An Interview With Danny Robinson, CEO, British Columbia Innovation Council (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Danny: We’ve got some role models, and we’re using them as poster children. For example, Stewart Butterfield created Flickr in Vancouver. Stewart is a great example of somebody who has built a company, sold it to the States, and ended up coming back to Vancouver and starting

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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.

Deal Radar 2008: Flock

Flock is an open source web browser that has social networking features built into its interface. Founded by Bart Decrem, Geoffrey Arone, and Anthony Young in 2005, Flock is headquartered in Redwood City, California and has an office in Victoria, British Columbia.

Still Bullish on Shutterfly

Shutterfly (SFLY), the online photo company, recently declared first quarter results. Their revenue for the quarter of $34.3 million missed the market’s views of $34.8 million, even though it was 29% higher over previous year Q1 revenues. Their GAAP net loss at $0.15 per share met market expectations and was higher than GAAP net loss

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Shutterfly’s Strategy: A Conversation with CEO Jeff Housenbold (Part 8)

SM: Why didn’t Flickr elect to work with you? JH: At the time we were competing with Yahoo Photos, and Flickr chose a small company who is producing product as their outsource manufacturer. That small company has signed up a number of sites who in the early days thought they were competing with Shutterfly. They

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Shutterfly’s Strategy: A Conversation with CEO Jeff Housenbold (Part 6)

SM: What are your margins on the photo book business? JH: We do not disclose margins specifically. What we report to Wall Street are prints which are all prints from wallet size to the 20×30 pictures, and personalized products and services, and that’s how cards, calendars and photo books are counted. What we have said

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Shutterfly’s Strategy: A Conversation with CEO Jeff Housenbold (Part 5)

SM: You are focusing on personal memories and personal experiences exclusively. JH: Exactly, things which are near and dear. We have always been a password protected environment. I am not going to put the pictures of my three young boys across Flickr for everyone to see.

Web 3.0 & Google (Part 2)

Vertical Strategy Google has adamantly maintained that a magically simple, clean User Interface is part of its key to world domination. This year, however, we have started seeing a clear trend towards verticalization of the web. In fact, my entire Web 3.0 thesis is based on verticalization, and Vertical Search, in particular, is a key

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