Facebook hacks, doubters carp, ahead of opening bell
As Facebook settles its IPO price at a top-of-the-range $38, valuing the social network at $104bn, Facebookers are doing what Facebookers do: hacking.
In a so-very-Facebook move, the company is running an overnight hackathon on Thursday night, right up until founder Mark Zuckerberg rings the Nasdaq opening bell on Friday morning – an attempt to show the world that the company’s heart really lies in the product, not the money.
Rakuten CEO on why Pinterest is worth $1.5bn
Rakuten has led a $100m funding round into Pinterest, which values the online “curation” community at around $1.5bn.
The Japanese ecommerce giant won out over major US venture capital firms who were vying for a piece of Silicon Valley’s new sweetheart, which lets users clip images to a virtual pinboard.
The FT spoke to Hiroshi Mikitani, chief executive of Rakuten, about how social discovery can boost ecommerce and the growing importance of images over text on the web.
Flattr brings social micropayments to DailyMotion
One of the more innovative approaches in the plethora of efforts to persuade more people to pay for more content online is “social micropayment” firm Flattr.
Acting something like an online tip jar, Flattr reverses the usual payment process by giving people a way to pay for content after they’ve consumed it, rather than before they know what they are getting.
Avito, the Russian Craigslist, raises huge $75m round
Investment continues to pour into the soaring Russian internet market, which recently overtook Germany as Europe’s largest by users.
The latest mega-deal sees Avito.ru, a Russian online classified site along the lines of Craigslist, raising $75m from local private equity firm Baring Vostok and global venture capitalists Accel Partners, alongside existing investors Kinnevik and Northzone.
Google quietly shutters One Pass, its Apple Newsstand competitor
Fourteen months ago, to some fanfare, Google launched One Pass – its way to help publishers charge for digital content on the web, mobile and tablets.
Coming just a day after Apple announced plans for a 30 per cent tax on all app subscriptions, Google’s gambit caused quite a stir. With a more generous 10 per cent split and promises to share more subscriber data with publishers, at a time when many were spitting feathers about Apple’s diktat, One Pass was seen as a bold challenge and a tempting proposition from a company many publishers still felt was a parasite.
Yet last week, on a sunny Friday afternoon, Google quietly snuffed One Pass, whose homepage now returns only a 404 error.
This week’s launch of Angry Birds Space has propelled the mobile game’s Finnish developer, Rovio, into the stratosphere, instantly topping app store download charts around the world.
But whereas the original Angry Birds was a viral hit, notching up hundreds of millions of downloads with minimal marketing, this latest update landed in a marketing blitz more akin to a Disney blockbuster than a 99 cents mobile phone app.
Minecraft makers Mojang notch up $80m revenues
Although Angry Birds, by Rovio of Finland, is the best-known videogame to come out of Scandinavia, it has a close rival in Sweden’s Minecraft - a game Sean Parker loved so much he flew all its developers to London for a party.
PeerIndex raises $3m to go beyond Twitter lists and catch Klout
PeerIndex, Europe’s answer to Klout, has raised a Series A round of funding to build out its “social influence marketing” platform.
Investors in the $3m (£1.9m) financing include specialist firms Anthemis Group and Antrak Capital and a handful of individual angels, including Tom Glocer, former chief executive of Thomson Reuters, and Sherry Coutu, stalwart of European tech firms including Lovefilm and Artfinder, and a LinkedIn board member.
BBC to expand in paid digital video fray
Never let it be said that the UK entertainment industry is failing to embrace the digital world. The last few months have seen a rush of huge new entrants to the online TV and film market, starting with Tesco’s acquisition of Blinkbox and swiftly followed by HMV, Currys/PC World and Netflix.
Spotify to launch in Germany this week
Spotify is to open its doors in Germany this week in the digital music service’s biggest launch since coming to the US last year.
It is the latest example of a digital music firm growing its global footprint as record labels become increasingly bullish on subscription services.
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