Building strong networks and developing meaningful relationships are cornerstones to business success. Although it may be a cliche, “who you know” can be incredibly important for startups.
With the growth of social networking sites, it seems easier than ever to develop a sizable network of connections: Facebook friends, Twitter followers, your…
The elevator door opens. And there stands your ideal investor. It’s the chance of a lifetime. But that chance only lasts as long as the elevator ride – you have less than a minute to make an impression. Hopefully, you’ve got a well-crafted elevator pitch ready to give.
The elevator pitch is not the hurried presentation of a full-blown…
In an email to staff yesterday, new Ning CEO Jason Rosenthal wrote that “When I became CEO 30 days ago, I told you I would take a hard look at our business. This process has brought real clarity to what’s working, what’s not, and what we need to do now to make Ning a big success.” With that, he announced Ning would be abandoning its…
The social networking platform
As a recent article in The Economist observed, we are at the point of an “industrial revolution of data,” with vast amounts of digital information being created, stored and analyzed. The rise of “big data” has led in turn to an increased demand for tools to both analyze and visualize the information. This bodes well for startups tackling the…
Taking advantage of the increasing importance of social media management for businesses, Spredfast, a finalist at this year’s Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at SXSW, has received $1.6 million in funding from Austin Ventures. Featured here on ReadWriteWeb in January, Spredfast is the first enterprise-class social media management system.
The gaming industry continues to see phenomenal growth – from console systems to social games. The 12 million subscribers of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft – once the giant of gaming – now seems small compared to the 80 million Farmville players. Farmville’s maker, Zynga was recently estimated to be worth $5 billion – a valuation that appears to…
This morning’s presentations from Chirp, Twitter’s developer conference, have showcased the growth and the innovation of the service.
A few of the statistics announced this morning include:
Although securing and promoting your company’s brand is an important step when starting a business, and although protecting that brand can be an ongoing concern, the question of what it means to associate a person with a company brand is a lot more complicated – a fact made obvious in light of Tiger Wood’s sex scandals. The companies that featured…
Internet analyst Mary Meeker from Morgan Stanley presented a report on Internet trends at Events@Google yesterday. Echoing those trends identified in her 2009 presentation, the report focuses on the rapid and continued growth of the mobile internet and social networking. Claiming that the world has entered the fifth major technology cycle, Meeker…
Although the median age of CEOs is 54, one of the fasted growing demographics of entrepreneurs is young people. According to a survey by JA Worldwide almost three-quarters of high school students indicate an interest in becoming entrepreneurs. Although there are a few college programs dedicated to entrepreneurship, even with the preparation…
The popular location-based services Foursquare and Gowalla were launched at the 2009 SXSW, and one year later, many proclaimed the 2010 SXSW to be the year of “location, location, location”. With almost 350,000 Foursquare check-ins during one day of the event, and with numerous location-based services launching before, during, and after SXSW…
Last week brought two major announcements from Twitter. On Thursday, the company announced an official application for BlackBerry. On Friday, Twitter announced that it had purchased Atebits, the makers of the iPhone app Tweetie. Over the weekend, there was substantial discussion and a fair amount of hand-wringing by third-party developers…
Most of the initial buzz surrounding Apple’s announcement on Thursday of its new operating system, iPhone OS 4, centered on the support for multitasking. While this feature has been long anticipated by users and developers alike, another important but less discussed aspect of the update involves Apple’s Game Center – a social gaming network to…
It is widely accepted that social media has transformed the landscape of marketing radically, and no longer can businesses – no matter their size or stage of development – afford to avoid social media. While the importance of developing one’s brand online remains paramount – most obviously through the registration of a domain name – the…
Two important legal decisions were made this week that could have significant impact on technology startups.
On Tuesday,
High-profile startup Gravity launched its group conversation website to the public tonight. Founded by three former MySpace executives – Amit Kapur, Steve Pearman, and Jim Benedetto – and backed by Redpoint Ventures and August Capital, Gravity “connects people with shared interests and helps them engage in meaningful and fun…
Despite the proverbial “the customer is always right,” the relationship between the customer and the company has long been organized for the benefit of the latter. But the ability for companies to completely control this relationship has disappeared.
Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management, a report from the Altimeter Group…
A computing device for every teacher and student so they can access the Internet at school or at home? That, along with an embrace of cloud computing, Creative Commons, and open-source technologies is part of a new set of recommendations from the U.S. Department of Education.
On March 5, the department released an 80-page draft of its National…