BoomTown » application

Qualcomm's CEO Paul Jacobs Talks About Smartbooks and More!

Kara Swisher — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:36:52 +0000

When in San Diego recently, BoomTown paid a visit to Qualcomm and its Chairman and CEO, Paul Jacobs, to talk about a new “smartbook” device the wireless-technology company unveiled last week.

Well, sort of–while I got a gander at a prototype, the real one is not actually set to debut until the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in January, where Jacobs will deliver his first keynote address.

There, he will show off what is essentially a combination of a smartphone and a netbook using wireless technology and an always-on capability, an attempt to push yet another innovative device type onto the market.

It will use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip, and the first ones will be made by Lenovo and offered by AT&T (T)–to try to get the device widely used by consumers.

Smartbooks will be videocentric and have a Linux-based user interface, a keyboard and a range of popular widget applications, such as email and Facebook.

Obviously, this will be a competitive market and, really, Apple (AAPL), with its upcoming tablet computer, is also pushing into this mobile-phone-that-ate-computers space.

Moving into new markets has been important for Jacobs and Qualcomm (QCOM), which recently gave fiscal-year forecasts under Wall Street expectations and has had a rocky time in recent quarters.

Along with the econalypse, the company has attributed this to the decline in handsets with CDMA wireless technology, which Qualcomm pioneered.

Here’s my interview with Jacobs about smartbooks, as well as augmented reality and the company’s new FLO TV device, coming out soon. Plus, a wireless bandaid!:

[ See post to watch video ]

Fancy Charts of the Week: Mobile App Loyalty–"They Use or You Lose"

Kara Swisher — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:30:19 +0000

This week, BoomTown has found an interesting chart to peruse about the loyalty people have for their smart-phone apps.

The takeaway for developers: Try to stay in Quadrant I!

In other words, Sally-Field-at-the-Oscars territory–it’s where they love you, they really love you.

To grok this, you’ll need to view the two charts below from Flurry Analytics, a mobile analytics and monetization tools start-up in San Francisco, from a blog post titled “Mobile Apps: Models, Money and Loyalty.”

Flurry used a sample size of 2,000 live applications and 200 million user sessions on the IPhone and iPod touch from Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG) Android, Blackberry from Research in Motion (RIMM), and other platforms.

In Quadrant I are reference, news, and weather apps, which are frequently accessed and retained longer.

Quadrant IV is also good, with high retention rates–education, social networking, medical–but less frequent weekly use.

Here are the charts (click on them to make them larger):

Is Spotify Spot On? Co-Founder Daniel Ek Talks About the Hot Online Music Start-Up!

Kara Swisher — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:14:35 +0000

There’s no question that Spotify is the latest hot start-up of the moment, which would be super annoying to BoomTown–who is easily irked by never-ending froth around Web 2.0 companies–if co-founder Daniel Ek were not so sharp and the digital-music-on-demand service he created not so nifty.

But, indeed, Ek turned out to be a very refreshing and level-headed serial entrepreneur in an interview I had with him yesterday in London, where Spotify has an office.

While Spotify is only available in certain countries in Europe, Ek promises it will soon come to the U.S., presumably when he finishes negotiating with the major music labels–which all reportedly hold stakes in Spotify.

They would like it, given that Spotify is essentially a kind of not-iTunes, a label-friendlier version of the popular music-downloading software and service from Apple (AAPL).

So, it is probably likely Spotify will get the green light for its American invasion, especially given its strong performance in under a year, with several million users, mostly in the U.K., as well as Germany and Sweden.

Those consumers seem to like the simple and light software application that lets one find and play a terrific range of music instantly. (Spotify also recently released an iPhone app for mobile users.)

The innovative service is somewhat social and too light on recommendations, but the true appeal is the quick ability to build an eclectic online music library and discover new songs without having to spend a lot buying tracks.

Those who pay a monthly fee get those millions of songs without advertising, while those who use the free version get banner and audio ads. Spotify also makes money from users downloading songs and by spurring physical sales.

While it is still unclear if all this adds up to a big business–the online music business has been notoriously deadly to start-ups–investors have pumped tens of millions of dollars and given Spotify an alleged $250 million.

The start-up has also attracted the attention of U.S. Web hotshots, including Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who complimented it on his status update recently.

Other big companies are also likely to take a look-see at Spotify for acquisition.

The 26-year-old Ek insists he is intent on building a huge standalone business. Famous last words, of course, but he talks a good game, as you can see in this video interview:

[ See post to watch video ]

Sale of iLike to MySpace–$13.5 Million in Cash, $6 Million for Talent Retention–Delayed Over Tax Issues (Really!)…Plus, the List of Other Suitors!

Kara Swisher — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:25:06 +0000

The board of iLike planned a meeting earlier tonight to go over a buyout offer by MySpace, several sources close to the situation said. But it was suddenly canceled because of some thorny tax implications related to the talent-retention part of the deal to purchase the social music start-up.

This does not mean the pending acquisition is in jeopardy, sources said, and it could be on track to be signed as early as today, barring any more complications.

That is what both iLike and MySpace execs are hoping, said sources, one of whom described the outstanding issues as a “technicality.”

What’s also been unclear is the actual price the social networking giant is paying for iLike, which has been reported as about $20 million.

In fact, only $13.5 million will be paid upfront in cash, with about $8 million of that money likely going to one of its major shareholders, Ticketmaster Entertainment (TKTM), due to its preferred shares.

Another $6 million has been promised by MySpace in forward payments to retain some key employees–including iLike co-founders and twin brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi.

Although those employees can remain in Seattle, where iLike has its HQ, they must stay employed at Beverly Hills, Calif.-based MySpace for two and a half years to get their money.

It’s that talent part of the deal that caused the Partovis to cancel the iLike board meeting, which they explained to key investors was necessary due to some confusion over how the money paid to these employees would be taxed.

A person briefed on the issue said that if it was taxed as compensation, it would have a much higher tax rate than if it were considered long-term capital gains.

The Partovis said in the email that they were working on the problem with their advisers on the sale, Allen & Co., as well as with lawyers and accountants.

Tax snafus in the middle of a sale are not exactly the way the entrepreneurial Partovis envisioned it was going to go for iLike (see my various video interview related to iLike below) when they created the compelling music sharing and recommendation service in 2006.

After only a few years, the innovative start-up claims it has 50 million registered users overall.

A lot of that growth was due to iLike quickly becoming one of the most popular widgets on social networking sites like Facebook, where it has also been the top music application, with 10 million active monthly users.

The Partovis–who once were close with execs at Facebook (see my party video below), particularly founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg–placed great faith in its growth lifting all Web 2.0 boats.

It did not turn out that way, though, especially from the important financial point of view, and iLike scrambled to diversify.

The iLike service recently began offering a music downloading service, for example, as well as other such features, all of which would be attractive to the music-centric focus at MySpace.

Once an Internet sensation, MySpace has been struggling to restructure itself after losing momentum and buzz in recent years, as well as a huge advertising revenue drop in its most recent quarter.

Its owner, News Corp. (NWS), replaced its founders with new management four months ago, including former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta as CEO.

After making major staff layoffs and rejiggering management, Van Natta and his new team have been working on an overhaul of the MySpace product and seem to be refocusing it to become a global music and entertainment service.

MySpace also has a joint venture with major music labels, MySpace Music, which has been trying to attract consumers and build a viable business. Sources said MySpace Music could also buy into the iLike deal or simply license its technology to improve its features.

Thus, purchasing iLike would fit in well with MySpace’s overall plans.

And iLike has also been in need of a fix itself.

For all its popularity, especially on Facebook, it has moved slowly toward profitabilty, and its $17 million in funding has been dwindling, as has its viability as a standalone company.

Back in more frothy Web 2.0 days, iLike’s generous funding gave it a valuation of more than $50 million, which has also lost steam over time and as the economy has worsened.

In the last quarter of fiscal 2008, for example, Ticketmaster wrote down its $13 million investment by $6 million.

Tensions between its execs and iLike have gotten worse over time, although some thought at one time that Ticketmaster would buy iLike.

No longer, which is why the founders turned to Allen & Co., as MediaMemo reported as far back as November, to find another big investor or buyer.

Wrote Peter Kafka: “Delivering free music on the Web has so far proven to be a high-cost, low-revenue endeavor…”

So, the New York deal-making firm ginned up a small group of suitors, which included Facebook, Activision Blizzard (ATVI) and Microsoft (MSFT), as well as MySpace.

Of the three, Activision was most serious, with interest in integrating iLike’s community and technology tools with its Guitar Hero franchise.

But Activision never actually made a formal bid, said sources.

Both Microsoft and Facebook also considered the purchase, but sources said they would only offer stock in a deal. But iLike wanted cash in the deal.

The Partovis were also was wary about working at either place.

Both Partovis, for example, had worked at Microsoft (Ali after selling it LinkExchange in 1998 for $265 million; Hadi several times, once following Microsoft’s acquisition of Tellme Networks, which he co-founded).

As it has turned out, in its short life, iLike’s last, best alternative is apparently MySpace.

“Look, iLike has been shopped around for a while, and while the team and technology are great, it only has one choice and that’s to be sold,” said one person involved in the various scenarios. “The question for the buyer then is whether it was worth it to pay up or just move on and do it ourselves.”

So until the bean counters settle this IRS nightmare, here is my video interview with Hadi Partovi about a year ago at iLike’s HQ in the Capitol Hill section of Seattle, when times were a little more hopeful:

[ See post to watch video ]

And here is a very dark and very shaky video I did when iLike threw a fete in Silicon Valley to celebrate its start-up two years ago and to send some appreciation in Facebook’s direction–it is so dated that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who is in the video, is still at Google (GOOG).

(Full Disclosure: News Corp. also owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

VMware Forks Over $420 Million for SpringSource (Plus the Press Release, Etc.)

Kara Swisher — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:22:54 +0000

It’s certainly acquisition fever in Silicon Valley today.

After it was announced that that social networking giant Facebook had bought online content sharing start-up FriendFeed, now comes the news that VMware has purchased SpringSource, a privately held enterprise and Web application development and management cloud computing start-up.

The price? That would be $420 million in cash and stock.

While the blogosphere–including BoomTown–will inevitably find the FaceFeed deal more riveting, this one is obviously more important.

With the purchase of San Mateo, Ca.-based SpringSource, Palo Alto, Calif.-based, VMware–which is a top player in the virtualization space–is adding to its cloud-computing application-management strength and its ties to the open-source community.

Said VMware in a press release about the five-year-old SpringSource buy:

“VMware will acquire SpringSource for approximately $362 million in cash and equity plus the assumption of approximately $58 million of unvested stock and options. The acquisition has been approved by SpringSource’s stockholders and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2009, subject to customary closing conditions.”

Here’s the full press release from VMware (plus, here is a link to a blog post by SpringSource CEO Rod Johnson:

VMware to Acquire SpringSource

Company Adds Modern Application Platform to Cloud Infrastructure Strategy

PALO ALTO, Calif., August 10, 2009–VMware, Inc., (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud, today announced a major step forward in its journey to help simplify IT by entering into a definitive agreement to acquire privately held SpringSource, a leader in enterprise and web application development and management. VMware and SpringSource plan to deliver compelling new solutions that enable companies to more efficiently build, run and manage applications within both internal and external cloud architectures.

“Today’s modern computing environments are moving to an application and data-centric world powered by state of the art virtualized and cloud computing platforms,” said Paul Maritz, president and chief executive officer, VMware. “The combination of SpringSource and VMware capitalizes on this shift and places us right at the intersection of the most important forces in the software market today–virtualization, modern application frameworks and cloud computing.”

VMware will acquire SpringSource for approximately $362 million in cash and equity plus the assumption of approximately $58 million of unvested stock and options. The acquisition has been approved by SpringSource’s stockholders and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2009, subject to customary closing conditions.

SpringSource is the innovator and driving force behind some of the most popular and fastest growing open source developer communities, application frameworks, runtimes, and management tools. In just five years, SpringSource has established a presence in a majority of the Global 2000 companies, and is rapidly delivering a new generation of commercial products and services. VMware plans to continue to support the principles that have made SpringSource solutions popular: the interoperability of SpringSource software with a wide variety of middleware software, and the open source model that is important to the developer community.

Together, VMware and SpringSource plan to further innovate and develop integrated Platform as a Service (PaaS) solutions that can be hosted at customer datacenters or at cloud service providers. These solutions will allow customers to rapidly build new enterprise and web applications and run and manage these applications in the same dynamic, scalable and cost-efficient vSphere-based internal or external clouds that can also host and manage their existing applications, providing an evolutionary path to the future. Forrester Research expects the emerging and rapidly growing PaaS market to expand to $15B by 2016. (Platform-As-A-Service Market Sizing, July 13, 2009)

“VMware has led the modernization of datacenter infrastructures through innovative virtualization and cloud architectures, providing customers with cost savings, agility and choice,” said Rod Johnson, chief executive officer, SpringSource. “The SpringSource team and community are committed to revolutionizing the way companies build, run and manage applications. By combining forces, I’m confident that we’ll be able to deliver a set of truly remarkable solutions that dramatically simplify enterprise IT.”

Background on SpringSource

SpringSource is at the forefront of “lean software,” a concept that is being rapidly adopted by enterprises focused on dramatically cutting cost and complexity, increasing productivity, and accelerating the delivery of high-quality, business-critical applications. SpringSource’s offerings and their underlying open-source technologies are uniquely able to address a wide range of corporate, web and commercial applications through a dynamic, yet consistent architecture. SpringSource counts a majority of the Global 2000 as current customers, and has a rapidly growing business delivering support, training and commercial software based on the well-known open source technologies and communities led by SpringSource:

The Spring Framework is the leading enterprise Java programming model; currently supporting half of all enterprise Java projects and used by approximately two million developers worldwide. The Spring Framework provides a high productivity, lightweight programming environment that makes applications portable across open source and commercial application server environments from IBM, Oracle and others.

Apache Tomcat is the world’s most widely used Java application server, deployed at more than 60% of all organizations running Java server applications. SpringSource is the key contributor to and maintainer of Tomcat and is responsible for more than 95% of the bug fixes over the past two years.

SpringSource leads Groovy and Grails, a rapidly growing dynamic language and Web application framework, each with more than 70,000 downloads per month. Together, Groovy and Grails deliver the rapid application productivity of Ruby on Rails for web applications, while maintaining skill-set and infrastructure compatibility with Java Virtual Machine (JVM) environments.

With more than 3,500 deployments worldwide, SpringSource’s Hyperic application monitoring and management tools are recognized as among the leading open source offerings in the space. In March, SpringSource/Hyperic was named one of Gartner’s “Cool Vendors in Cloud Computing Management and Professional Services.”

Yahoo Confirms Xoopit Purchase

Kara Swisher — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:44:57 +0000

Yahoo confirmed the news–first reported by BoomTown and in The Wall Street Journal last night–that it was buying Xoopit, the San Francisco-based social email company.

And it did so in both a blog post and on Twitter, as you can see here:

@karaswisher @jvascellaro Your scoops confirmed http://bit.ly/gpOT2

Well, thanks! But we are already onto new scoops, so try to keep up!

The price for the acquisition, which Yahoo (YHOO) did not reveal, was about $20 million, according to sources.

In its blog post, titled “Xoopit + Yahoo! Mail = Moving beyond that massive digital shoebox,” Yahoo’s SVP of Application Products Bryan Lamkin wrote, in part:

With the integration of Xoopit’s platform technology and capabilities, the task of sending photos via email will be as easy as it should be and sharing photo albums with friends and family members will also be a cinch. You’ll be able to share your pictures among a group of friends or family like never before–combining pictures from numerous sources into a single album for a private group to view. And soon your inbox will become an organized photo index as well. Just imagine having a tool that collects all the photos you’ve sent and received over the years into that scrapbook you’ve never had time to assemble.

In short, Xoopit will bring phenomenal photo organization, improved photo sharing, and the serendipity of discovering forgotten photos to Yahoo! Mail.

Why is this such a big deal? Yahoo! Mail is actually home to one of the largest online photo repositories in the world. And every day, millions of you use Yahoo! Mail as your primary way to share the photos of important moments in your lives. While social networks and community sites are great for sharing photos with everyone you know, we realize it’s not for everyone or every occasion. For many, email is still best for sharing photos among a more select group of friends or family. And now we’re making it all that much easier for you.

Xoopit finds photos, videos, links and other files in email so that users can surface and then share them on many sites, such as social networking giant Facebook. It also has other products that essentially enliven email.

Xoopit’s investors–Accel Partners and Foundation Capital, along with several angel investors–have pumped about $6.5 million into the company since 2006.

As I previously reported, sources said Yahoo was first impressed with its innovative plug-in that works with Gmail from Google (GOOG), and has been looking at the company for a while, previously offering about $10 million for it.

Xoopit also makes a similar photo-sharing application for Yahoo Mail, which it launched late last year.

The opening up of its popular email product to a variety of third-party applications in order to make it more robust has been a goal of Yahoo recently as it seeks to socialize one of its most popular products.

Interestingly, in the Yahoo blog, Lamkin said Xoopit was Yahoo Mail’s most popular third-party app.

Here is a screen shot of Xoopit in action in Yahoo’s email offering (click on the image to make it larger):

Yahoo to Acquire Xoopit for About $20 Million

Kara Swisher — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 04:00:12 +0000

Yahoo plans on announcing Thursday that it has bought Xoopit for a price in the $20 million range, according to several sources, one of its first acquisitions in a long while.

Reached late this afternoon by BoomTown, a Yahoo (YHOO) spokeswoman declined to comment about the acquisition. Xoopit did not respond to emails earlier today.

But sources said it was a done deal to buy the San Francisco-based social email start-up that finds photos, video, links and other files in email so that users can surface and then share them on many sites. It also has other products that essentially enliven email.

Xoopit’s investors–Accel Partners and Foundation Capital, along with several angel investors–have pumped about $6.5 million into the company since 2006.

According to sources, Yahoo was first impressed with its innovative plug-in that works with Gmail from Google (GOOG), and has been looking at the company for a while, previously offering about $10 million for it.

Xoopit also makes a similar photo-sharing application for Yahoo! Mail, which it launched late last year.

The opening up of its popular email product to a variety of third-party applications, in order to make it more robust, has been a goal of Yahoo recently, as it seeks to socialize one of its most popular products.

One source said Xoopit was a good fit for Yahoo because it allowed the company’s email to be the platform that could knit together other social networking services, such as Facebook. This is seen as a core feature, although the Silicon Valley-based company is also opening its email products up to outside developers.

Yahoo has been planning on announcing the acquisition on Thursday at Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Tech conference, where SVP of Applications Products Bryan Lamkin is appearing on a panel titled, “Dollars & Demographics: Capitalizing on Demographic Trends.”

Lamkin, a former Adobe Systems (ADBE) exec, now runs the Yahoo unit that includes email and other communications and communities products. He was hired in April by CEO Carol Bartz.

That panel topic is a little ironic, several sources joked, since Xoopit is not profitable and has very small revenues thus far.

The Wall Street Journal also reported on the deal, although it said Yahoo and Xoopit were still in late-stage talks and the deal was not complete yet.

But, according to my sources, it is done.

For the Record: The Official Yahoo New Homepage Press Release

Kara Swisher — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:20:34 +0000

All the news is already out about the new Yahoo homepage, which was launched today and which you can try here.

It features customizable applications, from Yahoo and third-party developers like Facebook, as well as a cleaner look.

But, just in case you are not satisfied yet, here is the full press release on the new front page for Yahoo (YHOO):

New Yahoo! Homepage Lets People Make the Web Their Own

Consumers can now personalize their Yahoo! experience with the best of the Web; Customizable apps stay with you when you’re mobile

Sunnyvale, Calif.–July 21, 2009–Yahoo!® Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) is launching a new homepage that brings together the best of the Web with the best of Yahoo! in a single destination across both PC and mobile screens. With the new Yahoo! homepage, people can easily add apps–from Yahoo! or virtually any other site on the Web–and access them from their computer or mobile devices so that their favorite content, services and experiences are always at their fingertips. The new Yahoo! homepage is available today in the U.S. at http://yahoo.com/try new and will roll-out in France, India, the UK, and on mobile devices over the coming week.

Today’s launch represents the most significant change to the Yahoo! homepage since the company’s inception. By enabling this level of personalization, Yahoo! allows people to get more done, faster, all in a single place. This launch is a major milestone in the Yahoo! Open Strategy, which seeks to mesh the Yahoo! experience with the best online content and services.

“People are living more of their lives online–in the U.S., the average person visits a staggering 85 sites a month*. Whether for the PC or a mobile device, Yahoo! is bringing greater simplicity and relevance to the way people experience the Web,” said Ari Balogh, executive vice president of products & chief technology officer. “By focusing on what people have told us they want, our new homepage is designed to help them stay on top of what is going on in their world, and in the rest of the world.”

The new Yahoo! homepage brings together the best tools and content from across the Web, combined with leading content and services from Yahoo! properties, to give people one place to access the people and things that matter to them most.

New features of the Yahoo! homepage include:

• My Favorites–People can easily choose from a dashboard of more than 65 apps to add directly to their homepage, including different email providers (AOL®, Gmail®, Yahoo! Mail), best of breed content sites (Barron’s®, NPR®, omg!, USA Today), popular social networking sites (Facebook® and MySpace®), and dozens of others. These apps give people the ability to preview, interact with, or navigate to their favorite sites from one easy check-in point.

• App Maker–Using technology developed by Yahoo!, people can easily create their own app on the fly by adding virtually any URL of their choice.

• Trend Setter–A new snapshot of trends, including the most popular searches, insights from Yahoo! Buzz, and fun facts from around the Web.

• PC to Mobile Sync (coming soon)–People will be able to continue their Yahoo! experience on the go with a more seamless PC to mobile integration. New apps added to the Yahoo! homepage on the PC can be added to the mobile homepage.

• More Personal News–Hyper-local news and the ability to toggle the news module to the top of the page offer easier ways to access the news that matters most.

• Social Updates–People can now share their current “status” with friends directly from the homepage, get visibility into what their friends are doing across the Web, and integrate with leading social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace.

“At Facebook, we’re focused on giving people more powerful ways to connect–whether that is on Facebook or other popular Web destinations,” said Ethan Beard, director of Platform Marketing, Facebook. “With the ability to now check your Facebook activity or update your status directly on the Yahoo! homepage, we’re making it easier for people to share with their friends as they explore their favorite places on the Web.”

All users in the United States can opt-in to experience the new Yahoo! homepage at http://yahoo.com/trynew, with local versions rolling-out in France, India, the UK and on mobile devices over the coming week. Additional global rollouts are planned, beginning in the next month. More enhancements to the Yahoo! homepage, including additional apps, will be added in the coming months.

Yahoo Finally Rolls Out New Homepage to the Masses–and, Drum Roll, It's Good (Plus Screenshots)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:00:47 +0000

Although it’s not news that Yahoo has been readying a new version of its homepage and has spent a lot of time doing so–in fact, it’s gone all Handy Manny with a whole lot of test renovations–the Internet giant begins the massive rollout of it tomorrow.

The official launch of what was code-named “Metro,” which Yahoo had previously said was coming in the fall, will take place on an opt-in “beta” basis for the hundreds of millions of users in the U.S. and will be extended to France, the U.K. and India later this week.

When users log in, they will get a choice–for now, there will be no forcing it–to switch over to the new version, which Yahoo’s Tapan Bhat, SVP of Integrated Consumer Experiences, said in an interview with me today by phone, is the “the most fundamental change to the homepage ever.”

And, indeed, the new look is much different, even than previous launch candidates, featuring an almost complete rejiggering of the look and feel of the most important page at Yahoo (YHOO) and one of the most trafficked on the Internet.

The change is an important one for Yahoo, since its front page is perhaps its most powerful calling card to users and advertisers, as well as to Wall Street. Its homepage gets 330 million unique visitors every month.

Yahoo has redone its homepage many times since its founding in the mid-1990s (you can see the various incarnations of it here), but this new design is perhaps the most dramatic.

(See screenshots of the new regular page and one with a Facebook app featured below; click on the images to make them larger.)

The most striking change is a prominent left-side “My Favorites” area, with 65 specially designed applications that users can customize, including giving a quick hovering glimpse of email, stocks and of third-party sites like Facebook.

Not quite a dashboard or exactly a social networking page, it feels a little as if Yahoo took a browser tab or a toolbar, put it in a vertical format and gave it some great functionality.

Full disclosure: All Things Digital, as well as several other Dow Jones news properties, are in its special alphabetical apps gallery, although I had no idea it would be there.

Yahoo also allows users to create such widgets on the fly from most any Web site and they can have up to 36 apps on the homepage.

There is advertising in the boxes that pop up when hovering over these apps, which is a way of dealing with the issue of purposely sending users away from Yahoo rather than keeping them there. It is a much better version of that trap.

“We want to be the center of people’s lives online and want to do it in an open, innovative way, all while providing a compelling experience,” said Bhat. “It marks the beginning of a renaissance of Yahoo, a renaissance where every pixel matters.”

After looking over the history of Yahoo’s homepages since 1994 (see them all here), it has pretty much told a story of a site with increasingly smaller font sizes and more stuff packed on it.

“It had nothing to do with the user, but what Yahoo wanted the user to do,” said Bhat, rather frankly.

Thus, he said, everything going forward will focus on what the user wants, which, he explained, essentially boils down to a “my world” and “the world” outlook.

In the my-world bucket: Email, favorite Web sites, stock info. In the the-world: General news, search, what’s hot.

But, unlike its highly customized MyYahoo product, Bhat said that Yahoo wanted to make it easier for users to create a page where “there is destination for everything you are about in just a click or two.”

The programmed “Today” module remains, although users can indicate which kind of information–finance, news, entertainment–gets top billing.

The module is also localized, depending on the user.

“We wanted to provide broadcast and narrowcast in one place,” said Bhat.

That includes updating status, right from the homepage, including integration with social networks such as Facebook and MySpace.

But–in a very big mistake–there is no ability to update status to the popular microblogging service Twitter on this part of the homepage, as yet. You can make it an app, though, as Twitter can appear in your Yahoo updates.

And there is a big advertising module still on the right, along with a what’s-hot section. And, finally, there will also soon be complete two-way syncing with mobile devices, said Bhat.

Interestingly, although CEO Carol Bartz has often said internally that she does not like the color purple, which has been the company’s signature one since its founding, the main page keeps up the violet tradition with a lighter tone.

“Yahoo’s color is purple and it is known for that,” said Bhat (deftly not taking my delicious bait).

As to why it has taken so long to get its front page redone–it was originally set to debut late last year–Bhat noted that such a major shift of such a trafficked page was, well, complex.

“It involves bringing users along and also rewiring everything within Yahoo,” said Bhat, who gave Bartz credit for turbocharging the effort, since she first arrived at the troubled Silicon Valley icon in January and quickly put the brakes on the planned launch. “Now, we are looking at Yahoo holistically, all centered around the user.”

Time will tell if it is a success, but it is certainly a good and even innovative effort, in much the same spirit Microsoft (MSFT) has had with its new Bing search offering.

And while some might complain that it is not cutting-edge enough, it seems just the right amount of rejiggering and open feel for the mass of users it serves.

For Yahoo, at least when it comes to this one, change is indeed good.

Slide's Max Levchin Talks About Web 2.0, Redux!

Kara Swisher — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:27:54 +0000

Almost two years ago, just as Web 2.0 was heating up, BoomTown did a three-part interview with Slide founder and CEO Max Levchin.

Soon after, the popular maker of social networking applications, often called widgets, grabbed a big pile of cash from new investors–$50 million from Fidelity and T. Rowe Price–which put the value of the company at $550 million.

So, it was high-time for another visit to see him, especially after the recent recession has forced a lot of high-flying Silicon Valley darlings like Slide to wise up a little and get down to business.

That has meant tightening up costs, abandoning some business plans and drilling down on others.

Previously, Slide’s financial strategy had included making money from selling premium versions of its software, as well as selling advertisers on its large, although disparate, audience with display ads.

Now, says Levchin, it is still about premium products, but also about selling a brand “experience” rather than less effective and increasingly commoditized network-style advertising.

The products have also evolved, although Slide still essentially makes a wide range of innovative widgets that have been attracting many millions of users each. They include everything from slide shows to a software program called SuperPoke that allows a user to poke another in a super way.

A lot of Slide’s initial growth had been through taking advantage of the popularity of MySpace and Facebook.

But, since then, the company has been trying to be a kind of distributed content and application company that is not wholly dependent on large platforms.

Here’s a video of my interview with Levchin at Slide’s new HQ in San Francisco:

[ See post to watch video ]

How Is Yahoo's Massive "Metro" Homepage Redesign Going? It Depends on Who You Ask.

Kara Swisher — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 09:38:26 +0000

Late last night, Yahoo’s Tapan Bhat (pictured here) posted an update on the ongoing redesign of the Internet giant’s homepage, a massive undertaking given that 300 million people visit it each month.

Bhat, who is SVP of Yahoo’s Front Doors, Communities and Network Services, said the company was completing the first phase of its “bucket testing” and collecting feedback, but that, “Bottom line is we’re getting closer to the final design, but we’re not quite there yet.”

Indeed not, according to several sources at Yahoo (YHOO), who said that the massive underhaul of the homepage has been a much more complex, much dicier effort and was taking a lot longer than expected to launch.

(You can see examples of the redesign and also Bhat’s post last night on Yahoo’s corporate blog, Yodel Anecdotal, below.)

When the redesign–which is called “Metro” internally–was announced last September, Bhat said the changes would initially impact less than one percent of worldwide users in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and India.

But he also said they would then be rolled out to a wider and wider circle over the next six months. That has not happened, obviously.

Why? One key reason: Some results in limited testing showing actual declines in traffic, both from pointing outward more and also having people stay on the homepage with beefed-up “one-click” features.

The biggest issue is openness, which is aggressive in the new design, especially for Yahoo.

But it is a move pushed strongly by former CEO Jerry Yang. The idea is that Yahoo was a “starting point” for consumers was one of his key strategies.

That includes adding in lots of widget-like applications, or apps, onto the homepage from outside partners, and many more links to sites all over the Web.

“We’re pointing people off Yahoo and they are going,” said one exec about Yahoo’s first massive redesign since 2006. “While being open is a good thing, it also means less traffic inside Yahoo.”

Said another: “A lot of us want it to point more to great Yahoo services we offer instead of giving everyone else the benefit of our size.”

And the results so far, several sources said, have definitely caught the attention of new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, who some say might be considering slowing the wider rollout of the new homepage that insiders said was expected to be well on its way by spring.

Delay is, of course, common in massive projects like this, especially in this case, since the Yahoo homepage is a powerful “firehose” all over Yahoo and the Web.

When I contacted Bhat earlier this week to ask about the status of the homepage redesign, he would not comment about when it would roll out widely or about results of the testing, or give me access to the redesigned pages.

But he did kindly offer to walk me through the progress so far, next week at Yahoo HQ in Sunnyvale.

Then an update from Bhat suddenly appeared last night, in which he outlined that positive and negative feedback from that small number of Yahoo customers who have been using the new homepage.

Apparently, testers love the streamlined look and feel and the apps, and prefer the new page over the current one.

They also want even more apps, though, and think Yahoo should nix the darker color, as well as give easier access to mail and other services.

One assumes that is just a tiny bit of the feedback, especially given how dramatic the changes are.

In a post last fall when the redesign was announced by Bhat, I wrote that Yahoo was “employing a design that more significantly allows users to customize the starting page in a way that essentially amounts to a kind of My Yahoo-lite for everyone.”

That meant the ability to get to information and services more quickly, with links to outside email providers, initially from Google (GOOG) and Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL.

The test design also includes a prominent left-hand vertical bar, with applications from both Yahoo properties and third-party services like eBay (EBAY), which are easy to add and remove.

Eventually, Bhat said at the time, there would be thousands of apps, from Yahoo and also from outside developers.

“People want broadcast and narrowcast at the same time,” said Bhat then. “They want choices, but they also don’t want to do the work involved [in programming their own homepage].”

Noting that it was not the dashboard approach of My Yahoo or iGoogle, Bhat added at the time: “People are time-starved…so it is important to the user to get to their relevant daily information as quickly as possible without having to click around.”

But, said several sources at Yahoo who have seen the Metro results so far, by giving them more options, especially outside ones, clicking around is precisely what users do.

More next week when I visit with Bhat…

Until then, here is a screenshot Bhat posted of the latest look for Metro last night, and below it are several screenshots of the initial Yahoo redesign, as well as Yahoo’s current homepage (click on the images to make them larger).

In addition, Bhat’s whole post last night about Metro’s progress is at the very bottom.

This is the latest iteration of the homepage redesign:

This is the homepage that was rolled out in September 2007:

This is a homepage rolled out in September 2007 that includes more outside apps:

This is the homepage rolled out in September 2007 that shows how email from Yahoo and Google and AOL would look:

This is a screenshot of Yahoo’s current home page:

And here is the full text of the Bhat post from last night, below.

Update on our new homepage testing

Posted February 13th, 2009 at 8:08 pm by Tapan Bhat, Front Doors

As many of you know, we started testing new concepts for the Yahoo! homepage last fall, with the goal of helping to simplify the Web for the more than 300 million people around the world who visit the site each month.

We are wrapping up the first phase of our “bucket testing” and have gleaned some great insights from people in the US, UK, France and India who have tried out the new page. We’ve done a number of things to collect input–from reading your comments here on Yodel to reviewing online feedback forms and customer care inquires to meeting with many of you in person and online. Bottom line is we’re getting closer to the final design, but we’re not quite there yet.

Before I share details around what we’ve learned, I wanted to give a quick recap of some of the functionality we’ve added over the past few months since just a fraction of you have experienced it firsthand.

Back in September, we introduced a new section called “My Apps.” The great part about having apps on your homepage is that you can easily check in and get more done–from reading and responding to multiple email accounts to browsing local movie listings–all without leaving the page.

Today, we’ve enhanced that experience and we’re testing more than 25 apps that will keep you updated with whatever you want to know. New additions include apps from eBay, Forbes.com, Wired.com and more top brands. We’ve also beefed up the Sports and Finance apps, for example, providing schedules, team standings, blogs links and more, plus one-click access to your stock portfolios and stock quotes. The best part is that the “My Apps” section is now customizable so you can add and remove apps (check out this screenshot) so your homepage reflects what matters most to you.

Heres what we’ve heard from our testers:

Positive Feedback

* People are happy with the streamlined look and feel
* There’s lots of love for the applications
* Most testers said they prefer the new homepage over the current homepage

One comment that sums it up nicely:

“Well–I was surprised at first at how little change was introduced, and liked that. Now I’m surprised by how much change actually is packed in, but is more interaction based…Basically it’s deceptively different–looks and feels the same, but much more functionality built in at a new layer.” –Thomas

What We’re Working On

Now that we’ve got a critical mass of input, we’re translating it into updated versions of the page for ongoing testing. Here are some highlights.

* The #1 thing we’re hearing you want is more apps and we’ll be adding many apps in the coming weeks
* Most didn’t like the dark color that we tested initially–see the screenshot below of the new visual treatments we’re testing
* Easier ways to access and preview email and instant messaging accounts are in the works
* It should be easier to get to other Yahoo! services that you’ve come to rely upon

Metro test

We don’t take changes to your homepage lightly and your input is critical. To help our designers and engineers, tell us what else you think we should consider. Is there a killer app that you’d love to see?

Know that we’re working hard to create a new homepage that you’ll love and we’ll keep you posted as we get closer to launching. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Tapan Bhat
Senior Vice President, Yahoo! Front Doors, Communities and Network Services

Friending Without Benefits? But Facebook Keeps On Forging Into the Mobile Market!

Kara Swisher — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 13:00:42 +0000

In an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal about an alliance being discussed between Facebook and Nokia, came news about the pair working on a deal to deeply integrate the hot social network with the handsets of the world’s largest maker of mobile phones.

Although BoomTown has seen this movie before–a similar mobile deal with a Nokia (NOK) investment in Facebook was being bandied about a year ago–expect more noise than ever when it comes to social-networking sites and mobile devices in 2009.

As you can see from the chart below, Facebook ran past MySpace in the number of unique visitors via mobile phone in the early fall of 2008 and kept climbing.

Said the Journal article: “In December, Facebook had seven million U.S. mobile users, compared with MySpace’s 5.7 million, according to Nielsen Co.” (Full disclosure: MySpace is owned by News Corp. (NWS), which also owns Dow Jones, the owner of this site.)

And, indeed, to get this kind of traction, Facebook has been very busy ferreting away to get a presence on all the big cellphone makers, so far mostly by building its popular Facebook application for smartphones like the BlackBerry from Research in Motion (RIMM) and iPhone from Apple (AAPL).

Facebook–the Journal piece said–has also been talking to Palm (PALM), which will launch its new Pre smartphone in the spring, and Motorola (MOT), about being integrated into their operating systems too.

The race to be present on mobile devices by everyone and their Internet mother has gotten all hopped up with the introduction of so many smartphones of late, since these devices make any Web app experience much better.

And consumer uptake of these kinds of phones, with big screens and multitouch capabilities, is widely expected to dramatically increase over the next five years,

But here is the dicey money–or nonmoney, actually–quote from the article:

“As with most of the cellphone-software industry, Facebook has yet to find a way to generate meaningful revenue from its mobile services, which include text-messaging features, a mobile Web site and downloadable software. But the number of users accessing its site from phones has grown.”

Oh dear–that roughly translates in Facebook-speak to friending without benefits, with costs rising without much (or any) revenue coming in, to speak of.

Of course, many would argue that both Facebook and MySpace, as well other big players, have to still play hard in the mobile market to gain users–given that consumers are on the move more than ever, digitally-speaking–even if it takes a while to see financial results.

So while efforts by mobile advertising services, such as AdMob, are trying to make that happen and are definitely promising, it’s still a game of growth and not revenue or, of course, profits.

[T-shirt image, courtesy of Zazzle.]

Yahoo Execs Tapan Bhat and Ash Patel Talk About Yahoo's Open and Social Launch

Kara Swisher — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:05:45 +0000

Here’s a video interview I did yesterday at the San Francisco event where Yahoo finally launched a lot of the new open and social elements that it has long said it was injecting into its most popular products.

BoomTown talked with the key movers of the initiatives: Ash Patel, Yahoo’s EVP of its Audience Product Division, and Tapan Bhat, its SVP of its Front Doors, Communities and Network Services.

(You can see screen shots and an official Yahoo video of the new features here.)

The initiatives Yahoo (YHOO) finally released into the wild have been long in the making, first discussed as just vaporware by Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (see that video below too).

Yahoo also hosted a session at its Sunnyvale HQ about its open plans in the fall.

And, after the longest of gestation periods, they arrived yesterday, in an impressive rollout.

The changes include some very deft rejiggering of Yahoo Mail, called a “smarter inbox,” with a new dashboard welcome page, easier ways to make connections, more filtered views, updates and third-party apps integrated into the application.

I thought the changes to the mail product were the most interesting, especially given the hundreds of millions of people using the product. It’s an interesting choice for a social entry point, aiming to give nonsocial-networking types enough of a taste of it without inundating them.

Of particular note were the third-party applications, such as for WordPress and Flickr, that launch nicely right in the email program.

Also cool was one app from Xoopit that surfaces old photos and photo links lost in the musty archives of old emails.

Yahoo also debuted an enhanced version of the homepage (previously announced in September) and My Yahoo, as well as a new toolbar and socialization elements added to its popular media properties.

It remains to be seen how popular these changes will become, especially since many consumers already have their social-networking lives on Facebook or MySpace.

In addition, both Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL and Microsoft (MSFT) have rolled out similar social and open changes to their sites recently, making it super-confusing for everyone.

But, better late than never, I always say, so here’s Bhat and Patel talking about Yahoo’s new stuff.

I had to load the video onto YouTube, as Brightcove had snafus (also below is Yang talking about the concepts at CES in January 2008):

Tapan Bhat and Ash Patel

Jerry Yang at January 2008 CES

[ See post to watch video ]

Video of RockYou Founders Talking About the New $17 Million Funding for Asian Expansion

Kara Swisher — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:00:05 +0000

Yet another Web 2.0 wunderkind got itself more shelter from the economic storm–widget maker RockYou announced today that it has nabbed a $17 million investment from two Asian firms, SoftBank Group and SK Telecom Ventures.

The investment will be added to $35 million from the Redwood City, Calif.-based start-up’s C round in June. Overall, RockYou has raised a total of $67 million from investors, including DCM, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Partech International and Sequoia Capital.

It is unclear if the company’s valuation is at the previous $400 million level or not.

In a video interview with BoomTown on Friday (see below), the company’s co-founders, CEO Lance Tokuda and CTO Jia Shen, said the money would be used to expand into the Asia-Pacific market, including onto Xiaonei, one of China’s largest social-networking sites.

As part of the investment, SoftBank–which has major Web investments all over Asia–and RockYou, the company said in a press release, “will also set up a new joint venture company that will develop widget and application products and services for use on PCs and mobile devices in the Asian market, in particular the Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Chinese markets.”

Well, that’s a horse of a different color, what with most Web 2.0 outfits pulling in their horns of late.

Indeed, RockYou said it would also use the money to open offices in New York, Los Angeles and Detroit and look at making some opportunistic acquisitions, as well as adding to its advertising sales force and developing more brand and vertical channels.

The company’s NYC sales office, previously a one-man shop, is expanding, adds MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka. It hired two people since August and still has one position open and plenty of applicants, says sales boss Paul van de Kamp.

Why all the frenetic activity from RockYou, which says it had over 100 million monthly uniques with over eight billion page views from its popular third-party applications like Super Wall?

Well, a few good reasons, such as: the need to keep up with its key competitor, Slide, which raised its own huge war chest; to find new audiences away from the two top social-networking site, Facebook and MySpace, from which it gets most of its traffic; to improve its products, in order to get better ad rates; and, most of all, to weather the current econalypse in the ad sector.

While RockYou’s execs believe the ad market for widgets and social networking is on the rise in comparison to other kinds of media, it will still be a glum outlook for everyone for a while.

Tokuda and Shen talk about that, as well as the investment, in the video here, and below that is a video I did a year ago with the pair:

[ See post to watch video ]

Slide Sidles Up to Old Media in Search of New Revenue (Apparently, Max Cannot Live by SuperPoking Alone!)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:04:43 +0000

You almost have to admire the shape-shifting–if not a wee bit slippery–stylings of Slide CEO Max Levchin.

The serial entrepreneur– whose current start-up has made him the massively-funded widget-king of Web 2.0–has signed distribution deals with Time Warner’s Warner Bros. unit, CBS and Comcast’s E! Entertainment channel to allow users of its new FunSpace Channels video service to look at clips from shows.

Slide’s other media partners in the new deal include Current Media, Hulu, Universal Music Group, as well as 236.com, Break Media, CollegeHumor, FUEL TV, Howcast Media, Video Detective and YouTube.

The FunSpace video service will recommend content based on how much users forward clips to others.

To make money, Slide will get a cut of ads sold by its media partners, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Oh my, how incredibly traditional of Levchin (pictured below on a wacky magazine cover).

But it should probably come as no surprise that Levchin is singing a bit of a different tune these days, as the daunting task of actually building a sustainable business model and attracting long-term advertisers has dawned on him–and probably many other Web 2.0 wunderkinds.

“Television is a world advertisers love,” said Levchin in The Journal article–a quote in which you can almost hear the quarter drop and the connection made that trying to earn real money from sheep-throwing and SuperPoking is perhaps not the most stable of business plans.

Of course, it was only a year ago that the business model for the high-profile social-networking applications maker–loudly touted by him and others at the company–was centered around “user-initiated” ads and in consumers becoming “brand ambassadors” for products.

These kinds of unproven ad schemes seemed fanciful to me when I first heard about them, although they doubtless sounded great to the many investors who ponied up tens of millions of dollars in funding to give Slide an eye-popping and still-undeserved $550 million valuation.

At the time, I wrote:

Ah, brand ambassadors! Like perhaps being dispatched to a posting in the tenth ring of hell.

It seems, though, that the old canard about getting audiences to carry water for brands and loving it has found new life, as social networks and the widgets that live off them search for business models.

Now I am not against widgets, those small third-party applications that people can put on their Web pages on social networks like Facebook and MySpace, in general.

While there are now many too many, and most are simply features and not companies, some are actually helpful and substantive and introduce a plethora of innovation and features into a service like MySpace that the service itself would or could never have offered.

And I also think that these widget-makers need to find a way to make money, especially the very popular ones like Slide, if they are to stay around.”

That’s more true than ever before as the economy tightens and kooky experimentation is no longer tolerated.

In fact, Levchin noted in the article that Slide had dumped one of its typically fun but profitless widgets–a digital fortune cookie service.

Said Levchin to The Journal: “We asked ourselves, can they generate cash and are they going to be engaging to users a year from now?”

Um … no and no, which should have been obvious from the get-go about a lot of social-networking apps, which I had labeled juvenile and ultimately ephemeral.

While such goofy stuff has given Slide a lot of traffic–it attracts more than 160 million viewers a month–that has not necessarily translated into big revenues since much of the traffic is pretty low-rent and because the ads are limited by the big social-networking sites where Slide apps are popular.

One of the most striking things in the article was the contention that Slide expected $30 to $50 million in 2009 revenue, which is probably on the low side. To be fair, Levchin always told me he was not as focused on revenue generation as on growth.

But with this move, Levchin is now clearly focusing on revenue, and it’s long past time to do so.

Of course, with nuclear winter in advertising of all kinds approaching fast, let’s hope Slide still has a sheepskin or two around to keep warm until the thaw.

As an added plus, here is one of three interviews I did with Levchin last year, giving him somewhat of a hard time about revenue issues (and he gave back as good as he got):

[ See post to watch video ]