Everything is for sale if you pay the right price, right? Well, not Digg according to Jay Adelson who spoke with BusinessWeek recently. Digg’s new focus lies on becoming profitable as soon as possible. That of course is the right thing to say if you want to be bought.
On the other hand; Digg has reportedly been shopping itself around for years and rumors regularly surfaced about an impending sale. That sale never materialized and it could just be that Digg is running out of potential buyers. With the current state of the economy it makes a lot of sense to focus on revenues instead of an exit. Because it is common sense AND makes you more interesting for potential buyers.
Here are some of the new features Digg wants to add to increase traffic and revenue:
sell ads on its RSS feeds
keep costs reasonable
focus more on the top-line revenue
increase engagement on the site (by introducing new features)
make Digg more social
a revamped version of its search engine to offer more relevant search advertisements.
International expansion by acquiring local Digg clones
Jay mentions there is ”probably a list of 15 to 20 things we want to do” in the following year. All to increase user interaction and thereby pageviews and revenue.
According to Businessweek, in September, Jay said it had tripled revenues over the last year. In 2009, Adelson expects “another tripling if not more.” Earlier this year, Adelson wanted to reach profitability within two years. Now, he says, “it will hopefully happen within a year”.
I hope you like that post!
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Written on December 3, 2008 – 9:55 am Andrew Hyde, Start-up junkie
Just after midnight BrightKite, a location based social network launched out of their private beta into an open registration. In their words:
Brightkite is a location-based social network. In real time you can see where your friends are and what they’re up to. Depending on your privacy settings you can also meet others nearby.
Think of Twitter mashed with Dodgeball with pictures, geotagging and threaded commenting. Yeah, I know, another Twitter like service, but the location and feature set makes this app a stand out.
Location checkins are done attaching you to businesses, cross streets or user defined placemarks. Notifications of nearby friends checking in happen via email, SMS (international too) and via their web interface. Users can directly message each other via the iPhone app or txt message, without exposing phone numbers.
Privacy is always a huge concern with anything dealing with location. BrightKite has some pretty advanced privacy features. You opt into each checkin and opt to share it with trusted friends or the general public.
One of the most interesting features is the BrightKite wall, where places can display all of their recent check ins, photos and notes via fullscreen flash (imagine this at a concert or coffeeshop). Users can check in and join BrightKite via txt message to the wall.
I’ve been using their application for a year now, and have found it to be incredibly compelling. Their developer API is open, and robust (their iPhone app is built on top of this). Here is a demo from their iPhone app, a new version is expected soon:
Disclosure: I’ve known the BrightKite guys from before they were accepted to TechStars, where I work.
Written on December 3, 2008 – 5:02 am Zee M Kane, Internet Marketer, Design Connoisseur & Web App Devotee
Bit.ly, my URL shortener of choice have kindly created a little Google gadget which makes it nice and easy to shorten URL’s you’re about to insert into a gmail email. This keeps your emails nice and clean but also ensure that long url’s don’t end up broken once they arrive in your recipients inbox.
To install:
Go to Settings > Labs
Scroll down to the very bottom and click the radio button to enable “Add any gadget by URL”
Click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page
You should now have a gadgets tab at the top of the settings page. Click it.
In the “Add a gadget by its URL:” box paste this link: http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/107368512201818821991/bitly-shortener.xml
Written on December 3, 2008 – 2:04 am Zee M Kane, Internet Marketer, Design Connoisseur & Web App Devotee
Jonathan Miller a veteran of the Internet business is looking to raise funds to purchase Yahoo reports Reuters.
Yes, you may laugh at the possibility that one man may find the funds to official purchase the company, however Miller is no average man. He was CEO of AOL for four years and a founding partner of the Velocity Interactive Group investment firm, if there’s anyone out that can do it - he can.
According to Jessica E. Vascellaro of the WSJ, “Mr. Miller has been talking to private equity investors and sovereign wealth funds for months in hopes of raising money for a Yahoo deal.”
In regards to how much Miller is looking to raise, Vascellaro elaborated “Mr. Miller believes he can do a deal that would be worth around $20 to $22 a share to Yahoo shareholders . . . which would involve raising about $28 billion to $30 billion to purchase the entire company.”
With Yahoo’s stock currently at 11.50, it values the company at approx $15.94 billion which would be pretty favorable to Yahoo shareholders and board members. (more…)
Written on December 3, 2008 – 12:19 am Zee M Kane, Internet Marketer, Design Connoisseur & Web App Devotee
Voice Dialer is FREE iPhone application which, as the name suggests, enables voice dialing on the iPhone. The app is developed by the wonder-kids at Midomi who also developed the song recognition engine that lets you identify a song by simply singing, humming or playing the actual song.
Voice Dialer is innovative in it’s own right, it also lets you search your contacts without necessarily calling them. For example you may say “James Bond” and it will simply search your contacts and pull up his details where you can then email, SMS, or use maps for him. If you search for “Call James Bond” however it will auto-dial James’ number.
To view a video demonstration of the apps features click here. To download the app (which is free) click here.
Written on December 2, 2008 – 7:05 pm Mircea Goia, Next Web US Webtipr
Ok, here you go. This is the last web event I am presenting for this year which takes place in Romania on 3rd of December (which means tomorrow).
The event’s name is NetCamp and during this conference there is a section called NetStartup (where the internet startups have a chance to showcase their products or ideas and pitch potential investors - kinda Techcrunch 50, The Next Web Conference or Seedcamp).
NetCamp is at its second edition, hosted at the same Howard Johnson Grand Plaza Hotel from Bucharest which hosted other web events from Romania (Webstock, RoNewMedia). It’s organized by Evensys, a conference and seminar organizer, in partnership with Nokia and Beko as sponsor.
The event has some prestigious guests like Tristan Nitot (president & co-founder, Mozilla Europe), Alexandre Almajeanu (founder, Gentica), Alexis Bonte (co-founder & CEO, eRepublik.ro) si Jan Vichr (board member, Swiss Venture), Bobby Voicu (Yahoo Romania), Vlad Stan (Seed Money), Zoli Herczeg (Microsoft Romania) and others.
At this conference people will discuss about user-generated content, social web, online communities, new business models, blogs & wikis, web analytics, the challenges and opportunities on web. This conference is oriented towards internet professionals, telecom, software, hardware, advertising & media, creators and distributors of online products and services.
On NetStarup section projects or products already on the market will be presented having these themes:
• Content Websites
• Online Applications
• User Generated Content Websites
• Mobile Applications
• eCommerce Sites
• other projects and products (internet & mobile Internet)
This year there are 10 finalists which will showcase their startup to the jury of six members (mostly investors). Each member of the jury can award a 5,000 euro amount to the starup they choose (approx. $6,300). In exchange, the investor gets 10% of the company (sounds like YCombinator investing style).
The investor will be involved also in the next round of financing once the project reached a certain level.
There’s the possibility that all investors could invest in the same project and they will share those 10% of the company (a company can get as much as 30,000 euros - $40,000 without giving up more than 10% of the company…or get 5,000 euros and give up 10%…or get nothing).
And that’s it for this year for Romania.
I’m expecting other people to present web conferences and web festivals from their countries (if there are any).
If you want me to write about them please use my contact page and email found here.
Below is an animated GIF which is popular on Twitter and a lot of blogs. You might take offense of the lighthearted way the author has chosen to display such epic and dramatic events. But looks past that and you see a mini documentary and different view on a story that has been told many times, but never like this.
More traditional thinkers might say that this is NOT the way to tell a story about World War II. I think a comedian/artist/story teller can use any form he likes as long as he gets the original concept across. Humor is a very normal tool for people to grasp dramatic and traumatic events.
I think this is the first time I watched a documentary about the events leading up to the second world war and followed what happened and who did what to whom.
This is more than just funny. It is a work of art.
Reuters reports that Nokia has just launched the N97 in Barcelona today. The new machine is Nokia’s answer to the iPhone, Sony Ericsson’s X1 and HTC’s Touch Pro and every other touchscreen smart phone that beat them to the market.
It would be easy to dismiss the whole thing but Nokia did sell 15 million N95s so you never know.
Size: 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm* *18.25 mm at camera area
Weight: Approx. 150 g
Memory: Up to 48GB (32 GB on-board memory, plus 16GB expansion via microSD memory card slot)
Display: 3.5 inch TFT with up to 16 million colors nHD 16:9 widescreen (640×360 pixels)
Talk time: Up to 320 min (3G), 400 min (GSM)
Standby time: Up to 400 hrs (3G), 430 hrs (GSM)
Video playback: Up to 4.5 hours (offline mode)
Music playback: Up to 37 hours (offline mode)
Image capture: Up to 5 megapixels (2584 x 1938) JPEG/EXIF (16.7 million/24-bit color)
…and Engadget has just posted what apears to be the first ‘hands-on’ video of the N97:
Will this really become an iPhone killer? I think we can rule the Blackberry Storm out by now and Android is cool but too techy for most. Maybe Nokia stands a chance? What do you think? Anyone considering buying one of these?
If you are based in London, or can make it there before tomorrow, check out The Female Internet Heroes event which will take place on the 3rd of December in London, featuring internet women such as Lulu Phongmany of iVillage, Katarina Skoberne of OpenAd and Andrea Cockerton, Mudhut.
FreshIdeas Events and TheNextWomen have joined forces to hold the first in a series of events for and about women in the internet industry at the Curzon Office of UBS in London.
The event will see female internet heroes sharing their expertise on setting up an online business, raising finance, and developing a business in the UK and European market.
The program also includes pitches by Julia Macmillan, CEO toyboywarehouse.com, Sue Guerrieri, Founder of SugaPlum Shop, Anna Colclough, Founder of Tourdust (in beta) and Alicia Navarro, Founder of Skimbit.
Here you are! And here are all our other visitors too! According to our stats 35% of you come from the US and 15% are browsing from The Netherlands. After that we have a very long tail of traffic from all over the world. The screen shot shows just the top of the list. The spinning globe shows all our visitors in real time. Can you see yourself?
Written on December 3, 2008 – 11:39 am
Everything is for sale if you pay the right price, right? Well, not Digg according to Jay Adelson who spoke with BusinessWeek recently. Digg’s new focus lies on becoming profitable as soon as possible. That of course is the right thing to say if you want to be bought.
Written on December 3, 2008 – 9:55 am
Just after midnight 
Written on December 3, 2008 – 5:02 am
Written on December 2, 2008 – 7:05 pm
NetCamp
Below is an animated GIF which is popular on Twitter and a lot of blogs. You might take offense of the lighthearted way the author has chosen to display such epic and dramatic events. But looks past that and you see a mini documentary and different view on a story that has been told many times, but never like this.
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If you are based in London, or can make it there before tomorrow, check out The Female Internet Heroes event which will take place on the 3rd of December in London, featuring internet women such as Lulu Phongmany of iVillage, Katarina Skoberne of OpenAd and Andrea Cockerton, 
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