Well, it wasn’t as tasty as free food this week at Yahoo, but in her second official all-hands meeting with employees — now reportedly called “Friday FYI” — new CEO Marissa Mayer rolled out another new Google-inspired Q&A tool to get the company talking about what matters.

The system allows anyone at the Silicon Valley Internet giant to post questions, ideas or suggestions on a variety of topics, which can then be voted up and down.

Actually, it’s been in use internally at — you guessed it — Google for some time, and is even available to the general public in a product called Google Moderator. Mayer has been importing a lot of corporate practices from the search giant where she worked for her entire career — from free food to better swag to these weekly confabs to, now, its method of hearing from the staff.

While Yahoo previously used its Messenger product to garner questions for its less-regular all-hands meetings, this is apparently a new interactive tool built by the company’s engineers (and not using Google’s free APIs, as far as I can tell).

It seems to be working fine, and there were a number of questions that bubbled up.

That included one about Mayer’s thoughts on her current executive team — which is still largely inherited from a series of previous administrations, despite some departures recently — and also how her regime will hold them accountable.

Algorithmic accountability among Yahoo execs? Things have changed!

Even better, declared the questioner of that particular query, to whoops from the audience: “I want an honest answer!”

But Mayer was diplomatic, only saying she was “pleasantly surprised” by the top execs. She also noted that the management would have quarterly goals that are transparent to the whole company. (I won’t say they do that at Google, but — ahem — they do that at Google.)

Mayer went through a number of questions in a precise and cut-the-mustard manner that employees seem to be enjoying, overall.

One very voted-up question was about leaks to the media, in particular to this Web site, and whether a board mole hunt has been successful (obviously not). Also, of course, what she was going to do about the situation.

Apparently, Mayer said she won’t be tracking down leakers, and that this new openness will solve the problem.

Good idea, but all that lovely transparency also needs some pretty good products if it’s going to work.

And product focus most definitely appears to be the path now. Mayer also showed off the new Yahoo Mail — which has been under revamp for a while, and was started under former Chief Product Officer Blake Irving — with some good response from Yahoos (last week, it was a look-see at its recent iteration of its IntoNow video offering).

There are other interface changes that have been in the works too, likely under the direction of Tim Parsey, Yahoo’s head designer, who also came on under Irving.

In fact, a lot of what Irving had pushed, including keeping advertising technology in-house and also maintaining control of key monetization engines, is the likeliest path going forward. The ad tech outsourcing deals, pushed by the interim CEO and his strategy head Jim Heckman, are apparently gone (and so are Levinsohn and now Heckman).

Also of interest to many at the company is the increased involvement of co-founder David Filo, who has become much less quiet under Mayer. I’d expect him to report directly to her — he’s actually been reporting for years to a variety of product and tech execs, despite owning more than six percent of Yahoo.

Thus, here’s my question for the new Q&A system for next week: So, when’s Jerry Yang showing back up?

Sadly for me, as it’s a product I find super useful, the Summify service will be shut down, according to a blog post describing the deal this morning.

Instead, five members of the Summify team will be joining Twitter’s growth team in San Francisco to help work on its products “to explore ways to help people connect and engage with relevant, timely news.”

Summify had started as an email service and extended to an iPhone app. One of its more novel features was that it focused on giving users less news instead of more, by sending users daily email summaries of only the most important stories. At the end of each day’s list it said “You’re done!”

The service picked those stories through a combination of how many times each user’s contacts had recently shared them on Twitter, Facebook and Google Reader, and how many times they had been shared on those networks globally.

Summify disabled new registrations today and dropped some features in anticipation of shutting down the service at an unspecified date.

Summify, which was started in Romania and based in Vancouver, had raised seed funding from investors including Accel Partners, Rob Glaser and Stewart Butterfield.

Remedy Health Media, a New York-based health information company, has bought HealthCentral, a start-up that offers online clinical and patient tools, community and content in a variety of topic areas.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the Arlington, Va.-based HealthCentral has raised $50 million from investors such as the Carlyle Group, IAC/InterActiveCorp, Polaris Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital. Allen & Co., which was HealthCentral’s financial adviser for the transaction, was also an investor.

The market for online-based information about health has been a fast-growing one, but it’s still a nascent arena.

Here’s the official press release:

Remedy Health Media Acquires HealthCentral: Creates Industry-Leading Health Information and Technology Platform

NEW YORK, NY – Remedy Health Media, America’s fastest-growing health information and technology company, today announced its acquisition of HealthCentral, a leading provider of online clinical and patient community resources and tools that help millions of patients and caregivers take control of their health and improve their well-being. The acquisition brings together two companies with the shared mission of empowering patients and caregivers with the information and applications needed to efficiently navigate the healthcare landscape to receive better health outcomes. The acquisition is expected to close this week. Terms were not disclosed.

“This acquisition means Remedy now provides the health information industry’s leading portfolio of digital, mobile, and point-of-care information and technology products,” said Remedy Chief Executive Officer, Mike Cunnion.

HealthCentral’s CEO, Christopher M. Schroeder, adds, “This combination creates real opportunities for innovation in an industry segment that is growing rapidly and seeking new solutions. All of us at HealthCentral are very excited that the union of the two companies and the strength, scope, and reach of the new Remedy will be a unique force for better health and wellness.”

With the addition of HealthCentral, Remedy Health Media creates a market-leading platform for healthcare audiences seeking proprietary information and technology to manage their health concerns on their terms as well as marketing partners who want to connect with patients and caregivers on a number of platforms: online, in doctors’ offices, pharmacies, and through their mobile devices. The new Remedy Health Media will influence more than 150 million consumers annually. The company’s reach now includes 23 million unique monthly visitors to its health websites, more than 17 million patients and caregivers at pharmacy counters nationwide, a 20-million member customer database, and a network of more than 600,000 physicians.

“With the acquisition of HealthCentral, we’ve dramatically increased our online reach, sales capacity and our ability to create industry leading health information and technology applications,” notes Cunnion. “The combination creates exciting opportunities to provide even more value to our audiences, customers and strategic partners.”

Remedy Health Media is a Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) company; a leading global private investment firm focused on the information, education, media, communications and business services industries. “Communications growth will be driven by the convergence of technologies in digital and mobile platforms,” said David Bainbridge, Managing Director, Veronis Suhler Stevenson. “Nowhere is this more evident than in the health and wellness sector where the ability to access accurate information is paramount.”

HealthCentral is backed by leading interactive media and technology investors IAC/InterActiveCorp, Polaris Ventures, Sequoia Capital, The Carlyle Group and Allen & Company. Notes Alan Spoon of Polaris Ventures, “We are thrilled to join forces with Mike and the Remedy team. This combination is a unique opportunity to create the largest and most innovative platform for health seekers looking to take action on their terms, and connecting them with our partners and clients.”

Schroeder will remain involved in the business as a consultant to Remedy and the board of directors, and has been named an Advisor to Polaris Ventures.

In a blog post by one of its execs, titled “Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5,” Adobe said what had already been reported: That it would no longer be developing its well-known Flash for mobile devices.

Here’s the key graph:

“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.”

Last night, reports surfaced that the high-profile software company — whose Flash technology has been a flagship product — was halting development on the mobile version of its browser plug-in.

Now, Adobe will focus its PC Web browser business on tools that allow Flash developers to create mobile apps by packaging their code to run on Adobe’s AIR platform.

The move has big implications for Adobe going forward and also for mobile device makers, such as Google and Research In Motion. But not Apple.

As Ina Fried wrote:

“The move, if true, would be a major blow to Android device makers, who have long touted Flash compatibility as a key competitive advantage over Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

It would also mark a posthumous vindication for former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple’s mobile products.”

Turns out Jobs was prescient, as usual.

Here is the full version of the Adobe blog:

Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5

POSTED BY DANNY WINOKUR, VICE PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER, INTERACTIVE DEVELOPMENT AT ADOBE ON NOVEMBER 9, 2011 5:59 AM IN BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS, CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS, DEVELOPERS, VIDEO

Adobe is all about enabling designers and developers to create the most expressive content possible, regardless of platform or technology. For more than a decade, Flash has enabled the richest content to be created and deployed on the web by reaching beyond what browsers could do. It has repeatedly served as a blueprint for standardizing new technologies in HTML. Over the past two years, we’ve delivered Flash Player for mobile browsers and brought the full expressiveness of the web to many mobile devices.

However, HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.

These changes will allow us to increase investment in HTML5 and innovate with Flash where it can have most impact for the industry, including advanced gaming and premium video. Flash Player 11 for PC browsers just introduced dozens of new features, including hardware accelerated 3D graphics for console-quality gaming and premium HD video with content protection. Flash developers can take advantage of these features, and all that our Flash tooling has to offer, to reach more than a billion PCs through their browsers and to package native apps with AIR that run on hundreds of millions of mobile devices through all the popular app stores, including the iTunes App Store, Android Market, Amazon Appstore for Android and BlackBerry App World.

We are already working on Flash Player 12 and a new round of exciting features which we expect to again advance what is possible for delivering high definition entertainment experiences. We will continue to leverage our experience with Flash to accelerate our work with the W3C and WebKit to bring similar capabilities to HTML5 as quickly as possible, just as we have done with CSS Shaders. And, we will design new features in Flash for a smooth transition to HTML5 as the standards evolve so developers can confidently invest knowing their skills will continue to be leveraged.

We are super excited about the next generations of HTML5 and Flash. Together they offer developers and content publishers great options for delivering compelling web and application experiences across PCs and devices. There is already amazing work being done that is pushing the newest boundaries, and we can’t wait to see what is still yet to come!

I am here at Yahoo HQ in Sunnyvale, Calif., to check out “Product Runway,” which is the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s attempt to show that it can still innovate.

First and foremost is the launch of Livestand, a personalized news reader that is similar to Flipboard and a variety of other rivals, including — soon — Google.

It’s Yahoo’s attempt to present a business-as-usual feel — amidst a long and agonizing and very public strategic overview that might also include the sale of the company (or not!), in the wake of the recent firing of its last CEO, Carol Bartz.

It has caused a lot of trauma inside Yahoo, which can’t help with innovation.

But we press on!

In other words, despite the three-ring circus going on outside, Yahoo wants you to know it is still hard at work.

We begin:

10:35 am: As the strains of U2 die out, Yahoo Chief Product Officer Blake Irving takes the stage, which is actually set up in the company’s cafeteria. I can smell lunch being made nearby and I am hungry.

Apt — Yahoo certainly needs to show off a lot of cool stuff or its fate will be cooked.

No pressure, Blake!

“Personally, I am more bullish on Yahoo today,” he said. “What is Yahoo? Simple. It’s the premier digital media company. Period. Stop.”

Oh, if it were only that easy.

10:46 am: Irving pulls out his favorite slide, which looks like a chemistry test. It lists the various elements of the product strategy, with things like personalization, mobile, premium.

Now to Livestand, which is available on the Apple iTunes app store right now.

Don’t all rush at once!

Irving notes that Livestand is more than just an app — it is a platform.

In other words, Yahoo wants to help publishers publish online. Kind of a Facebook of content.

If Yahoo can pull it off, that is. (And, of course, unless Facebook decides to do the same.)

10:50 am: Livestand is an HTML5 “personalized living magazine.”

“This is the way Web pages are going to look,” declares Irving. Which is to say, heavy on photos, swoopy navigation, a television screen-like interface.

Irving uses the example of Surfer magazine, which is a good idea since waves always look pretty. Especially in a video-in-frame with Kelly Slater in Hawaii.

But, in essence, for anyone who has used Flipboard for years now, none of this is entirely different.

10:54 am: The look of what would be the Yahoo News page is actually much more interesting, since it is clearly a whole lot better than the Web page.

Irving also shows off a “living ad” — in this case, an unusually snuggly couple on a couch. It is cool, but creepy.

When launched, the ad has tap points. Irving — naughtily declaring about what is an ad, “I’ll tap that” — taps the lady’s butt, which would also have been my move. We learn about the jeans, of course.

10:58 am: Irving then shows off the ability to add feeds.

Next, something called “Cocktails.” First up, a developer tool called Yahoo Mojito and Yahoo Manhattan, which is a hosting service. The company will open-source both the technologies in 2012.

Irving brings up Mike Kerns, VP of Personalization & Social, who came to Yahoo when it bought the innovative sports fan site called Citizen Sports.

“We like to ship sh#t,” he notes. I like Mike Kerns immediately.

Kerns intros C.O.R.E. No, it is not a secret government organization that takes out fussy bloggers, who might be more critical than Yahoo execs would like.

In fact, it stands for “content optimization relevance engine.” Of course it does.

Simply put, C.O.R.E. is trying to link the right content or whatever to the right consumers and who likes what. Ladies like this, dudes like this. Apparently, “men of multiple ages” enjoy stories about golden chicken.

11:11 am: Kerns is moving on to social, especially its integration with Facebook. While much touted, sources tell me it has gone slower than expected in terms of use, but that it is improving.

Kerns talks about the idea of matching content to conversations to interests and, well, you know — the now exhausting world of modern media consumption.

The world in which you can no longer simply read an article and enjoy it — you must comment, share, discuss, parse, tweet.

Does anyone remember when you read something cool and just kept it to yourself?

Forget it, pal! It is a full-information society now and you better get on board and start poking your friends about every little thing.

(Personally, I plan on becoming a hermit in 3 … 2 … 1.)

11:18 am: Now Tim Parsey, who is Yahoo’s design head. He is hands down the most delightful exec the company has had in a while, mostly because he loves to smirk adorkably.

He shows off Yahoo’s first original design, which was a dull list. And then another really bad logo. But Parsey loves it! It’s kitschy!

Smirk attack!

Parsey moves into what has to happen now, which is to deliver a much more emotional experience and a much better designed one. He uses words like “humanism.”

Say what? He is right — Yahoo has for too long completely ignored design as an important part of the experience.

That’s why Flipboard was so quickly touted — it was pretty and fun. And it is why everyone is simply forced to love Apple products.

11:22 am: Parsey even has a code for it, called REM — for rational, emotional and meaningful.

He shows off a weather app. People take photos and they can be used in the app. Then Yahoo Mail for the iPad, whic is also handsome with photos and video. Livestand, also pretty.

“Great way to differentiate,” says Parsey. He calls it “one Yahoo!” Indeed.

11:35 am: I’ll admit it. After Parsey-fest, I zoned out for a sec when IntoNow dude, Adam Cahan, comes up.

Donut emergency!

Back to IntoNow, it’s the television indexing service that Yahoo bought in April.

Essentially, more ways to watch the media — in this case, video — and do 53 other things at the very same time. Memo to humanity: We will all be paying continuous partial attention for the rest of eternity.

Like I said: Hermitage!

11:41 am: Product dude Irving is back, making a point that, despite all the public mishegas, Yahoo has been busy at innovating.

A redo of email, better search, social “Facebar” with Facebook, Flickr for Google Android.

Irving is correct — Yahoo’s engineers have been hard at work and deserve kudos for doing so, even with attrition issues, stock declines and questions about the company’s very future being debated daily.

The problem is that too many of these improvements are mostly incremental and essentially table stakes for tech companies, most of whom have introed many more significant innovations in the same time frame as Yahoo has.

Google did Android, Google+ (as well as some notable failures). Microsoft did Kinect, Windows Phone, Windows 8. Amazon did Kindle Fire. Facebook did a range of major updates, as it has grown like a weed.

And there’s Apple. You might have heard of the iPhone and the iPad.

You get my point. Yahoo’s Product Runway today is well done, but what it really needs to be is just the beginning of a take-off.

11:48 am: Now Q&A time.

The first question is what took so long to get Livestand out, the second is why should people use Livestand since Flipboard and others have already been around for a dog’s age.

I ask about design — mostly because I want Parsey to use the word “delicious” a lot — and also about all the turmoil around the company and its impact on product creation. (I decide not to mention that Yahoo blew its acquisition of the bookmarking site, Delicious, and then sold it.)

Parsey delivers on the delicious scale, noting that Yahoo must have one design experience and yet has a lot of different interfaces. In other words, it cannot be Apple, but it can feel a lot more cohesive.

Irving talks a little bit around the obvious elephant in the room — the future of Yahoo — noting that the product staff was trying to focus and forget the storm going on outside.

“We have dreams about what this company can be,” says Irving.

You and me both, brother.

12:04 pm: More questions that are too detailed for my tastes, since they have delivered lunch and I can see it and I am ravenous.

As Parsey might say: It looks deliiiiiccccious.

Now, let’s hope Yahoo can do even more tasty stuff.

Memo to Flipboard, as well as Pulse, CNN’s Zite and AOL’s Editions: You might want to make some room in the already-crowded news and social reader space, because you’re about to get some bigfoot company.

Next Wednesday, according to sources close to the situation, Yahoo will finally officially unveil its offering, called Livestand.

And perhaps as early as next week or in the weeks soon after, Google will also weigh in with its version of the genre — code-named Propeller — which also might be the product’s name. Another moniker under strong consideration: Currents.

As I have previously reported, Google Propeller is an HTML5 reader for the Apple iPad and Android — essentially a souped-up version of similar apps such as Flipboard, AOL’s Editions, Zite (which was just bought by Time Warner’s CNN) and Pulse.

All these apps are part of the drastically changing habits of media consumers, helping users better navigate numerous social and media feeds — such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as news sites and more — using handsome interfaces and touch technologies on tablet devices.

Flipboard, the most prominent and elegant of these offerings, is now available only on the Apple iPad.

Flipboard’s traction among elite users, along with its high-level design ethos and strong reviews, is why Google tried to buy the well-funded company last year, sources said.

But Flipboard — which is backed by some of tech’s biggest venture players, who have invested more than $60 million at a $200 million valuation — declined the kind offer.

At the time, sources said, Google told Flipboard execs that if it did not buy the start-up, it planned to do a version of its own.

Hence, after I heard about the product earlier this year, I dubbed it the Flipinator.

According to sources, Propeller will launch with a plethora of media partners, as well as integration into the Google+ social network. The aim of the search giant is to offer media companies easy tools for publishing content on these devices, as well as a better path to monetization.

That is essentially the same plan at Yahoo, which has been working on Livestand with hopes of it being a product that will woo publishers into tight collaboration with the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Livestand was announced by Yahoo’s now-fired CEO Carol Bartz in February, at a speech at the World Mobile Congress in Spain.

At the time, Bartz demoed a magazinelike platform that would allow publishers to put up content easily and give users the ability to personalize their selections based on search history and interests.

Bartz called it “content in context.” (You can see the demo video below.)

But while Bartz promised the product within three months, development has been slowed by its complex technologies, bugs and the need to sign on publishers.

Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer Blake Irving is pushing the product hard as a way for the company to reinvigorate its media products.

It’s not clear how many publishers Yahoo will have at launch, and neither are the distribution plans, beyond flacking it from the Web site and being present in app stores.

Google, on the other hand, has its Android platform to push out Propeller, although it all must work as well on Apple’s iPad, which is the dominant tablet on the market.

But just because both Yahoo and Google are big companies is by no means a guarantee of success — think Yahoo 360 or Google Wave or Buzz — and their lateness might be a hindrance.

And, in fact, other news reader apps are much further along. The leader, Flipboard, has already had four million downloads and 50 partnerships with leading publishers.

It also has started to introduce rich advertising products and, perhaps most importantly, has tight social integration with Twitter and Facebook.

There will be social elements on both Yahoo’s Livestand and Google’s Propeller. But news reading will be stressed more, making them more like Pulse, a tiny but highly innovative start-up.

Each of the existing apps will presumably compete by adding on more features. Pulse recently added cross-platform, cross-device syncing, while Flipboard is close to unveiling an iPhone version it has said it was working on.

Yahoo and Google PR declined comment.

Here is the Livestand demo video from February:

AllThingsD has undergone a lot of changes in the past year that Walt and I are truly proud of, and today we are posting together about changes to social media on the site.

Social media, especially Twitter, has been a major part of the AllThingsD operation since our earliest days. We have always encouraged our writers to be active on the medium — something we continue to do.

That’s why we are launching 15 new Twitter accounts that break out our coverage into categories, as on our site, and also around specialized topics we know our audience follows closely.

Now, in addition to following the main @AllThingsD Twitter account for up-to-the-second updates, our readers can follow accounts that feature only our stories about Apple, venture capital, personnel changes or mobile, to name a few. We hope readers will customize their experience so that AllThingsD can be as useful a resource as possible.

In addition to the Twitter accounts, we also have newly refreshed Facebook pages, and we’ve enabled LinkedIn sharing of our articles as part of becoming one of its recommended news sources.

You can have a look at all the new social features at our brand-new social subscribe page.

We’re adding all of these features while maintaining respect for the personal privacy and data of our readers. Therefore, all social media implementations on AllThingsD require the reader to take an explicit action to share.

You might think this level of disclosure is overboard, but we think it’s the right thing to do.

We’ve also brought on Drake Martinet to be our social media editor (Update, August 2012: Duties that are now handled by Eric Johnson).

If you want more specifics about what we are up to, I encourage you to read Drake’s post on the social media changes. He covers some of the tools and services we are using, as well as explaining a little more about the thinking that went into our new social strategy.

If you have any questions, we encourage you to tweet Eric (he’s @HeyHeyESJ on Twitter) or reach him at his email here.

Please also see our new features here by clicking this button:

See the new features

Thanks,

Kara and Walt

Recently, I went to Venice, Calif., to visit the hipster HQ of Maker Studios, a new-generation production company that has just gotten another $2.5 million in venture funding to help it make videos, mostly for YouTube.

That brings total funding from Greycroft Partners and GRP Partners to $4 million for a studio created to bring more professional original content to the Internet.

In addition, sources said, Courtney Holt, former president of Myspace Music, will begin helping Maker this summer as an adviser.

That means headier times for its co-founders Dan Zappin, Lisa Donovan and Ben Donovan, who have now definitively chosen the Web over the traditional Hollywood careers they started in.

Their strategy is not complex: Make more professional videos using better shared production tools, distribute and cross-promote them via a myriad of channels on YouTube, and make money using the Google unit’s advertising system.

There is interest in the model. Google — which has a tight relationship with Maker via encouragement and also a $100,000 grant — even bought a competitor, Next New Networks, in March.

And while Maker has a hey-kids-let’s-put-on-a-show-meets-Jon-Stewart-ironic vibe, it has garnered many hundreds of millions of views monthly and made some Web stars already, in what has amounted to a virtuous video circle.

Will it work? Who knows, but it certainly is colorful, as you will see from my video tour below, along with an interview with its founders:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110620/hey-kids-lets-put-on-a-4m-vc-funded-show-a-visit-to-the-youtube-moguls-of-maker-studios-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110615/viral-video-kashmir-stylings-on-facebook-facial-recognition/ http://allthingsd.com/20110615/viral-video-kashmir-stylings-on-facebook-facial-recognition/#comments Wed, 15 Jun 2011 07:22:15 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=86783 Whatever side of the Facebook facial recognition debate you are on — is it privacy panic or a Big-Brother crisis? — this video by Forbes blogger Kashmir Hill is pretty clever.

Hill — who has perhaps one of the best bylines evuh — clearly has come down on the former, writing earlier this week about the social networking company:

“As I’ve made clear here before, I think that the privacy concerns about the new tool are overblown. The tool is limited to identifying you to your friends — people who already know what you look like.”

(Hey, Kashmir: Let me know when the aliens who really created Facebook and Google come for you, after they decide to start harvesting the Earth as planned using their nefarious photo-tagging tools!)

All kidding aside, enjoy the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110615/viral-video-kashmir-stylings-on-facebook-facial-recognition/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110425/surveymonkey-buys-online-forms-start-up-wufoo-for-35-million/ http://allthingsd.com/20110425/surveymonkey-buys-online-forms-start-up-wufoo-for-35-million/#comments Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:28:31 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=43056

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.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110425/surveymonkey-buys-online-forms-start-up-wufoo-for-35-million/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20110308/lead-generator-hubspot-grabs-32-million-from-salesforce-com-sequoia-and-google-ventures/ http://allthingsd.com/20110308/lead-generator-hubspot-grabs-32-million-from-salesforce-com-sequoia-and-google-ventures/#comments Tue, 08 Mar 2011 21:27:37 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=41406

Another day, another honking big funding for another online start-up (and yet another broken embargo too!).

It’s like Groundhog Day in Silicon Valley as usual.

Today, Cambridge, Mass.-based HubSpot wins tech’s version of the lottery, grabbing $32 million from Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures and also Salesforce.com.

It is unclear what the valuation for HubSpot is now, although it is likely high given it has raised $65 million now.

HubSpot makes marketing software for businesses, who use it to find prospects and generate leads, along with tools to analyze the process. It claims it has “4,000 customers, over 50 percent market share, five million leads managed, and 70 million page views tracked monthly.”

The Series D financing included HubSpot’s existing venture investors–General Catalyst Partners, Matrix Partners, and Scale Venture Partners–and part of it will be used to cash out existing shareholders. In previous rounds, the start-up has raised $33 million.

Here is the official press release:

Sequoia, Google Ventures, and Salesforce.com Invest $32 Million in HubSpot
Marketing Software Company Attracts New Strategic Investors

CAMBRIDGE, MA–(Marketwire – March 8, 2011)–Today, for the first time ever, Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures and Salesforce.com all invested together in one company, providing HubSpot with a Series D round of financing through a $32 million investment. HubSpot provides all-in-one marketing software used by over 4,000 businesses to get found by more prospects, convert them into leads and sales, and analyze the entire marketing process.

“The fundamental way that people shop, learn, and buy has changed radically in the last few years. HubSpot helps transform the way businesses market from outbound marketing (cold calls, email blasts, and direct mail) to inbound marketing (Google, blogs, social media, mobile, etc.),” said Brian Halligan, co-founder and CEO of HubSpot.

Sequoia Capital has a long history of partnering with founders to help them build long-term, multi-billion dollar companies, including Google, LinkedIn, AdMob, YouTube, Yahoo!, Apple, and Oracle. “We back companies that are transforming their industries,” said Jim Goetz, General Partner at Sequoia Capital. “HubSpot is the emerging category leader in the SaaS marketing sector. Their customer base exceeds that of all the other relevant marketing software companies combined, including Eloqua, Marketo, Genius, and Manticore.”

“Today, every company needs to succeed in search, social, sales, and marketing–I can’t think of a more powerful trifecta than Google, Salesforce.com, and HubSpot. With 4,000 customers, HubSpot is already a clear marketing leader–now, with this new infusion of capital and recognition by Google’s venture arm and Salesforce.com, HubSpot has a great opportunity to separate itself from the pack and become the leading marketing platform in the small and medium business space,” said Brent Leary, co-founder of CRM Essentials.

Google Ventures Partner, Rich Miner (formerly co-founder of Android) said, “We agree with HubSpot’s belief that search engines, social media, and mobile devices have fundamentally changed how businesses should market themselves. We’re thrilled to support their efforts to help thousands of small and medium businesses reach potential customers.”

Dharmesh Shah, co-founder and CTO of HubSpot commented, “We founded the company based on a simple premise: Businesses want an easy-to-use, complete and integrated marketing platform that helps them get more leads and customers. We plan to use this new capital to further invest in this ambitious vision and further our existing lead in the marketing software category.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110308/lead-generator-hubspot-grabs-32-million-from-salesforce-com-sequoia-and-google-ventures/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20110203/the-locker-project-helps-you-stalk-yourself-online/ http://allthingsd.com/20110203/the-locker-project-helps-you-stalk-yourself-online/#comments Fri, 04 Feb 2011 06:30:13 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=3247 A new start-up called Singly is building an open-source service called the Locker Project to help users archive and leverage their own data, Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb reports tonight.

Singly was founded by Jeremie Miller, who created the open-source instant messaging protocol XMPP. It won the O’Reilly Strata data conference‘s start-up competition this week, and has already raised some funding from individual investors. (I’d hoped to attend Strata in person, but got caught up in an endless stream of little news items this week.)

Giving users clearer ownership and better access to their data is a geeky topic but an increasingly relevant one, for privacy and other reasons.

Singly will reportedly offer a hosted version of the Locker Project, or just the code itself, for users to collect their participation on social media sites and even their click streams, financial records and heart-rate monitors. This concept is known as “exhaust data,” i.e., what users emit as they motor around the Web.

Then, Locker Project users can run yet-to-be-built apps to analyze their exhaust data in order to find patterns, make recommendations, set alerts and do whatever else they can imagine.

So many things we do these days can be recorded, and already are. Rather than just allowing behaviorally targeted advertisers, governments and credit card companies to stalk us, the thought behind projects like this is that we users can gain value out of stalking ourselves and analyzing our own data. I wrote a bit more about the justifications for this stuff during my old gig at GigaOM.

And to be sure, other companies and organizations are exploring the idea of personal archives too–for instance, the recent Y Combinator start-up Greplin is building a unified personal search tool that members can use on their email, calendar, storage and social Web accounts.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110203/the-locker-project-helps-you-stalk-yourself-online/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20110201/salesforce-buys-manymoon/ http://allthingsd.com/20110201/salesforce-buys-manymoon/#comments Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:44:04 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=40098

Salesforce.com has bought Manymoon, the social productivity start-up.

The price of the acquisition was not disclosed, but one source put the sale at between $25 million and $35 million.

Manymoon makes one of the more popular tools on Google’s apps platform.

The San Francisco company, funded with only a small seed funding round by Harrison Metal, offers an online collaboration app that businesses and consumers can use to organize group projects, conversations, tasks or documents that are often done via email or other software.

Manymoon is rather typical of the innovative app makers the search giant has been courting to populate its marketplace.

Salesforce.com has been moving aggressively into social networking in the enterprise arena with its Chatter offering and more.

Earlier today, in fact, it was also part of a $4 million funding of Seesmic, the social dashboard app maker.

Here is the Manymoon blog post–which just went up–on the sale, as well as a video interview BoomTown did with its co-founders Amit Kulkarni and Manav Monga, just as Manymoon joined the Google Apps Marketplace store rollout in March:

Manymoon Acquired by Salesforce.com

February 1, 2011

Today we are excited to announce that Manymoon has been acquired by salesforce.com!

Manymoon has experienced tremendous growth since our launch, with more than 50,000 businesses adopting our social productivity app. We’ve launched on three major web platforms: Google Apps, LinkedIn, and the Google Chrome Web Store. We think we’re on to something special, building an easy-to-use application that integrates with the tools you already use to help you get work done. Over 1,000 new businesses choose Manymoon each week to track any type of work activity with anyone from anywhere.

We’re looking forward to even more growth in 2011, and are thrilled to now be part of salesforce.com, the leader in enterprise cloud computing, to continue to deliver an amazing social productivity application for everyone to use.

What Does This Mean for Manymoon Customers?

We’ll still be the Manymoon that helps you get work done. The Manymoon team will remain intact and will operate as a separate business within salesforce.com so we can continue our focus on building a great social app that makes our customers more productive and successful every day.

The Manymoon you know and love will remain the same:

* Manymoon Standard, our free product, will continue to be available for existing and new customers. In fact, we’ll continue to add features to our free product. And, if you want to upgrade, you are welcome to do that through the Manymoon website whenever you like.

* Existing premium features, subscriptions and price points will remain unchanged.

* Manymoon will continue to work with Google Apps, LinkedIn and the Chrome Web Store. And, we will continue to develop new features to enhance support of these platforms.

*We’ll continue to support our customers in the Manymoon Support Universe.

Salesforce.com and Manymoon Together

Our approach to the market remains unchanged: work with the tools that people already use online (Google Apps, LinkedIn, Chrome), build an app that requires no training or setup, focus on serving the daily productivity needs of professionals and be on the cutting edge of the latest technologies like HTML5. As we’ve grown, we’ve learned that serving customers is more than just building an app with nifty features. It includes providing scalability, security, performance and support–all areas in which salesforce.com has a proven track record.

Like most startups, we admire salesforce.com as the original cloud computing company that made this industry possible. Over the last 12 years salesforce.com has been an evangelist and driver for bringing applications, platforms and collaboration to the cloud. We’re excited to be part of their vision for cloud, social and mobile, utilize their knowledge and experience to build a world-class social productivity app, and move even faster in delivering new capabilities to you!

What’s Next?

We are going to invest more in what you’ve told us you like about Manymoon: Google Apps, LinkedIn and Chrome Web Store support. You can expect to see many of the key social productivity features you’ve requested released in the near future. We’re also going to be working on some exciting, new developments in the coming months…so stay tuned!

Thanks,

The Manymoon Team

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110201/salesforce-buys-manymoon/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110126/twitter-nope-were-not-testing-a-self-serve-platform-yet/ http://allthingsd.com/20110126/twitter-nope-were-not-testing-a-self-serve-platform-yet/#comments Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:46:14 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=28662 Twitter does indeed plan to roll out a self-serve ad platform, a la Facebook and Google, this year. But it hasn’t done so yet, isn’t testing one and has yet to build the thing.

So says Twitter, which is publicly calling out a MediaPost report published yesterday in which writer Laurie Sullivan said she had gotten a look at a test version of the platform, via Clix Marketing, an online ad buying shop.

Twitter says what Sullivan actually saw was the dashboard tool that Twitter provides all of its advertisers to give them an update on how their ads are performing and allow them to make tweaks to their campaigns. But Twitter ad buyers still have to work with humans, for now, either directly at Twitter or via intermediaries that do so, like Clix.

Here’s the official statement from spokesman Matt Graves: “Reports that Twitter is testing a self-serve ad platform are inaccurate. Our self-serve ad product will launch later this year.”

I’ve reached out to MediaPost for comment.

UPDATE: MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan argues with Twitter over the definition of “self-serve.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110126/twitter-nope-were-not-testing-a-self-serve-platform-yet/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110125/three-funky-mice-made-for-laptops/ http://allthingsd.com/20110125/three-funky-mice-made-for-laptops/#comments Tue, 25 Jan 2011 22:23:19 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/?p=1613 It isn’t easy being a computer mouse these days. While laptop sales grow and desktop sales decline, more people rely solely on laptop touchpads, many of which offer more functionality than mice. And tablets like Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab shun the mouse altogether.

But before you toss your tethered friend, it’s worth paying homage to the many things this gadget can do. From precisely cropping one of cousin Fred’s fleeting girlfriends out of a family photo to selecting just the right number in a spreadsheet filled with thousands of digits, the mouse is just the right tool for such precision jobs. And sometimes it’s just a lot more comfortable to use for long stretches of work on a laptop.

This week, I tested three computer mice that laptop users will actually want to bring along with them. Their designs make them simple to pack in a bag, use while sitting on the couch or recharge directly from the laptop. I tried Microsoft’s $70 Arc Touch Mouse, Logitech’s $50 Couch Mouse M515 and the $70 Swiftpoint Mouse.

At first glance, Microsoft’s Arc Touch Mouse looks like nothing more than a flattened mouse. But it’s cleverly designed to bend into an arc that serves as a comfortable rest for the hand. As soon as the Arc Touch Mouse is bent into this shape, its battery turns on. It holds this shape until you flatten it with your hand. When it’s flattened, the mouse turns off to conserve battery. Microsoft claims this battery will last up to six months. The flattened Arc Touch is much easier to pack in a carry-on or to slip into a side pocket than its rotund relatives.

On a Mac, the Arc Touch is limited to basic functions, including use of its touch-sensitive scroll strip that scrolls super quickly when a finger flicks up or down on it. This strip makes a subtle sound like that of a roulette wheel as it scrolls, and a tap on the strip stops the scrolling at a specific location on the screen. I caught myself looking down at this mouse a few times to make sure I wasn’t using a real scroll wheel because the sound effects and feel of the scroll strip are so wheel-like.

On a Windows PC, installing software will give the Arc Touch extra functions. Double tapping the middle of the scroll strip gives it the same function as a regular mouse’s middle click. Or this button can be programmed to open a link in a new tab within Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. This mouse’s tiny USB receiver can be plugged into a laptop almost unnoticed or it will magnetically stick to the base when not in use.

Logitech’s Couch Mouse M515 seems like it was made with me in mind. I often sit on my bed or couch using my laptop, and this mouse has a sealed underside so its sensor doesn’t collect fuzz from fabrics after passing over them several times. I used it on carpets and on a blanket and liked its base, which is designed to glide easily over all types of surfaces. This mouse felt fast and responsive.

To conserve battery, the Couch Mouse is only on when a hand grips it. So if someone stops to watch TV for a while, then accidentally sits on the mouse or the mouse slips between couch cushions, its buttons won’t continue clicking away. An underside switch turns it entirely on or off. The Couch Mouse also uses a USB receiver, and it can be stored inside the mouse for travel.

Like the Couch Mouse, the Swiftpoint Mouse from Swiftpoint Ltd. of New Zealand, is designed for use with laptops in less than ideal working environments. This tiny mouse was designed to operate directly on the laptop wrist rest area or on the laptop touchpad, itself. In fact, the mouse comes with a large, clear sticker labeled “Swiftpoint Parking Accessory” that goes on the laptop so the mouse doesn’t slip off when the laptop’s tilted.

The simple sticker worked well, creating a magnetic square in the center of the wrist rest area that kept the mouse from slipping off when I was leaning back and typing at an angle.

The Swiftpoint Mouse is made for maneuvering directly on a laptop.

A scroll wheel on the right of the Swiftpoint Mouse works by rolling it with one finger or by turning the mouse on its side and moving it up or down, which made for faster scrolling. I found this feature awkward and unnatural at first, but after a lot of use, I grew accustomed to it. Touching the left click button while scrolling up or down zooms in or out, respectively, on any screen.

This mouse is so small that rather than its USB receiver fitting inside or on it for storage, the mouse magnetically attaches onto its USB receiver, resting on it while the receiver is plugged into the laptop. This allows for the Swiftpoint Mouse to recharge its battery; Swiftpoint says 30 seconds of charging will give the mouse an hour’s worth of juice and a 90-minute charge will last two to four weeks, depending on how much you use it. The former proved to be true for me, but I didn’t have enough time to test the latter claim.

When I set this mouse onto the USB receiver for charging, it flashed a rapid green charging indicator light, which slowed after about a minute. Using a rechargeable mobile mouse means not worrying about getting stuck somewhere with dead batteries.

For those looking to have more control in the Windows 7 environment, Microsoft is bringing out in May an $80 model called the Touch Mouse. It will work specifically with Windows 7, using a touch surface that responds to gestures so as to perform tasks like docking, minimizing or maximizing and displaying the desktop.

It’s an awful lot like Apple’s $69 Magic Trackpad, a square surface that came out last summer and enables gestures within the Mac operating system for desktops.

Though these three mice are easy to port around and work well in a variety of work environments, they can’t replace many of the clever gestures built into so many laptops nowadays, especially Macs. But if you’re looking for comfort and function on the go, they do the trick.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110125/three-funky-mice-made-for-laptops/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110125/tool-for-creating-iphone-and-android-games-now-speaks-windows-as-well-as-macs/ http://allthingsd.com/20110125/tool-for-creating-iphone-and-android-games-now-speaks-windows-as-well-as-macs/#comments Tue, 25 Jan 2011 12:30:11 +0000 Ina Fried http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/?p=2896 Corona, a tool for creating games that can be played on both Android and iOS devices, is getting even more versatile.

Until now, the software development tool has worked only on Macs. However, its creator plans to announce on Tuesday that Corona work can now be done on Windows machines as well.

Corona has been used to create games such as Doodle Dash (now called Tilt Monster) and Bubble Ball–a physics game created by a 14-year-old Utah boy that has risen to the top of free games in the App Store.

Moving Corona to Windows should open it up to more developers, according to its maker, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Ansca Mobile.

“We’re excited to finally bring the power of Corona SDK to the Windows operating system,” CEO Walter Luh said in a statement. “Windows’ vast number of users will clearly mean a larger Corona SDK community and ecosystem, but more importantly, we think Corona SDK will play a big role in making mobile development much more popular and accessible.”

However, although the Windows program can be used to finalize Android games, iOS games still have to be compiled on a Mac because Apple requires the use of its Mac-only Xcode tool. Also, the new Windows version is still classified as a beta.

Ansca Mobile is also changing the pricing for Corona. It will remain free while programs are in development. Programmers who want to use the tool for only Android or iOS development can now do so for $199 per year, while the pro account for publishing to both platforms will remain priced at $349 a year.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110125/tool-for-creating-iphone-and-android-games-now-speaks-windows-as-well-as-macs/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110124/do-you-check-facebook-or-email-first-each-day/ http://allthingsd.com/20110124/do-you-check-facebook-or-email-first-each-day/#comments Mon, 24 Jan 2011 19:00:12 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=2646 When you first roll out of bed and hop onto your laptop (or perhaps you grab your iPad or phone before you roll out of bed), what site or service do you load up first?

Is it Facebook? Twitter? Personal email? Work email? A news site or aggregator? A corporate collaboration tool or chat room?

It’s a minor detail perhaps, but something I love asking people. Your bleary-eyed self may speak the truth about the utility you find in these sites and the loyalty they command.

(Personally, I’m not always a creature of habit; I mix it up. My All Things D email and our internal Socialcast stream are high up on the list. Facebook and Twitter usually come a little later in the morning scramble.)

There’s a user poll going around on Facebook at the moment that a couple of people from disparate parts of my life have taken, so it’s been popping up in my newsfeed. The poll asks, “Which do you check first each day: Facebook, or your Email?”

So far, with 518 responses, email is pulling 54.1 percent of the vote. This is in a survey of presumably very active Facebook users who would take the time to fill out the poll (which is part of the beta Facebook Questions product). What about you?

P.S. Quora has a question on the matter as well, with fewer but more diverse and detailed responses.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

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