Startup Studio Science Hires Digital Veteran Jason Rapp

The Mahalo, IAC and New York Times veteran joins the startup factory.
jason_rapp

YouTube, Which Wants More TV Dollars, Pays Up for More “Channels”

YouTube pours more money into the experiment it launched a year ago, by inking deals with another 60-plus Web programmers, many of them in Europe. Some of them you’ve heard of.

News Byte

Blip Adds Product Head, Board Member

Video network Blip, which brought in a new leader earlier this year, now has a new head of product: Former Adweek executive Doug Ferguson will report to CEO Kelly Day. Blip has also added Mahalo president Jason Rapp to its board of directors.

Mahalo Lays Off 25 Percent for Shift to Apps From Video

Mahalo, the often-pivoted company run by well-known entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, laid off a quarter of its staff earlier this month.

Crowdsourcing Platform ChallengePost Raises $4 Million

Start-ups that rely on the Internet as a source of free labor are nothing new. But the idea keeps coming back, in different forms, because it seems to work.

Google: No, Government Investigations Have Not Frozen Our Manual Search Tweaks

A report claiming that manual updates to Google’s search results have been frozen because of possible government investigations is entirely untrue, the search sovereign says.

News Byte

Citing Google Search Change, Mahalo Cuts Staff

Here’s one ripple effect from the change Google made to its search engine algorithm last week: Jason Calacanis’ Mahalo.com has cut 10 percent of its staff. The site, which started out life as a “human powered search engine” and which is now focusing on “how-to” videos, cited a “significant dip in our traffic and revenue” since Google made its change, which is supposed to “reduce rankings for low-quality sites”. Allen Stern has more details.

The Anti-Social Reviews Site: Skweal Keeps Negative Customer Feedback Private

Tyler Crowley, who has long been tech rabble rouser Jason Calacanis’ right-hand man, is branching out and starting his own company. Called Skweal, it is a way for customers to give retailers feedback privately, rather than posting a negative review on a site like Yelp.

Voices

Early Adopter: Quick Hits from the Launch Conference

Yesterday was the launch of the two-day Launch Conference, a start-up demo orchestrated by entrepreneur Jason Calacanis. So here are some snippets from the event, along with the Early Adopter picks from the demo pit.

Bill Gross's UberMedia Raises $17.5 Million From Accel, Index and Steve Case

UberMedia, which just bought TweetDeck for $30 million in equity last week, has raised $17.5 million in a round led by Accel Partners. The valuation for the Pasadena, Calif., start-up founded by well-known entrepreneur Bill Gross–which was actually struck some month ago–is $40 million.

Mahalo Taps Jason Rapp as President

Mahalo's Jason Calacanis in Better Days