“Meebo has a culture of doing what we call ‘big swings at bat’ every 12 to 18 months,” Seth Sternberg is saying. “We try something new, a hard project that’s highly innovative. And either it’s going to flame out wildly, or succeed wildly. If it works, great. If not, oh well, it was an experiment. … Continue reading “Checking In from the Meebo Bar: A Social Startup’s Latest Big Swing at Bat”
Author: Wade Roush
Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco.
Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.)
I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia.
I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats.
My personal site: waderoush.com
My social media coordinates:
Twitter: @wroush
Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush
Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush
YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967
Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/
Saint Steve? Not Exactly. Apple and the Power of the Dark Side
Today’s column was co-written by myself and Curt Woodward, Xconomy’s Seattle-based senior editor. There’s a great term of art in the history profession: hagiography. It’s from the Greek for “holy writing,” and at one time it pertained mostly to biographies of saints. Well, there’s a whole lot of beatification going on this week as the … Continue reading “Saint Steve? Not Exactly. Apple and the Power of the Dark Side”
How Steve Jobs Rewired Our Lives-and Raised Our Expectations
What was Steve Jobs’ greatest contribution to society? The amazing thing is that there are so many answers to choose from. Was it the insanely great Mac? Or perhaps the iPod and the MP3 music revolution? Or Pixar and Toy Story and all of the studio’s other animated wonders? Or the iPhone and the iPad … Continue reading “How Steve Jobs Rewired Our Lives-and Raised Our Expectations”
Siri, Apple’s New Old Personal Assistant App, Points Toward A Voice-Activated Future
I have seen the future, and it’s right here in my hands. While the rest of you poor suckers will have to wait until October 14 to try Siri on the new iPhone 4S, I’m looking at this magical, revolutionary technology right now. I’m using it to check the weather, book restaurant tables, set reminders, … Continue reading “Siri, Apple’s New Old Personal Assistant App, Points Toward A Voice-Activated Future”
Pinnacle Looks Beyond Detroit as the Market for Its Opposed-Piston Engine
When Ecomotors International set out to change the way car and truck engines are built, it set up shop in Livonia, MI, a suburb of Detroit, in hopes of eventually licensing its technology to the big U.S. automakers. It was a calculated risk. As radical as Ecomotors’ opposed-piston engine design may be, at least the … Continue reading “Pinnacle Looks Beyond Detroit as the Market for Its Opposed-Piston Engine”
Intel, Mobeam, Coupons.com: Bay Area BizTech News By the Numbers
Time for our data-driven roundup of business and technology news and deals in the San Francisco Bay Area. From biggest to smallest: $6.3 billion—the aggregate value of the 101 merger-and-acquisition deals involving venture-backed companies in the third quarter of 2011—an 8 percent increase over the second quarter, according to data released today by Thomson Reuters … Continue reading “Intel, Mobeam, Coupons.com: Bay Area BizTech News By the Numbers”
Psilos, Box, Blekko: Bay Area BizTech By the Numbers
It’s time for our data-driven news roundup. From the biggest number to the smallest: $400 million—The target size of a new venture fund being raised by health IT investor Psilos Group, according to a report today in PE Hub. The firm has offices in Corte Madera, CA, New York, and Santa Fe, NM. Psilos partner … Continue reading “Psilos, Box, Blekko: Bay Area BizTech By the Numbers”
Can Crowdsourcing Make a Dent in Unemployment? Ask MobileWorks
Jobs are the single biggest political issue of the day in the U.S., and rightly so. As of August, the official unemployment rate in the United States stood at 9.1 percent. That was down one point from the October 2009 peak of 10.1 percent, but still higher than at any time since the 1930s, with … Continue reading “Can Crowdsourcing Make a Dent in Unemployment? Ask MobileWorks”
Lithium Helps Companies Rev Up Customer Support by Deputizing ‘Superfans’
If you need help with a glitchy Logitech mouse or webcam and you happen to stop by the company’s online support forum, you might notice a bunch of posts from a guy calling himself KachiWachi. Since 2006, when he started contributed to the forum, KachiWachi has answered more than 45,000 questions from Logitech customers. He … Continue reading “Lithium Helps Companies Rev Up Customer Support by Deputizing ‘Superfans’”
Flite Builds an App Store for Advertisers
Back in August I wrote about Flite, a San Francisco startup that transformed itself from a developer of Web widgets into a cloud-based platform for rich-media, interactive ads. Today the company is taking another step, introducing a marketplace for ad components or mini-apps where advertisers will be able to pick and choose which apps to … Continue reading “Flite Builds an App Store for Advertisers”
Achievers, Yammer, Zenverge: Bay Area BizTech By the Numbers
Time for our periodic rendition of the local deals keeping the Bay Area technology sector humming. $300 million—The amount of fresh capital being handed over to newly independent Investor Growth Capital of New York and Menlo Park, CA, by its parent company Investor AB, as Xconomy’s Arlene Weintraub explained yesterday. $160 million—The valuation San Francisco- … Continue reading “Achievers, Yammer, Zenverge: Bay Area BizTech By the Numbers”
MongoDB Wizards Work to Make 10gen the Red Hat of Databases
Database designers are the secret wizards of the Web revolution, and they’ve been busy writing new spells. Deep inside the castle at each of today’s leading Web companies there’s at least one custom “NoSQL” database keeping things running: Google has Big Table, Amazon has Dynamo, Facebook built Cassandra, and LinkedIn has Project Voldemort. Seriously. In … Continue reading “MongoDB Wizards Work to Make 10gen the Red Hat of Databases”
SolarCity, Vidyo, Google+: The Bay Area By the Numbers
Time for our occasional index of venture funding, M&A, and other biztech-related deals from around the San Francisco Bay Area. If it’s got a number in it, we’ll try to report it. $275 million: The size of a Department of Energy loan guarantee being sought by SolarCity, the Foster City, CA-based provider of financing for … Continue reading “SolarCity, Vidyo, Google+: The Bay Area By the Numbers”
Turning the Social Network Inside Out: What the Changes at Facebook Mean For Apple and Google-and You
One of the most persistent criticisms of Facebook is that it’s trying to build a “walled garden” analogous to AOL’s dialup service in the 1980s and early 1990s. Blogger Jason Kottke said it in 2007. Tim Berners-Lee said it in Scientific American in 2010. Google’s Vint Cerf revived the meme earlier this week at an … Continue reading “Turning the Social Network Inside Out: What the Changes at Facebook Mean For Apple and Google-and You”
Money Goes Mobile: Video from Intuit’s Innovation Gallery Walk
Wednesday was Investor Day at the Mountain View, CA, headquarters of Intuit, the 28-year-old consumer and business finance software giant. Most attendees were there to hear about the company’s fiscal strategy for 2012—and if that’s your cup of tea, there’s a recorded webcast of the meeting here. But Xconomy attended for a different reason—to see … Continue reading “Money Goes Mobile: Video from Intuit’s Innovation Gallery Walk”
Salesforce.com Snaps Up Assistly in Race to Dominate Customer Service Technology
Salesforce.com, the San Francisco-based cloud business services giant, announced today that it has acquired Assistly, a two-year-old startup focusing on technology that helps companies track complaints and other customer feedback on social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Web chat, and e-mail. Salesforce.com (NYSE: [[ticker:CRM]]) said it paid $50 million for Assistly, net of cash; … Continue reading “Salesforce.com Snaps Up Assistly in Race to Dominate Customer Service Technology”
Closure of Pier 38 “Death Trap” Looks Inevitable, But City Commits to Re-Open Tech Hub
Yesterday I had a chance to catch up with Jason Wong, the CEO of San Francisco-based Rereply and i5labs, who’s been a longtime tenant at the Pier 38 startup hub and has been closely involved in efforts over the past two weeks to stave off the facility’s impending closure. Wong attended a meeting last Friday … Continue reading “Closure of Pier 38 “Death Trap” Looks Inevitable, But City Commits to Re-Open Tech Hub”
Ning, Rearden, Adchemy, ArcSoft & More: The Bay Area Deals Roundup, By the Numbers
The venture funding and merger & acquisition news flies so fast in Silicon Valley that we have a bit of trouble keeping up, to be frank. We’re experimenting with different ways of bringing you the highlights. Today: a by-the-numbers list of the major deals announced over the past couple of days. $150 million—The reported value … Continue reading “Ning, Rearden, Adchemy, ArcSoft & More: The Bay Area Deals Roundup, By the Numbers”
PacBio Slashes 28 Percent of Its Workforce to Conserve Cash
[Updated 2:20 pm PT] Pacific Biosciences (NASDAQ: [[ticker:PACB]]), the Menlo Park, CA-based maker of a super-fast, super-cheap DNA sequencing instrument for medical, agricultural, and biofuels researchers, disclosed today that it’s laying off 130 employees, or 28 percent of its total workforce. The announcement came today in an 8-K report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. … Continue reading “PacBio Slashes 28 Percent of Its Workforce to Conserve Cash”
Fotopedia Photo Stories Arrive on Flipboard, As Photo Curation Goes Mainstream
The mobile Web is fostering a remarkable renaissance in traditional art forms such as photography—surprisingly, right alongside the explosion of videos, games, gossip, tweets, and other distractions. And if there’s one organization that has figured out how to use the Web and the latest mobile gadgets to showcase great images, it’s Paris- and San Francisco-based … Continue reading “Fotopedia Photo Stories Arrive on Flipboard, As Photo Curation Goes Mainstream”
Angels, Magoosh, Pier 38: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News
Amidst the usual rush of funding and M&A news last week, there was one interesting story about a controversy that could reshape the startup landscape in San Francisco (and no, I’m not talking about CrunchFund): —Entrepreneurs based at the Pier 38 tech hub in San Francisco began looking for ways to challenge the Port of … Continue reading “Angels, Magoosh, Pier 38: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News”
Monday Deals Roundup: One Kings Lane, eASIC, DailyDeal.de
It’s been a relatively slow news day so far, at least as far as funding and M&A news in the Bay Area tech world. —One Kings Lane, the San Francisco-based flash sales site for home goods, said it has raised $40 million in Series C financing. Tiger Global Management led the round, which was joined … Continue reading “Monday Deals Roundup: One Kings Lane, eASIC, DailyDeal.de”
Mayor Lee to Visit SF’s Pier 38 Today; Here’s the Full Safety Inspection Report
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee is expected to visit Pier 38 today at noon to meet with tenants at the bustling but endangered tech hub. Immediately after the mayor’s tour, tenants and city officials will proceed to the Port’s offices on Pier 1 to discuss the impending shutdown of the pier. The city’s Office of … Continue reading “Mayor Lee to Visit SF’s Pier 38 Today; Here’s the Full Safety Inspection Report”
A Day in the Life of the San Francisco Tech Community
My job is pretty cool. I get to spend time picking the brains of some of the planet’s smartest and most successful entrepreneurs—and invariably, I’m asking them to talk about the one thing they care about most passionately, their startup and/or its technology. Even if I weren’t doing something I care about passionately myself—helping to … Continue reading “A Day in the Life of the San Francisco Tech Community”
Thursday Deals Roundup: InMobi, Chegg, GCT, Alphabet Energy, RRKidz & More
It’s a busy day for venture-funding and IPO announcements. To wit: —San Mateo, CA-based InMobi, which runs the largest independent mobile ad network, said today that it has arranged a whopping $200 million investment from Softbank, in two tranches of $100 million each arriving this month and in April 2012. “With a global leader like … Continue reading “Thursday Deals Roundup: InMobi, Chegg, GCT, Alphabet Energy, RRKidz & More”
New Angel Alliance Aims to Keep Startups Out of Venture Capital’s Clutches Longer
[Updated 5:15 pm PT with fresh quotes from Richard Sudek, see below] Regional angel investing groups in Southern California, Northern California, and New York say they’re banding together in an effort to lengthen the financial runway for early-stage startups before their founders are forced to turn to venture capital firms. Tech Coast Angels, based in … Continue reading “New Angel Alliance Aims to Keep Startups Out of Venture Capital’s Clutches Longer”
Pier 38 Drama Isn’t Over Yet
[Updated 3:20 pm PT with comments from Jason Wong, see page 2] Entrepreneurs trying to prevent the eviction of more than 20 tech startups at San Francisco’s Pier 38 haven’t yet won a reprieve, but they’ve won a meeting with Mayor Ed Lee. Jason Wong, CEO of San Francisco-based software consultancy i5Labs and leader of … Continue reading “Pier 38 Drama Isn’t Over Yet”
Wednesday Deals Roundup: Red Robot, Zetta, Apsalar, Xignite
Today: a dollop of new funding deals, and a dash of older news we didn’t have time to tell you about on Monday and Tuesday. —Red Robot Labs, the Palo Alto, CA-based maker of the mobile massively multiplayer online game Life Is Crime, has closed an $8.5 million Series A funding round with support from … Continue reading “Wednesday Deals Roundup: Red Robot, Zetta, Apsalar, Xignite”
Magoosh Unveils a Video Bible for the Newly Revised GRE
It’s the beginning of GRE season—the period from September to November when hundreds of thousands of college students and others considering applying to graduate school take the Graduate Record Exam, administered by Princeton, NJ-based Educational Testing Service (ETS). But this year’s GRE is a completely new animal. In August, ETS rolled out the biggest changes … Continue reading “Magoosh Unveils a Video Bible for the Newly Revised GRE”
Tuesday Roundup: 8×8, BonitaSoft, Rally to Save Pier 38
Time for the daily roundup of funding and M&A news—a short one today, as I’m flying out the door to a round of meetings and conferences. —Sunnyvale, CA-based cloud communications provider 8×8 has acquired Contactual, a maker of cloud-based call center and customer interaction software, in an all-stock transaction, according to a press release. —BonitaSoft, … Continue reading “Tuesday Roundup: 8×8, BonitaSoft, Rally to Save Pier 38”
Intuit Is Looking for the Next Mint.com
If you’re a startup working on mobile, cloud, data analytics, or social technologies and you want to get noticed by consumer-financial-tools giant Intuit, you’ve got three days to apply to join a day of “speed dating” sessions coming up at Intuit headquarters in Mountain View, CA, on October 6. Intuit says its annual Entrepreneur Day … Continue reading “Intuit Is Looking for the Next Mint.com”
Monday Deals Roundup: 10gen, Mindjet, Ebates
Time for the daily roundup of Bay Area financing and M&A news. —10gen, the San Francisco- and New York-based provider of consulting, support, and training for users of the MongoDB open source “NoSQL” database, announced today that it has raised $20 million in new funding. New investor Sequoia Capital led the round, which was joined … Continue reading “Monday Deals Roundup: 10gen, Mindjet, Ebates”
GM, Pier 38, TechCrunch: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News
Though last week was a short post-holiday week, Bay Area entrepreneurs managed to pack in a lot of action. —More than 90 companies met with investors and journalists at a new demo event called Pitch San Francisco ’11 at AT&T Park. We captured seven of them on video. —Our biggest feature of the week was a … Continue reading “GM, Pier 38, TechCrunch: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News”
Lars Rasmussen—Creator of Google Maps and Google Wave
Founder Community is a Silicon Valley event series by founders, for founders. We aim to inspire, educate and connect entrepreneurs of all levels. This is one you won’t want to miss! Lars Rasmussen earned a PhD in theoretical computer science from UC Berkley. In early 2003 Lars co-founded with his brother Jens a mapping related … Continue reading “Lars Rasmussen—Creator of Google Maps and Google Wave”
Play Ball! Video from the Pitch San Francisco Startup Fest at AT&T Park
Funny, I thought there were already enough startup events around the Bay Area to keep any investor or tech journalist busy eight days a week. But now there’s one more—it’s called Pitch, and it’s the result of “the challenges many startups have in getting new users, media, attention, and investors,” writes Duane Nason of Launchabl.es, … Continue reading “Play Ball! Video from the Pitch San Francisco Startup Fest at AT&T Park”
The Tech World Deserves Better Than TechCrunch
Back in April 2009, community leaders in Boston were in a tizzy over the prospect of a shutdown at the Boston Globe, where unions were resisting salary and pension cuts proposed by the paper’s owner, the New York Times Co. I didn’t quite understand the leaders’ concerns. As a longtime admirer of the Globe, I … Continue reading “The Tech World Deserves Better Than TechCrunch”
To Bring Driving into the Infotainment Age, GM’s Palo Alto Office Melds Silicon Valley Fancy with Detroit Pragmatism
I visited GM’s Advanced Technology division in Silicon Valley on August 4, the same day the Detroit giant revealed its second-quarter financial results. The numbers were far better than one might have expected, given the automaker’s troubled recent history. GM said it brought in $2.5 billion in net income in the quarter, which was a … Continue reading “To Bring Driving into the Infotainment Age, GM’s Palo Alto Office Melds Silicon Valley Fancy with Detroit Pragmatism”
Thursday Deals Roundup: Zagat, Platfora, Lending Club & More
Time for our more-or-less daily summary of key deals news in the Bay Area biztech world. —Google announced that it has acquired Zagat, the venerable and popular crowdsourced restaurant guide. Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for local, maps, and location services, said the Zagat operation “will be a cornerstone of our local offering—delighting people with … Continue reading “Thursday Deals Roundup: Zagat, Platfora, Lending Club & More”
Inside Morgenthaler’s Upcoming Health IT Showcase—Videos from the Finalists
At the first DC to VC health IT forum organized by Morgenthaler Ventures last fall, Aneesh Chopra, the chief technology officer of the United States, called for more prize-based competitions to encourage innovation in healthcare and other sectors of the economy. So it’s pretty appropriate that this year’s edition of DC to VC is all … Continue reading “Inside Morgenthaler’s Upcoming Health IT Showcase—Videos from the Finalists”
Wednesday Deals Roundup: IndieGoGo, Project Frog, BlueArc
That’s “deals” as in funding and M&A announcements, not as in daily deals. (Though there’s news today about Groupon as well.) —Crowdfunding startup IndieGoGo of San Francisco said that it has raised $1.5 million in new funding. Metamorphic Ventures, MHS Capital, and Zynga co-founder Steve Schoettler led the round, which the company said will help … Continue reading “Wednesday Deals Roundup: IndieGoGo, Project Frog, BlueArc”
Port of San Francisco Shuts Down Pier 38 Tech Hub—Dogpatch Labs, True Ventures, Automattic Soon to Be Homeless
In a blog post today, Ryan Spoon of Polaris Ventures shared some pretty awful news for the tech startup community in San Francisco. The vibrant collection of startups and related tech firms occupying Pier 38 will have to clear out of the funky but aging structure by the end of September, thanks to a condemnation … Continue reading “Port of San Francisco Shuts Down Pier 38 Tech Hub—Dogpatch Labs, True Ventures, Automattic Soon to Be Homeless”
TechCrunch and CrunchFund: The Conflict-of-Interest Controversy
Is TechCrunch coming apart at the seams, or is it simply going through a leadership transition? Are we witnessing the breakdown of an ill-conceived marriage, or do the events of the last few days amount to publicity ploy—a Britney Spears-style public meltdown, cynically designed to keep the media spotlight fixed in the company’s direction ahead … Continue reading “TechCrunch and CrunchFund: The Conflict-of-Interest Controversy”
Tuesday Funding Roundup: Lanyrd, Mashape, Clean Power Finance
Regular visitors to the Xconomy website may have noticed that we recently killed off the “News Xpress” box at the top of each city’s home page. The news that formerly appeared there—mostly notices of venture investments, mergers & acquisitions, and the like—will now show up in the main news stream, alongside our regular features. But … Continue reading “Tuesday Funding Roundup: Lanyrd, Mashape, Clean Power Finance”
Google Ventures, Zurb, MyPad: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News
In the run-up to the long weekend, we churned out a few of our patented long stories. —My big opus for the week was a writeup of a lengthy conversation with Bill Maris, the managing partner at Google Ventures. Maris shared insights about Google Ventures’ founder-friendly operating philosophy and its roots in his own experiences … Continue reading “Google Ventures, Zurb, MyPad: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News”
MyPad and the Coming Facebook Wars on the iPad
Why on earth isn’t there an official Facebook app for the iPad? The social networking giant has had an iPhone app ever since the launch of the iTunes App Store in 2008, and the company says that more than 250 million people access Facebook through mobile devices. Its engineers have tried to make the Facebook … Continue reading “MyPad and the Coming Facebook Wars on the iPad”
The Education of Bill Maris: How One Entrepreneur’s History Shaped Google Ventures
Fade in on a paper-strewn office in Manhattan. It’s the North American headquarters of Investor AB, a giant Swedish holding company with investments across the healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing, and financial industries. Two recent college graduates, a man and a woman, share a small office; they are the only Americans at the firm. One is trained … Continue reading “The Education of Bill Maris: How One Entrepreneur’s History Shaped Google Ventures”
Zurb: The Boutique Interaction Design Firm That’s Really About Business
Why did Color, the $41 million startup that was launched with such force in March, slam instantly and with equal force into a wall of user dissatisfaction? The folks at Zurb have some thoughts about that. Color’s iPhone app is designed to let users share photos with other people using the app in the same … Continue reading “Zurb: The Boutique Interaction Design Firm That’s Really About Business”
Apple, Y Combinator, Flite: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News
The earthquakes and storms stayed on the opposite coast last week, leaving the Bay Area to focus on what it does best—churning out new ideas and new startups. To wit: —Y Combinator, the famed venture incubator in Mountain View, CA, held its semi-annual Demo Day. (Demo Days, to be precise, since the 63 startups had … Continue reading “Apple, Y Combinator, Flite: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News”
What Comes After Flickr? The Future of Photos in the Cloud
It’s unclear how much damage Hurricane Irene will deal out as it travels up the Eastern Seaboard this weekend, but in the British Virgin Islands, it’s already caused one notable loss. Lightning from the storm sparked a fire that destroyed the home of Sir Richard Branson, who lost thousands of irreplaceable photographs in the blaze. … Continue reading “What Comes After Flickr? The Future of Photos in the Cloud”
Y Combinator’s Summer 2011 Demo Day: The Definitive Debrief, Part 2
The Y Combinator startup incubator program in Mountain View, CA, is getting so big—63 companies presented at Demo Day this Tuesday, about half of them on the record—that we couldn’t squeeze summaries of even the on-the-record subset into a single article. Part 1 of our YC S11 debrief appeared yesterday and covered the first half … Continue reading “Y Combinator’s Summer 2011 Demo Day: The Definitive Debrief, Part 2”