Posted by on under privacy services, search experience, intelius, glory days, friendster, search company, techcrunch, myriad, user search, scams, lawsuits, third party, peoe, partnership, credit card | 
I knew the glory days of
Friendster were behind them, but I didn't know things were this bad. The company is proudly announcing a partnership with Washington based people search company
Intelius this evening. The goal, they say, is
"to provide a more robust and comprehensive user search experience on Friendster and to power people searches originating on Friendster with results from across the web." What Friendster isn't saying is how they'll monetize this search, and whether
Intelius' scammy privacy services will be offered to Friendster users. Earlier this year
we wrote again about Intelius and the myriad of lawsuits and consumer complaints that the company was fighting. To summarize those posts, Intelius has been accused of tricking users into long term credit card subscriptions via a third party for worthless privacy protection products.
TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
Tagi: privacy services, search experience, intelius, glory days, friendster, search company, techcrunch, myriad, user search, scams, lawsuits, third party, peoe, partnership, credit card
Posted by on under social games, facebook, own eye, mobsters, compas, paypal, phe, business week, center stage, myspace, startups, shotgun, chunk, venture capital, ea, investor, developers, credit card, job, these games |
So much for the first generation of big Facebook/MySpace social application startups.
Slide and
RockYou both got huge valuations in venture rounds. But a new generation of application developers has taken center stage and are racking up big revenues and their own eye popping valuations:
Zynga,
Playfish and
Playdom. All three own popular social games on Facebook and MySpace. Zynga's Farmville has 61 million monthly users. Playfish's Pet Society has 21 million monthly users on Facebook. And Playdom has 16+ million monthly users of Mobsters on MySpace and Facebook Combined. All three companies are getting a ton of press and investor attention. Zynga wants to go public next year.
Playfish probably already got bought by EA for $400 million or more. And Playdom probably raised an unannounced big chunk of venture capital over the summer. These three companies may be generating as much as $300 million annually on sales of virtual goods. Need a shotgun to do that next job on Mobsters? No problem. Pay with a credit card, paypal, or your mobile phone and it's all yours. And people are obviously very willing to buy these virtual goods.
Nothing new there. The goal of all of these games is to get to a higher level, and generally have more fun growing things or killing things faster than your friends. Get addicted to the free version, then start spending to move things along more quickly. Once people are committed, it's easy to get them to pay. You can
read all about it on Business Week. Except Business Week didn't mention the dark side of the business at all.
Tagi: social games, facebook, own eye, mobsters, compas, paypal, phe, business week, center stage, myspace, startups, shotgun, chunk, venture capital, ea, investor, developers, credit card, job, these games
Posted by on under illumination lighting, cvent, watch battery, wallet, credit card |
The Pocket Light is a nifty light that's powered by a watch battery and folds down to the size of a credit card. Convenient! And, when paired with that other pocket-sized protection, could lead to...
Tagi: illumination lighting, cvent, watch battery, wallet, credit card
Posted by on under links photos, dives, new feature, tumblr, blogging, typepad blog, peoe, credit card |
I don't recall ever paying for a TypePad blog, but apparently I did. I learned this today when I logged in for the first time in years to see that the site I had set up in 2005 was deactivated because my credit card had expired. Lucky for me, I don't have to pay anymore because TypePad has finally launched a free version of the service.
TypePad Micro will be very familiar to anyone who has ever used
Tumblr or
Posterous in the past. I hate the term "micro-blogging," but that's essentially what this is in the eyes of some people. That is to say, it's a platform that makes it easy to quickly post items you find that you enjoy from around the web. You can certainly use it to write more traditional blog posts if you want, but the clear emphasis is on sharing links, photos, music, and other quick-share items from around the web.
Tagi: links photos, dives, new feature, tumblr, blogging, typepad blog, peoe, credit card
Posted by on under gap year, internet cafes, th time, business travelers, public networks, netbook, investment accounts, millis, backpacking, backpackers, aces, network security, airports, gap, south america, bandwidth, firewall, fi, credit card, hotels |
truesaer writes "I'll be spending all of next year backpacking through South America. In the past I've used Internet cafes while away, but this time I plan to bring a netbook and rely primarily on Wi-Fi hotspots. I'll be facing the same issues and risks that business travelers in hotels and airports face, as well as those encountered by millions of other backpackers, gap-year travelers, and students. Since my trip is so long I'll have no choice but to access my banking, credit card, and investment accounts on public networks. I will not have a system at home to connect through. Other than an effective firewall, a patched system, and the use of SSL, what else should I do to protect my information? Keep in mind that many places have very poor bandwidth and latency."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: gap year, internet cafes, th time, business travelers, public networks, netbook, investment accounts, millis, backpacking, backpackers, aces, network security, airports, gap, south america, bandwidth, firewall, fi, credit card, hotels
