VC-backed startup Kwedit is best known for three things: for enabling people to pay for digital goods online through small amounts of virtual credit; for its silly name; and for the viciously funny lambasting it received by Stephen Colbert for both of these things. But Kwedit’s founders and investors have had a bigger ambition for the company almost from the start: to enable at least one-quarter of the U.S. population to make remote cash transactions -- from global remittances to bill paying to catalog shopping to the purchase of virtual goods in social media games. “Basically, if you want to use cash to pay a vendor but can’t hand it to them directly, we’re building a set of services to do that for you,” Shader told me back in March. Apparently, those services are nearly ready. In August, peHUB has learned, the company rolls out PayNearMe. According to its site, the service is targeting “25 percent of American households that don’t have a credit or debit card” along with the “75 percent who do, don’t want to use them online for security, privacy, or budgeting reasons.”
3 min read · 08 July 2010
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has taught a class on entrepreneurship and venture capital at Stanford University, but one might wonder whether he did his own due diligence when it comes to TomorrowVentures, a Palo Alto-based venture firm that is regularly cited as Schmidt’s personal investment vehicle. Indeed, a simple Google search suggests that TomorrowVentures’ managing partner, 38-year-old Court Coursey, whose bio cites "numerous successful companies," is more controversial than he might seem at first blush. Not only does his background also include numerous failed startups but at least two lawsuits, including against pop star Michael Jackson.
4 min read · 06 July 2010
It’s always been the case that people have a fundamental need to belong -- to feel that they’re valued members of their social group. But social media is having a distorting, disturbing, and possibly lasting impact on the level of that need, say a growing number of psychologists. “In the past, when you were home alone or at work, you weren’t thinking about interacting and shoring up your social status,” says Carol Dweck, a professor at Stanford and a social psychologist who specializes in motivation. “Now, any minute of the day, you can be measuring whether you are a viable social partner and whether people want to be in touch with you. You may feel you have to validate your social success around the clock.” Indeed, despite newly released findings by the Pew Research Center -- its fourth “Future of the Internet” survey found that 85 percent of respondents think the Internet has positively impacted their “social world” -- health experts warn that our addiction to social media isn’t positively impacting us. It’s making us incapable of self-regulation.
3 min read · 02 July 2010
2 min read · 02 July 2010
4 min read · 01 July 2010
2 min read · 01 July 2010
It’s official: Highly-hyped location-based startup Foursquare just closed on a $20 million round of funding at a $95 million pre-money valuation. Andreessen Horowitz led the round, with previous investors O’Reilly AlphaTech and Union Square Ventures also participating. Foursquare famously materialized from the vestiges of Dodgeball, a mobile service cofounded by Dennis Crowley, who sold the company to Google in 2005. When the search giant killed the service, Crowley, who'd logged roughly two years at Google, quit and quickly revived the idea. Today, the 18-month-old company employs 27 people and has attracted 1.7 million users. It’s also in a race against a growing number of location-based services, including those of Gowalla and Loopt, and soon to include Twitter and possibly Facebook. A few moments ago, I talked with Marc Andreessen about why his venture firm, Andreessen Horowitz, was so hot on the deal despite all that competition, whether he or Ben Horowitz use FourSquare, and how he’ll reconcile his involvement with the startup with his role as a director at Facebook, which is widely believed to be developing its own location-based service. Read the Q&A after the jump...
6 min read · 29 June 2010
7 min read · 29 June 2010
If there's one thing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg might dread more than catching a clip of his famously sweat-drenched interview at the recent D8 Conference, it might be the debut of "The Social Network," the film based on the 2009 book Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook. I *think* he can stop worrying. The movie's newly released trailer is unintentionally hilarious. Even with the ridiculously talented Justin Timberlake starring as Sean Parker, I predict this one lands a place in the same pantheon of stinky movies that includes "Basic Instinct 2," and "Battlefield Earth." Watch it after the jump...
1 min read · 27 June 2010
2 min read · 26 June 2010
