OpenTable Going IPO

OpenTable is an online reservation system for restaurants that started eleven years ago.  Thus far about 90 million table reservations have been made on OpenTable.  They have filed an S-1 with the SEC indicating that they are ready to go IPO.  OpenTable is hoping to raise $40 million from the IPO and wants their stock to be listed under the NASDAQ.  Merrill Lynch is bookrunning the deal.

The company has made $41.3 million in revenues based on the first 9 months of 2008.  This is a 41% increase from the year before.  Revenue is generated by restaurants that pay subscription fees (54%) and reservation fees (42%) that show up through the system.  Installation fees generate 4% of OpenTable’s revenues.

Through the IPO, OpenTable is hoping to raise an additional $40 million.  Between 1999 and 2000, OpenTable raised about $48 million in VC funding.  Fortunately former eBay executive Jeff Jordan was able to street the company through the bubble and make it as far as IPO.  When a web 1.0 company makes it this far, you just have to commend it.

[via CN and TC]

Timothy Gutierrez Gets 10 Years For Sending Threatening E-mail To Obama

On a list of top 10 stupidest things for every human being to do, I think number one is writing a threatening e-mail to the President of the United States.  But that is exactly what Timothy Ryan Gutierrez decided to do.  Gutierrez could be facing about 10 years in jail after the F.B.I. decided to investigate an e-mail threatening to assasinate President Barack Obama.  Another message that Gutierrez sent contained a threat to blow of Mall of America with 40 pounds of C4 in Bloomgton, Minnesota.

The F.B.I. arrested Gutierrez yesterday in Durango, Colorado after an indictment was filed.  Gutierrez told the Cortez Journal that he never had any intention on carrying out the message of the e-mail.

“I’m not mad about him becoming president, but he’s not doing what he said he was going to do,” stated Gutierrez. “He’s not doing anything for the lower class — just the middle and upper class. Medications are going up, not lowering, and jobs are being lost. His actions are going to get him in trouble.” Gutierrez told the paper that he was unemployed but plays with computers.  “I’m in serious shit” stated Gutierrez after being arrested.

I don’t think that Gutierrez should be surprised about his punishment.  After all you are threatening the most powerful man in the country.  Given the current sensitivity the country has towards any possible threats, the government will take all precautions to protect this man.  Even going as far as having him wear a bulletproof suit during the inaugural address.  Gutierrez will have a lot of thinking to do in those 10 years of prison time.

[via Wired]

What Is The Deal With Red Herring?

I first noticed that Red Herring was down when I logged into my Netvibes account and noticed their feed wasn’t responding.  Then I went to their website and it decided not to load all day today.  Silicon Alley Insider reporter Dan Frommer pointed out that on a Twitter message by Falguni Bhuta, it stated “Heard my former employer Red Herring is closing.  Surprised it survived for so long.”

Why is the website down?  It’s rumored that Alex Vieux hasn’t paid the hosting bill for months now.   Ever since Red Herring and their 19 employees were evicted from their Belmont, California offices this past May, the company has been in a downward spiral with the exception of their website.  Red Herring has been hanging on to about a 46,000 rank on Alexa and still receives a good amount of traffic.

I think that Red Herring should at least say goodbye in an article before just shutting down cold turkey.  Check out what the people are saying about the situation on Twitter.

Yahoo Closing Its Briefcase

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) plans to be discontinuing their Briefcase service.  Briefcase is a Yahoo! service allows people to store files online.  Yahoo! Briefcase will be shut down on March 30.  Yahoo! told users to retrieve or delete their documents before shutting down the service.  Yahoo! Briefcase offered users 30MB of free online storage.  The service was launched about 10 years ago.  The service “usage has been significantly declining over the years, as users outgrew the need for Yahoo Briefcase and turned to offerings with much more storage and enhanced sharing capabilities.”

The news of Yahoo! Briefcase shutting down this service arrives on the same day that Google was revealed to be working on GDrive, a file storage service.  Microsoft SkyDrive offers 25GB of free storage online too.  Other services that Yahoo! shut down recently includes Mash, Content Match in Europe, and their unlimited music service.

Google Street View Takes Out A Deer

Google Street View is a feature that is built in Google Maps.  Anyone using Google Maps can click Street View and see what it looks like to walk down the road in front of specific addresses.  Google captures these pictures by driving around cars with 360 view cameras on top of them.  Google has been quiet about the cars they send around, but sometimes they are caught in the wild.

Recently in upstate New York, a Google Street View car hit a baby deer on Five Points Road and had been recording the whole time.  “The driver was understandably upset, and promptly stopped to alert the local police and the Street View team at Google. The deer was able to move and had left the area by the time the police arrived. The police explained to our driver that, sadly, this was not an uncommon occurrence in the region — the New York State Department of Transportation estimates that 60,000-70,000 deer collisions happen per year in New York alone — and no police report needed to be filed,” wrote Wendy Wang, Street View Operations Manager.

I think that this is one of those pictures that needs to be archived and added to a top list of Street View pictures.

Playpump Looks Like A Playground Toy, But Is Actually A Water Pump

Over one billion people in the world do not have access to clean water. Water-related diseases constitute 80% of sickness and is the leading cause of death all over the world. Therefore Playpumps International has created a mechanism that resembles a playground toy for many third world countries. The Playpump will be installed near schools and can gather about 1,400 liters of water per hour at 16rpm from a depth of 40m.

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What Is The GDrive?

Brian Ussery noticed that there is a reference to the GDrive in Google Pack.  The file is commented that GDrive is an online file backup and storage.  There are also two lines that describe the application.  “GDrive provides reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and documents. GDrive allows you to access your files from anywhere, anytime, and from any device – be it from your desktop, web browser or cellular phone.”

Based on the comments in these files, we can only expect that GDrive will eventually be bundled with Google Pack.  This means that you can access any kind of files on GDrive anywhere on a mobile device, web browser, or desktop.  No details on when it will be released though.

[via GoogleSystem]