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Zappedy Acquired By Groupon. What’s Zappedy?

Posted: 17 Jul 2011 12:22 AM PDT

An anonymous tipster tells us Zappedy, a company that offered various technology products for local businesses, has been acquired by Groupon, information that turns out to be correct according to a message posted on the former’s website (which, sadly, hasn’t been archived by the Wayback Machine).

There’s isn’t much information about Zappedy on the Web altogether, but here’s what I’ve been scraping together thanks to my phenomenal Web searching skills:

Zappedy was founded in early 2010 and was backed by Innovation Endeavors, the investment firm founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. According to its AngelList profile, Zappedy was funded by IE’s Dror Berman and Corey Ford, specifically.

Bling Nation co-CEO and founding partner of investment firm MECK Wences(lao) Casares also turns up. And according to their LinkedIn profiles, Innovation Endeavors’ (and TokBox founder) Ron Hose and Project Slice co-founder Harpinder Singh Madan were also advising Zappedy.

This is how the startup is described on the Innovation Endeavors website:

Zappedy powers revolutionary applications that help brick and mortar merchants better understand, attract and retain customers.

Using data gathered from a mixture of direct feeds and credit card aggregators, Zappedy enables next-generation commerce, entertainment and mobile advertising applications that recognize customers' offline purchases as well as their online activities.

Notably, it looks like Zappedy participated in Startup Chile, a program of the Chilean Government to attract early stage entrepreneurs and sway them into starting their businesses in Chile.

You can find a short interview with Zappedy co-founder Na’ama Moran here (also embedded below).

From what I can gather, Zappedy basically enabled small local businesses to easily create a website and advertise online through social media and daily deal websites simply by sending emails. Groupon likely acquired the company for its team but possibly also for the technology (to be able to offer more tools for merchants who don’t have a strong online presence yet).

Zappedy was co-founded by not only Moran but also Francisco Larrain, Daniel Pérez Rada and Ricardo Zilleruelo-Ramos (at least according to their respective LinkedIn profiles). Another interesting name that turns up when perusing LinkedIn is Brad Griffith, a former business developer at LOLapps and, before that, a senior financial analyst at Google.

I’ve contacted Groupon, Zappedy and Innovation Endeavors, but since it’s weekend and not exactly the perfect time to reach people, I don’t expect to get more information rapidly.

For a list of acquisitions by Groupon, check their CrunchBase profile (left sidebar).

Following Twitter

Posted: 16 Jul 2011 01:02 PM PDT

In honor of Twitter's fifth anniversary the folks at Visually have made the following graphic plotting out key milestones on it’s path to 200 million tweets a day. Following Twitter, get it?

Zing! Larry Page Calls Out ‘Competitors’ (aka Facebook) For Lack Of Social Data Portability

Posted: 16 Jul 2011 12:15 PM PDT

At the end of yesterday’s Google earnings call, CEO Larry Page made a very interesting comment about data portability, Google+, and competitors (aka Facebook). In the call, an analyst asked Page what the most compelling reasons are to switch from existing social platforms to Google+ or if the company sees a future where people can be a part of multiple social networks and platforms (paraphrased, at the 57 minute mark in the call).

Page responded with this statement on Google+ and switch costs: We are really excited about about Google+ improving the overall social experience and making it more like how you would share in real life. That’s different than what’s out there now. We are getting rave reviews for that. People really like being able to share with more discreet groups in an easy more intuitive way. There’s a lot of magic built into the product that causes that…Google as a company believes in users owning their own data and being able to easily move it out of Google. Some of our competitors don’t believe in that. We think users will eventually move to services that are in their best interests and that work really well for them.

Clearly, Page is referring to Facebook in his statement above, which has notoriously been uber-protective (bordering on restrictive) around exporting data from its network into clients like Gmail. And for some time now, data portability has been a heated battle between Google and Facebook.

Facebook recently blocked a number of contact-exporting tools that aimed to take data out of the social network to import into other services (i.e. Google+). And how could we forget the infamous Facebook-Google back and forth over sharing contacts.

Last year, Google began blocking Facebook API access to download Google contacts. Facebook hacked its way around that, and Google subsequently issued a statement that they were "disappointed". Facebook Platform engineer Mike Vernal then responded in the comments of one of our blog posts about the slap fight, defending Facebook’s policy and calling it “consistent”. Shortly afterwards, a new chrome extension  that allowed you to scrape your Facebook contact information into Gmail was blocked Google.

The key part of all this is reciprocity—Google feels that since they are providing the ability to export Gmail contact data to Facebook, Facebook should allow Gmail users to do the same. And they don’t.

With Google+, the search giant is offering a data liberation product called Google Takeout, which gives you the option to download all of your profile data, stream data, photos from Picassa, Buzz data, Circles and Contacts. You can download it and do what you want with your data.

Facebook also allows you to download a zip file of your photos, friend lists, messages, and wall posts, but it is not in a format third party sites can use, which is why Page made the passive aggressive remark. There’s no doubt that he was referring to Facebook when talking about competitors not having the same open data portability position.

There’s no doubt that Google+ is growing fast in terms of usage, and its hard for Facebook to ignore this. In fact, Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg made his own Google+ dig at a recent press event.

Fast growth and engagement aside, data portability between Google and Facebook will continue to be an issue until both companies settle this and call a truce. The question is whether the battle has gone too far for a reasonable peace treaty to be made.

Photo credit/Flickr/dominiekt

The Underground Promise Of Turntable.fm

Posted: 16 Jul 2011 12:00 PM PDT

Editors Note: Guest contributor Semil Shah is an entrepreneur interested in digital media, consumer Internet, and social networks. He is based in Palo Alto and you can follow him on Twitter @semilshah.

One of the most prolific vinyl collections belongs to a DJ who only surfaces every now and then. And when he does, legions of fans wait on baited breath, desperate to taste the latest brew from Josh Davis, otherwise known as DJ Shadow. DJs like Shadow usually begin creating underground.  Their music is the result of months of sampling and cutting to form entirely new sounds. These new tunes form in darkness, outside the purview of record labels, radio stations, and the majority of listeners. It’s a bit romanticized, but there’s also much truth to the underground creative process and secretive DJ battles that occur in real life, where other DJs rate their peers. For those who have witnessed a live battle, it’s a unique environment where an unknown DJ can conceivably, on any given night, spin records better than pros like DJ Shadow.

Yes, this is another post about Turntable.fm.

TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld was the first to write about the service back in May. Since then, it’s taken off like a hot summer single.  Nearly everyone believes Turntable could become a big deal, though it faces dangerous landmines (see below) and may struggle to stay in the limelight now that Spotify has launched in the U.S. There’s a great story about the company’s pivot and creation of the service. Investors have circled around Manhattan, and the company’s Series B should be announced soon. Every tech blog and Quora have covered its rise numerous times, it’s technology stack, how it could make money, how to create playlists, a live DJ event in NYC, and even mainstream pubs like The New York Times weighed in. I won’t regurgitate or summarize any of the coverage thus far, but many of these pieces miss the key points about why this site has so much promise. I’d like to shine some light on these.

First, the Turntable.fm platform could help level the playing field for aspiring DJs and musicians to build their reputation, their audience, and perhaps even get discovered. In the real world, DJs create tracks and battle underground, earning their reputation by performing in various venues, trading mix tapes, referencing (or dissing) their peers, and incorporating new tricks into their cuts. What has been happening underground for years may now slowly be coming online, where someone could moonlight as a DJ and, perhaps even be discovered by a club or promoter.

Second, even folks who love Turntable remain skeptical about its prospects in a music world that contains Pandora, iTunes, Rdio, and now Spotify, which will feature some integration with Facebook. I believe there will be room for all of these services and that they each satisfy different needs. In other words, Turntable won’t “kill” Pandora  nor be “killed” by Spotify, which may not “kill” Rdio. Pandora is about letting machines learn your music tastes and help you discover new tunes. Recently, it announced its own social layer. iTunes wasn’t able to break into social with Ping, though a young startup Rexly is trying to crack the code. Spotify, which launched this week and may integrate with Facebook, could offer more choices than iTunes for less money and theoretically could recreate the “social rooms” ambiance of Turntable.

All of these services carry a large song inventory, largely composed of mainstream music, both current and extensive back catalogs. Not everyone’s tastes are mainstream and/or homogenous, however. For some, buying music on iTunes is simply boring, chock full of pop hits and TV soundtracks. A service like Turntable allows users to organize themselves by type of music, geography, work groups, and so forth, and helps unlock niche areas of music that make up an interesting long tail in discovery.

Third, there’s widespread fear of record labels and licensing fees. The labels could conspire to kill this service, and their track record isn’t pretty. Or, Turntable could die under the weight of onerous licensing fees. On the other hand, the record companies are so beaten up that they may have actually reached a point where may want a service like Turntable to succeed, so that it cannot burn bridges to future distribution channels, especially now given the promise around Spotify. While I wouldn’t underestimate the battle scars inflicted on the likes of Napster or Grooveshark, it seems the tide continues to move in favor of the consumer, and that the timing for Turntable could actually be impeccable.

Finally, the most exciting future possibility for Turntable is mobile and crowd interaction. Right now, there isn’t a mobile application, and given the user load issues the site is experiencing, it may be a while before they build this. For now and the foreseeable future, Turntable’s music will be heard through laptops and desktops, where a small few could create new content, and some others could help spread it through voting, and help it reach the remaining mass of listeners. Imagine being at a club during a DJ battle where audience members could register their votes via mobile apps or SMS, in addition to their applause? Or, maybe you’ll want a certain crew of DJs to play at your birthday party in San Francisco, but they’re located in Berlin—a service like Turntable could help bridge that gap, and offer your guests a chance to chime in on the music selection. All of these possibilities surround audio files, but is there room for video, too?

I recognize it’s early days for the Turntable.fm team. I don’t mean to suggest that overcoming any of these hurdles will be easy. In fact, it will be extremely interesting to see who joins as an investor in the Series B round, because an endeavor like this will require both entrepreneurs and investors taking the fight to the record industry, or creating incentives for them to play along nicely.  In some ways, it reminds me of Quora with its up-votes, entering “rooms” instead of following “threads,” and could also follow the 1-9-90 rule of content generation—where 1% create new music on the site, 9% help spread it by voting and sharing, and the rest of us consume it. Among most music fans I run into who have tried Turntable, there’s this initial, almost indescribable fascination with the service and shared desire to see it to succeed despite any challenges. They have cultivated a great deal of good will.

There are other real threats to the service. Will DJs and even casual listeners experience fatigue of waiting too long to DJ or hanging out in empty rooms? Will the technology stack hold up to the incredible demand for the service, especially when a celebrity DJ wants to spin for his or her fans? Or will the site succumb to trolls, invasive brand accounts, or SPAM? Is the site really about discovering music, or just chatting about music, or both? Or is this entire package seen as a possible antidote to Spotify’s upcoming Facebook plans, where Turntable could be gobbled up as a strategic acquisition, especially for artists and record labels who may be uneasy abowithut Facebook’s growing footprint in media?

Turntable.fm has the makings of a huge hit, already attracting world renown DJs like Questlove and Diplo. Perhaps even DJ Shadow will give the site a whirl before he releases his new album later this fall. For someone like Shadow, selling out shows worldwide isn’t a problem. Reaching new fans is, however. And, there may just be that part of him which misses the old days of DJ battles, something his status now rarely affords him. A site like Turntable.fm could give him and a variety of other established or hopeful artists an entirely new platform to test new beats, find others to collaborate with, test geographic demand for new music, interact with fans, sell albums and merchandise, play special shows online, and so much more. The possibilities are endless. That is the promise of Turntable.fm—and here’s to hoping it all gets realized one day.


Eric Wiesen
Just turned off turntable to play with Spotify.

Image credit: David Torcivia

Keen On… Don’t Steal This Book (TCTV)

Posted: 16 Jul 2011 10:00 AM PDT

“Steal this book,” wrote Abbie Hoffman in 1970. So, today, why should we pay for our books – especially in a digital age where intellectual theft is both ubiquitous and pretty much risk free?

According to Gary Shteyngart, the best-selling author of novels like “Super Sad True Love Story” and “Absurdistan,” paying for his books means that he doesn’t have to work at a gas station or a car dealership. When we pay for one of his books, Shteyngart explained when we spoke earlier this week, it “allows me to produce more work.” Buying a book, he insists, represents an investment in creativity.

And creativity – real creativity – may be at a premium today – at least according to Shteyngart. As he argues, the Internet may be killing our eccentricity and transforming all of us into 140-character conformists. Thus, in today’s networked age, he says, there is an acute need for writers who can grab our attention and drag us away from broadcasting our boring selves on Facebook and Twitter.

This is the second in a two-part interview with Shteyngart. Yesterday, he explained why, in the not-too-distant future, everyone will know everything about everybody.

Don’t steal this book

How to get to William Gibson land

Have words lost their power?

A Tale Of Two Countries: The Growing Divide Between Silicon Valley And Unemployed America

Posted: 16 Jul 2011 08:46 AM PDT

Editor's note: Guest contributor Jon Bischke is a founder of RG Labs and an advisor to Altius Education, Fatminds and Udemy. You can follow him @jonbischke.

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. 

-Charles Dickens from A Tale of Two Cities

For people who spend most of their days within a few blocks of tech start-up epicenters such as South Park in San Francisco, University Avenue in Palo Alto or the Flatiron district in New York, last week's jobs report must have created some cognitive dissonance. After all, we're in a boom/bubble right? It's really hard to hire good people isn't it? But take a moment to step outside the world of high technology and a dramatically different picture emerges of what's going on in America.

The number of unemployed now eclipses 14 million nationwide. Underemployment is scary too with U-6, the government's official measure of under-utilization,rising to 16.2% in June from 15.8% in May. But the worst number of them all might be mean duration of employment (the length of time that the average unemployed person has been out of work) which has spiked to 40 weeks. As a Wall Street Journal article this week pointed out, if you factored in those who've dropped out of the labor market (and therefore aren't counted in unemployment numbers), the situation would appear even worse.

Which bring us to an important question: Should Silicon Valley (and other tech clusters throughout the country) care? After all, as long as people in Nebraska or the Central Valley of California have enough money to buy virtual tractors to tend their crops in Farmville, should the tech community be worried about whether those same people are getting paid to do work in the real world? Is what's best for Silicon Valley also good for America?

On one hand, a thriving tech sector is a beacon of hope for America and perhaps one of a shrinking number of things keeping the country from slipping from its perch as the world’s foremost economic superpower. Fast-growth companies like Facebook, Groupon and Twitter create jobs, attract foreign investment (see Sarah Lacy's article "How We All Missed Web 2.0′s "Netscape Moment") and generate tremendous amounts of wealth for employees and shareholders which circulates throughout the economy.

In addition, a host of technology companies enable people around the country to make money. Etsy empowers people anywhere to make money selling handmade goods. AirBnB allows anyone with a house or apartment to make money renting it out. And whether you’re talking about design communities like 99designs, crowdsourcing platforms like CrowdFlower, outsourcing sites like oDesk or an artisan food marketplace like Foodzie, tech-enabled marketplaces allow millions of dollars to flow from consumers to producers every year. (Check out Semil Shah's article "The P2P Evolution" for more great examples of this in action.)

Furthermore, tech companies are helping to reshape how people train for and ultimately find employment. It’s easier than ever to pick up new skills online with the explosion in blogs, tutorials, screencasts and online video. For a self-motivated individual of at least average intelligence there is a shrinking number of excuses for not possessing in-demand skills. And jobs and recruiting platforms like Branchout, Jobvite, LinkedIn and Monster.com certainly help job seekers to smooth the path to employment.

But there’s a flip side to the argument that this technological innovation is good for the country. Books like A Whole New Mind,  The Great Stagnation and The Lights in the Tunnel make arguments that automation and outsourcing are increasingly pushing jobs outside the country and in many cases, doing away with them altogether (you did see that crazy video of the Diapers.com warehouses didn’t you?). The rate of increasing technological innovation certainly produces new jobs but does it produce jobs at a rate great enough to replace those it might be eliminating?

In a similar vein, many of the companies in Silicon Valley are succeeding precisely because they’re disrupting existing players in their industries. Amazon is doing really well right now (almost $10 billion in revenue in the last quarter alone). Borders…not so much. Go iTunes and Spotify. RIP Tower Records. Creative destruction is alive and well but how many people in Silicon Valley are thinking about what happens to that displaced worker at the record store or bookstore?

Maybe something is missing in the Valley and surrounding tech communities and that’s a stronger sense of responsibility to make sure that the vast majority of the country isn’t left behind by all this cool technology that we’re building. In Paul Graham’s essay Great Hackers he points out that the more sophisticated tools become, the greater variation there is in productivity. He writes:

In a low-tech society you don’t see much variation in productivity. If you have a tribe of nomads collecting sticks for a fire, how much more productive is the best stick gatherer going to be than the worst? A factor of two? Whereas when you hand people a complex tool like a computer, the variation in what they can do with it is enormous.

If accumulation of wealth correlates with productivity then, in Graham's view, increasing variation of wealth might actually be a sign of good things. But could this increase in variation lead to the creation of two almost completely distinct countries in America, one which continues to boom and create enormous wealth for those who reside in it and another for which long-term unemployment and underemployment and the corresponding frustration that accompanies those states becomes the norm?

Megan McArdle wrote a poignant article entitled "Why Unemployment Matters" in last week's Atlantic where she detailed some of the crushing residual effects of being out of work. It's worth reading and asking the questions: Can we be doing more about this? Should we even be doing anything about it? The answers to these questions matter a lot.  Please share your thoughts in comments.

Image via Getty

A Groupon For Solar? Solar@Work Offers Buildings Discounts For Going Green Together

Posted: 16 Jul 2011 06:21 AM PDT

Group buying is moving into the commercial clean energy space thanks to Solar@Work, a program designed by San Francisco’s Department of the Environment to make solar panels more affordable for business owners. Businesses have three options for acquiring solar panels through the program: Purchasing, leasing, and securing a loan. A federal grant covering 30% of installation costs is also on offer.

Solar@Work hopes to sign on at least 20 building owners in the San Francisco area by the end of the year, which could translate to as much as 2 megawatts of solar power.

While the program is innovative in simplifying solar for commercial buildings, it is not the first to harness group buying power for solar. 1Bog has a similar model for home-based solar installations, and SolarMosaic provides a crowdfunding platform for bringing solar to community buildings such as schools and churches.

The group buying model could discount the panels by 10-15% and reduce the cost of administrative fees by as much as 75%. That doesn’t sound like a steal by consumer group buying standards, but given the price tag on solar panels, it could add up to significant savings. The city says the high upfront cost of solar is the main barrier to entry into solar for most commercial property owners.

San Mateo’s SolarCity won the bid to provide the panels, and participating businesses are expected to pay less for solar than what they pay for power from the grid. Currently, commercial buildings fewer than four stories are eligible to participate in the program. If the pilot is successful, it could be expanded to other parts of the country, or even globally.

Photo by Living Off Grid