Look at Facebook

Recent traffic statistics at social networking site Facebook are impressive and we're wondering if there's a wider story here.

Facebook tells us the site is seeing about 1.5 billion page views a day, up from about 1 billion daily views last month -- statistics that haven't been released until now. That's a huge jump.

First, myself and non-college friends appear to be getting more unsolicited invites from others -- including those not in school -- to connect on Facebook. Facebook is going mainstream.

But there's an undercurrent of development happening, suggesting Facebook may be seeing serious momentum in other ... » Continue reading

Eric Eldon 03.30.07       7 Comments

Parker’s Project Agape = Friendster + Facebook?

Entrepreneur Sean Parker's latest undertaking is Project Agape, a secretive start-up working to empower people to further their political or social cause using the Internet.

Parker, 27, isn't sharing much publicly about the company yet, but it's worth noting because Parker tends to make waves when he gets serious about something.

There was controversial music-sharing site Napster, where he was co-founder; the contact updating service, Plaxo, where he was also co-founder, and which rubbed lots of people the wrong way until it mellowed recently; and Facebook, where he joined ... » Continue reading

Matt Marshall 03.30.07       Comment

Latest contributors

Here are the latest contributor columns:

Palmistry -- Gibu Thomas, a former Palm exec, writes that Palm's future should be a with a corporate buyer. Palm should stop dreaming of being Apple.

The end of the MENS Club -- Accel's Richard Wong writes about the end of the MENS Club, and the rise of the Asian mobile tigers.

Angel investors, a different breed -- Toni DasGupta argues on the side of angels.

Matt Marshall 03.29.07       Comment

Movers and shakers in the valley: Agassi, Chang, Gur and Siegel

Here are the latest moves in the Silicon Valley venture/executive world:

Shai Agassi, heir apparent at SAP, steps down -- The 38-year-old Agassi, the Silicon Valley-based president of Software company SAP, was being groomed for the chief executive job, but became impatient. Stepping down, he has bold plans to help convert his native Israel and its neighbor Jordan into fuel-less economies with nationwide electronic transportation systems. That's a noble vision, and we wish him well. (See story in Merc.)

Tim Chang joins Norwest Venture Partners -- The electrical engineer and Stanford MBA (... » Continue reading

Matt Marshall 03.29.07       Comment

The courtesan sisters of comparison search, and Thefind

Updated

If you're searching to buy a product online, there's no single "branded" engine that stands out -- and for a reason. All of the major shopping engines sites have sold out to advertisers.

This may represent a grand opportunity: If a Google-like search engine emerges in shopping, perceived to be without bias, it could be hugely popular. It could "become the ubiquitous brand," said Dan Ciporin, the former CEO of Shopping.com, calling this a "missed opportunity." Ciporin left Shopping.com when it was acquired by eBay in 2005, and this week joined a venture firm Canaan Partners ... » Continue reading

Matt Marshall 03.29.07       9 Comments

Mobile landgrab: Microsoft releases Deepfish, follows Minimo Project

Jockeying for control of the so-called third screen is intensifying, now that most people are carrying around a phone with them, and will consume more and more information from them.

The move to the cellphone may be one of the biggest trends of the decade.

Microsoft has just released Deepfish, a browser that aims to preserve the layout of documents on mobile devices and making Web navigation more easy -- enabling you to zoom in and out of a page, and downloading only areas you are interested in. It uploads a thumbnail of pages initially ... » Continue reading

Matt Marshall 03.29.07       1 Comment

Kontrib, a Digg clone with translation

Kontrib is a new site that copies the popular social news site Digg, but translates articles into foreign languages.

Traffic on the site is light, because it is still early days, but worth a mention because it flies in the face of the blatant disregard most mainstream sites have for foreign markets. Indeed, investors and others often even shy away from companies if they have too much exposure abroad, in part because of their inability to draw advertising revenue, as this story in the Mercury News by Constance Loizos explained (we link to ... » Continue reading

Rex Dixon 03.29.07       2 Comments

Scribd, the “YouTube for documents,” copyright violations and all

Updated

Scribd, the new Silicon Valley company pitching itself as the "Youtube for documents" is getting some good traction, in part because it hosts copyrighted material.

Scribd launched three weeks ago, and is attracting 100,000 unique visitors a day. Those are the viewers. Far fewer have signed up to upload documents -- about 10,000 users have uploaded 13,000 documents.

Why, we asked initially, are people coming to a site to post documents, when all they have to do is post them on their own blog? One reason is because Scribd makes it dead simple -- just ... » Continue reading

Matt Marshall 03.28.07       5 Comments

Roundup: Yelp, NASA Ventures, Google, Timesearch, Sevenload and more

Here's the latest action:

Yelp’s extortionist tactics? -- A restaurant owner in SF complains that Yelp pitched him an unfair way to respond to negative reviews: By paying Yelp to run an ad responding to them. See story here. More remarkable, we find, is the SF Chron story itself, which claims that mainstream restaurant critics -- presumably including the SF Chron's own -- have traditionally given restaurants a 30 day-notice to iron out any wrinkles before reviewing them. That's an unfortunate practice of whitewashing, and another reason why a no-holds-barred Yelp style is needed in ... » Continue reading

Matt Marshall 03.28.07       2 Comments

Streetadvisor, offering user-generated street reputations

Ever wanted to buy a house, but weren’t sure about the vibe of the street it was on?

Streetadvisor.com—based in Melbourne, Australia—just launched a site that lets people comment on, and find information about, streets in their neighborhood. If you're buying or renting a home, Streetadvisor may become a place worth checking out. The site is young, however, and the sparse amount of data input inhibits its usefulness.

People can explore streets based on criteria such as vibe (including things like nightlife, dining, neighborly spirit, etc), cell phone reception, health (including traffic, safety) and value (housing, ... » Continue reading

Michael Foroobar 03.28.07       5 Comments