Startup

Web 2.0 Expo: Don't worry, be app-y

roundup The annual conference of Web innovators may be smaller than last year's. But it's still a place for big ideas, with a focus on mobile apps and solid business plans. Get the latest news about products and lectures here.

Featured stories Web 2.0 Expo 2009: Downsized, but not out Fewer people, fewer presenters heading to San Francisco Web 2.0 confab. But it could have been much worse. (Posted in Webware by Rafe Needleman) March 30, 2009 9:20 PM PDT O'Reilly: The Web is still learning, but it can teach, too The kickoff keynote … Read more

Y Combinator plans to fund more start-ups

Y Combinator on Monday announced that it has raised a $2 million venture fund with the aid of Sequoia Capital and angel investors.

In making the announcement, Y Combinator noted that it plans to increase the number of start-ups it funds to 60 a year, up from 40.

For Web services and software start-ups, that may bode well. Y Combinator focuses its investments on those two sectors and funds companies that are in their early stages.

As it notes, one unusual twist to this venture firm is its reliance on the strength of entrepreneurs' ideas, rather than on their business … Read more

Easy to understand

Typically, this kind of program is geared toward more advanced users, but the intuitive Ashampoo StartUp Tuner will appeal to both the computer savvy and the not-so-savvy user.

The program's tabbed-style interface organizes your system's startup programs into five categories: Autostart entries, Services, Software, IE Plugins, and Backups. Everything is so well laid out that, basically all you have to do is click which startup programs that you do or don't want to load automatically. Despite its ease of use, there are dangers in messing with things you don't understand, and the program helpfully cautions users … Read more

Demo 09: Where start-ups show off

Editor's note: For CNET News' latest coverage of DemoFall 2009, please click here.

roundup The high-tech confab prides itself on putting cutting-edge companies in front of A-list venture capitalists and journalists. Here's this year's crop. (See live video feed at bottom of page.)

Featured stories Lessons from Demo on surviving recession The smaller size of Demo 09 doesn't mean the tech industry is going out of business. Rather, it suggests what companies need to do to get funding. (Posted in Digital Media by Daniel Terdiman) March 4, 2009 9 AM PST The best and worst of Demo 09 … Read more

Obama Inc. - Web activism for profit

A few months after Barack Obama’s historic election, and a couple of weeks after the release of Barry Libert’s and Rick Faulk’s book Obama Inc. (and, of course, Obama's inauguration), the first start-ups are popping up that directly apply some of the widely heralded business lessons emerging from the innovative campaign. The fact that most of these lessons lie in the marketing domain supports the view I’ve expressed earlier and on numerous occasions: 1) Marketing will (again) become the number one change agent in business, 2) when it follows the new rules of “marketing with … Read more

CNET News Daily Podcast: What 'econo-lypse?' This start-up isn't blinking

Flypaper may not be the typical tech start-up in that it actually has been able to get a couple of rounds of funding. But like most other young companies, Flypaper faces the same problems as other new technology companies. We speak with founder Don Pierson for his perspective on how start-ups can best ride out the rough patches before the economy stabilizes. Listen now: Download today's podcast

Today's stories:

Intel files $50 million suit against insurer

In Davos, talk of linking clean tech and economy

More details surface on Google's alleged GDrive

White House expands use of search-blocking code… Read more

Consolidated Vista tools

Advanced Vista Optimizer consolidates into one dashboard numerous system-tweaking and configuration tools, from the basic to the advanced. The features cover the bases, including disk and Registry defragging, program prefetching and the proprietary Superfetching, start-up and shutdown tweaks, optimization adjustments for performance, memory, and hardware, an uninstaller, and a file splitter and joiner.

Designed to resemble Vista's Windows Explorer layout, the interface makes clever use of a breadcrumb trail at the top to make it easier to navigate back to any previously-visited level. Below the breadcrumb bar, the main window has been split into two levels. The top pane … Read more

Lucid Imagination conjures up $6 million

If you were looking to create a start-up, and particularly an open-source start-up, you could hardly do better than to stumble upon a pre-existing open-source project with millions of downloads, widespread adoption by some of the biggest names in the industry, and a fast-growing enterprise need.

Take Lucene, for example, as CMS Watch's Kas Thomas noted on Monday. It is a hugely popular project with one big failing: no enterprise support. Writes Thomas:

Lucene has a lot going for it...(It's) one of the safest (open-source projects) around, in terms of governance and oversight (through the Apache Foundation), … Read more

Venture capital plummets 71 percent

Hey buddy, can you spare a dime?

Venture capitalists put a virtual lock on their funding during the fourth quarter, doling out a mere $3.4 billion, according to a report released Monday by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association.

The meager performance pales in comparison to the $11.7 billion distributed to start-ups a year ago during the same period. That's a decline of 71 percent. Funding is down nearly 60 percent from the previous quarter.

During the fourth quarter, venture capitalists launched 33 follow-on funds and 10 new funds, resulting in a 3-to-1 ratio for … Read more