Monday, September 17, 2012

How Much Did Google Pay For SnapSeed?

No point stating the obvious. This is a response to Facebook's most important acquisition to date: Instagram. My first question was, how much did Google pay? I have a feeling it paid less than 100 million. I have not read any numbers anywhere. Snapseed might not have Instagram's popularity, but it does what it does.

Google buys Instagram competitor
Snapseed may not be on the same level as Instagram in terms of popularity, but the app's emphasis on photo-editing has garnered its own following among photo enthusiasts..... Apple named Snapseed the iPad app of the year in 2011. The most popular iPhone app title when to Instagram.

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Google+ At 400 Million Users

I wonder how much of this can be attributed to months of bad press coverage Facebook has been getting for the hammering it has received on Wall Street.

400 million in 12 months is wild.

As predicted, Google+ passes 400M registered users, now has 100M monthly active users
over 400,000,000 people have upgraded to Google+. It was only a year ago that we opened public sign-up, and we couldn’t have imagined that so many people would join in just 12 months. While Google+ is all about creating a better experience across Google, it’s also a destination. And here too, I’m happy to report that we have just crossed 100,000,000 monthly active users on Google+


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How HTML 5 Beat Adobe In The Apple Arena

Steve Jobs was a controversial figure both in life and in his legacy and although he made some shock decisions time has shown that he was quite the visionary when it came to accurately predicting the outcome of certain choices and events. There will never be another Steve Jobs but there are those that try and closely emulate the Apple CEO’S decisions. Apart from revolutionising and reinvigorating the Apple brand, Jobs also forced the mobile casino industry to sit up and take notice of the development of games for the iPad and iPhone casino industry.

When Steve Jobs made the executive decision to cut out Adobe Flash as a gaming platform for iPhone casino games he realised he would face a backlash from developers around the world. Jobs replaced Adobe that he called unsecure, unstable and unreliable with HTML 5, a move at the time that threw mobile casino developers into a spin. A war had been started between Jobs and Adobe when Jobs wrote an open letter to Adobe criticising their lack of support and security features and their plug-in intensive technology. Initially it seemed a harsh stance for Jobs to take, to simply
eliminate the iPhone casino and mobile casino platform that he had relied on until then and replace it with a technology that was, at that stage not commonly in use.

We know now that what Apple did in eradicating Flash games and relying only on HTML made it possible for us to enjoy the best iPhone casino games we are accustomed to today, and that without this decision we would still be struggling with games that were semi compatible with smart phones and tablets and never delivered what they promised.

Long term, it seemed that although Steve never got to see his HTML 5 mobile casino development come fully into fruition he had made the right decision. Adobe conceded defeat and issued a statement saying they would steer away from developing for iPhone casino and other mobile gaming platforms and focus more on their online applications and programs that utilise HTML 5. This nod in the direction of Apples decision made it clear that Steve Jobs was quite the visionary and his suspicions that Adobe could never quite compete with the marketability of HTML 5 were 100% correct.

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Sunday, September 16, 2012

Two Things I Noted

Taj Mahal, Agra, India. Deutsch: Taj Mahal im ...
Taj Mahal, Agra, India. Deutsch: Taj Mahal im indischen Agra. Español: Vista del Taj Mahal, Agra, India. Français : Le Taj Mahal, à Âgrâ, en Inde. Русский: Мавзолей Тадж-Махал, Агра, Индия. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Khosla might be legendary to the world, he is beyond legendary to me.

I watched this video with immense interest: Khosla At Disrupt.

I noted many things, but two things I would like to briefly mention.

One, his mention of the 500 million people in India who have never seen a doctor because they can't afford one. He seems to suggest, there's an app for that. I mean, that is revolutionary.

Two, and this is coming from Arrington. When he said even shorter URLs, he was kidding. But I don't think he needs to be kidding. I think shorter URLs are a good option. Even Bitly URLs are long. Instead of bit.ly why not simply b.l - I mean, that part might already be an easy option.

Off to watch Zuck speak.

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Khosla At Disrupt


Source: TechCrunch

Hartej Says Hello From Chile


Hartej popped up in my Gchat asking for a small favor.


Will I upvote something he just posted on Y Combinator? After getting them to send me a new password, I did.

Scott Weiss: The Path To Starting A Startup
it’s just that the most valuable lessons for successfully running a startup come from actually working at a well-run startup. I’d go even further to assert that the startup should be based in Silicon Valley and backed by venture capital..... If you’re trying to prepare yourself for entrepreneurship — the same two to four years at a startup isn’t even comparable to the equivalent time spent in school or a large company. There are probably five to ten times more lessons and relevance at the startup.
The Evolving Path To Starting A Startup
It has become cheaper than ever to start your own company, but scaling a startup is still extremely expensive..... It’s hard to launch your startup, when you’re too focused working at a VC funded startup in Silicon Valley while $100k in debt from Business School..... It’s far easier to raise capital if you have successfully exited a startup in the past. But, thanks to startup incubators and accelerators run by some of the top experts in the industry, entrepreneurs have multiple ways to build successful businesses ....... Being an entrepreneur is often about walking the unbeaten path. I dont think it’s by any means necessary to follow a strict regimented and strategized approach the way Weiss suggests. ....... You need three things to create a successful startup according to Paul Graham: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible..... As Naval Ravikant says, “Venture Capital is open to attack by disruptive new business models and technology”.
Scott Weiss needs to know Hartej Singh pinged me from Chile. I met him in New York. He flew over to take advantage of some of what the Chilean government has been offering to help create a local tech ecosystem. The wild west of tech innovation is not copyrighted by Silicon Valley, that's for sure.

How Start-Up Chile Is Attracting Startups From Singapore, London, and San Francisco
Socialance is a startup out of London that has moved to Santiago, Chile, for six months. The reason for the move is pretty straightforward: Start-Up Chile is giving the company $40,000 without taking any equity stake. And the rent is relatively cheap..... has attracted about 500 companies to its startup program since 2010. The program ends its first phase in 2014. By then, it will have provided grants to 1,000 companies for a total of $40 million. ..... the ease with which international companies are able to go to Chile for the six-month experience. The Chilean government manages all the paperwork to settle there. .... And if the company decides to stay, all they have to do is get a new visa after one year there. The cost? $100. ...... For Socialance, a freelance service, the move has given the company a chance to get free office space, some mentoring and a two-bedroom apartment for $500 a month. In London, Vigil said they paid about $4,000 for a three-bedroom house that was shared by five people....... And labor costs far less. Engineering talent can cost as little as $1,500 per month. In San Francisco, it can cost a minimum of $6,000 per month to hire an engineer.
Silicon Valley Guru Blasts Y Combinator Hype
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A Great I-Am-No-Longer-With-Google Gesture From Mayer

Although she was known to use the iPhone also while at Google. The official pretext? I need to study the competition. Competition my _______.


Marissa Mayer Just Gave Every Yahoo Employee An iPhone 5
New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer just sent an email to all of Yahoo's full time and part time employees in the US, promising them a new Apple, Samsung, Nokia, or HTC smartphone..... "Yahoo! Smart Phones, Smart Fun!" .... Yahoo employees will have a choice of phones: iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3, HTC One X, HTC EVO 4G LTE, or Nokia Lumia 920. .... Yahoo is also going to pay its employees data and phone bills.... the idea is for Yahoo employees to use the phones that Yahoo users are using. .... The program will cost Yahoo a few million dollars .... a more informed and motivated workforce.
I think she also got some billions from the Alibaba sale. And she is flaunting it. Paying your employees' phone bills? Now that's original. I have not heard Google do that.


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