Twitter gets $35m from VC big hitters
Twitter’s usage has been soaring into the stratosphere of late; now its finances are receiving a similar boost.
The microblogging service announced on Friday it had closed a funding round led by A-list VC firms Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners.
The figure is $35m, but there is no official word on what valuation that gives the company. Read more
Twitter’s short order of merit
The victors in the Shorty Awards in New York on Wednesday night – the first celebrating the best users of the short-form Twitter service – were positively rambling in their acceptance speeches compared to Webby Award winners.
The Webbies, also held in New York, for the best websites and services, restrict winners to five-word acceptance speeches – last year Stephen Colbert’s was “Me, me, me, me me!!!”. Read more
YouTube goes offline
No, YouTube hasn’t shut down.
That’s the headline Google chose to put on its blog post announcing that YouTube is about to move onto iTunes’ turf. To be specific: the video site is offering its first experimental video downloads for sale (it first started offering a handful of downloads last month.) Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
