Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Slingshot Labs

BeachMint Raises $5 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:37:52 +0000

BeachMint is a social commerce service founded by Diego Berdakin and Josh Berman. The two left News Corp’s Slingshot Labs about two months ago. BeachMint is currently in stealth mode. The investors include New Enterprise Associates and Anthem Venture Partners. More information about BeachMint after it launches. [VentureBeat]

Josh Berman and Diego Berkadin Leave MySpace’s Slingshot Labs

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 21:37:17 +0000

Slingshot Labs, the R&D arm of MySpace recently saw two of their key executives resign. The two executives are EVP of Strategy and Product Diego Berkadin and President Josh Berman. According to a source with TechCrunch, the two executives gave in their resignations to News Corp. Digital Chief Jon Miller last week. Slingshot Labs is supposed to be working on a “LinkedIn Killer” service that would be integrated with The Wall Street Journal. The progress on that project is unknown.

Another reason why Berman’s resignation is significant is because this means that all of MySpace founders are no longer with News Corporation. Josh Berman was COO of MySpace when News Corp. bought them out. Chris DeWolf, Tom Anderson, Aber Whitcomb, and Colin Digiaro did not stick around for long after News Corp. bought MySpace. [TechCrunch]

Slingshot Labs: MySpace’s Tentative Future Application Incubator

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:06:08 +0000

What would a social network be without an incubator to power the applications that are instant viral hits within their online communities? Facebook has it so MySpace is HAD to get it. Just like how MySpace had widgets first, so Facebook HAD to get it. And I won’t be surprised if Bebo and Friendster quickly respond by setting up their own shops as well. The name of the company that MySpace is setting up is tentatively going to be called Slingshot Labs according to The New York Times.

Facebook’s incubator had $10 million in size powered by the social network, Accel Partners, and Founders Fund.Â They started this fund in September 2007 to encourage give developers an incentive to create rich applications to give Facebook more appeal and possibly make additional revenue for themselves.

Josh Berman (MySpace COO) and Colin Digiaro (Senior VP of International Corporate Development) may be the ones heading the incubator.Â Amit Kapur (VP of Business Development) may step up as the MySpace COO to fill in for Berman [source: TechCrunch].

While the two incubators may become hyper-competitive against each other,Â they both give a good enough of a reason to quickly develop widgets.Â What might be interesting scenario is if both companies want to fund the same company because the company created a successful widget for both MySpace and Facebook.Â Who would they choose?Â MySpace has mainstream clout, but Facebook is growing at a faster pace than MySpace.Â Would it be more prestigious to receive funding from Slingshot or fbFund?