In a much-expected financing, LinkedIn has joined the big funding club (Slide, Spot Runner) of late, by raising $53 million at a startling $1 billion valuation.

Why go public when you can just pretend?

Actually, unlike a lot of Web 2.0 start-ups, the professional-networking site has been profitable since 2006.

The new slug of cash comes from new investor Bain Capital Ventures, along with existing investors Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners and Bessemer Ventures.

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Today, Sequoia Capital, which has been a key investor of search giant Google, as well as Yahoo, will unveil its latest investment in search, a visual search engine called: Searchme.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company, which has been germinating for three years, has raised $25 million from Sequoia and others to further its efforts to make search look more lively.

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Was it just me or did you also get a bit of déjà vu upon reading a story today by the New York Times’s Laura M. Holson about yet another mash-up of a Hollywood talent agencies with Silicon Valley VCs.
That’s apparently what is happening with a new investment venture that includes the William Morris [...]

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Until the writers’ strike in Hollywood is over–who knew it would go on this long?–BoomTown has decided to offer periodic suggestions about cool new stuff to watch.

Today, it is this gem from online video comedy site Funny or Die, in which Jerry O’Connell (who knew he was so hilarious?) does a mean and spot-on imitation [...]

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We at BoomTown are very interested in content on the Web these days, especially given the ongoing writers’ strike in Hollywood and its wrangling over digital (and a whole lot of other) issues.
The intersection–or perhaps collision is a better word–of the entertainment and technology industries continues at an ever more frantic pace.
And it’s clear the [...]

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Here is the second “baby” comedy video from the Funny or Die archives with Will Ferrell and a very tough toddler, played by Pearl McKay, called “Good Cop, Baby Cop”:
Good Cop, Baby Cop on FunnyOrDie.com
And here is the post and video of FOD investor Mark Kvamme of Sequoia Capital talking about the online video space.

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