Startups

New York. London. Los Angeles. Dublin. Chicago. Berlin. Every one of these cities (and more) have been mentioned as having the potential to become "the next Silicon Valley," a new technology hub that could rival the Bay Area's dominance when it comes to tech.

All of these cities are working hard to compete with Silicon Valley. London just hired a prominent Facebooker to become the CEO of its technology project. Dublin has f.ounders and the Dublin Web Summit. New York has a collection of high-profile tech companies, including Foursquare, Gilt Groupe, Fab, Tumblr and Quirky. Chicago … Read more

Yahoo has acquired its first startup: Stamped, a recommendations engine built by former Google colleagues of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer -- a team Mayer wanted to bring into the fold at Yahoo.

Stamped, which launched as a smartphone app last November, lets users recommend books, movies, restaurants, and other things to friends by giving them a virtual stamp of approval. It uses a Twitter-like social graph that lets users follow recommendations from both friends and celebrities, like chef Mario Batali.

The company had raised about $3 million from a range of investors including Bain Capital Ventures, Google Ventures, and singer … Read more

Few industries are under greater assault by technology than higher education -- and few companies are doing more to upend the way people learn the world over than Udacity, the young Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup that's brought computer science classes online and watched hundreds of thousands of students enroll. For single classes.

The startup is led by Sebastian Thrun, a former Google VP and fellow who led the development of Google's self-driving car and Google Glasses. And those are just some of his accomplishments. It was while he was a professor at Stanford University that he stumbled … Read more

Facebook's stock is on a tear today, poised to post its biggest one day gain since it went public in May. This comes a day after the company's strong third-quarter earnings report and, perhaps more importantly, its upbeat call with analysts in which CEO Mark Zuckerberg said flat out, "I want to dispel this myth that Facebook can't make money on mobile."

While Zuckerberg and his top execs stressed that Facebook is in the early days on this front -- it only started trying to make money from mobile in March -- they did share … Read more

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, told a crowd at today's Y Combinator startup school that running a company is a nerve-racking experience; that you shouldn't be fooled into thinking everything's been done; and that "every breakthrough idea looks like a stupid idea" at first.

"Sure we look for big markets and blah, blah, blah," Horowitz told some 1,700 entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs packed into Stanford University's Memorial Hall auditorium. "But we're all looking for a breakthrough idea. And by definition, … Read more

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg addressed an adoring crowd at Y Combinator's startup school today, speaking confidently about Facebook and describing a world in which people will share a whole lot more than they do now -- via Facebook and other social companies.

"It's sort of a social-networking version of Moore's Law," said Zuckerberg, who was interviewed by Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham. "We expect this rate [of sharing] will double every year. ...So in 10 years from now, people will be sharing about 1,000 times as many … Read more

Update: AllThingsD reports that Apple is simply acquiring Color's talent, leaving the rest of the company to be wound down.

Everyone seems to be getting mixed signals about Color, the controversial and high-profile startup that started as a photo-sharing app but never could find its groove.

Color is well-known for three things: founder Bill Nguyen (a veteran of the tech industry with a history of exits), raising $41 million prelaunch, and its failure to turn Nguyen's knowledge and that cash into traction.

The rumor mill started with a VentureBeat article claiming that Color's board had voted to … Read more

Yelp is taking aim at business owners that try to artificially inflate their reviews on the site.

The user-reviews site today announced today that it has launched a new initiative to root out companies that have made "significant attempts to pay for reviews." In the event it finds such attempts, Yelp will post a "consumer alert" on a company posting alerting users to the violation.

"We caught someone red-handed trying to buy reviews for this business," the alert reads. "We weren't fooled, but wanted you to know because buying reviews not only … Read more

Color Labs, according to a representative authorized to speak on the company's behalf, is not closing down.

But for now, that's about all that's clear at the chaotic startup that is Color. Even the representative who issued that statement said he's dealing with the press only because the person who held that job just left the company.

His statement comes after Venture Beat this morning reported that a Color vice president had sent an e-mail to employees saying that Color was winding down. "Last week, the Board and major shareholders voted to wind down the … Read more