More Bootstrapping: VirtualTourist.com Co-Founder J.R. Johnson (Part 3)

SM: What was your plan for monetizing the site? How did you do it? JJ: During that time I convinced GoTo.com, which later became Overture.com, to allow us to take their paid links and put them into our content. I made the argument that a user who had to click six times to get down

Read Full Article »

Deal Radar 2008: Ning

Ning is a social publishing platform that allows users to create their own social websites and social networks. It was founded in 2004 by Marc Andreessen and Gina Bianchini as a stealth startup called 24 Hour Laundry. The Palo Alto, California-based company changed its name to Ning, which means peace in Chinese, in October 2005.

Google Keeps Scoring

Yesterday, Google reported Q2 earnings of $4.63 a share (excluding stock-based compensation costs), missing Wall Street’s expectations of $4.74 EPS. The company reported a weaker-than-expected 35% rise in quarterly net profit, according to Reuters. Google attributes this to lower returns from its cash pile (which is now $12.7 billion), rather than slacking online ad sales.

Deal Radar 2008: YuMe

YuMe is a broadbrand video advertising network that allows publishers to organize their content into various categories that can be delivered to any device. Co-founders Jayant Kadambi and Ayyappan Sankaran realized that the video ad networks were mere extensions of text and banner ads and that the video ad network had a tremendous potential for

Read Full Article »

Travel Ad Network Raises Series A

Travel Ad Network (TAN), the largest vertical ad network in travel, just closed a $15 million Series A round of financing led by Rho Ventures, Village Ventures and individual investors. And what a Series A it is! $50-$75 Million valuation, estimated in my deal radar post and commensurate with the trends in the industry set

Read Full Article »

Deal Radar 2008: Adify’s Market Taking Time to Develop

Adify is a vertical advertising platform co-founded by Russ Fradin with former Flycast co-founders, Larry Braitman and Richard Thompson. I interviewed Adify’s CEO, Russ Fradin in 2007.

Deal Radar 2008: Adap.tv Trying to Tackle the Video Ad Problem

After the success of shopping.com (now owned by eBay), Amir Ashkenazi, stepped into the hairy world of video advertising through his recently founded Adap.tv in Nov 2006. It claims to provide publishers and advertisers the best tool to make video ads more effective without interrupting the streaming flow. [see interview: Cracking the Online Video Monetization

Read Full Article »

Microsoft, Masterful Maneuverings

Microsoft has been on the roll, lately. First it froze Facebook, and now it has made an unstoppable bid for Yahoo! while the latter is struggling to regain its stride. To finance this high value Yahoo! deal, Microsoft is expected to borrow money for the first time in its history. And recession worries and subprime

Read Full Article »