Vancouver

Twitter Acquires Social Summary Tool Summify

Liz Gannes in Social on January 19 at 9:33 am PT

Twitter has acquired Summify, a small start-up that smartly aggregates links shared by users’ friends on social networks.

Apple iPad News Reader Zite Sold to CNN for Just Over $20 Million

Kara Swisher in Media on August 30, 2011 at 10:06 am PT

Zite, the magazine-style reading app for the Apple iPad, has been sold to news giant CNN for $20 million to $25 million.

When Media Giants Attack! Cease-and-Desist Letter to News Reader Zite Claims All Kinds of Copyright Damage

Kara Swisher in News on March 30, 2011 at 3:24 pm PT

A panoply of big media giants sent a cease-and-desist letter today to Zite, the Apple iPad news reader app. The Washington Post, AP, Gannett, Getty, Time, Dow Jones and many other media organizations were part of the copyright violations action, which you can read all about after the jump.

A Digital “Magazine” With One Subscriber

Katherine Boehret in The Digital Solution on March 8, 2011 at 9:05 pm PT

A new iPad app called Zite makes the news-gathering process a lot easier. The app crawls over half a million Web domains to find specific reading material that would be of interest to users, according to their social network and online reading behavior.

Google Turns Its Local Eyes to Groupon–But Who Else Could Enter Bidding?

Kara Swisher in News on November 19, 2010 at 12:38 am PT

According to multiple sources close to the situation, Google is in discussions with local deals powerhouse Groupon about buying it. Without making the requisite joke about the deal of the day, sources said the price being considered is certainly no discount–well above the $2 billion to $3 billion that Yahoo offered Groupon in acquisition talks that took place earlier this year. But sources cautioned that the talks are not complete, and could also end up without any result, as the Yahoo discussions did.

Update: Zappos's Tony Hsieh on His Magical Happiness Bus Tour and Hugging It Out With BoomTown

Kara Swisher in News on August 24, 2010 at 9:30 am PT

Also, while in Vancouver, BoomTown tried to avoid the happiness-fueled hug-stalking of Tony Hsieh, the CEO of online retailer Zappos. To no avail. I interviewed Hsieh onstage at the Grow2010 conference. The topic was the upcoming nationwide bus tour for his new book, “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose,” which came out in June.

Update: Groupon's Andrew Mason on Clones, the Gap and Mugging Larry Page!

Kara Swisher in News on August 24, 2010 at 5:24 am PT

Last week in Vancouver, BoomTown reunited with Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason, in an onstage interview at the Grow2010 conference being held in the lovely Canadian city. While affable and unusually sweet-looking, Mason was cagey as can be about the really juicy stuff–revenues, IPO plans and acquisition scenarios–but he also had a lot to say about the spectacular growth of the social buying service.

Pig-Nibbling Inside 11 Giant Imaginations: The Latest Glimpse of Glitch

Kara Swisher in News on August 23, 2010 at 9:44 am PT

Here is some video of Glitch–the new game that Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield is in the midst of creating from the Vancouver HQ of his Tiny Speck start-up. Butterfield showed me the latest iteration of the game, which takes place inside the minds of 11 giants. Including, oddly enough, a pig that will give up some meat if you nibble it, but walks merrily away after.

Flickr Co-Founder Butterfield Talks About His New Game Start-Up, Glitch

Kara Swisher in News on August 23, 2010 at 9:40 am PT

Last Friday, BoomTown dropped in on Stewart Butterfield–now ensconced in Vancouver, Canada–to see what the Flickr co-founder has been up to since decamping from Yahoo a while back. Yahoo bought the innovative British Columbia-based photo-sharing service in 2005 for upward of $25 million. Now it seems Butterfield is back where he started, since Flickr was actually initially part of an original gaming project called Game Neverending. Apparently, it never did end, and now there is Glitch. Almost, that is.

Questions for Tony of Zappos and Andrew of Groupon? Step Right Up!

Kara Swisher in News on August 20, 2010 at 5:15 am PT

Later today, BoomTown will be onstage at Dealmaker Media’s Grow2010 conference in Vancouver, Canada to interview Tony Hsieh, CEO and co-founder of Zappos, and Andrew Mason, founder and CEO of Groupon. Got any questions for the cheery online retailer or the affable local group buying czar?