Ajax Girl

We’re getting reports from multiple sources (but no confirmation from the company yet) that photo widget company RockYou has raised a big round of financing. The unconfirmed numbers are $10+ million at a $50+ million valuation, which is in line with what competitor Slide raised late last year. The company had previously raised $1.5 million from Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Slide is the undisputed leader in this space in terms of usage, although PhotoBucket has the most recent Flash tools that allow slide shows containing video, photos and music (look for RockYou and Slide to launch these tools promptly as well). Recent competitor FilmLoop is in the TechCrunch DeadPool after their largest investor, ComVentures, threw them under a bus.

RockYou was involved in a legal dispute last year over the ownership of the original intellectual property used to create the company.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/99148850/

I’ve been hard on ChaCha, the new search engine that pairs users with a human guide to help them find better results (see this TechCrunch Forum thread as well). I was supposed to meet with the CEO of the company earlier this week but missed the appointment due to the flu. I really want to get their side of the story and present a balanced view of the startup. But for now, I just don’t see how human guides can ever match Google or Yahoo search.

In the meantime, negative tidbits about the company keep hitting my inbox. I came across this post by a former ChaCha guide, which claims that 90% of searches are done by pranksters.

I was also sent the (unverified) screen shot to the left of a ChaCha search where the guide didn’t know what Digg was, and asked the searcher (if anyone can point me to the source I’d appreciate it). You can’t expect the guides to know everything, since they’re paid $5 - 10/hour, but you won’t find Google asking you what Digg is when looking for a UK equivalent.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/99127695/

Last year was a turbulent one for Silicon Valley based Tribe.net. Founding CEO Mark Pincus was ousted, in April and then returned in August. While Pincus was gone rumors swirled that the company had been acquired by NBC, but the deal was never consummated.

But now the New York Times is reporting that the assets of the eight person company have been acquired by Cisco. This follows their acquisition of Five Across, a social networking infrastructure service, two weeks ago. The hope is to use the two company’s technology to help Cisco’s corporate clients build their own social networks, so it isn’t clear whether or not the Tribe service itself will live on.

The price of the Tribe deal hasn’t been disclosed, but usually these things leak within a few days.

The demand is clearly there, as seen by Reuters’ announcement today that they’re looking to build their own Myspace clone, for financial types. Everyone, it seems, wants their very own social network these days.

Cisco is now a player in the social networking space. That certainly wasn’t in anyone’s predictions for 2007. Congrats to Pincus and crew on the liquidity event.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/98824161/