Idealab founder and serial entrepreneur Bill Gross, whose company GoTo pioneered the pay-per-click search advertising that Google later made famous, is launching a crowdsourced startup platform called IdeaMarket
Twitter has made it clear it plans to crack down on third-party services by tightening the rules on use of the network, but this desire for control — and the drive to monetize its user base — could ruin what made Twitter special to begin with.
After an extensive interview with the founder and President of Energy Cache, Aaron Fyke, we bring you the details of how the gravel and ski lift technology works, how the company came into being, where it’s headed and how Bill Gates and Bill Gross became involved.
Who’s the startup behind Bill Gates’ recent description of a company he’s involved with that’s making energy storage out of “gravel on ski lifts?” Michael Kanellos guesses it’s Energy Cache, which is developing a solar-powered pump for delivering materials to the top of mountains.
In an interview with GigaOM, UberMedia CEO Bill Gross — who is launching his new content-based social network, Chime.in, today — says existing social networks like Facebook and Google+ suffer from a signal-to-noise problem and a monetization problem, and that Chime was designed to help with both.
Entrepreneur Bill Gross is launching a content-focused social network called Chime.in that will compete with Twitter, Facebook and Google+, as well as link-sharing sites like Digg. He says there is a need for a better way of filtering content, but the odds are stacked against him.
Infinia, a solar startup which is using Stirling engines to produce solar power, is looking to raise $25 million in funding, and has closed $6 million of that round according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Twitter is rumored to be acquiring TweetDeck, and one of the big questions is whether it will keep the app alive or not. But if it does decide to kill it, the company could do further damage to the already tense relationship it has with developers.
UberMedia is said to be working on developing a social network that would compete with Twitter. But while the company is arguably the most well-funded of all those who have tried, and there would be benefits to having multiple players, the odds are stacked against it.
CNN is reporting that Bill Gross’ UberMedia – home of several Twitter clients – is working on its own network as an alternative to Twitter. Though, says one of CNN’s sources (who have “been briefed” by Twitter), that may just be a backup plan if UberMedia’s fractious relationship with Twitter breaks down completely. UberMedia is reportedly in the process of acquiring TweetDeck, whose users automatically get a back-up network. That might be a way for UberMedia to ease into the business. Twitter claims 175 million users – although some think the active number is more like 20 million – its brand is huge and its APIs and streams are woven into the fabric of the social web. While Twitter is still struggling to build out its marketing platform, it has broadened its data and stream licensing through Gnip, MediaSift and Sulia. I doubt a few extra characters per Tweet is much of a reason for its users to switch.
