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Monthly Archive for May 2009

GigaOm Pro Launches

May 29, 2009

Yesterday GigaOm boldly launched GigaOm Pro. As detailed in his introductory post, Om has long envisioned this step as an essential piece in the evolution of the business & technology media landscape. Blogs have proven to be incredibly powerful in breaking news and stimulating conversation around a topic from thousands of thoughtful perspectives (Katrina, Mumbai, Sully’s Flight). In this manner, blogs have changed the media landscape forever.

But in our assessment, the potential of blog-based media is still in it’s infancy, and there remains tremendous opportunity for new media companies to go deeper on topics, create longer form, more in-depth discussions of important trends, and follow stories over time (much in the way that traditional journalism has famously done in news papers . . .think the Washington Post’s coverage of Watergate over multiple stories and months of doggedly pursuing a thesis, or their more recent series on Walter Reed Hospital – both examples top of mind as they were so eloquently discussed this past week at D7 by Katharine Weymouth and Arianna Huffington). Instead of just breaking the news, the best of traditional journalism has often change our world in long form and over a series of stories.

New media has this potential, but to succeed it will require combining all of the hustle and speed of today’s bloggers with new product attributes. Longer-form journalism online requires different packaging, an analytical perspective, significantly different form, and the fostering of a community engaged over the duration of a story or trend’s analysis. Most importantly, in order to produce and enable this type of discussion, new media companies must possess a culture that believes in journalism first, page views last.

We’re surely biased, but we believe GigaOm is incredibly well positioned for this opportunity. The company has successfully built and scaled a network of sites in our industry’s most significant sectors. The talent on the editorial team has broken important stories, established a credible voice in our ecosystem, and consistently produces fantastic analysis. Most importantly, GigaOm has been built on an ethos of journalistic integrity. For everyone who knows and reads Om and his team, it’s overwhelmingly clear that they are first and foremost journalists (and very good ones).

But there is more to do. A longer, more thoughtful conversation is waiting to be had, and GigaOm has just started it.

We’re excited to see Om and Paul evolve the media landscape with GigaOm Pro. Congratulations to the entire team on a really well executed product launch, and congratulations on so boldly evolving our industry.

RT @timyoung: Co-working with …

May 27, 2009

RT @timyoung: Co-working with @wegame at True Ventures pier 38.

RT @cvorkink: discovering @day…

May 27, 2009

RT @cvorkink: discovering @daytum, a fun tool for personal analytics junkies (guilty as charged). love it so far. looks interesting CV

Congrats Josh and First Round

May 26, 2009

Great Businessweek article on Josh Kopelman and the new early stage market. Congrats, Josh and team, on a really terrific piece. The article does a great job of showing the raw energy and activity occurring today in what we call the “Very Early” market. At True, we have just had the most active nine months in our history with respect to new investments. Our companies are launching faster than ever and generating more revenue sooner. We are seeing better and better talent starting companies. The downturn is creating disruption and dislocation across the tech landscape, and only the creative and bold investors like Josh, ourselves, and a some others (see below) are poised to capitalize on it. It is an exciting time!

It is also wonderful to see that the mainstream media is beginning to pick up on the disruption and innovation occurring in the venture business. Many of us started our firms back in 2005-2006, and we recognized that there were challenges and opportunities to the traditional early stage venture model. The combination of growing fund and firm sizes was leaving Sand Hill Road ill-equipped to and uninterested in investing in the beginning phases of startups like Meebo, Automattic, Facebook, Twitter, and others. A band of smaller funds filled this gap, which appears to be widening as Moore’s law begins to invade every corner of the tech world which results in dramatically lower startup costs.

The Very Early stage market is vibrant these days. In addition to those mentioned in the BusinessWeek piece, our friends at Alsop-Louie, Jeff Clavier, Brad and the Foundry crew, Naval at Hitforge, the Founders Fund, OATV, Greycroft, and USV in NY are all busy building firms in this segment. This is exciting, because these are incredibly talented entrepreneurs and investors who are working tirelessly to create more choice for entrepreneurs and foster creativity and innovation.

Congrats, Josh, on a really great article, and thank you BusinessWeek for shedding light on the entrepreneurs and the ecosystem that are so vital to the future to the US economy.

Inventables Is Hiring

May 22, 2009

Inventables is lighting the product development world on fire! This year they launched the Inventables Marketplace, they got funded by us, and now they are hiring!

New Socialcast Features

May 21, 2009

Socialcast provides on-demand social business communication software with customizable, easy-to-use tools for information sharing and community monitoring. With Socialcast’s new integrated corporate email and customizable activity feeds, users existing work habits and comfortability with email can be capitalized as they ease into this critical workflow tool to achieve the ultimate goal of collaboration and knowledge share across the enterprise.

Top Blog: GigaOm

May 21, 2009

Tech PR Pros conducted a study of 2009 “Best of the Blogs,” which included top technology blogs, leading writers, and the perceived reach of their influential efforts. GigaOm was high on the list of Top Ten Tech Blogs. Additionally, several of the Top Ten Tech Pub Blogs feature GigaOm content.

The list of Top Ten Bloggers included not only Om Malik but also GigaOm writer Stacey Higginbotham. Congratulations, Om, Stacey, and the fantastic GigaOm Team!

LoopFuse For Marketing Efficiency

May 20, 2009

Zimbra, a popular email and collaboration division of Yahoo!, has increased sales and improved marketing efficiency by utilizing LoopFuse. Zimbra’s old legacy implementation was difficult for the sales team to use and required extensive support to maintain. Instead, Zimbra’s high volume web business now benefits greatly from the LoopFuse comprehensive sales and marketing automation solution.

Check out the Zimbra case study here.

VoxPop Raises Series B

May 19, 2009

Congratulations to pop culture, casual game-maker VoxPop, which raised $1.5 million in Series B financing from Hearst Interactive Media and previous backer True Ventures. An achievement at anytime, a round raised in this economic climate is of particular significance.

Great job, Mike, Bill, Michael & Team!

A hearty “welcome to the True …

May 18, 2009

A hearty “welcome to the True Family” to Howard, Soren and the gang at Stocktwits. We’re thrilled to be investors with you. Congrats!

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