Menlo Ventures had brought in a partner from outside the firm just twice in its 35-year history.
Shervin Pishevar — an entrepreneur and angel investor with no formal venture capital experience — is now No. 3 after joining the team this week, in a sign that Menlo is planning a major push into the social Web.
“We’re seeing more opportunity in consumer than we can keep up with, which is why someone like Shervin will be a huge asset,” said Shawn T. Carolan, a managing director at Menlo Ventures. “The digital social fabric that binds people will affect Internet services in many different ways. This is not a few-year trend, this is a decades-long trend.”
Menlo, which has $4 billion in assets, has excelled in finding start-ups in the less glitzy corners of technology like enterprise software and networking solutions. It was the largest investor in 3Par, a data storage company bought by Hewlett-Packard for $2.35 billion last year after a heated bidding war with Dell.
But unlike some of its fellow deep-pocketed rivals on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley, Menlo is not a big player in the much-hyped social networking space. The firm doesn’t have stakes in Facebook, Zynga or Groupon — all of which are expected to have big offerings in the next 12 months.
Now, Menlo is playing catch-up.
Article Tools
Recommend
E-mail This
Print
Share
Twitter
With the addition of Mr. Pishevar, the firm is hoping to improve its stature among young Web entrepreneurs, who have built the core of the social Internet. Mr. Pishevar’s main focus will be to create an incubator to nurture talent and identify investment opportunities early.
“Today, entrepreneurs need less capital to start their businesses, which means that there is a higher volume of companies getting started,” Mr. Pishevar said. “In that noise, it’s going to be incredibly important to have a great eye for exceptional founders and to build a circle of trust that connects all those people.”
With capital sloshing around the market, Menlo and other players are under pressure to court start-ups long before their first funding rounds. To help attract talent, firms are hiring well-known entrepreneurs and Internet executives. The founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, is at Greylock Partners. Matt Cohler, one of the earliest Facebook employees, is a general partner at Benchmark Capital.
Mr. Pishevar, 37, fled his native Iran during the country’s brutal war in the 1980s. He later became a serial entrepreneur. At 23, he introduced a Web-based operating system called WebOS, following soon after with Webs, a publishing platform, and later SGN, which he sold in April to MindJolt. As an angel investor, he has invested in roughly 40 start-ups including Aardvark, a social search service that was sold to Google, and Milo, a local shopping application that was sold to eBay for $75 million last year.
Mr. Pishevar is often described as energetic and philosophical, and his Rolodex includes a global mix of investors, politicians, celebrities and founders in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Washington, London and Moscow. Mr. Pishevar, for example, connected Russian billionaire Yuri Milner with Evan Reas, the founder of LAL, more popularly known as LikeALittle, a college social networking site. Both Mr. Pishevar and Mr. Milner ended up investing in the site.
“Shervin has a good instinct for successful entrepreneurs and deeply understands current Internet trends,” Mr. Milner said.
As he did with Mr. Reas, Mr. Pishevar often helps young entrepreneurs navigate Silicon Valley, dispensing words of advice on financing and operations. He will even drive them to investor meetings.
Mr. Pishevar recently introduced the founder of Klout, Joe Fernandez, to Bobby Yazdani, an angel investor. Mr. Yazdani eventually bought a stake in Klout, a start-up that measures the influence of Twitter users, and initiated a meeting for it with venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which is now a top investor.
Last year, Mr. Pishevar also helped secure a visa for Andrey Ternovskiy, the teenage founder of Chatroulette, a video-chatting site. He collected letters of support from his friends, including the actor and technology investor
Ashton Kutcher and Sean Parker, the former Facebook president.
“What sets Shervin apart is that he cares more for people than technology,” said Mr. Kutcher, who has invested alongside Mr. Pishevar. “He has all the understanding of technical infrastructure and social gaming mechanisms, but most importantly he has an understanding of people and a genuine care for their well being.”
Mr. Pishevar said he hoped to formalize his work with entrepreneurs at Menlo by creating a “people-focused” incubator, allowing founders at various stages to connect with other entrepreneurs and learn about best practices. Although the structure is still being worked out, Mr. Pishevar says the program will begin later this year.
“We want to bring founders into a trusted circle and help them incubate their ideas,” he said. “We also want to develop a structure and methodology that can help incredible founders scale across the stages.”
As part of the program, Mr. Pishevar is putting together an elite network of mentors to create a “Jedi council of incredible entrepreneurs.” The exclusive network will host gatherings, work together to solve problems and help the founders in the program.
“The greats are going to be harder to find in this world,” Mr. Pishevar said. “This is an incredibly human endeavor.”
Read also:
http://win7tweaks.oldright.com/2011/06/02/learn-how-to-increase-the-overall-performance-of-ms-windows-7/
http://speeder.blogs3.net/2011/06/01/speed-up-computer/
четвер, 16 червня 2011 р.
Social Media Minute: Facebook Growth Staggers, Klout Adds LinkedIn
Social media moves so fast, it's hard to keep up. Here are the week's top stories in scan-friendly format:
Facebook Growth Slows in May
GOP Debate Discussed Heavily Online
Klout Now Ranks Influence on LinkedIn
Instagram Gains 5 Million Users and 100 Million Photos
Facebook Growth Slows in May
Facebook, now at around 700 million users, is the powerhouse in social networking. Month after month, the service has shown amazing growth figures, that is, until this past May. According to Inside Facebook, Facebook's growth was 11.8 million users in May, down from 13.9 million new users in the month of April. In each month during 2010, the service added 20 million new users, on average.
Another interesting note from the latest figures, Facebook lost roughly 6 million users in the United States during May and another 1.5 million in Canada. Are users fleeing Facebook, much like MySpace a few years ago? Not likely — the service has surging popularity overseas, as Facebook added 1 million new users in places such as Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Mexico.
Why North American users left Facebook is unknown. Considering the numerous security and privacy issues Facebook has suffered, perhaps users decided to forgo the service and delete their accounts. Have you considered dumping Facebook, let's discuss in the comments below!
GOP Debate Discussed Heavily Online
Monday's New Hampshire Republican Presidential Debate was discussed widely online and was a heavily trending topic on social outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. CNN hosted the debate and tweeted the event heavily. CNN's Washington DC Bureau chief actively posted news to Facebook, Twitter and CNN.com during the event.
By following the hashtag #CNNDebate, watchers online could follow the conversation and gauge sentiment online. At 9PM on Monday night, #CNNDebate was a non-promoted trending topic on Twitter, showing a huge success of CNN's use of the hashtag. Public sentiment was largely negative, with even 'positive' tweets being very sarcastic and demeaning to the Republican participants.
It will be interesting (and entertaining) to see how the 2012 Presidential race unfolds online. With more Americans actively chatting online, the debates should be more present and heated this coming year.
Klout Now Ranks Influence on LinkedIn
Klout is a new website that ranks your influence on social networking sites by providing a score on how much pull you have on various sites. As of yesterday, Facebook and Twitter were the main sites that Klout offered guidance on. Just recently, the social networking rank site added LinkedIn to its portfolio of sites, so users can see their influence on the professional social network using Klout's algorithms.
Klout, at least on Twitter, measures influence by the user's ability to drive action through tweets, re-tweets and more. Regarding Facebook, the service measures your influence by analyzing who you most engage with via likes, comments and more. With the new functionality on LinkedIn, Klout will analyze your interactions and the type and frequency of sharing you do with your LinkedIn Contacts. Simply having a lot of friends on LinkedIn won't help your Klout score, however, having great interactions with your contacts will.
Read aslo:
http://gsg.princeton.edu/wiki/index.php?title=User:Drowles
http://alumni.amrita.edu/wiki/index.php?title=User:Adfeincg
Facebook Growth Slows in May
GOP Debate Discussed Heavily Online
Klout Now Ranks Influence on LinkedIn
Instagram Gains 5 Million Users and 100 Million Photos
Facebook Growth Slows in May
Facebook, now at around 700 million users, is the powerhouse in social networking. Month after month, the service has shown amazing growth figures, that is, until this past May. According to Inside Facebook, Facebook's growth was 11.8 million users in May, down from 13.9 million new users in the month of April. In each month during 2010, the service added 20 million new users, on average.
Another interesting note from the latest figures, Facebook lost roughly 6 million users in the United States during May and another 1.5 million in Canada. Are users fleeing Facebook, much like MySpace a few years ago? Not likely — the service has surging popularity overseas, as Facebook added 1 million new users in places such as Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Mexico.
Why North American users left Facebook is unknown. Considering the numerous security and privacy issues Facebook has suffered, perhaps users decided to forgo the service and delete their accounts. Have you considered dumping Facebook, let's discuss in the comments below!
GOP Debate Discussed Heavily Online
Monday's New Hampshire Republican Presidential Debate was discussed widely online and was a heavily trending topic on social outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. CNN hosted the debate and tweeted the event heavily. CNN's Washington DC Bureau chief actively posted news to Facebook, Twitter and CNN.com during the event.
By following the hashtag #CNNDebate, watchers online could follow the conversation and gauge sentiment online. At 9PM on Monday night, #CNNDebate was a non-promoted trending topic on Twitter, showing a huge success of CNN's use of the hashtag. Public sentiment was largely negative, with even 'positive' tweets being very sarcastic and demeaning to the Republican participants.
It will be interesting (and entertaining) to see how the 2012 Presidential race unfolds online. With more Americans actively chatting online, the debates should be more present and heated this coming year.
Klout Now Ranks Influence on LinkedIn
Klout is a new website that ranks your influence on social networking sites by providing a score on how much pull you have on various sites. As of yesterday, Facebook and Twitter were the main sites that Klout offered guidance on. Just recently, the social networking rank site added LinkedIn to its portfolio of sites, so users can see their influence on the professional social network using Klout's algorithms.
Klout, at least on Twitter, measures influence by the user's ability to drive action through tweets, re-tweets and more. Regarding Facebook, the service measures your influence by analyzing who you most engage with via likes, comments and more. With the new functionality on LinkedIn, Klout will analyze your interactions and the type and frequency of sharing you do with your LinkedIn Contacts. Simply having a lot of friends on LinkedIn won't help your Klout score, however, having great interactions with your contacts will.
Read aslo:
http://gsg.princeton.edu/wiki/index.php?title=User:Drowles
http://alumni.amrita.edu/wiki/index.php?title=User:Adfeincg
iDating, Anyone? Apple's Social Plans For iPhones
Forget Facebook's status updates, and Twitter's social sharing in iOS: An Apple patent application hints at a future where a character-measuring iPhone app can tell you if you're near your pals--or even a potential soulmate.
locationApple's already patented extensively in the location-based app space. And hints of a "Find My Friends" API code have been found in the iPhone's OS. Now this newly revealed patent application would seem to be a completely natural extension of this tech. (And yes, we know predicting future use of an Apple patent is a risky affair, but ...)
It's all about, as Apple puts it, working out "common interests and experiences of two or more users" from their device and web content and noting if they're "located close to each other." Yup, it's a dating service, from Apple.
Well, technically it's more than than, but a dating implementation is certainly possible. Here's the relevant bit of the text:
A typical modern computer-implemented social networking application requires each user to provide some biographical information, and/or identify his or her interests, and in some instances can suggest to the user other users with compatible interests. For example, some web sites such as LinkedIn.com or Facebook.com require participants to register as members.
But of course we all cram our iPhones with reams of this personal data right from the start, some of it above and beyond what we'd share on any particular site like Facebook. Apple imagines that this data could be automatically scanned, or curated by a user intending to portray a particular public image, and then used as a wireless "beacon" to generate an ad-hoc social network of similar-minded folk. And there's a wrinkle:
Techniques for ad hoc networking based on content and location can be implemented to achieve the following exemplary advantages. Two strangers located closed to each other, both having requested to participate in the ad hoc networking based on content and location, can start a conversation from common interests or experiences identified by the ad hoc networking based on content and location. The identified common interests or experiences can be based on actions a user actually performed, rather that what the user says he or she did or liked.
Apple's realized that where you've been with your phone is also a useful social parameter, as is what photos from your collection you've chosen to share and which type of song you've downloaded from iTunes. The idea is that a spontaneous "icebreaker" popup will then appear on your iPhone, assuming you've opted in to this sort of interaction (which will have to be stringently policed if Apple ever uses this, to avoid accusations of abuse of data privacy), and you may go off and have a real-world conversation with a nearby person you'd never have met otherwise.
It's kind of clever, and it's extremely possible with the current state of mobile tech (which has developed a lot since the patent's filing in 2009). It's also a hint that our online social networking systems may, in the future, cross into real-world interactions--a behavior we're already seeing bursts of in the ongoing flash mob phenomenon. But can you really imagine sitting on a crowded metro, having your phone ping you, and actually thinking "Neat! Someone else nearby is a Meatloaf fan, likes to eat meatloaf too, and is looking for friendship!" and then actually going to talk to them? In a post-Sidekick world, maybe it's a behavior pattern for the kids.
Read also:
http://mixed.berkeley.edu/wiki/User:Dcpor
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/goodwiki/index.php/User:Danielh
locationApple's already patented extensively in the location-based app space. And hints of a "Find My Friends" API code have been found in the iPhone's OS. Now this newly revealed patent application would seem to be a completely natural extension of this tech. (And yes, we know predicting future use of an Apple patent is a risky affair, but ...)
It's all about, as Apple puts it, working out "common interests and experiences of two or more users" from their device and web content and noting if they're "located close to each other." Yup, it's a dating service, from Apple.
Well, technically it's more than than, but a dating implementation is certainly possible. Here's the relevant bit of the text:
A typical modern computer-implemented social networking application requires each user to provide some biographical information, and/or identify his or her interests, and in some instances can suggest to the user other users with compatible interests. For example, some web sites such as LinkedIn.com or Facebook.com require participants to register as members.
But of course we all cram our iPhones with reams of this personal data right from the start, some of it above and beyond what we'd share on any particular site like Facebook. Apple imagines that this data could be automatically scanned, or curated by a user intending to portray a particular public image, and then used as a wireless "beacon" to generate an ad-hoc social network of similar-minded folk. And there's a wrinkle:
Techniques for ad hoc networking based on content and location can be implemented to achieve the following exemplary advantages. Two strangers located closed to each other, both having requested to participate in the ad hoc networking based on content and location, can start a conversation from common interests or experiences identified by the ad hoc networking based on content and location. The identified common interests or experiences can be based on actions a user actually performed, rather that what the user says he or she did or liked.
Apple's realized that where you've been with your phone is also a useful social parameter, as is what photos from your collection you've chosen to share and which type of song you've downloaded from iTunes. The idea is that a spontaneous "icebreaker" popup will then appear on your iPhone, assuming you've opted in to this sort of interaction (which will have to be stringently policed if Apple ever uses this, to avoid accusations of abuse of data privacy), and you may go off and have a real-world conversation with a nearby person you'd never have met otherwise.
It's kind of clever, and it's extremely possible with the current state of mobile tech (which has developed a lot since the patent's filing in 2009). It's also a hint that our online social networking systems may, in the future, cross into real-world interactions--a behavior we're already seeing bursts of in the ongoing flash mob phenomenon. But can you really imagine sitting on a crowded metro, having your phone ping you, and actually thinking "Neat! Someone else nearby is a Meatloaf fan, likes to eat meatloaf too, and is looking for friendship!" and then actually going to talk to them? In a post-Sidekick world, maybe it's a behavior pattern for the kids.
Read also:
http://mixed.berkeley.edu/wiki/User:Dcpor
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/goodwiki/index.php/User:Danielh
Report: We’re spending more time on social networking
New research from ComScore backs up what most people know anecdotally — we’re spending more time on social networks than ever.
According to the new report, American now spend one of every six minutes online using a social network, up from one of every 12 minutes in 2007.
The data also back up the fact that Facebook is the dominant player on the social networking scene, surpassing MySpace as the most popular social network in 2009 and continuing to grow. The site now reaches 73 percent of the U.S. population every month.
MySpace is still the second-most popular social networking site, with 34.9 million users per month, though user engagement has dropped 85 percent in the past year, the report said.
And who’s nipping at its heels? According to ComScore, there’s a race brewing between LinkedIn (which had 33.4 million visitors in May 2011), Twitter (27 million) and Tumblr (10.7 million). All three networks had their highest-ever traffic in May 2011.
Tumblr saw the fastest growth in the past year — 166 percent from May 2010 to May 2011 — leading the firm to say that it may be nearing “that critical mass threshold that propels it to more widespread adoption.”
What social networks, if any, do you use? And have you noticed your use increase over the past year?
Read also:
http://wiki.ohda.matrix.msu.edu/index.php/User:Chardy
http://wiki.mse.berkeley.edu/wiki/User:Wellow
According to the new report, American now spend one of every six minutes online using a social network, up from one of every 12 minutes in 2007.
The data also back up the fact that Facebook is the dominant player on the social networking scene, surpassing MySpace as the most popular social network in 2009 and continuing to grow. The site now reaches 73 percent of the U.S. population every month.
MySpace is still the second-most popular social networking site, with 34.9 million users per month, though user engagement has dropped 85 percent in the past year, the report said.
And who’s nipping at its heels? According to ComScore, there’s a race brewing between LinkedIn (which had 33.4 million visitors in May 2011), Twitter (27 million) and Tumblr (10.7 million). All three networks had their highest-ever traffic in May 2011.
Tumblr saw the fastest growth in the past year — 166 percent from May 2010 to May 2011 — leading the firm to say that it may be nearing “that critical mass threshold that propels it to more widespread adoption.”
What social networks, if any, do you use? And have you noticed your use increase over the past year?
Read also:
http://wiki.ohda.matrix.msu.edu/index.php/User:Chardy
http://wiki.mse.berkeley.edu/wiki/User:Wellow
Підписатися на:
Дописи (Atom)