensweig, President and CEO of Chegg.com. “We all share a commitment to saving students time, money and making them smarter. It’s amazing how popular CourseRank has become on campus, having nearly 100,000 users and growing every day.”

Founded by five college students and already being used on 175 colleges and universities across the U.S., CourseRank helps students manage and plan their academic careers. CourseRank’s scheduling, planning and course review system guides students by arranging relevant course information in an easily accessible display where they can track their progress towards the goal of graduation, mapping courses taken, and grades received. A feature for students to find textbooks for their courses using CourseRank is currently in beta for select schools.

“We’re excited to be part of the number one online textbook rental company in such a hot space,” said Filip Kaliszan, Co-Founder and CEO of CourseRank. “We share Chegg’s commitment to using technology to make life easier and cheaper for college kids, and we are excited about expanding our reach to more schools, adding many new features in the next few months.”

CourseRank, founded in 2007 by three Stanford University students, has seen tremendous growth in the past year. To date, the company has achieved adoption by some of the country’s top schools including Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Cornell University.
Students can sign up for free and the first 5,000 will be entered for a chance to win cool prizes. For more information, visit www.courserank.com.”

Full D8 Demo Video: Kno

Kara Swisher — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:59:58 +0000

As promised, All Things Digital is posting the full videos from our eighth D: All Things Digital conference, held in early June.

Here’s the demo for Kno, a start-up that is taking on the textbook by replacing it with a tablet aimed at students.

The clamshell device has a pair of touchscreens that open and shut like a book and Kno will offer an online store linked to Kno for the purchase of materials. Kno shares a co-founder with Chegg, the online textbook rental service.

[ See post to watch video ]

Want to see it bigger? Click here.

Note: We’ll be posting full D8 videos on Mondays and Thursdays. Next up: The demo for Dell Streak.

After Some Flashy Investing, Is Andreessen Horowitz's Next Move a Big New Fund?

Kara Swisher — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:25:21 +0000

Since it launched almost exactly a year ago with a $300 million fund, the venture firm of Andreessen Horowitz has cut a rather high-profile path through the Silicon Valley investing community.

And it’s clear the firm has been aiming to make a big splash in the sector–from its involvement in the fractious fight over the spin-off of Skype to its funding of a series of high-profile start-ups (Zynga, Asana, Kno and Rockmelt) to its most recent aggressive moves to finally win the top spot in investing in hot social location site Foursquare.

Now, according to sources and after spending about half its kitty, Andreessen Horowitz is poised to begin another round of fundraising to further bolster its clout.

While it is unclear how much the VC firm will raise, sources expect it to be much more than its first fund.

In its last go-round, the firm had a quick completion of the fund raising, in the midst of a national econalypse. So many assume the next try will be a lot easier, especially given its knack for grabbing hot deals.

A spokeswoman for Andreessen Horowitz declined to comment on future fundraising plans.

The firm is going to need the money as it expands its partners and ambitions to change the venture landscape, as iconic entrepreneur Marc Andreessen noted when he founded the firm with his longtime business partner Ben Horowitz in July of 2009.

Andreessen said then that he was essentially professionalizing the active angel investing that he and Horowitz had been doing.

Over the last several years, either together or apart, the pair have invested in a large variety of innovative start-ups, such as Twitter, Aliph, Digg, LinkedIn and many more.

Andreessen is on the board of Facebook and an adviser to Twitter too.

In an interview with me last year, Andreessen said that unlike many VC firms, Andreessen Horowitz will invest in companies at any stage of life–from early stage to late–and of any size and in any kind of digital sector and will focus on companies led by tech-savvy founders.

He also expressed a disdain for the way the venture business was run.

“For the first time in my life, I am crossing over into the dark side,” said Andreessen at the time, in a joke about VCs being like Darth Vader.

At the time, he also noted that money talked. “It’s important to have more capital,” he said. “Sometimes having a huge checkbook is a great thing.”

Well, we’ll see if Andreessen Horowitz can make that checkbook even larger.

Until then, here is a tally of investments that Andreessen Horowitz has made so far, sourced from the firm, split up into categories and size of investment round the firm participated in with other investors. The firm declined to provide the exact amount of their participation in each investment.

It should be noted that Andreessen’s and Horowitz’s previous individual investments in some of these companies are not identified here:

Board

Kno: tablet device for students; $7.5 million
Nicira: cloud infrastructure software; $13 million
Okta: cloud app management; $750,000
Proferi: analytic applications; $2 million
Rockmelt; desktop browser for Facebook; unknown funding
Skype: Web telephony; $50 million

Passive

Apptio: IT cost transparency solutions; $14 million
Asana: enterprise collaboration; $9 million
Boku: mobile online payments; unknown funding
Digg: social media and content; unknown funding
Foursquare: social location; $20 million
Fusion I/O: enterprise I/O solutions; $45 million
Tiny Speck: social gaming; $5 million
Zynga: social gaming; $180 million

Seed

Burbn; social location; $500,000
Canvas Networks: image boards; $625,000
Factual: structured data; $1 million
GoodData: cloud-based collaborative analytics; $2.5 million
Quantifind; enterprise; unknown funding
RethinkDB: database storage; $1.2 million
Mixed Media Labs: photo sharing; $370,000
SnapLogic: open-source enterprise data integration; $2.3 million
TopProspect: social recruiting; unknown funding
Vikkii: user-generated subtitling; unknown funding
Ze Frank Games: online gaming; unknown funding

And here are video interviews BoomTown has done with both Andreessen and Horowitz in the last year on their investing theories:

Meet the Two Grad Students Who Freaked Out the NYT–The Pulse iPad App Creators Speak!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 01:17:03 +0000

The first thing to strike you about the pair of Stanford University graduate students (pictured here) who made the banned and then unbanned news-reading iPad app, Pulse News Reader, is how they look like an advertisement for all that is good about entrepreneurship.

Sweet-natured, slightly naive, energetic and very product focused, they are the last techies you’d choose to be the ones who got the New York Times (NYT) in enough of a tizzy to force Apple to pull the aggregator from its App Store.

BoomTown met Akshay Kothari, 23, and 22-year-old Ankit Gupta this afternoon at a hotel near the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, where Pulse was called out yesterday by name by Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs for excellence only hours before the company had to stop offering it to users.

At first, the shy pair said they did not want to call attention to themselves or rail on Apple or the Times. After much convincing by me, they agreed to talk about their unusual situation in the video below, focusing on the product and its origins.

It started out simple enough, creating Pulse for the Launch Pad class at Stanford, which requires students to develop and put out a product. Both students are at Stanford’s Institute of Design and created a company called Alphonso Labs when Pulse was done.

It took them only four weeks to develop and, within weeks after it was approved for sale in the App Store, Pulse became a red-hot paid seller for the fast-growing tablet device–putting Pulse at No. 1 at times on the list of paid apps on iTunes.

In fact, the app was so well regarded that the Times wrote a rave about it last week.

The high culminated for Kothari and Gupta when Jobs named Pulse first in a list of the most-promising apps for the iPad in his keynote speech at the WWDC yesterday.

Unfortunately, that was the last hurrah for them, since the business side of the New York Times–after seeing the article about Pulse in the Times–had already fired off a letter to Apple demanding that the app be taken down.

“The Pulse News Reader app, makes commercial use of the NYTimes.com and Boston.com RSS feeds, in violation of their Terms of Use,” wrote Times lawyer Richard Samson to Apple on June 3. “Thus, the use of our content is unlicensed. The app also frames the NYTimes.com and Boston.com websites in violation of their respective Terms of Use.”

Sources at the Times said that while there are many other similar readers for online news that do exactly the same thing, Pulse’s combined framing and use of the paper’s RSS feed for commercial gain–as well as, let’s be frank, its popularity–caused execs to make what looks like a pretty boneheaded move.

(Could they have called the pair first? Of course they could have, but they did not.)

So, after the Times lawyer wrote Apple, Apple wrote Kothari and Gupta, telling them of the removal of Pulse from the App Store: “The New York Times Company believes your application named ‘Pulse News Reader’ infringes The New York Times Company’s rights.”

Today, though, the app was suddenly back up with no comment from Apple.

A Times spokesperson said this might be a mistake and that the media giant did not know what had happened.

Neither did Gupta and Kothari, who said the app on sale now is the same as the old one, although they had submitted a new version without the Times as a default earlier today.

“It’s a mystery,” said Gupta. “Although it is sad that we were off the App Store right when people might have heard about us.”

The next step? Who knows?

UPDATE: Sources close to the situation said that the Pulse iPad app was reposted because the new version submitted earlier today does not automatically include the Times properties and that older versions sold will soon be updated.

Other sources also noted that the Times has had issues with many other third-party news readers in the past, though not one as visible as Pulse.

And it remains to be seen if Pulse’s creators face other irked content owners or not.

In any case, one thing is still certain: Like its creators, the innovative Pulse is sweet, and it is on sale for $3.99 at iTunes.

For now, that is.

Until the next twisty development, here’s the video interview of Kothari and Gupta:

[ See post to watch video ]

[Photo by All Things Digital intern Drake Martinet--taken before the recent controversy.]

Pulse iPad App Gets Steve Jobs's Praise in Morning…Then Booted From App Store Hours Later After NYT Complains

Kara Swisher — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 07:53:45 +0000

Yesterday morning, the pair of Stanford University graduate students who made the hot news-reading iPad app, Pulse News Reader, were ecstatic to be mentioned first–for being among the most promising developers for the new tablet device–by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in his keynote speech at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

But by the afternoon, that flush of entrepreneurial success had turned sour, after Apple (AAPL) informed the two that Pulse was being pulled from the App Store after it received a written notice from the New York Times Company (NYT) declaring that “The New York Times Company believes your application named ‘Pulse News Reader’ infringes The New York Times Company’s rights.”

In an unusual coincidence, the Times Web site was on prominent display on a huge screenshot of the iPad during Jobs’s speech.

Ironically, the Times wrote a big wet kiss about Pulse last week in a blog post titled “The iPad Pulse Reader Scales the Charts,” by tech writer Brad Stone.

“Pulse is a stylish and easy-to-use news aggregator,” wrote Stone. “News organizations still puzzling over their iPad strategies can perhaps derive some hope from Pulse’s success–or at least its price tag.”

No longer. Pulse was down completely by 6:30 pm PT last night.

Reads a notice on iTunes now: “Your request could not be completed. The item you’ve requested is not currently available in the U.S. store.”

“I don’t blame Apple, because they have to respond when contacted by lawyers from the Times,” said Akshay Kothari, a 23-year-old student of well-known Silicon Valley investor Michael Dearing’s Launch Pad class at Stanford, of the letter the media giant sent to Apple (which is below, along with the take-down notice).

“But it was definitely a roller coaster of a day.”

In fact, it has been all up for the past four weeks, since Kothari and 22-year-old Ankit Gupta released the Pulse iPad app, creating it for the class, which requires students to develop and put out a product.

Both are at Stanford’s Institute of Design and created a company called Alphonso Labs.

The app was quickly approved after about four weeks of development. Since then, it has taken off strongly, downloaded 35,000 times at a $4 price tag, even rising to No. 1 in paid apps several times, as noted prominently in the lead of the Times story.

Kothari said that the pair plan to contact Apple in the morning and take steps to remove Times material from the feeds.

It is not immediately clear why they need to, since Pulse draws from publicly available Times RSS feeds, as do many other apps, and does no scraping.

In fact, Pulse is little more than a really well-designed RSS reader, which is what the Times said it was in its write-up. You add feeds to it and it visualizes them in a way that’s easy to get through.

The Times story did have one ominous-in-retrospect note about Pulse: “It also lets people easily share articles through Twitter and Facebook–bypassing the individual sharing tools presented by each news site.”

But Pulse is pretty basic and is similar to many others readers.

In the New York Times case, as with others, one view is plain text and only shows whatever the Times puts in its RSS feed, which isn’t much. And its Web view seems to be just an in-app browser that takes you straight to the page that is in the link with the RSS feed.

You can see both here below:

The Times lawyer, Richard Samson, sees it differently, apparently, since it is a paid app rather than a free one, noting in the Times June 3 notice to Apple, which came two days after the newspaper’s article about Pulse:

“The Pulse News Reader app, makes commercial use of the NYTimes.com and Boston.com RSS feeds, in violation of their Terms of Use*. Thus, the use of our content is unlicensed. The app also frames the NYTimes.com and Boston.com websites in violation of their respective Terms of Use.”

Samson also complained about how Pulse was marketed in the App Store, a screenshot of which you can see below:

BoomTown sent an email to Samson, as well as to Apple, for comment.

Until I hear back, here is the email from the App store to Pulse, including the letter from the Times lawyer–I removed personal email addresses and phone numbers, along with the number of the Pulse case Apple gave it–as well as a lovely video of Pulse in action:

From: App Store Notices
Date: Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 3:09 PM
Subject: Apple Inc. (our ref# APPXXXX)
To: Akshay Kothari

Dear Sir or Madam,

**Please include APPXXXX in the subject line of any future correspondence on this matter.**

We received a written notice from The New York Times Company that The New York Times Company believes your application named “Pulse News Reader” infringes The New York Times Company’s rights. A copy of the notice is attached.

Accordingly, we have pulled your application from the App Store. Please contact The New York Times Company directly regarding any questions or concerns you may have.

For any technical questions, please contact iTunes Connect: www.apple.com/itunes/go/itunesconnect/contactus.

Thank you for your immediate attention.

Sincerely,

? iTunes Music Marketing & IP Legal | Apple | 1 Infinite Loop | Cupertino | CA | 95014 | AppStoreNotices@apple.com

Begin forwarded message:

From: “Samson, Richard S”
Date: June 3, 2010 10:51:23 AM PDT
To:”‘appstorenotices@apple.com’”
Cc: “Samuels, Robert”, “Manning, Michael”
Subject: infringing “Pulse News Reader” iPad app

Hello-

I am writing again, on behalf of The Boston Globe, Boston.com and The New York Times Company, about the infringing iPad app, “Pulse News Reader” produced by Alphonso Labs Inc. (please see pertinent details, link and screenshots below).

The infringing app is available on the iTunes store here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pulse-news-reader/id371088673?mt=8

The Pulse News Reader app, makes commercial use of the NYTimes.com and Boston.com RSS feeds, in violation of their Terms of Use*. Thus, the use of our content is unlicensed. The app also frames the NYTimes.com and Boston.com websites in violation of their respective Terms of Use.

I note that the app is delivered with the NYTimes.com RSS feed preloaded, which is prominently featured in the screen shots used to sell the app on iTunes.

I hereby declare, under penalty of perjury, that the information contained in this notification is accurate to the best of our knowledge and that I am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyrights and trademarks of The Boston Globe, Boston.com and The New York Times Company. We hereby demand that you immediately and permanently remove this app from the iTunes site.

Please let me know if you need any further information or have any questions. I can be reached directly at this Email or at the phone number below.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Richard Samson

Richard Samson
Senior Counsel
The New York Times Company
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, New York 10018

* NYTimes.com Terms of Service, paragraph 2.2: “The Service and its Contents are protected by copyright pursuant to U.S. and international copyright laws. You may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce (except as provided in Section 2.3 of these Terms of Service), create new works from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of the Content or the Service (including software) in whole or in part.”

* Boston.com Terms of Service, paragraph 2.2: “The Service and its Contents are protected by copyright pursuant to U.S.and international copyright laws. You may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce (except as provided in Section 2.3 of this Agreement), create new works from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of the Content or the Service (including software) in whole or in part.”

[All Things Digital intern Drake Martinet contributed to this report.]

In the Kno: Kakai to Demo Student-Focused Tablet at D8

Kara Swisher — Fri, 14 May 2010 07:01:50 +0000

Recently, BoomTown uncloaked one of Silicon Valley’s hotter “stealth” start-ups, called Kakai.

My take: An advanced tablet device and related service aimed at students.

Today, Kakai is taking another step out of the shadows by changing its name to Kno, which is short for knowledge.

You can see its new logo above–and on the new Kno Web site is this message: “Our stealth days are almost over! You’ll need to wait a few more days to really Kno.”

Actually, you will be able to see exactly what the company has come up with at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference, where it will be demoing the Kno for the first time in public.

The Linux-based foldable double-screened device is designed to feel like a mix of notebook and textbook.

Gesture-based and portable, Kno will be aimed directly at the education niche. The endeavor goes well beyond the tablet itself by including robust software and a seamless Web site to deliver course material, allowing for note-taking and offering other audio and video capabilities.

Founded almost exactly a year ago, Kakai had been one of the start-ups in Silicon Valley in the deepest of stealth modes, despite a panoply of high-profile players involved.

As I wrote:

“In simplest terms, it’s essentially a Kindle for students.

But that’s just the tip of what is perhaps one of the more ambitious and innovative efforts on the part of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who already has one hit under his belt.”

I was referring to Osman Rashid, whose other start-up is fast-growing online textbook rental leader Chegg.

And you can pretty much draw a straight line from Chegg to Kakai.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Kakai/Kno has raised almost $10 million in funding from prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

In addition, Marc Andreessen is now on Kakai’s board.

Rashid, who founded Kakai with Babur Habib, has worked in companies related to the consumer electronics industry.

You can check out their efforts on June 2 on this site, when we will be providing ongoing coverage of D8, where we will also be featuring four other demos of cool new innovations, along with interviews of top tech and media execs.

In the Kno: Kakai to Demo Student-Focused Tablet at D8

Kara Swisher — Fri, 14 May 2010 07:01:00 +0000

Recently, BoomTown uncloaked one of Silicon Valley’s hotter “stealth” start-ups, called Kakai.

My take: An advanced tablet device and related service aimed at students.

Today, Kakai is taking another step out of the shadows by changing its name to Kno, which is short for knowledge.

You can see its new logo above–and on the new Kno Web site is this message: “Our stealth days are almost over! You’ll need to wait a few more days to really Kno.”

Actually, you will be able to see exactly what the company has come up with at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference, where it will be demoing the Kno for the first time in public.

The Linux-based foldable double-screened device is designed to feel like a mix of notebook and textbook.

Founded almost exactly a year ago, Kakai had been one of the start-ups in Silicon Valley in the deepest of stealth modes, despite a panoply of high-profile players involved.

As I wrote:

“In simplest terms, it’s essentially a Kindle for students.

But that’s just the tip of what is perhaps one of the more ambitious and innovative efforts on the part of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who already has one hit under his belt.”

I was referring to Osman Rashid, whose other start-up is fast-growing online textbook rental leader Chegg.

And you can pretty much draw a straight line from Chegg to Kakai.

In addition, Marc Andreessen is now on Kakai’s board.

Rashid, who founded Kakai with Babur Habib, has worked in companies related to the consumer electronics industry.

Exclusive: Kakai, Stealthy No More–It's a Kindle for Students and Much More

Kara Swisher — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:00:35 +0000

Founded last May, Kakai is one of the start-ups in Silicon Valley in the deepest of stealth modes, despite a panoply of high-profile players involved.

But while there have been sketchy reports suggesting that the start-up may be working on some kind of e-reader, BoomTown has found out exactly what it’s up to via reports of a concept video the company has shown potential investors and interviews with several sources close to the situation.

In simplest terms, it’s essentially a Kindle for students.

But that’s just the tip of what is perhaps one of the more ambitious and innovative efforts on the part of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who already has one hit under his belt.

That would be Osman Rashid, whose other start-up is fast-growing online textbook rental leader Chegg.

Chegg recently hired former Yahoo (YHOO) exec Dan Rosensweig as its CEO, taking over from Rashid, who wanted to focus on Kakai.

Interestingly, you can pretty much draw a straight line from Chegg to Kakai.

But rather than focusing on making an old business better via the Web, as Chegg does, Kakai is plunging right into the competitive tablet market that now includes Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Samsung, Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and, reportedly, Google (GOOG).

While these efforts, including Apple’s iPad, for example, are mostly aimed at broader media markets, sources said Kakai’s effort focuses solely on the educational niche, offering a Linux-based foldable double-screened device.

Gesture-based and portable, it is designed to feel like a mix of a notepad and a book.

While Kakai declined to comment, sources said a key part of the endeavor goes well beyond the tablet itself by including robust software and seamless Web site to deliver course material, allowing for note-taking and offering other audio and video capabilities.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Kakai, which is nearing 50 employees, is now prepping the device to be ready for a demo in several months.

It’s paying for all this with almost $10 million in funding from prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

In addition, Marc Andreessen is now on Kakai’s board.

Rashid, who founded Kakai with Babur Habib, has worked in companies related to the consumer electronics industry.

Until he reveals more specifics, though, don’t expect much from Kakai’s homepage (see below), which has a very funny trio of jokes that play with the company name, asking “Which Kakai are you looking for?”

The possibilities include Kakai Bautista, a singer-comedienne in the Philippines; Neferirkare Kakai, third Pharaoh of Egypt during the Fifth dynasty; and Kakai, an Austrian pumpkin that yields valuable oil that promotes prostate health.”

Not looking for the singer, the pharaoh or the pumpkin?,” reads the bottom of the Kakai homepage. “Well, we wish we could tell you more, but you’ll just have to cool your jets.”

Perhaps now it’s time to start heating them up.

The Huffington Post Goes to Harvard Business School–As a Case Study, That Is!

Kara Swisher — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:17:12 +0000

While a lot of people doubted Arianna Huffington when she co-founded her eponymous blog site many years ago, she can add another I-told-you-so to the pile, after today’s induction of the Huffington Post as an official Harvard Business School case study.

Huffington, as well we HuffPo CEO Eric Hippeau have been at the school today, answering questions from the 900 students to whom the case study has been presented.

While it will not be immediately published, as others have been, due to the company wanting to keep some information private, Huffington said the overall theme was how some enterprises create opportunity when other see problems.

“The whole concept is about disruption in the media business,” said Huffington, who knows the topic well, given content blogs like hers are often blamed for disintermediating the media business.

Huffington actually got hooked up with Harvard professor Tom Eisenmann via his wife, well-known tech and media investment banker Jill Greenthal, at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference last June, where Huffington appeared onstage in an interview with me.

Eisenmann, who co-heads a course at HBS called “The Entrepreneurial Manager,” said he had long wanted to profile the innovative start-up.

“They’re ambitious,” he noted, in terms of revenue and editorial goals. “And, for the students, it’s fun to have a case that is more familiar and current.”

Eisenmann’s team started collecting data–about one-third history, one-third on the current business and one-third about competitors–from the HuffPo execs and staff in November.

While there have been many case studies of digital companies, Eisenmann said the point of this study is to allow students to look at key decision-making moments that a fast-growing start-up has to face.

“There is always a series of key decisions,” he said. “Our goal is to ask the students to find out if they were the right ones or not.”

Indeed, and while Huffington and her team keep making them, here’s a the video of her at D7 in an interview with Washington Post (WPO) publisher Katharine Weymouth:

[ See post to watch video ]

Almost Famous: Mehdi Maghsoodnia of BookRenter

Drake Martinet — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:35:13 +0000

A feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.

This week: We took a coffee break (and made an interview and video) with Mehdi Maghsoodnia, CEO of BookRenter, a company that claims to be “numero uno” in online textbook rentals, a bone of contention between it and larger competitor Chegg.

Who: Mehdi Maghsoodnia

What: Chief Executive Officer

Why: BookRenter is in a battle with competitor Chegg. Mehdi freely admits that Chegg holds more market share, but says his model has the staying power to outlast it. Presumably, Chegg begs to differ.

Where: bookrenter.com (Web site); @bookrenter (Twitter); Campbell, Calif. (analog place)

Who else: BookRenter is in a battle for the hearts and minds of college students everywhere. On one side, it competes with college bookstores, Amazon (AMZN), and a trial-rental program from Barnes & Noble (BKS). Once a customer goes the way of rental rather than purchase, BookRenter has to fight with Chegg, the textbook service now led by longtime Silicon Valley exec Dan Rosensweig and whose eggshell has been stuffed with $144 million in venture funding.

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile

Worst Job Ever: I used to sweep the grounds for a hotel in San Francisco, called Roberts at the Beach Motel (it’s still there). It was right next to the zoo, and the wind would blow all the dust, sand and junk into the hotel, and my job was just to sweep the floor. That was not at all fun.

Geek Crush: I’m a fanatic in terms of business models, and I track the careers of people I admire. I keep track of Maynard Webb, who used to be the COO at eBay (EBAY). I track people with clever minds and clever ideas.

Gadget of the Moment: I love my Apple (AAPL) iPhone–for the first time recently I traveled without my laptop. It was great. The app environment is fascinating. If you look on my phone, the apps are in two distinct sections. One is all the games that keep my kids busy, and the second category is functional things for me. News feeders, banking…and I watch all kinds of videos on the TED app when I’m traveling.

International Businessman of Mystery: I was born in Iran. Then, we moved to London. I traveled a lot and lived all over. I realized early on that a consequence of that is I’m culturally very unmarketable. It’s pretty impossible to market to me. Which, by definition, means I’m not the greatest marketer, because I don’t know what makes people want to buy things.

It’s All in the Family: I sit on the board of Nature Air, an airline in Costa Rica. It’s the first regional green airline, and it’s the family business.

Bio in 140 Characters

Mehdi grew up global, but landed in Silicon Valley. He spent time as a VC then moved to head CafePress. Now he’s CEO at BookRenter.

The Five Questions

Let’s get right into this. How are you guys different from Chegg?

When I was at CafePress, we were the biggest online t-shirt retailer in the world. We spent a lot of time getting shirts in from China, organizing them, putting them in bins, tracking them, printing them and so on. I observed how much of our management bandwidth and resources went into back-end fulfillment as a retailer. I came out of CafePress and was sitting on the venture side when I saw Chegg and BookRenter. I said, “These are two teams satisfying specific demands out there, but with totally different business models.”

Chegg was trying to do everything–taking on warehousing, buying the books, etc. There were many companies doing that, by the way. Amazon among them. The BookRenter team was clever, and they said, “Let’s flip this on its head.” Investing in a book as stock is a losing venture, because your individual investment on the book loses value over time. You also lose money on leasing the warehouse, forklifts, all of it.

At BookRenter, we have all kinds of partnerships that handle those logistics, including recent partnerships with school bookstores themselves. We are in a cyclical business, where maybe four months out of the year we are handling books, and, in the other eight, the books are in the students’ hands. Our costs adjust within those cycles as quickly as changes happen.

How do you track and price all the books when you don’t own them?

So, most of the business is done today on an inventory capitalization model. That is to say, you have a position on what books you have. Everyone buys books and then has to find a match for that book in a rental relationship.

BookRenter takes a very different approach. Our software system creates rental relationships in real time, which means it figures out prices and availability for every new rental. If you come to us and say you want to rent a biology book, the system turns around and queries our suppliers and decides who will be able to get us that book at the lowest overall cost. Our cost algorithm is complex and takes into account things like the reliability of the provider for meeting its commitment on that book.

Once the determination has been made, only then do we take a position on that book and add it to inventory. I can offer as many books as [Chegg] or anyone else, because I’m offering that book virtually. I only pay when I have a paying customer.

You’ve got a lot to say about how you are going to gain on Chegg. Is this really a market that is worth the fight?

Oh yes, the market is growing very fast. We saw 300 percent growth year over year in January. The textbook business is a $9-billion-a-year industry. Someday we hope that a third of that is rentals. The value proposition is there. Renting is cheaper than buying. It’s even cheaper than buying used. Eighteen months from now, we are still going to be a smaller player, but we have the longevity.

Do you do this for the competition, or is it something else that drives you?

I’ll be honest. The best possible outcome for us is that Chegg stays prosperous. Both of us are fighting the same battle in terms of converting some of the buying market to a renting market. So, we are all in the same market development boat. But what I really like about this is the process. I see our business as a 0.9 version, so there are so many things we can still work on.

Organizationally and market-wise, it’s a very exciting thing to design a system for. You have to balance the needs of all kinds of partners. It’s like playing multidimensional chess with very good players. It’s just fun. Also, the growth factor is great. If I had to solve these problems in a business that wasn’t growing, that’s not a lot of fun.

I’ve been there man, that’s deadly. You put a lot of intellectual work into it and you can’t get anyone to care.

As a current student, I’ve got to ask: How have you dealt with undoubtedly the biggest customer problem–highlighting?

[Laughs] You know, that was a real issue early on. Our early policy was no highlighting at all, of any kind. It turned out that students didn’t seem to mind [the highlighting], and in fact many liked it. It was like someone had already done the work of showing them the important parts of the book. Today, we will only charge for damage if there’s been a real issue, like, someone spilled water all over the book and really ruined it.

The In Living Color Interview

[ See post to watch video ]

BoomTown Visits Geeks in Mexico

Kara Swisher — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:37:35 +0000

Inexplicably, BoomTown has been invited to Mexico to give a keynote speech for the Simposium Internacional de Sistemas Computacionales y Tecnologías de Información, or SISCTI 35.

That translates to the International Symposium of Computer Systems and Information Technology–or, more simply put, a bunch of nerds in Mexico who want to know all about the Apple (AAPL) iPad.

The Symposium is held at one of Mexico’s premier tech and business schools, Tecnológico de Monterrey, where I am set to fill a gathering of college students in on all the trends of Silicon Valley and in the digital space.

Last year’s speaker was David Pogue, the tech reviewer of the New York Times, who often breaks into elaborate song when speaking of gadgets. I will try to refrain and stick with my basic punditry and snarky pontificating.

You can check out SISCTI’s Facebook page here.

In any case, I will be out of pocket tomorrow and Friday traveling and visiting the school, so behave while I am gone.

Viral Video: "That's Why I Chose Yale" (Definitely Not to Learn How to Make Musical Videos)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:06:20 +0000

Hey kids, let’s put on a show!

But in the case of Yale University’s newest admissions video, maybe not so much.

An extraordinarily awkward effort to capture the attention of the Facebook generation, it appears to be a kind of homage to television hits “Glee” and “High School Musical” and is explained as:

“An introduction to undergraduate life at Yale College. The project was an independent collaboration between Yale undergraduates and recent alumni working in the admissions office. All filming, editing, and vocal recording was done on Yale’s campus exclusively by Yale students.”

That group went further, noting, “last fall a group of yalies set out to reinvent the genre of dull admissions videos. they created something…a little different.”

And different it surely is, as you will see, clocking in at close to 17 minutes in length. At times campy, at times innovative and at most times simply painful, people are still watching, with close to 400,000 views on YouTube so far.

The best moment is at the end with the line: “‘Cats’ was better.”

It was, but you be the judge:

Memo to Apple: You Might Want to Dispatch an iPad Team to Stanford U ASAP!

Kara Swisher — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:22:25 +0000

Earlier this week, BoomTown dispatched intrepid All Things Digital intern Drake Martinet to the campus of Stanford University–located in the heart of Silicon Valley and where he is a student–right after Apple launched its new iPad tablet computer.

His mission: To find out if fellow students at the famous institution of higher learning–presumably one of the big consumer targets for Apple (AAPL)–were going to go out and get the mobile, multimedia device asap.

While there were no dopey jokes about the iPad name, it turned out: Not so much.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Bill Gates Joins the Oversharing Generation: He Tweets, He Pokes and Now, He Blogs!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:00:08 +0000

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates–who has been devoting most of this time to philanthropic work via the Gates Foundation–has just launched an ambitious blog and information site.

He is calling it “The Gates Notes: An Inside Look at Global Matters,” but BoomTown has officially nicknamed the site–which you can see on a screen grab below–All Things B(ill) or perhaps the more hip-hoppy All Things G(ates) today.

Here’s a note about the effort, sent out today:

Today, Bill Gates launched The Gates Notes (www.gatesnotes.com), a website designed to share his learning and excitement with his new foundation work along with his personal interests in areas such as energy and the environment. Bill has been spending time learning a lot from thought leaders in their fields. He has been taking notes and sending emails, and the site is a collection of the conversations, books, articles, trips and people who have inspired and informed Bill. The site is designed to encourage people to dig deeper–to explore questions from multiple angles. Bill will update the content on an ongoing basis, and we also plan to add some features in the near future to make the site more interactive such as RSS and commenting/discussions.

And in a welcoming note on the site, Gates writes:

Since leaving my fulltime job at Microsoft to dedicate more time to our foundation, a lot of people have asked me what I’m working on. It often feels like I’m back in school, as I spend a lot of my time learning about issues I’m passionate about.

I’m fortunate because the people I’m working with and learning from are true experts in their fields. I take a lot of notes, and often share them and my own thoughts on the subject with others through email, so I can learn from them and expand the conversation.

I thought it would be interesting to share these conversations more widely with a website, in the hope of getting more people thinking and learning about the issues I think are interesting and important. So, welcome to the Gates Notes.

The site has a spare and elegant look–dare I say, it looks as if it could have been designed by Apple (AAPL)? Interactivity is limited at this point and social networking nonexistent.

The site includes several sections: “What I’m Thinking About” (cheery things today like pandemic response and Haiti), “What I’m Learning” (He loves the book “Super Freakonomics” and lectures from global health professor Hans Rosling), “My Travels” (a video about a recent trip to see health clinics in India), “Curious Classrooms” (questions Gates answers from students), and “Infrequently Asked Questions” (more questions he answers).

Yesterday, Gates officially joined Twitter and restarted his Facebook account.

This has all been in anticipation of this site’s launch, which appears to be part of an effort by Gates to raise awareness of what he has been up to since he stepped down from day-to-day involvement at Microsoft (MSFT) in mid-2008 and stepped up his ambitious philanthropic work.

Here’s the homepage screen (click on it to make it larger):