At that size, it claims to have outpaced Rovio’s Angry Birds, which took 20 months to hit 300 million.

If you haven’t heard of Outfit7, it’s probably because it hasn’t raised any institutional venture capital, it wasn’t founded in the U.S., and much of its application usage is spread across 120 countries.

But the company’s franchise of apps called Talking Friends, which are sort of like a modern-day Neopets, is gathering a large base of users.

The characters include Talking Tom Cat, Talking Ben the Dog and Talking Harry the Hedgehog — in other words, many more brands than Angry Birds alone. Of the 14 in existence, Talking Tom Cat is the most popular, having been downloaded 100 million times.

The animals serve as a virtual pet, which responds to your touch and repeats everything that you say. You can pet him, poke him or grab his tail. A popular activity is to record videos of the pet and send them to friends.

The number of users who come back to the app is impressive, with more than 90 million monthly active users worldwide. The company also averages more than 25 million downloads per month.

Executive Chairman Narry Singh believes Rovio and Outfit7 have similar growth trajectories; and like Rovio, which was able to create a strong brand from Angry Birds, Outfit7 is angling to create brands, as well.

Today, Outfit7 has offices in Palo Alto, Calif., as well as Slovenia, Cyprus, London and Seoul, South Korea. Its apps are primarily free, but users can make in-app purchases to buy virtual goods.

The company is also announcing today that it is partnering with Iconicfuture and Digital Artists to bring branded virtual goods to Talking Tom Cat. In a testament to its international pull, the merchandise will represent six of the world’s most popular soccer clubs, from Spain, Italy, England, France and Portugal.

Of course, Outfit7 is not the first company to want to replicate Rovio’s successes.

In the end, it won’t be important which company got to 300 million downloads the fastest, but which one was able to build a more long-term and sustainable company.

When you look at it in those terms, the jury is still out on Rovio, as well.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company tries to boost online companies’ revenue by placing targeted promotions and offering incentives at the point of checkout.

It’s a bit similar to how grocery stores try to boost sales by strategically placing tabloid magazines, gum and candy bars at the register to spur last-minute impulse buys.

Instead, TrialPay makes last-minute offers to give people incentive to make a purchase when they are on the fence.

As an example, TrialPay’s CEO Alex Rampell said that when people visit Fandango’s site, they may get an offer for a free movie ticket if they sign up for Netflix. Or, in a Zynga game, you might be offered a virtual bouquet for free, in return for purchasing real flowers on Valentine’s Day.

Visa’s participation in the investment, which is being announced later this morning, is rare. Over the years, the payments company has made a few acquisitions, including PlaySpan, CyberSource and Fundamo, but Visa’s only investment in recent memory was in payments darling Square, which allows anyone to accept payments using a cellphone.

Rampell said that with Visa’s help, TrialPay will be able to expand to offline merchants from working exclusively with online retailers, by giving it a way to track if a person visited a store and made a purchase.

“The question is, how do we send traffic to Starbucks or McDonald’s or any other offline merchant?” Rampell said. “We already have access to people online who are buying or thinking about buying something. It would be great if we could could give you 20 virtual coins if you shopped at McDonald’s. But how do we close that redemption loop?”

Today, TrialPay, which has 130 employees, reaches more than 70 million monthly active users worldwide. In 2011, Rampell said, revenues more than doubled; he declined to offer specifics.

Rampell also declined to provide details about potential partnerships with Visa. Visa also declined to comment.

Investors in the company’s fourth round included new investors Greylock Partners, Visa Inc., T. Rowe Price, DAG Ventures, DFJ Growth and QuestMark Partners. Existing investors also participated. To date, it has raised roughly $70 million.

For more of Rampell’s opinions on how the payments space will evolve, check out his Web 2.0 speech from October:

According to sources close to the situation, new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson is meeting with the two private equity firms that had made previous partial investment overtures to the Silicon Valley Internet company.

While those deals are now tabled, sources said that Thompson and the Yahoo board still wants to engage investors — Silver Lake and TPG Capital — in discussions about how to best turn around Yahoo.

Thus, sources said, Thompson was interested in meeting with the firms — as well as others involved, such as VC Marc Andreessen, who had been working with Silver Lake — in order to discuss their ideas and get up to speed on them.

And, of course, keep the discussions alive to see if there is any kind of different deal to be done in the future.

That’s after, of course, Yahoo completes its complex negotiations with its Asian partners — Alibaba Group and SoftBank — over selling off parts of its own stakes there.

While Yahoo’s success in resolving Asia is not assured, this transaction was a key part of proposals for a PIPE — Private Investment in Public Equity — deal that both Silver Lake and TPG had made.

But, after shareholders looked askance on such a deal due to price and other issues, Yahoo decided to negotiate on its own and picked a new CEO.

Still, in a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too move, the company leadership also did not want to close the door on the PE firms (and their money and expertise). completely.

That’s especially true, since the distinct possibility of a proxy fight from activist Yahoo investor Daniel Loeb is now hovering over the company’s neck.

Both Loeb and Yahoo are scrambling to prep for the potential battle. Loeb is trying to assemble a slate of alternate directors, and shoring up other major Yahoo shareholders as allies, while Yahoo is moving to shed some directors while also adding new ones.

Hence, the meetings with PE firms to keep the proverbial ball rolling, which presents at least the facade that the company is intent on turning the core parts of Yahoo around by any means possible.

Sources close to the PE firms remain dubious, with both feeling burned by the last process.

“I’m not sure anything will come of this, and the way Yahoo conducted the last talks was not encouraging,” said one source. “But it does not cost anything to keep listening.”

Travelers have used Airbnb to book a total of five million guest nights in the past four years, staying in spare bedrooms and empty homes around the world.

Even more impressive is that a majority of those bookings — four million — occurred in 2011 alone, according to the San Francisco vacation-rentals company.

Today, the start-up provided a number of metrics for how the company performed last year, and in the months since it raised $112 million, which valued the company at more than $1 billion.

The one figure Airbnb neglected to provide, however, was the number of renters who have applied to receive a $50,000 Host Guarantee, which would reimburse them for the cost of property damage, theft or vandalism.

In August, the company initiated a number of security features, including the guarantee, after a host had a particularly horrible experience with guests who ransacked her apartment and stole her identity.

A spokesperson said Airbnb doesn’t disclose the number of claims that have been submitted, but said that the overall number is much lower than it originally anticipated. “We think this is a testament to the quality and caliber of our community,” she added.

In today’s release, Brian Chesky, CEO and co-founder of Airbnb, said that reaching five million bookings demonstrates the demand for people all over the world to monetize extra space in their homes.

The closest comparison to Airbnb is likely Austin, Texas-based HomeAway, which reports results because it is a public company, even though it focuses more on renting people’s vacation homes, not their primary residences.

HomeAway did not have a comparable figure for homes rented, but it did say the vacation property market is growing quickly. In a 2010 survey it commissioned from Radius Global Market Research, it found that there were more than six million vacation properties in the U.S. and Europe that are rented for a fee to travelers for at least two weeks of every year.

According to the same survey, these vacation rentals generated more than $85 billion of annual rental income in 2010, or nearly $14,000 per property.

HomeAway’s marketplace includes more than 500,000 paid listings of vacation rentals in more than 145 countries worldwide.

In comparison, Airbnb says it lists more than 100,000 properties in 192 countries. Instead of charging for listings, it collects 3 percent of each reservation, and guests are charged 6 to 12 percent of the booking fee.

Here are some of Airbnb’s other numbers:

• More than 75 percent of all reservations in 2011 were international, with either the guest, host, or both located outside the U.S.
• The number of available listings increased 166 percent in 2011, and 70 percent of all listings are now located outside the U.S.
• In 2011, Airbnb added 24-hour customer support in 16 languages through email, live chat, and seven global toll-free phone numbers.
• The company launched 40 features in 2011 to bulk up trust and safety.
• Airbnb has offices in San Francisco, Hamburg, Berlin, and London, with new offices opening in Barcelona, Copenhagen, Milan, Moscow, Paris and São Paulo, Brazil.

And if you’re more of a visual learner, here’s the story in a graphic almost big enough to rent out:

But one of PopCap’s original developers, Roy Liu, believes he has come up with an alternative. Gimmie, based in San Francisco, has created an incentives platform for mobile app developers.

It launches today with 10 mobile app developers in its beta program.

It works like this: In return for using the app, a player can earn points which can be redeemed for real-world products. It’s sort of like a traditional arcade, where players earn tickets that can be redeemed for candy and toys, but instead of gumballs and baseball cards, Gimmie primarily doles out game downloads and other mobile content.

Gimmie is also announcing today that it has raised $200,000 in funding from Tandem, an incubator in Silicon Valley.

Liu, who was one of the lead developers on Plants vs. Zombies for PopCap before it was purchased by Electronic Arts, co-founded the company with CEO David Ng.

The idea is not so different from other in-game incentive programs, which ask users to fill out a survey or download a different game in exchange for free virtual goods or other benefits.

Those types of programs, served by companies like TapJoy and others, have been immensely successful — although more recently, they have been received poorly by Apple and others because they can affect the most popular games list.

Gimmie believes what it is doing is different because it rewards users with items outside of the app for performing actions inside it.

Other companies are also trying to come up with alternative advertising platforms for mobile games. In games, banner ads are often completely ineffective because people are focused on playing the game, and don’t take the time to read the ad or leave the page to investigate it further.

A Chicago-based start-up called Tap.me is creating an ad network for virtual goods, which can gain advertisers on a broad scale for generic items, such as being able to jump higher or more energy across many games.

The San Francisco-based company is somewhat similar to the teen-oriented book series by Ann M. Martin, in which a group of middle-school students help parents find babysitters.

But in this version, instead of an elaborate phone tree, it uses modern communication tools like Facebook. The UrbanSitter site helps parents find sitters based on their availability, and even on their experience working for Facebook friends and friends of friends.

UrbanSitter has secured $1.75 million in seed funding from First Round Capital. Rustic Canyon Partners, Menlo Ventures and several angels also participated.

In September, AllThingsD’s Liz Gannes reported that the company had launched in one market, and had assisted with 300 babysitting bookings.

Since then, it has expanded to San Diego, Napa and Sonoma Valleys, Seattle, Boulder and Lake Tahoe. Next month, it will roll out in New York, Chicago, Denver and St. Louis.

The funding will be used for product development, such as mobile bookings, and new features, including online payments to sitters. The capital will also go toward expansion into new cities.

Popular right now are monthly shoe clubs that send you a new pair every 30 days. But here’s a twist: A site that lets you try out consumer electronics and home and kitchen gadgets before buying them.

YBuy.com, which launched today, allows members to try out a product, such as an iPad, a Jawbone headset, a Keurig coffee maker or an iRobot Roomba vacuum, for 30 days before deciding whether they want to keep it.

Members must pay $25 for the service. If they decide to keep the product, the fee applies toward the item’s purchase price. YBuy says shipping is free both ways.

The Manhattan Beach, Calif.-based company was started by Stephen Svajian and Kevin and Tim Wall, and has raised $750,000 in funding from angel investors.

The concept is based on the theory that product returns are already costing the consumer electronics industry a lot of money. In 2011, YBuy estimates that 68 percent of products were returned because they did not meet customer’s expectations, costing the industry $16.7 billion.

Thus, if users get the chance to use the product before they buy it, the number of returns will drop. YBuy says it offers new products, but will also refurbish unwanted products before sending them to another customer.

Other subscription services have received large investments recently with a new twist on the business model introduced in the 80s with the CD club.

For example, ShoeDazzle, which was co-founded by celebrity Kim Kardashian, raised $40 million in capital last year, and JustFabulous raised $33 million with the help of former model Kimora Lee Simmons, who was previously married to Russell Simmons.

Unlike the onerous subscription services of the past, YBuy says subscribers can cancel anytime or choose to skip a month and have that month’s fee applied toward the purchase of a future product.

Right now, YBuy is invitation-only as it ramps up.

The company, which plans to launch soon in the U.S., has created a way for people to easily give gift cards to their friends through social channels such as Facebook.

Greylock will contribute $5 million to the company’s first round, increasing the total to $10.5 million. Creandum — along with Atomico, which was founded by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström — invested in the round last year.

“The gift card industry has grown to a $100 billion industry, and yet very little innovation has been done around social networks and smartphones,” Hoffman said in an interview. “You put those two things together and suddenly you get a much easier way to give.”

The funding will be used to launch the service in the U.S. and the U.K. this quarter, with other markets following.

The social gifting service has three components:

First, people can learn about their friends’ birthdays or other occasions on Facebook, or through notifications on their mobile phones.

Second, users will be able to give friends gift cards that mutual friends or family members will be able to contribute to on Facebook.

Third, Wrapp is partnering with retailers and merchants which will also contribute $5 or $10 to the card.

The logic is that if many people are willing to contribute to a gift card, the gift becomes more meaningful. Retailers are willing to participate because it might drive traffic to the stores and get consumers to buy something that they normally may not have bought.

Wrapp was started 2011 by Hjalmar Winbladh and others, including Andreas Ehn, Spotify’s founding CTO, and Carl Fritjofsson, an advisor to Groupon.se.

Wrapp is currently growing more than 30 percent every week in Sweden, where it is working with more than 25 merchants. Already, 2 percent of the nine million residents there are considered active users of the service.

“It’s certainly showing a great early curve in Sweden, and we have every expectation the curve will be replicated in other places, like the U.S.,” Hoffman said.

As has been widely reported, well-known TechCrunch columnist and Silicon Valley journalist Sarah Lacy has a new gig: Running her own new tech news site, which debuts today.

(She’s pictured here with another recent adorable start-up of hers, named Eli.)

Not so widely reported? The site, called PandoDaily.com, will feature three of TechCrunch’s most high-profile former bloggers: Michael Arrington, M.G. Siegler and Paul Carr.

That’s right, Lacy is Arrington’s boss this time around — even though his CrunchFund venture firm will also be an investor, in a funding round of more than $2 million for PandoDaily.

Other investors — whom Lacy described as “people I like and respect” — include a panoply of tech movers and shakers, including personal investments from Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Matt Cohler, Jeff Jordan, Josh Kopelman, Zach Nelson, Andrew Anker, Saul Klein, Tony Hsieh and Chris Dixon, as well as seed investments from Greylock Partners, SV Angel, Lerer Ventures, Accel Partners and Menlo Ventures.

There will certainly be questions about all these funders who are also topics of PandoDaily’s posts, which Lacy acknowledged. She said the large number of funders was calculated so that none had undue influence.

Of course, many in Silicon Valley will be watching her carefully for any conflicts of interest or punches pulled. Lacy insisted that there will not be a problem and joked that she will definitely not become a VC, referring to the controversy around Arrington becoming one while at TechCrunch.

That issue blew up like a Roman candle, of course, leaving everyone with powder burns — I called the incident a “giant, greedy, Silicon Valley pig pile.”

Interestingly, Lacy did manage to stay out of the spotlight (she was, in fact, having her baby during the worst of the controversy, which was likely more painful).

Ignoring the delicious epic revenge part of this on AOL — which bought TechCrunch and then promptly presided over a tech version of the War of the Roses (and is, ironically, an investor via CrunchFund) — PandoDaily will focus on start-ups in Silicon Valley and everywhere else that homegrown spirit of innovations reaches.

Here’s a screenshot of the cleanly designed and handsome site:

In an inaugural post, titled ““Why I Started PandoDaily,” Lacy compared the site to a colony of trees in Utah, saying, “We have one goal here at PandoDaily: To be the site-of-record for that startup root-system and everything that springs up from it, cycle-after-cycle.”

Which is kind of like TechCrunch, which she left earlier this year.

“This is not TechCrunch 2.0,” Lacy said to me in an interview last week. “But, of course, we will be compared to TechCrunch.”

Of course, especially because of the presence of its star lineup on PandoDaily — who will write regularly, along with an initially small staff of other writers — and also its plans for conferences and other gatherings.

(An AOL source, by the way, said there were no contractual noncompete issues for PandoDaily to worry about.)

Here’s a longish interview I did about PandoDaily with Lacy, who has written two books focused on entrepreneurs, worked at Businessweek and was founding co-host of Yahoo Finance’s daily show “TechTicker.”

She talks about the site’s unusual name, her wrangling over leaving TechCrunch, and the prospect of now running her own show.

Welcome back, Sarah (and call me if you need help with those dudes, as we have wrangled before).

Here’s the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120116/sarah-lacy-debuts-new-tech-site-pandodaily-and-guess-whos-working-for-her-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120104/seismic-games-raises-2-million-to-develop-social-games/ http://allthingsd.com/20120104/seismic-games-raises-2-million-to-develop-social-games/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:00:11 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=159484 Los Angeles, Calif.-based Seismic Games has raised $2 million in a first round, ahead of its first social game launch coming later this quarter. The round was led by DFJ Frontier and venture capitalist Tom Matlack. The management team includes CEO Greg Borrud, who previously co-founded Pandemic Studios, which was sold to Electronic Arts in 2007 for $860 million.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120104/seismic-games-raises-2-million-to-develop-social-games/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120102/academic-social-network-raises-cash-from-former-facebook-exec-and-others/ http://allthingsd.com/20120102/academic-social-network-raises-cash-from-former-facebook-exec-and-others/#comments Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:57:13 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=158886 New York-based Coursekit, a social network for instructors to manage courses and interact with students, has raised $5 million in a first round. The round was led by Social+Capital Partnership, a firm started by former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya. Existing investor IA Ventures and new angel investors also participated. Coursekit, which became available in November, was founded by Joseph Cohen, 20, and two other undergraduate students at University of Pennsylvania.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120102/academic-social-network-raises-cash-from-former-facebook-exec-and-others/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111228/get-your-zombie-eaten-brain-ready-for-some-big-think-tech-books/ http://allthingsd.com/20111228/get-your-zombie-eaten-brain-ready-for-some-big-think-tech-books/#comments Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:18:04 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=157560

First off: I can reassure all my readers that I will not be coming out with an opus on Yahoo’s turmoil in 2012. Nor rounding out a trilogy of books on AOL in 2013, for that matter, full of lessons learned and bridges burned.

But that’s not true for other players in Silicon Valley, including three sure-to-be prominent books coming out in the next three months.

First off, on Jan. 25, will be the work of Fortune magazine writer Adam Lashinsky, who turned his cover story on the inside workings of Apple into a book called … “Inside Apple.”

The subtitle, “How America’s Most Admired — and Secretive — Company Really Works,” promises the “secret systems, tactics and leadership strategies that allowed Steve Jobs and his company to churn out hit after hit and inspire a cult-like following for its products.”

Apparently, we’re all about to find out about concepts like the “DRI” — or assigning a Directly Responsible Individual to every task (which I call DYS, or Do Your Story, here at AllThingsD); and the Top 100, “an annual ritual in which 100 up-and-coming executives are tapped a la Skull & Bones for a secret retreat with company founder Steve Jobs.”

Sadly, not anymore on that retreat, but I am still looking forward to reading more about the management techniques of the late tech visionary.

On Valentines Day, well-known VC, entrepreneur and Start-Up Whisperer Reid Hoffman’s book with co-author Ben Casnocha also comes out, touting lessons from Silicon Valley.

Titled “The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career,” it is described as a “blueprint for thriving in your job and career in today’s challenging world of work by applying the lessons of Silicon Valley’s most innovative entrepreneurs.”

Let’s hope it’s not the dudes from Color handing out the advice!

According to the authors, “the key is to manage your career as if it were a start-up business: a living, breathing, growing start-up of you.”

If I were a start-up, I would sell virtual doughnuts. Hey Reid, gimme a badillion dollars!

Finally, on March 12, the grumpy investor Peter Thiel teams with entrepreneur Max Levchin and chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov for “The Blueprint: Reviving Innovation, Rediscovering Risk, and Rescuing the Free Market.”

It’s funny that they, and also Hoffman, are using the hopelessly analog term “blueprint,” but I like the retro feel.

No surprise, Thiel’s posse is unhappy with the pace of innovation, presumably underwhelmed by “Plants vs. Zombies” compared to the internal combustion engine.

“Challenging the notion that we are living in an age of technological progress, three of the world’s most original thinkers demonstrate that we have become a risk-averse society, hobbled by tort laws and government regulations, short-term financial thinking, and mind-numbing complacency,” the book’s description reads. “Eager to end ‘paper entrepreneurialism’ and avoid another financial meltdown, they propose that we expand research and development in breakthrough ‘disruptive technologies,’ create millions of jobs through science-based engineering and genuine innovation, shore up our crumbling infrastructure, stop squandering money on misspent ‘horizontal education,’ and restore financial discipline.”

Phew! And here I was very pleased that I can Instagram filtered pictures of my dinner last night around the world.

In any case, before the zombies arrive to steal them, get your brains ready to think big thoughts.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111228/get-your-zombie-eaten-brain-ready-for-some-big-think-tech-books/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111220/viral-video-this-year-first-round-vcs-channel-rebecca-black-rrrreeaaallly/ http://allthingsd.com/20111220/viral-video-this-year-first-round-vcs-channel-rebecca-black-rrrreeaaallly/#comments Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:30:27 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=155267

Oh, dear — Silicon Valley VCs acting like teenage girls.

And there’s not even a hot start-up in sight to chase and scream over.

It must be the holidays and First Round Capital’s annual digital greeting card, which is based on one of the popular viral videos of the year.

In 2008, First Round did its own version of “Dancing Matt.” In 2009, the firm’s CEOs sang as if they were Susan Boyle in “I Dreamed a Dream.” And last year, it was partner Josh Kopelman wearing a body suit to mimic the Old Spice guy.

This year, it spoofs one of the more irksome music videos of 2011 — Rebecca Black’s “Friday.”

I like First Round’s version a lot better.

Along with the rhythm-impaired VCs, you can see a wide range of their start-ups here, such as Xobni, Path and — thank goodness, since they can sing — Birchbox.

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111220/viral-video-this-year-first-round-vcs-channel-rebecca-black-rrrreeaaallly/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111220/razer-raises-50-million-to-design-cutting-edge-products-for-hardcore-gamers/ http://allthingsd.com/20111220/razer-raises-50-million-to-design-cutting-edge-products-for-hardcore-gamers/#comments Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:02:38 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=155287 Razer may have raised some serious money, but don’t take it the wrong way– it is still focused on making fun stuff for the hardcore gaming market.

The Carlsbad, Calif.-based company has raised $50 million in a first round of capital led by by IDG-Accel China Capital Fund.

Despite raising that large chunk of cash, the founders are working hard to keep their playful image intact.

In a press release, co-founder and CEO Min-Liang Tan joked that Razer knew IDG-Accel was the right partner when they didn’t “freak out” after Razer disappeared for a week in the middle of the deal, for the launch of the Skyrim game.

Razer also showed a sense of humor when it came to explaining how it would spend the money.

In addition to funding technology and innovation, it said it was also going to blow the cash on “the video gaming habits of the management and staff.”

They may kid around, but Razer is designing some pretty serious equipment the most hardcore gamers.

For example, the sleek curves of the company’s computer mice have been replaced with tough-looking sharp angles and a modern design. On the more practical side of things, some of the mice feature a 12-digit numeric keypad on the side for single-handed gaming. Likewise, Razer’s keyboards look nearly robotic, with special features like na LCD track-panel and slim keys for shorter travel distances.

Special editions have been released for Star Wars: The Old Republic and Battlefield 3.

Why take the money now?

CEO Tan had a smart response for that, too:

“We’ve been having fun and kicking ass while being funded by our internal operations these couple of years — now imagine the kind of badass products we’ll be designing with the resources that IDG-Accel will bring to the table,” he said. “I just hope that IDG-Accel is aware that our board meetings generally start with a game of Counterstrike, and the losers have to buy coffee.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111220/razer-raises-50-million-to-design-cutting-edge-products-for-hardcore-gamers/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111219/the-mobile-coupon-is-broken-and-proctor-gamble-has-found-a-solution/ http://allthingsd.com/20111219/the-mobile-coupon-is-broken-and-proctor-gamble-has-found-a-solution/#comments Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:00:27 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=154903 Procter & Gamble, the consumer packaged goods giant, is teaming up with a small technology start-up to distribute its first coupons on mobile phones.

The start-up, called Mobeam, got the endorsement of such a large company because of a major glitch in the couponing system: Most scanners in grocery stores cannot read a bar code displayed on the screen of a cellphone.

“Couponing has been one of the tried and tested tools to incentivize consumers to try our products,” said Jeff Weedman, P&G’s VP of global business development. “Ads around the world have moved digital, but there was a hole in the system. You can deliver coupons digitally, but frankly our customers weren’t happy about it. It doesn’t scan at most grocery scanners, and it slowed the system down because the checkout person would have to plug in the numbers manually.”

In October, Cupertino, Calif.-based Mobeam raised $4.9 million in capital to solve this problem, developing technology that coverts bar code data into a beam of light that can be read by most checkout-counter scanners.

A host of applications are already available for download on many smartphones — Starbucks has been one of the shining examples. Its application, which allows customers to pay at the register, has enabled 26 million mobile payment transactions this year alone.

But few people realize that Starbucks had to replace all of its scanners in its stores for the app to work.

Today, couponing is $3.7 billion segment of the consumer packaged goods market in North America, with more than 300 billion coupons distributed every year.

Increasingly, they are going digital, too.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in investments have been made this year in the distribution of coupons online and via mobile. Most recently, WhaleShark raised $150 million. Others include CouponCabin.com, which raised $54 million; and Coupons.com, which secured $230 million in two megarounds.

The prospect of finding coupons online and saving them to the phone, which can then be scanned at the register, is appealing. Currently, the main two options are to clip coupons from the newspaper, or to print coupons that were found online.

But don’t expect to be able to start using Mobeam’s technology tomorrow.

Mobeam will have to convince phone manufacturers to integrate its technology into their hardware. It says it is expecting phones to start shipping as soon as next year.

(Photo credit: sdc2027)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111219/the-mobile-coupon-is-broken-and-proctor-gamble-has-found-a-solution/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111217/obaz-wants-to-rebuild-the-online-deal-site-with-help-from-groupons-founders/ http://allthingsd.com/20111217/obaz-wants-to-rebuild-the-online-deal-site-with-help-from-groupons-founders/#comments Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:48:09 +0000 Drake Martinet http://allthingsd.com/?p=154445 It used to be that online shopping was a refuge from the holiday scrum at the mall. Pajama-clad shoppers could curl up with some hot cider and casually tick off all the gifts on their list. Those were the days.

Today, if you are trying to find the coolest gift from the hottest gift Web site, the experience can be, well, I’ll let iOS developer Ben Jackson, describe it:

Jesus. @Fab is like a river teeming with starving, design-savvy piranhas. It’s like playing Counter Strike to get anything in limited stock.

— Ben Jackson (@benjaminjackson) December 14, 2011

 

Enter oBaz, which is either just another online curated boutique, or the next stepping stone on the path to wherever online shopping is headed.

What separates oBaz, which stands for “online bazaar,” from competitors like Fab.com is a major attempt at personalization.

Where Fab offers the same aesthete-targeted deals to every visitor, oBaz attempts to offer visitors a mix of products catered to their tastes. In a sense, shoppers don’t look for a store they like, the store fits around whoever “walks in.”

Or, at least, that’s the idea.

“We’ve organized the deals into ‘aisles’ that users can choose to become part of,” said co-founder Brian Ficho. “Once you choose a few aisles, we can start to target deals to you specifically.”

Personalized recommendations in online shopping certainly aren’t new — Amazon has been offering them for years.

But the online retail giant and others are still fundamentally search-and-destroy-style shopping experiences, targeted at shoppers in search of a particular item.

Eight-week-young oBaz is the brainchild of Ficho and Greg Caplan. The company took seed-stage investment from the founders’ former employer, Lightbank, which invested before this recent pivot.

Lightbank is the Chicago-based venture firm founded by Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell, the well-known pair who also co-founded Groupon.

Like most very early-stage companies, oBaz still has lots to shake out before it could hit its stride.

The oBaz team, which now numbers six, is experimenting with different ways to build up a “product interest graph,” which will power its product recommendation engine — much like Facebook and LinkedIn are built on graphs of associations between people.

Its current beta product entices users to help build up their graph by playing a “hot or not” game.

In the game, the site shows a picture of a product to which the user can assign a thumbs up or thumbs down. Those preferences are then used to curate the products offered.

But both co-founders acknowledged their current “game” plan is an incomplete solution to the graph-building problem.

Clever customization aside, oBaz will be faced with the same costs of scaling that weigh on Groupon and every other daily deals site that depend on an ever-increasing flow of offers.

But oBaz’s unique model does give them an advantage. Deal sites like Groupon must constantly seek out new companies to source deals from, because many companies can only afford to use Groupon sparingly.

“At oBaz, we aren’t offering that kind of deal. We can maintain a constant relationship with a merchant, who is really using us to sell extra stock of some item,” said Ficho. “We can see how fast a certain deal takes off, then dial it back so that we only sell as many of something as the merchant has in stock — which means we can sell from that merchant all the time.”

If the future of e-commerce is personalization, then oBaz might be among the first to take a very important step for the retail space: Moving past recommendations in a expansive store and instead rebuilding the store for each customer, while filling it with merchandise that really exists.

Caplan and Ficho stopped by the AllThingsD office for a video interview about the infant company:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111217/obaz-wants-to-rebuild-the-online-deal-site-with-help-from-groupons-founders/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111215/viral-video-rat-fingers-touchfire-and-sphero-demos/ http://allthingsd.com/20111215/viral-video-rat-fingers-touchfire-and-sphero-demos/#comments Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:09:27 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=154026

Here’s a ZDNet video of the gadgets I selected for the Churchill Club event that Walt Mossberg and I do annually.

This year’s celebrity geek guests were a pair of well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and VCs, Reid Hoffman and John Lilly; along with our regular gadget freak, Greg Harper.

Here’s the video of my stuff, with an assist from my No. 1 son, Louie:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111215/viral-video-rat-fingers-touchfire-and-sphero-demos/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111213/how-to-avoid-a-vc-shotgun-wedding/ http://allthingsd.com/20111213/how-to-avoid-a-vc-shotgun-wedding/#comments Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:43:50 +0000 Charles Moldow http://allthingsd.com/?p=153471 As a former entrepreneur, I can empathize with the intense pressure surrounding financing for a new venture. In the current market, where the future is less certain than the recent past, many entrepreneurs may find themselves ready to jump at the first term sheet, or the best valuation.

To all those entrepreneurs, I offer my advice: Don’t do it. Shotgun weddings don’t work in romance, and they don’t work in venture capital, either.

Solutions that offer the best valuations, without the close-knit partnerships required to build successful long-term businesses, are never going to be sustainable solutions.

In my experience, a lack of shared understanding between the parties upfront can lead to bigger problems down the line.

I recently read a statement from Founders Fund boldly declaring that VCs impose “value-destroying distractions” with the “intrusion of adult supervision.” As I reflected on this thought, I began to wonder — if any entrepreneur shares these feelings, why then would he ever enter into an arrangement with a venture firm?

The fact is, a VC’s value can vary widely. Just like you’d be better off not going under the knife of a neurosurgeon who graduated med school with a C- average, you’d be wise not to choose a sub-par venture investor who doesn’t share your values. Take the time to find the right one.

If both enterprise and investor don’t understand each other upfront, there is going to be a lot of dissatisfaction about where — and how — the relationship ends. When you look at the start-up and venture capital sectors separately, it seems they both understand this principle. For each, building relationships is a prerequisite to building up businesses.

In the start-up world, founders take a long-term approach when searching for co-founders. Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford on Larry’s first day of class before founding Google; Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were friends in high school and spent every day together before founding Apple.

Similarly, while you probably won’t find a VC partner after a single meeting, there are a few things to keep in mind that can increase your chances of success over the long run.

First and foremost, do your homework. It’s shocking to me how few entrepreneurs actually make due diligence calls to other portfolio CEOs. At Foundation Capital, we provide contacts for every company we have ever funded. Use those kinds of resources. Ask for references beyond what is on the Web site. Don’t expect glowing reviews from every single reference, but weigh the feedback carefully and decide if you like what you hear overall.

Second, dig deeply into how the firm works with founders on a day-to-day basis. Consider how much — and in what capacity — partners participate in their portfolios. Think about the proposed value-add, and if it will complement the existing capabilities of your executive team. Decide if the VC firm’s approach fits your style.

Third, don’t get seduced by the name of the firm. This isn’t choosing a college or buying a car. Set the prestige factor aside. Frankly, a firm’s name counts for little when it comes to predicting the success of your venture. It’s really about the individual partner who will be working with you. Decide if you want to work with that particular person.

Finally, ask the tough questions:

• How will this investor help out during difficult times?
• Will he or she understand the process and need for more funds if or when that time comes?
• Is the investor’s approach to the venture truly collaborative — one in which both parties are dependent on each other to succeed?
• Are your prospective investors passive-aggressive, or do they come out and tell you what they’re thinking?

Strong entrepreneur/VC partnerships are based on mutual respect and a true drive to succeed. You don’t want an investor who simply hands you a check and pushes you out the door with nothing more than an expectation of flawless execution — and, of course, a significant return on that investment.

At the end of the day, accepting an investment is like committing to a relationship — there will be ups and downs and disappointments, and even a few failures along the way. But the best partnerships — like the strongest relationships — are lasting ones. Granted, we’re talking about a decade and not a lifetime, but it is still critical to understand the people you are bringing into your business and whether you can work with them over the long haul — through thick and thin.

Understanding a prospective partner takes time. So do yourself a favor: Play it smart. Take your time. Do your homework.

Charles Moldow is a general partner at Foundation Capital, where he primarily focuses on consumer Internet companies. A former entrepreneur, Charles was a member of the founding executive team at TellMe Networks and on the founding team of @Home, and has a background in general management, sales, marketing, product management and business development.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111213/how-to-avoid-a-vc-shotgun-wedding/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111212/trunk-club-appoints-former-ebay-executive-as-coo/ http://allthingsd.com/20111212/trunk-club-appoints-former-ebay-executive-as-coo/#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:32:47 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=152886 Trunk Club, an online shopping service for men who don’t like to shop, has hired Rob Chesney as COO. Most recently, Chesney was an entrepreneur in residence at Greylock Partners. Before that, he served as VP of eBay’s Buyer Experience team, overseeing fashion, technology, media and home. Trunk Club, which has about 60 employees, is projecting revenues of $5.5 million this year and raised $11 million in capital back in September.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111212/trunk-club-appoints-former-ebay-executive-as-coo/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111209/if-drafted-andreessen-horowitz-will-not-run-yahoo-but-well-buy-it-cheap/ http://allthingsd.com/20111209/if-drafted-andreessen-horowitz-will-not-run-yahoo-but-well-buy-it-cheap/#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:55:23 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=152481 Today, despite being deep in trying to strike a deal with private equity firm Silver Lake that will essentially give it a big say over the doings at Yahoo, Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz wanted to get a few things clear on titles.

In a positively Shermanesque blog post titled “A Clarification With Respect to Yahoo,” Marc Andreessen wrote that neither he nor partner Jeff Jordan would become an operating exec, including CEO, acting CEO, chairman or executive chairman at the troubled Internet giant.

Of course, if the VC firm wins the partial investment deal against other bidders, Andreessen will absolutely be a key player in the remaking of the company. Already, he and Jordan have met with numerous Yahoo execs as they have assessed the company.

The bid by Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz is about $16.50 a share for slightly less than 20 percent of the company. The group, which is competing with another bid by TPG Capital, has a lot of other plans around reviving Yahoo and dealing with its myriad of issues.

The reason for the pronouncement, sources said (and I am just boldly declaring myself) is because the firm is now in the middle of raising a mega-funding round of up to $1.5 billion and limited partners are worried about a lack of focus on its many other investments.

So Marc and Jeff are fully committed to moolah-making at the VC firm. Please pay no attention to the whole Yahoo mishegas over in that corner there!

Here’s the entire post (full disclosure — I got the Jordan part right, but surmised that Andreessen could become chairman if his group won the bid):

A Clarification With Respect to Yahoo

From Marc Andreessen, co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz:

Over the last several weeks, there have been erroneous reports in the press that my partner Jeff Jordan and/or I might become an operating executive of Yahoo in some capacity.

To be crystal clear, neither Jeff, nor I, nor any of our partners at Andreessen Horowitz, are in the running for, or would accept, any operating role at Yahoo, including CEO, acting CEO, chairman, or executive chairman.

Jeff and I have high regard for Yahoo, but we are fully committed to our day jobs as general partners at Andreessen Horowitz and board members of our portfolio companies.

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