Shutterfly, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFLY) ^[1] recently acquired Make it About Me!^[2]  The synergy behind the acquisition is that Make It About Me! produces books with custom pictures for about $40  and Shutterfly is one of the biggest picture sharing companies.

Shutterfly had an IPO around September 2006 and is currently valuated at $535.36 million.  Shutterfly’s opening price was at $15 per share and today, SFLY is trading at about $22.30 per share.

“This acquisition increases Shutterfly’s market leadership in the rapidly-expanding category of personalized storybooks and photo books,” stated Jeffrey Housenbold, President and CEO of Shutterfly. “We’re very pleased to offer parents compelling, personalized stories that feature their child together with beloved characters, such as their friends on Sesame Street, and others.”

Some of the custom books that Make It About Me! sells is My Adventure on Sesame Street and My Amazing Alphabet Adventures.  Below is a screen shot of My Adventure on Sesame Street:

“We created Make it About Me! to inspire children to explore their world in an educational and fun way,” stated Michael Anthony and Jim McCreery, co-founders of Make it About Me! “As Shutterfly incorporates our technology and products into its award-winning Photo Book line, we are excited to see these books entertain, motivate and help educate young readers.”

The financial details were not disclosed.  This was Shutterfly’s first 2007 acquisition and through this acquisition, Shutterfly gains Sesame Street licensed content and themed characters. 

[1] Shutterfly.com
[2] makeitaboutme.com (now redirects to Shutterfly) 

References:
[3] thealarmclock

A couple of days ago, TechCrunch’s Duncan Riley wrote a blog post^[1] about Google Docs & Spreadsheets’ new look & feel.  The new look is not only more aeshetic, but now tags have been replaced with folders similar to Microsoft Outlook and Windows Live Mail (formerly known as Hotmail).  One of Riley’s points in the blog post was that GMail should also have folders.  I agree with this statement to an extent.

Just like Windows Live Mail, I say let the users decide how you want your email to look.  Do you want it to look like the original Hotmail or have it look like Microsoft Outlook.  In other words:

Users appreciate it when they have choices.  I want my GMail to have folders, but I want my Hotmail to have e-mail grouping responses.  If there was some sort of GMail/Hotmail hybrid that had grouping and folder features, I’d switch so fast.  Otherwise, users will have to have multiple accounts to truly appreciate each feature. 

Speaking of hybrids, some people have a hard time deciding whether they like the Google search engine or the Yahoo! search engine.  Well check out this hybrid^[2]:

After you search, on GahooYoogle, the website will line up both searches side-by-side.  How cool and simple is that?

Microsoft and Google, give us some extra options to work with here.  GMail, lose the tags and switch to folders.

Around the June 17 weekend, global investment bank brokerage firm, Bear Stearns was in the midst of trying to recover two of its collapsing hedge funds. One of the executives responsible for the hedge funds included Richard Marin who is also a blog enthusiast. Although now his blog is private and for invitees only, I was able to read some of his blog posts by using Google’s cache of the blog.

In Marin’s blog, he writes about his weight loss progress, movie reviews, his business trips, etc. Below is a screen shot of Marin’s famous blog post that the New York Times^[1] quoted:

“This pretty much sums up my last two weeks trying to defend Sparta against the Persian hordes of Wall Street. Nothing like a good dog fight 24X7 for a few weeks to remind you why you chose the life you chose.” Bear Stearns agreed to pledge as much as $3.2 billion to recover one of the funds. The SEC will be looking into what happened exactly.

Both hedge funds were mortgage-related. One of the funds is called High Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leveraged Fund.

Google Gadget Ventures^[1] is a new initiative by Google Inc. to fund and grant developers to Google Gadget developers. This provides an incentive for developers and also provides additions to iGoogle’s widgets. Users will also be recognized by Google.

Users can apply for a $5,000 grant for further development. To be given the investment, Gadgets must have 250,000+ page views per week. Users also have to provide a one-page proposal about how the user will improve the gadget. Google will not take any equity and won’t ask for repayment.

If the Google Gadget has received a $5,000 grant and gains further traction, Google will invest $100,000 in the form of seed capital. This is assuming that the developer wants to make a business out of the Gadget.

For further information refer to the Google Code Blog post:
http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2007/06/google-gadget-ventures.html^[2]

[1] Google Gadget Ventures
[2] Google Code: Google Gadget Ventures

Pownce^[1] is the latest venture by Kevin Rose, founder of Revision3 and Digg.com.  Pownce is basically an IM tool that allows users to send messages, files, links, and events to other users on the IM tool.  Right now Pownce is still testing and only sending out invites to selected users.  Pownce’s software runs on Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)^[2], a software that is similar to Adobe Flash.

Below is a screen shot of the Pownce software:

And here is a screen shot of Kevin Roses’ Pownce profile available at http://pownce.com/kevin/^[3]:

The rest of the Pownce team includes Leah Culver, Daniel Burka, and Shawn Allen.  The four of them created a parent company that designs the software.  The company is called Megatechtronium.  The software can be downloaded at: http://pownce.com/download/.^[4] The software is still in Alpha stage.  Companies will be able to buy advertisement space in the software.

Below is a description of how Pownce is made.  I took this screen shot from Pownce’s About^[5] page:

“Pownce Is Alive!” exclaimed Rose on his blog.^[6]

[1] Pownce.com
[2] Adobe: Adobe Integrated Runtime
[3] Pownce: Kevin Rose’s profile
[4] Pownce: Download
[5] Pownce: About
[6] kevinhasablogg: Pownce Is Alive!

[Image credit: Radio And Internet Newsletter: www.kurthanson.com/dos]

Internet radio listeners, forget about the Apple iPhone releasing on June 29th for one minute and realize the consequences of what will happen on July 15th, 2007.  Royalty rates for Internet radio will be increasing at an alarming rate and was set by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington D.C.  Two days ago, about 21 Internet radio websites shut down their service to make a statement.  It was officially the Internet Radio Day of Silence on June 25th.  I was not aware that this was going on until I read a blog post on Yahoo’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal^[1].

“The new royalty rates are higher than the revenues anyone can hope to make from related advertising. In other words, we all lose money on Internet radio starting July 15th. Yahoo! has no intention of operating LAUNCHcast radio as a loss-leader,” wrote Ian C. Rogers of Yahoo! Music.  Rogers began working for Yahoo! Music three and a half years ago after Yahoo! acquired Mediacode.  Rogers wrote a brief history of the situation with the Copyright Royalty Board on the Yahoo! Music Blog.^[2]

If the bill passes, Internet radio companies will start losing money.  Less than 3% of Yahoo! Music subscribers pay for music and the money made from ads is not sufficient enough for the hike in royalty fees.  So if Yahoo! Music keeps losing money along with the other Internet radio companies, keeping them afloat won’t be easy.  Many companies cannot afford the royalty rates and may even shut down.

Royalties will increase between 300 and 1200 percent.  Internet radio currently pays double of what satellite radio pays and Internet radio listeners jumped from 45 million listeners per month to 72 million listerners since last year.  Yahoo! Music has been providing value to Internet radio listeners for years and for free.  I don’t want to see the service taken away as it is one of my favorite products made by Yahoo!

For more information, visit http://www.savenetradio.org.

[1] Yodel Anecdotal: Yahoo! Music goes radio silent
[2] Yahoo! Music Blog: Yahoo! Music Goes Radio Silent

Kosmix^[1] and RevolutionHealth^[2] just announced today that they will be partnering in allowing users to categorize and quickly pull information about medical conditions and treatments. Kosmix’s core competency is categorization search (i.e. tag search-similar to Quintura). RevolutionHealth will be able to utilize Kosmix’s search to place relevant medical content together.

RevolutionHealth was founded by Steve Case, former CEO and chairman of America Online. Kosmix was founded by Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman. Venky also founded Cambrian Ventures and worked as a GM at Amazon.com.

“RevolutionHealth.com is pioneering a new and better way to bring more health choices closer to consumers,” stated Kosmix co-founder, Anand Rajaraman. “The combination of Kosmix and RevolutionHealth.com is a first step in changing the health care industry as we know it today, transforming it into an entity that will make a profound difference in our lives and the way we manage our health.”

RevolutionHealth integrates content and Web 2.0 tools such as social networking. The company also offers Premium Services that enable users to prepare for doctor visits. For example, when inputting symptoms that one may have, RevolutionHealth will suggest questions to ask one’s doctor. RevolutionHealth also has medical-related videos such as a description of Lasik surgery procedures.

“The search box on RevolutionHealth.com allows people to find the information that is most useful and relevant to them–wherever it might come from,” stated Matt Koll, a senior vice president of RevolutionHealth. “Whether it is information from the trusted medical sources assembled on our site, such as MayoClinic.com and Harvard Health, from people who have similar experiences to share or from the array of sources on the Internet, Kosmix provides impressive breadth of coverage with precise sorting of results.”

According to Harinarayan, the reason why Revolution Health partnered with Kosmix over others is because:
“RevolutionHealth was looking for a technology engine that could provide the best search results in depth and breadth to give their users the best heath content out there.  In Kosmix, they have a partner that can scale to all of the content on the Web and deliver the most relevant results for their users.  The reason we can do this is that we are the first engine to deliver all of our content results through algorithms with no human intervention at all  — the first ‘algo-produced content engine.’  This gives users all of the results they need – particularly in the long tail – and the best user experience for the Web, making the ability to search for any content that is health-related simple, intuitive and graphical.”

[1] Kosmix.com
[2] RevolutionHealth.com
[3] Kosmix Blog: Jon Miller joins Kosmix board

FatFreeCart^[1] makes it easy to set-up shopping carts online. There isn’t any registration necessary to benefit from this service. Essentially FatFreeCart provides the code^[2] needed to enable users to add checkout buttons on their website. The code currently supports PayPal and Google Checkout.

This service is especially beneficial for users that want to make money from their talent. For example, if you’re a musician and you want to make money by selling your music, adding FatFreeCart is a quick and simple solution. An example of a satisfied user of FatFreeCart is blue-echoes.com^[3]. Blue-echoes.com uses the service for people to quickly buy photography prints through Google Checkout connected to FatFreeCart.

The best part of FatFreeCart is that it is free and quick. FatFreeCart was designed by Robin Kohli, also founder of e-junkie.com^[4].

[1] FatFreeCart.com
[2] FatFreeCart.com: Get the code
[3] blue-echoes.com: prints
[4] E-junkie.com

Search engine portal, AOL.com is the first major portal to take the culture of blogging and adopt it into its core News website. The new website utilizes tagging features. AOL News’ blog posts can be added to popular social bookmarking websites such as Digg, Reddit, Newsvine, Technorati, etc. Each news story blog post also encourages users to vote on certain topics. One of the more exciting features is that the videos that are embedded within the news blog posts can be shared and embedded into anyone elses’ blogs or websites. The programming code is provided in each video.

“News habits have changed, and AOL News is the first site designed from the ground up to appeal to today’s online news consumer,” stated Lewis D’Vorkin, the SVP of AOL News & Sports. “Unlike other news portal sites, AOL News leverages the increasingly popular blog format, drawing on a wide range of news sources to provide consumers quick access to the top stories and related pictures, videos, polls. We believe that AOL News will set the standard for other major online news sites.”

Some of AOL News’ features include a three column format. The center column has blog-style news articles, the left column contains user message boards and stories that have been made popular on Netscape, and the right column has aggregated news headlines from major news sources. The right column also contains links to blog posts written by a roster of News Bloggers. Dinesh D’Souza, author of What’s So Great About America and former Comedy Central’s Daily Show With Jon Stewart correspondent, Mo Rocca are two of AOL’s News Bloggers.

AOL owns a large network of blogs called Weblogs Inc. which is the parent company of websites like Download Squad, Engadget, and Luxist. I was curious as to whether this influenced AOL News’ look & feel to change into a more blog-like website so I reached out to LaToya Drake of AOL Corporate Communications.

“The decision was largely influenced by the change in news consumption habits, meaning consumers want their news to be more interactive, immediate, and engaging, and they want it from multiple sources – trusted professionals, bloggers and user-generated content. A blogging format offers that experience. We also know that news consumers want a single-screen experience, not a kitchen sink experience. A lot of news sites offer multiple links which we call the kitchen-sink experience with little interactivity and engagement. The new AOL News model lets news consumers read, watch, vote and listen, all in one page,” stated Drake.

Lewis D’Vorkin also helped put together TMZ.com^[1], one of AOL’s most renowned blog subsidiaries. I definitely venerate AOL for adopting blog culture into their News homepage.

AOL News is available at: http://news.aol.com^[2]

[1] TMZ.com
[2] AOL News

Carl Sjogreen officially announced Google Calendar on April 13, 2006 on the Google Blog^[1].  Google Calendar is similar to Microsoft Outlook’s ability to create events/meetings and invite guests.  To further enhance its services, Google Calendar announced that there is an ability to send notification reminders via mobile phone and now has the ability to be accessed by mobile phones.  I discovered this feature when I logged into my GMail inbox tonight.  The new feature was highlighted in red at the top right of the page.

Google does a very well job of creating products and services of convenience.  However, I believe that this feature is more of being unnecessary.  Immediately when you think of text messages, you think of having to pay extra money on your cellphone plan.  Most phones have built-in alarm clocks and notices these days.  Why charge yourself for notification text messages when this feature is already built in to most phones?  If one had unlimited text messages, then it would definetely be very useful.

On the other hand, typing in events into Google Calendar from a PC or Mac is a lot easier than setting up alarms on mobile phones, regardless of T9 and if the phone has a QWERTY keyboard.  Kudos to Google for making the unnecessary, but convenient feature. 

A few days ago, Wesabe announced that they have raised $4 million in funding from Union Square Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech.  Wesabe is a website that promotes users to track financial goals.

Creating an account in Wesabe is very simple.  The website registration just asks for a user-name, public name, password, and a couple of security questions.  After that, users can upload accounts whether it is Brokerage, Cash, Checking, Credit Card, Credit Line, Money Market, and Savings. 

If a user wants to upload a Checking or Savings account for example, Wesabe asks for the bank name.  After a bank account is selected, the next step is to download account statements to the computer.  It doesn’t matter whether it is OFX, Microsoft Money, Quick, QFX, QIF, or OFC file types, Wesabe supports them all.

As users input information into Wesabe, tips are provided to help with achieving financial goals.  Some of the user-generated tips are quite obvious such as “pack you own lunch” as a means of saving money, but I’m sure more useful content will be added soon enough.

Jason Knight is the founder of Wesabe and Union Square Venture partner, Brad Burnham will join Wesabe’s board of directors.  The announcement is on Wesabe’s blog^[1].

[1] Wheaties for Your Wallet: Wesabe Raises $4M in Series A Funding

eBay Inc. and Google Inc. recently settled their differences. eBay was not happy with Google’s PayPal alternative, Google Checkout. After all, eBay bought out PayPal for $1.5 billion in stock back in July 2002.

Two weeks ago, eBay decided to halt being a client of Google’s AdWords campaign, but then decided to reenlist. However, eBay won’t be ordering as many ads as before. This is a blow to Google since eBay is one of their largest clients.

“At a recent conference for eBay merchants held in Boston, Google organised a rival party as part of a campaign to lure eBay users to its Checkout service, launched last year, which is attempting to topple PayPal’s monopoly on online payment,” wrote Jonathan Richards of Times Online UK^[1].

eBay now plans on spreading advertising efforts by signing as a client with Google’s competitors, Microsoft and Yahoo! as well as use Google AdWords. It is not yet known how much less eBay will spend on Google, but it will definitely put a dent on the $100 million in revenues that Google has supposedly made from eBay. eBay also previously had roughly 188 million ads positioned through Google AdWords.

As a side-note, many ambitious entrepreneurs had stints with working at PayPal including Chad Hurley and Steve Chen of YouTube, Reif Hoffman of LinkedIn, Scott Banister of Slide, Jeremy Stoppelmann and Russ Simons of Yelp, and David Sacks of Geni.com.

Reference(s):
[1] Times Online: eBay ends tiff with Google

There are rumors circulating in the blogosphere that LinkedIn[1], the professional social network created by Reid Hoffman, is plotting the development of APIs for developers to generated products within the website. This is similar to Facebook’s F8 efforts[2]. The API will be unleashing within the next 9 months or so.

The reason why LinkedIn is developing APIs may be because the social networks that allow applications and widgets which include MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook, are dominating the market. Logically it makes sense though. Widgets and applications enhance profiles if done so correctly. MySpace and Photobucket had their share of widget problems before MySpace acquired Photobucket. Not to mention, Facebook took a little bit of criticism for the applications features.

Speaking from my own point-of-view, what drew me back to Facebook initially was free, unlimited photo uploads. I believe back then, Yahoo! Photos had a cap and so did the other photo services I’ve seen. Also, Shutterfly’s upload process was not as appealing to me. Friendster also did not have unlimited photo albums back then either. If LinkedIn offered unlimited photos around the same time Facebook, things may have been quite different.

LinkedIn’s users include those who have privacy concerns against Facebook. Until LinkedIn has more to offer, it will be difficult to poach from Facebook’s users. This is why I believe the LinkedIn APIs feature will be a great addition.

[1] LinkedIn.com
[2] Facebook Developers

References:
[3] TechCrunch: LinkedIn To Open Platform In Response To Facebook
[4] All Facebook: LinkedIn Opening Platform

Now that Terry Semel stepped down from the CEO position and Jerry Yang stepped in, Yahoo! is undergoing some major management changes. One of the executives is leaving the company, but some of them are moving up within the company.

David Karnstedt is moving up to run the Head of North American Sales from his former position, Senior VP of Yahoo! Search sales. Wenda Harris Millard is leaving Yahoo! to pursue a career as the President of Media at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. An interesting fact is that Millard is a founder of DoubleClick, an advertising company that was acquired by Google for $3.1 billion[1].

“Integrating our world-class search and display sales teams under David’s leadership will allow us to better serve all of our advertisers’ marketing objectives ranging from brand awareness to direct response,” stated Sue Decker, the newly appointed President of Yahoo! “This is one of many important steps we’re taking to re-invigorate our display business, further build on our industry-leading position in advertising, and drive thought-leadership in the online advertising marketplace.”

Karnstedt was hired into the Yahoo! Search Marketing in 2001 when the company acquired Overture[2]. Karnstedt moving into this position symbolizes Yahoo!’s hunger to compete against Google AdWords.

“The future of advertising isn’t about choosing between search and display, but about leveraging the breadth of advertising products to more effectively reach your customers with the right message, in the right context, at the right time, and on the right platform,” stated Gregory Coleman, Yahoo!’s EVP of Global Sales. “David Karnstedt has done great things for Yahoo!’s Search Sales business, and it’s his leadership skills, business acumen and keen understanding of the new media landscape that make him the perfect person to help shape the future of Yahoo!’s advertising sales business.” Karnstedt will be reporting to Coleman in the new position.

This is great news for Yahoo! Getting back to the basics is essential. Search and advertising combined made Google the $163 billion-valued mammoth that it is today.

[1] Pulse 2.0: Google Buys DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion
[2] Pulse 2.0: The Current State of Yahoo! And Where Yahoo!’s Acquisitions Since 1997 Are Now [slightly outdated]

Related News:
[3] Pulse 2.0: Yahoo! Spending $680 Million For Remaining Stake in Right Media

References:
[4] PaidContent: Yahoo Merges Ad Sales Units; Wenda Harris Millard Leaves To Join MSLO
[5] PRNewsWire: Wenda Harris Millard is Appointed President, Media at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
[6] Yahoo! Inc. press release

The reason why I like Revision3[1] is because the company produces the show, Diggnation. When a story hits the homepage of Digg and gets tons of hits and attention, the odds of the event being talked about on Diggnation increases. And then either the founder, Kevin Rose or producer, Alex Albrecht gives credit to the user who submitted that particular story. This gives Digg.com more of a human essence.

Although I do not watch the show much myself, I did watch the episode[2] after the HD DVD key fiasco to see the response from Rose and Albrecht. I would say that this episode is the one that captured my interest.

Sometime between last night and this morning, TechCrunch reported[3] that Revision3 gained $8 million in investment by Greylock partners. “Online video site Revision3 has raised an $8 million second round of financing, according to a source close to the deal, bringing the total capital raised to $9 million. Our understanding is that Greylock led the round,” wrote Michael Arrington, TechCrunch founder.

Marc Andreessen, the cofounder of Netscape Communications Corporation (which was sold to AOL for $4.2 billion in 1999), is also an investor in Revision3.  Having Andreessen as an investor is a classic example of Web 1.0 reaching out to 2.0.

With the new round of funding, I’m assuming that Diggnation will expand their network of online video programs.   Kevin Rose is a posterboy of web success.  Both of his ventures, Digg and Revision3 is kicking ass with no barriers in the way.

[1] Revision3.com
[2] Diggnation: Episode 100
[3] TechCrunch: Revision3 Raises $8 million From Greylock