Last May, Engadget reported that the Apple iPhone would have delays in production but the rumor was untrue.  Wall Street reacted though.  Apple’s market cap lost $4 billion temporarily and the stock dropped quite a bit for a couple of hours.  

The Apple stock has taken another beating caused from a web site’s report again.  This time it wasn’t Engadget though.  It was TheStreet.com.  According to CNBC, “The report first surfaced on TheStreet.com, claiming that Apple would reduce production of its iPhone from ‘9 million units to 4.5 million units, according to a note from Miller Tabak analyst Peter Boockvar.’”

However when Boockvar was contacted for further clarification, he stated that he just simply agreed with TheStreet.com that there is a rumor.  But then he said that “We weren’t issuing any kind of report” and “We don’t have an Apple analyst, we don’t even have a tech analyst.” Boockvar continued, “Disregard it” and “There’s no note on Apple today.  It’s pure noise.”

The interesting part of both of these occurences is that there seems to be a correlation between how the Apple stock reacts to negative blog posts and news stories.  I wonder how much of a reverse effect there would be if there was positive news in blogs and other sources.

References:
[1] Engadget: False alarm: iPhone NOT delayed until October, Leopard NOT delayed again until January
[2] CNBC: Apple Shares Plunge on Rumors of iPhone, iPod Problems
[3] ValleyWag: Deja Vu

Facebook Bug:
Today, Facebook went down for a few hours and then blogger/IBM employee, Matt Dibb reported: “Earlier on today I was getting some trouble connecting to Facebook’s login page – after trying to log in the connection just kept timing out instead of taking me to my home page like it usually does.” Dibb continued: “A couple of hours later I came back to my computer after finishing up some work elsewhere and tried logging in again (I’m not addicted – I can stop any time I want…!). To my surprise my login details – usually stored and prefilled by Firefox – had gone and were replaced by an unfamiliar email address^[1].”

Then the blogosphere reacted.  People are clearly concerned about the type of data that is stored on Facebook and that is understandable.  Facebook has tons and tons of pictures uploaded by users carelessly.  These users expect that none of these pictures will leak into the wrong hands.

However, in a PR group, Facebook released a statement:
“This morning, we temporarily took down the Facebook site to fix a bug we identified earlier today. This was not the result of a security breach. Specifically, the bug caused some third party proxy servers to cache otherwise inaccessible content. The result was that an isolated group of users could see some pages that were not intended for them. The site has now been restored and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

Audio App Killed:
The Facebook Audio application had about 750k users as of last week.  The Audio application allowed users to upload MP3s and place it on their profile. Facebook banned the app, reinstated it, and now banned it again.  VentureBeat^[4] has a full explanation of the product lifecycle of the Facebook Audio Application.

References:
[1] mdibb: Did Facebook get hacked today?
[2] TechCrunch: Facebook Outage
[3] Scobleizer: Facebook outage
[4] VentureBeat: Facebook kills Audio for copyright violations

Rob Barnett, a former MTV executive recently launched MyDamnChannel.com, a video content comedy channel that appears to be competing against FunnyOrDie.com. They even have a parody of one of the videos that made FunnyOrDie.com popular, The Landlord. The parody is available at:
http://www.mydamnchannel.com/channel.aspx?episode=76

MyDamnChannel has a revenue model in which advertising profits from content owners will be split 50-50 stated Barnett. Okapi Venture Capital is providing funding to help get MyDamnChannel off the ground. Barnett has also signed Andy Milonakis, an actor that has his own show on MTV called The Andy Milonakis Show.

Harry Shearer, a voice actor of The Simpsons is also providing content. Shearer plays the voices of Mr. Burns, Smithers, Ned Flanders, Principle Seymour Skinner, etc. on The Simpsons. Shearer will be providing pop culture spoofs and will impersonate President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in some of his skits.

“There’s a slew of sites with hundreds of thousands of videos that are impossible to find,” stated Barnett. “We’re taking a very different approach than all the YouTube imitators^[1].”

[1] Variety: Barnett launches MyDamnChannel

Brad Greenspan, the former President of eUniverse (later renamed Intermix Media Inc.), sent a letter to Dow Jones & Company Inc. today stating that he has 5 investors interested in a transaction with him for ownership in The Wall Street Journal.

Greenspan mentioned in the letter that a possible result of the transaction can include a joint venture.  Through the join venture, three new businesses could be created called WSJUSLIve, WSJAsiaLive, and WSJEuropeLive.  Greenspan would also drive for WSJ content to be delivered in video forms as well.  The five groups and Greenspan would invest $300 million in cash.

In reference to News Corp.’s bid for Dow Jones, Greenspan stated, “It is not too late for the directors to fulfill their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and initiate a true sales process.”  According to Wikipedia, Greenspan published “The MySpace Report,” which claimed that News Corp. unfairly determined the valuation of MySpace.  MySpace was owned by Intermix before the acquisition.

References:
[1] Thomson Financial: Greenspan has more Dow Jones support (via CNNMoney.com)
[2] Wikipedia: MySpace – Brad Greenspan / The MySpace Report

Yahoo! search just got a little bit smarter and it benefits travel enthusiasts. In the above screen shot, I typed in Las Vegas and near the top of the results, a mini-profile of Travel.Yahoo.com’s content of the Sin City appeared. From that point, travel enthusiasts are one click away from Top Rated Things To Do, Las Vegas hotels, Las Vegas restaurants, flights, and maps.

This new feature was implemented within 17 days of Yahoo! search integrating a suggestions feature^[1].  Yahoo! is once again focusing on its core competency, search.  Since Yang stepped into the CEO office, I believe Yahoo! will continue to triumph in providing real value to each of their users through means of search, music, messaging, and other services.

References:
[1] Pulse 2.0: Yahoo! Search Now Offers Suggestions
[2] Lifehacker: Yahoo adds a travel shortcut

BuddyTV is a Seattle, Wash.-based company that has raised $2.8 million Series A in funding today. Gemstar-TV Guide International, Inc. (NASDAQ:GMST) lead the round of funding. BuddyTV is essential an informative content website that provides coverage of major TV events such as the Emmys and has staff writers that provide updates about celebrities. For example, one of the blog posts, one of the writers blogged about how Danneel Harris, star of One Tree Hill, will have a role in Harold & Kumar 2.

BuddyTV also has a list of recent interviews, top TV shows, top rated shows, and users are encouraged to create profiles. Users create a list of their favorite TV shows, favorite actors, etc. Gemstar-TV Guide International, Inc. publishes TV Guide in the U.S.

References:
[1] www.buddyTV.com
[2] TechCrunch: BuddyTV Takes $2.8million Series A

iCrossing is a digital marketing company founded in 1998. The company has raised $62 million in a fifth round of investment that brings their total round of funding to $110 million. The $62 million investment was received from Goldman-Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) and several other investors.

“iCrossing is at the forefront of developing search and social media strategies that engages not alienates users,” stated Richard Rosenblatt, the chairman of iCrossing. “The market is responding and iCrossing has seized a leadership position in the digital space. With CEO Jeff Herzog’s vision for the future, there are sure to be even bigger things to come^.”

What does iCrossing actually do? An example of their work includes developing a solution to make PR Newswire mobile. PR Newswire is a press release website. Essentially, this would benefit journalists all over the world. Other major clients include Coca-Cola, Colgate, GM, Office Depot, and Travelocity.

Investors in iCrossing include:
1.) Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS): Goldman Sachs is a global investment and securities firm based in New York. Goldman Sachs focuses on investment banking, asset management, and trading and principal investments. Some of Goldman Sachs’ case studies are available at: http://www2.goldmansachs.com/insight/case_studies/.
2.) Oak Investment Partners: is a venture capital firm with $8.4 billion in committed capital. Some of the consumer Internet investments that Oak participated in includes aQuantive (acquired by Microsoft for $6 billion), Connexus Corporation, Fastclick, Inc. (acquired by ValueClick), and Shop.com
3.) RRE Ventures: RRE is a venture capital firm that manages $850 million in assets. Some of the companies that RRE has invested in includes WeddingChannel.com, Stockback (acquired by Vesdia), SmarterKids.com, Pinnacor (acquired by MarketWatch), and eMachines.
4.) StarVest Partners L.P.: is a private equity company that has $150 million in assets. Companies that StarVest invested in include Tibersoft Corporation, Newgistics Inc., NetSuite Inc., Connected Corporation (acquired by Iron Mountain Inc.), and Insurance.com

References:
[1] iCrossing press release: Goldman Sachs and Oak Investment Partners Lead Investment in Digital Marketing Leader iCrossing

For further details, refer to iCrossing’s website: www.icrossing.com

I have a problem with you, website formerly known as thefacebook.com. When I joined you back in 2003, you were a nobody. I was a dumb college kid running around looking for a way to show off the number of friends I have in a more fashionable way than Friendster. I wanted to know who my friends’ friends were, their favorite quotes, their favorite movies, some of their contact info, and that is it!

Why the hell should I care if my friends SuperPoke me? Why should Facebook tell me to bite my friends in a vampire vs. werewolf adventure. Nor do I want to Grow-a-Gift. In the below screen shot, there are thousands of users that belong to certain applications. Why do they decide to join these applications? SPAM!! Almost every application asks a user to invite all of their friends. What is Facebook turning into? I’ll tell you what… Facebook applications are pretty much emulating Tagged.com, a social network that I consider to be spam.

Tagged is a social network based in San Francisco that automatically by default invites your friends via email to join their social network. To join a majority of Facebook applications, there is a form that by default has your friends check-marked to be invited to use the same applications. There is a way to opt-out of inviting your friends from the application, but many people do not pay attention to that. Tagged penetrates its users contact information from e-mails and insists that these so-called references join Tagged.com as well.

Some of America’s top bloggers are declaring Facebook bankruptcy, meaning they’re going to de-activate their account. And to be honest, if it wasn’t for Facebook’s photo album system, I’d be gone too. Facebook, Zuckerberg, get back to the basics. There is nothing to look forward to for incoming college students, especially since Facebook is open to everyone and to those who are finding ways to gain users a much easier way. Its only a matter of time until an exclusive Facebook alternative is released for people who want to be part of something elite and not have third-parties solicit.

Tim Sneath, a Client Platform Technical Evangelist wrote a blog post yesterday about how the Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 plug-in is now available. Essentially, Silverlight 1.0 is competition for Adobe Flash, a technology that was popularized by YouTube.

Silverlight 1.0 aims to provide consistent web experiences between Windows and Mac-based computers. The plug-in also utilizes AJAX applications and has won several awards. Some of the awards include the DV Best of Show Winner provided by NewBay Media LLC and received the CNET Webware Top 100 2007 award for the Publishing category.

Since the Beta release of Silverlight 1.0, Microsoft fixed roughly 2000 bugs and integrated a JavaScript API into the plug-in. “Our stress test runs show improvements of two or three orders of magnitude in many cases, and the product demonstrates the polish one might expect from a near-final release^[1],” wrote Sneath.

Microsoft and CBS made an agreement for the use of Silverlight for a user-generated content initiative last April. And earlier this month, iStreamPlanet announced that they would be using Silverlight for their webcasting services.

The Silverlight download page is available at: http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/news-pr.aspx

[1] Tim Sneath: Silverlight 1.0 RC1 is here!

Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK) announced today that they have acquired Twango. Twango is a photo sharing website that is headed by Jim Laurel and Serena Glover.

Laurel developed iBasic and dbWeb technology for his company, Aspect Software Engineering, a company that was acquired by Microsoft a few years later. This was the foundation of Microsoft ASP (Active Server Pages). Laurel received his B.A. in Economics from St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

In her previous work, Glover founded the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN), a content publishing software that supported Microsoft Windows’ developers. A lot of Microsoft’s APIs, open source applications, and software downloads are available on MSDN. Glover received a B.A. and an M.B.A. from The University of Michigan.

Although the exact amount of the acquisition was not disclosed, the Wall Street Journal wrote that a source says that it will be for less than 70 million Euros ($98.6 million).  Through this acquisition, Nokia aims to seamlessly integrate mobile telecommunication technology with popular Internet websites.

References:
[1] Wall Street Journal: Nokia Buys Twango in Web Push
[2] Twango.com

Gideon Yu has been travelling from job-to-job around the Valley lately. I read a little bit of background on the guy from ValleyWag^[1]. Yu recently left Yahoo! working as a Treasurer to work as a junior partner at Sequoia Capital and YouTube’s Chief Financial Officer. But today, I read an article that Yu signed on to work as Facebook’s new CFO to oversee their accounting books.

This move enhances the speculations that Facebook will be going public. Facebook has been on a hiring binge for industry experts since F8 (Facebook Applications) was unraveled. Last week, Facebook acquired Parakey, a company that was started by a couple of Mozilla Firefox’s developers.

“My heart is first and foremost with venture-stage companies and consumer Internet companies,” stated Gideon Yu. “I’m hoping this is my last job for a long time.”

“I consider it kind of a coup that we were able to recruit him here,” stated Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg. “He’s just excellent.”

“We’re not looking to sell the company, and we’re really not looking to IPO any time soon,” continued Zuckerberg. “Our board and we believe it’s probably best to push some of these things off as long as possible.”

References:
[1] ValleyWag: Sequoia’s newest initiate
[2] Wall Street Journal: Facebook Hires Yu as Finance Chief

When TAKKLE first came out, I thought to myself, “would a high school sports social network really take off?” Every time I hear more news about TAKKLE, my question gets answered (which happens frequently these days). The answer is yes. High school sports is a national craze and I should have known this, especially after watching movies like Varsity Blues starring the guy from Dawson’s Creek.

I read an article tonight on alarm:clock^[1] about the social network receiving an investment from Sports Illustrated and as I investigated more, I found that were other investors in the company as well:

Investors in TAKKLE include:
1.) Sports Illustrated (SI.com): This publication is dubbed as the “biggest weekly American sports magazine” according to Wikipedia. The publication has over 3 million subscribers and 23 million adults read the magazine each week. The company is owned by Time Warner.
2.) New York City Investment Fund (NYCIF): is a company that was founded by Henry R. Kravis. Kravis is known as the 107th most richest person in the world and for founding Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR). KKR registered to go public on July 3rd according to Hoovers. Ironically, I was reading a book about KKR’s involvement with RJR Reynolds and Nabisco in the book, Barbarians at the Gate earlier today.
3.) WMG Investments: Finance arm of Wasserman Media Group, LLC (WMG). WMG is a sports marketing company that was started by Casey Wasserman. Wasserman graduated from UCLA with a major in Political Science and is now also an owner of the Los Angeles Avengers football team.
4.) Greycroft Partners, LLC: A $75 million powered company founded by Alan Patricof. Patricof completed a BA from Ohio State University and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon and is a board member of New York Small Business Venture Fund and New Jobs for New York Association. Greycroft has also invested in PaidContent (technology news blog), Pump Audio (hub for independent artists to sell music), and Ladies Who Launch (social network for entrepreneurial women).
5.) IJ Smith Enterprises LLC
6.) Jack Schneider, Managing Director, Allen & Company

Through the investment by Sports Illustrated, a partnership has been solidified. Sports Illustrated agreed to bring about sponsorship programs for TAKKLE endorsed by companies such as Gatorade and Finish Line. TAKKLE also made a deal with Spalding for a three-on-three basketball competition.

Previous Pulse 2.0 TAKKLE coverage is available at: http://pulse2.com/category/takkle-inc/

References:
[1] Alarm:Clock: Time Inc’s Sports Illustrated Takes Stake In TAKKLE
[2] MediaPost Publications: SI Makes A ‘Deeper Alliance’ With Takkle

Website rating system, Alexa.com, a subsidiary company of Amazon.com recently announced that their popular toolbar is now available for Mozilla Firefox. The announcement was made on Monday on the Alexa blog^[1], but I did not notice it until today. The new Firefox Alexa Toolbar is called Sparky.

Below is a screen shot of how it looks when installed. The screen shot was taken from the Sparky download page.

I used to have Smart PageRank Toolbar 1.0, but consider it gone now. Users who have Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.5 should beware that there is a compatibility issue, but one of the comments in the Alexa blog post tells how to bypass the problem.

[1] Alexa – Web Discovery Machine: Sparky Add-on for Firefox Released Today

I haven’t been a blogger for long, but within the last year, I found myself addicted to reading websites like LifeHacker, TechCrunch, Mashable, GigaOM, etc.  One thing that I like about LifeHacker is that they provide random tips that they discover on computers.  I spend a lot of time behind a computer and I tend to discover things that make my life easier. 

And I decided that when I discover something, I want to share it with like-minded appreciative people.  Hence, the starting of Pulse 2.0 Random Computer Tips.  Perhaps I’ll eventually integrate some sort of rating system and filtering system for each tips as time goes by.  Shan, another editor of Pulse 2.0 also spends a lot of time programming PHP and CSS and he tells me that he likes sharing information and techniques that he uses, so he’ll probably start using Pulse 2.0 as a means of communicating ideas and code.

Without further ado…

Tip #1: Making text easier to read on Windows XP

I often find myself switching back-and-forth between Internet Explorer 6.0 and Internet Explorer 7.0.  I like Internet Explorer’s clear fonts, but I’m not a big fan of their tab system.  For some reason, Internet Explorer’s tab system runs slower than Mozilla Firefox’s and tends to slow down my system.  But the font in Internet Explorer 7.0 seems as crisp as Apple Safari’s default fonts. 

I randomly discovered a feature in Windows XP that allows you to see fonts just as clear as Apple Safari’s default font settings.  Check out the below screen shot:

Notice the pull-down menu that says Standard and ClearType?  The default for Windows XP is Standard, which I don’t understand since ClearType is… well clearer.  To set this up, right click on the Desktop and click on the Appearance tab, then click on the Effects button.  After doing this, select ClearType under “Use the following methods to smooth edges of screen fonts” and make sure that it is checkmarked.  You will instantly notice the font become sharper. 

If you have any computer tips that you would like to share on Pulse 2.0 and would like to receive credit for/anonymously, please write to amit[at]Pulse2[dot][com].

Microsoft Live Search Club^[1] has created a game that provides a way for users to have fun in searching for keywords.  Similar to the board game, Scrabble, the game Microsoft made has 7 hens with letters attached to them.  When you click on the letter, it drops in the yellow box below.  For example, I wrote the word, Nodes and my score raised because it is an actual word.

“Google finally has a competitor join it in the (until now) exclusive, positive-year-over-year-growth club. MSN/Live increased their query volume by 67% from May, and 48% from a year ago. Search volume was up all across the board in June and took most everyone else in the same direction,” wrote Steve Willis on the Compete Blog^[2].  “A good portion of the additional Live searches are coming from the Live Search Club, where you can apparently play games for points which you can redeem for fine Microsoft products. All of the games involve using Live’s search engine – to get the points, you have to search with Live.”

comScore stats revealed that Google and Yahoo! market share dropped 1% in June and Live.com rose 3%.  Some of the prizes on Club Live include T-Shirts, song downloads, ring tones, USB drives, headphones, etc.  Not a bad marketing campaign.