Startups Are Running Out Of Cash

Brooklyn's Loosecubes — which raised more than $7 million a few months ago — shut down today. Campbell McKeller (photo) is the founder of Loosecubes.

The thing is that many of the startups that were able to raise seed rounds or their first venture-capital financing — a Series A — have run out of cash. The number of expansion-stage deals — generally Series B or later — collapsed from 305 a quarter to 207 earlier this year, according to a National Venture Capital Association study.

The fiscal cliff for startups funded in the recent explosion of seed-stage deals has arrived: LA-based BetterWorks, for example, shut down its service over the summer just one year after raising a $10 million Series A. Earlier this fall, Bravo reality star Dwight Crow put his startup up for sale and landed at Facebook. San Francisco's DailyBooth and New York'sFondu both found homes at Airbnb.

Source: http://goo.gl/fXZgR

What do you think: is this much tech startups and their failures good for the economy? If "Yes" - Like this post, "No" - let us know the why of your decision in the comments.

Spotify will only lose $40 million this year. (Yes, that's considered a success.)

Spotify, the streaming music startup, was having serious trouble paying its bills, if you believed reports from earlier this year. Its 2011 financials showed a loss of nearly $60 million on revenues of $244 million. But it made $200 million in total revenue over the first six months of 2012, and is on an annual run-rate that could put it around $500 million by January.

 Its deal structure with the labels requires either a $200 million annual payment, like what it had to do last year, or around 75% of total revenue (whichever is higher). 2012 will be the first year that revenue is high enough for the percentage structure to kick in.

The company is projecting profit after cost-of-sales to be around $60 million. It still has another $100 million in engineering, marketing, sales and other operating costs, on top of the licensing burden, so it’ll likely post an annual lo

ss of roughly $40 million.

The situation still sounds painful, but it’s not bad at all. The record labels are happy with Spotify’s progress so far because internal data has shown that it is growing the digital music market; the company is working on a large new round of funding — more than $100 million at a $3.25 billion valuation, according to a Wall Street Journal article; and it's building a browser-based version of its desktop software.

http://goo.gl/uxuXG

YouTube prepares its second YouTube Channels push, 60% of content partners to lose funding.

YouTube introduced professional channels — an initiative to add original content to the Web’s top video site — back in December 2011, after an investment of $100 million; but the fresh money will only be seen by 30 to 40 percent of its 100 plus channel partners, which were recruited to make the service more TV-like and competitive against video-on-demand (VoD) services.

The money is, as it was last year, not a free lunch since it is essentially an upfront payment of one year of advertising revenues. Each producer must earn the money back via ads attached to their content before they can make additional revenue from the service. For example, $1 million comes it at 50 million views on a $20 CPM (cost per mil/thousand) – fairly high stakes.

Netflix recently announced Q3 revenues of $905 million and the US firm expects to make $400 million of operating income this year after covering its global operating expenses. Amazon, which owns UK Netflix competitor LoveFilm, is also in the game and is trialing an $8 per month subscription for its Prime service.

http://goo.gl/xZQAT

Image via http://goo.gl/GBOQ2

As usual, an awesome music compilation from Balakam!

This time - hot Latina rhytms ;)

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=3047 - Clube Brasil Integrale

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=10340 - SKY.fm Salsa

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=15632 - Capsao Rct

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=22690 - La Fiesta Latina Radio En Vivo

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=117965 - Supernova Radio - La Radio Que Tú Te Mereces!

Enjoy, Like and Share with friends!

Web radio growing faster than on-demand services.

Webcasters, such as Pandora, saw following increase by 27 percent while on-demand players, such as Spotify andRhapsody grew by 18 percent.

NPD Online Research said that contributing to part of those declines was Pandora's successful move into automobiles. The research company said that 34 percent of Pandora's users are now listening to the service in their cars.

 

Pandora is supporting legislation that would lower the royalty rates that Web radio services pay labels and artists to play music, and it's not hard to figure out why the music sector and Pandora Media are preparing to go to war with each other.

Also, there's one more juicy revelation from NPD's survey: listening to digital music files on portable music players dropped 21 points. Are you seeing this Apple?

http://goo.gl/b4vD0

What is your favourite way of listening to music? Answer in the comments.

 

Netflix Has Plenty of Competitors, and None of Them Are Close.

Sandvine says that during the Web’s primetime hours, Netflix accounts for 33 percent of “downstream” traffic in North America, and it’s higher than it was in the spring of 2011, before Netflix raised its prices and lost some of its best-known movies.

YouTube accounts for 15 percent of Web use, but that site is almost entirely free. Netflix’s paid competitors generate much smaller numbers: Amazon is at 1.8 percent, Hulu is at 1.1 percent and HBO Go comes in at 0.5 percent. Bear in mind that Sandvine is tracking the flow of data via broadband pipes, which means it is tracking usage — and file size – instead of reach. Netflix, for instance, has about 25 million subscribers worldwide, while YouTube boasts some 800 million monthly visitors.

http://goo.gl/cIpqN

Source: Sandvine

Val Kilmer got onto the stage during The Black Lips performance.

Val Kilmer got onto the stage during The Black Lips performance at the Fun Fun Fun Fest.

The actor began screaming in the mic, breaking equipment and at some point cut off a piece of his hair with a penknife.

Wanna get as crazy as Kilmer? Listen to The Black Lips with Balakam - http://balakam.com/search/item?id=10346 - and don’t forget to share with friends! 

Syndication Wins: AOL's Video Revenue Jumps From $10M to $100M in 2 Years.

CEO Tim Armstrong said AOL's video ad revenue jumped from $10 million 2 years ago to a projected $100 million in 2012, with more growth ahead in 2013. The results are mainly due to video syndication, powered by AOL's acquisition of 5Min in 2010. AOL is capitalizing on the concept of the "syndicated video economy" - AOL's large video syndication library (which has grown from 30K videos to 450K today) feeds both its owned and operated properties and its network of 30K publishers. All of these sites are hungry for video for 2 important reasons: they meet users' increasingly video-oriented expectations and their adjacent ad inventory is monetized at far better rates than traditional display.

http://www.videonuze.com/article/syndication-wins-aol-s-video-revenue-jumps-from-10m-to-100m-in-past-2-years

Do you use online video syndication for your business?

Google decline in China continues.

It’s been more than two and a half years since Google left the Chinese search market, and now it's at fourth place with 4.72 percent of page views, down from 5.1 percent the month before.

Part of the reason for that is the arrival of search newcomer Qihoo 360, which is believed to have captured 9.64 percent of the market last month. CEO Zhou Yongyi has set his sights on a 15 to 20 percent share of the market, enough to “destroy” Baidu’s monopoly.

http://tnw.to/obXI

Amazon takes on Netflix and Hulu Plus.

Amazon Prime offers unlimited TV and movie streaming for $7.99 per month. Amazon is clearly hoping that price-matching its competitors will help drive more subscriptions.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/prime

Balakam, live stream search developer, starring at IPOboard.

Balakam, the developer of a solution to search for online broadcasting content, participated on October 29 in a presentation of IPOboard companies for potential investors and was identified as one of the best companies on this online exchange platform in Russia, the official Russian Venture Company (RVC) website reports.

Information and trading platform IPOboard, also known in Russia as RII-board, has been established by the Moscow Stock Exchange and Russia’s Rusnano to facilitate the raising of investments by privately owned Russian hi-tech companies. Balakam joined the platform in May 2012. 
A portfolio company of the RVC Seed Fund, Balakam focuses on the development of an Internet service to optimize search of audio and video streams that run live on the Web. 

The Balakam search system is said to be based on a unique patented technology that speeds up the process and boosts efficiency. The new solution reportedly pinpoints special identifiers that help it locate, recognize and save links to the sources of audio and video content being broadcasted on a real-time basis.

A system prototype is currently available at their project website. The commercial launch of the product is slated for the end of this year. 

Balakam received seed capital from the RVC Seed Fund in 2011. Also last year it joined the IT cluster of Skolkovo, the state-sponsored innovation hub currently under construction outside Moscow.

http://www.marchmontnews.com/Technology-Innovation/Central-regions/19110-Balakam-live-stream-search-developer-starring-IPOboard-.html

Bloomberg TV goes behind the scenes at Zynga.

Bloomberg TV goes behind the scenes at Zynga to find out how the things are going on with FarmVille 2; the game is supposed to make Zynga "stay dominant on the desktop".

http://bloom.bg/RBZ4P5

Watch Bloomberg TV with Balakam here and share it with your friends! :-D

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=6404708

Yet another awesome Balakamous music compilation.

This time - funk house:

http://balakam.com/search/ item?id=5287 - KIF Radio

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=1742560 - PolskaStacja.pl
http://balakam.com/search/item?id=11228083 - Pressure Radio
http://balakam.com/search/item?id=11274193 - ZerkaloMillenium
http://balakam.com/search/item?id=11648497 - krissradio.com

Enjoy and share with friends. Have a nice Friday!

Mark Cuban: An Apple Set-Top Box "Would Be A Huge Success." And he's right.

Though experts say that's exactly why such a product won't see the light of day. The reasons are:

1. They would be turning over their user experience to Apple, allowing the company to drive the UI and therefore reshape the video experience as it determined, just as it has done in music with iTunes.

2. The pay-TV industry finds itself in no quandary, and in no need of Apple's rescue. F.ex., Apple TV still remains just a "hobby." It's a niche product that for most people is not going to supplant a pay-TV subscription any time soon.

What do you think, will Apple conquer the world of pay-TV subscription? Share your thoughts in the comments.

New Google Search app approved for iOS.

New Google Search App With Siri-Like Voice Responses Finally Approved For iOS.

Announced in August, Google’s new Google Search app for iOS has been apparently stuck in Apple’s app approval process for over two months. No longer. Google’s just announced that the new app is out.
It was never clear exactly why it took the app so long to emerge after it was submitted. Neither Google nor Apple said. But it’s available now through iTunes for those with iOS devices like the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

For those wanting a Google Maps app for iOS, keep waiting.

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Yesterday comScore released its September 2012 Video Metrix data which showed YouTube accounted for approximately 13.1 billion videos viewed out of the monthly total of 39.4 billion. 

At 33.2%, that's the lowest market share YouTube has had since Aug. '10.

As recently as July '12, YouTube had a 53.1% share (with 19.6 billion videos viewed), though as I pointed out previously, in August, its share dropped unexpectedly to 36.5%.

“In 10 years from now, people will be sharing 1,000 times as many things as they do today.”

People are generally laughing at Mark Zuckerberg for this quote, claiming that they couldn’t post 1,000x more per day updates or pictures of what they are eating. I submit that these people are stuck in the status quo and suffering from a lack of imagination around the awareness of devices that are here now or will be soon.
Google Glass is around the corner at approximately $1,500 and the Memoto’s life blogging camera for $249 is in kickstarter mode right now, already reaching their modest $50,000 goal and pushing towards $150K. This wearable device will take a 5 megapixel picture every 5 seconds tagged with Geolocation data.

Wearable cameras with a computer like Google Glass and more dedicated recording devices will grow in adoption and acceptance. In countries where automobile accident fraud is a problem or corrupt police try to shake you down for bribes, people have resorted to protecting themselves by installing their own hidden dash cams in their cars like cops in the U.S. are mandated to use.

The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed.

http://www.kloustin.com/people-will-be-sharing-1000x-sooner-than-10-years/?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRoluanJdO%2FhmjTEU5z17u8sWqeyh4kz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMT8NmNLHYEhcSI4JkxgVAR%2Bece5lB

Pandora updates for iPhone and Android apps.

Pandora updated its mobile app Monday.

The service added new features and completely overhauled its mobile music listening experience. “This is our biggest update to our iPhone and Android app since we launched on both platforms,” Asi Behar, Director of Product, User Experience at Pandora.

Pandora 4.0 is available now for iOS, and will be available for Android in the coming weeks. Behar says the Android version will arrive later, simply because Pandora wants to support every Android device, of which there are many.

Comcast Loses Subscribers: still feeling good about the future.

Last Friday morning Comcast reported strong Q3 '12 results, including its 8th straight quarter of lower year-over-year video subscriber losses. For Q3 '12, it lost 117K subscribers, vs. 165K in Q3 '11. 

This pattern stretches all the way back to Q4 '10, when Comcast lost 135K subscribers, vs. the 199K it lost in Q4 '09. 
Obviously no business likes to lose customers, but Comcast's (and all cable operators') reality is that with the incursion of telcos and satellite operators, some market fragmentation was inevitable.

Jazz Comp form Balakam!

Here's an awesome Jazz compilation form Balakam:

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=1741 - Radio Swiss Jazz of Switzerland
http://balakam.com/search/item?id=2172 - PlayMistyforMe of Belgium
http://balakam.com/search/item?id=2178 - Adore Jazz on 1.FM. only the finest Vocal Jazz. 24x7. of the US
http://balakam.com/search/item?id=2631 - Jazz Classics of Sky.FM of the US

Don't forget to Like and Share with friends!

Taylor Swift - Begin Again

Watch the new video for Begin Again - Taylor Swift - incredibly beautiful and exceptionally artsy music clip for the second single from the fourth album “Red”.

 

Listen to Taylor Swift with Balakam on the KHBR Live Radio - http://balakam.com/search/item?id=6539150 - and share with friends!

The Wolverine. Gangnam Style

Hugh Jackman dances in the Gangnam Style with PSY - wearing Wolverine claws.
The actor has been snapped on the set of The Wolverine earlier this week while PSY's been teaching him the moves from the outstandingly popular dance.

Listen to PSY on the Korean FM927 Radio - http://balakam.com/search/item?id=6215334 - and share with your friends! :-D

Kings of Leon new album is coming along.

Kings of Leon new album is coming along. Band's bassist Jared Followill says in the BBC 6Music interview: "We are in the writing process right now and it's coming along pretty quickly; we have no plans of finishing it this year but definitely early next year, so I think people should expect something from us sooner rather than later".

Listen to Kings of Leon on rock-radio WNRM - http://balakam.com/search/item?id=11098325 - and share the link with your friends! }:-D

Jake Bugg's gonna beat the hell out of Official Singles Chart?

Jake Bugg's debut album sets to move Mumford and Sons' 'Babel' from the top spot. Nottingham, United Kingdom own has already beaten Leona Lewis and Bat For Lashes.

Listen to Jake on indie radio Radio Neo - http://balakam.com/search/item?id=20447 - and don't forget to share his beautiful music with friends! :-D

Beyonce Confirms Super Bowl Performance

Beyoncé confirmed her performance during the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show on Feb. 3, 2013.

It will take place at Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. Madonna was the one to perform this year.

Listen to Beyoncé and Madonna on Balakam and don't forget to share with your friends! :-D

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=3701 - RauteMusik
http://balakam.com/search/item?id=3639 - Audio Popsicle

P!nk - Try

Pink has a new video for her "Try" song from "The Truth About Love" album!

Amazingly intense and pretty aggressive video shows Pink and dancer Colt Prattes physically 'illustrate' the lyrics of the song which are about (surprise, surprise!) difficult relationships and trying to mend them...

Listen to P!nk with Balakam:

Heart 106.2: http://balakam.com/search/item?id=3519721

Kiss 100 fm: http://balakam.com/search/item?id=10942679

And don't forget to share with friends :D

Happy birthday, John Lennon!

Today the most prominent British musician would have been 72.

Balakam would like to make a certain contribution to the celebrations, and gives you the opportunity to listen to the best The Beatles radio - 

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=14633969 The BeatlesRadio

Also, listen to The Beatles tribute on SKY.fm Radio -

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=1881455

And don't forget to share with friends!

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We wanted to write something sad, unusual or even mournful. But instead, we put here his best, in our opinion, quote: "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life".

RIP Steve Jobs.

Brand New Interface. Yet again.

We have changed our main page interface yet again.
Because we constantly think about your tastes and grooves; because we want you to take absolute pleasure in using our service.

We have narrowed it to three languages, which allows us to make recommendations even more pertinent for you!

Do you think that's a good idea? Please visit us at www.balakam.com to fully enjoy it and give us your feedback - and don't be shy to make it negative but relevant :D

New Contour+2 out later this month.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Will it beat the hell out of its competitor GoPro HD Hero POV?

"I Had the Blues, but I Shook'em Loose..." #balakam

There are a lot of people in this world who love blues. A Lot of. Who Love it a Lot.

Balakam appreciates this (not so) mild addiction and has compiled a fresh pick of blues radio streams just for you, guys. BluEnjoy!

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=12595 - Ricefield Radio

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=16278 - Fiksz Radio

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=19763 - Absolute Blues Hits

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=22662 - Pirata Managua Nicaragua

http://balakam.com/search/item?id=26821 - WGLT

Is Windows Phone 8 Gonna Help Nokia Out?

See the full gallery on Posterous

So, Nokia's new Lumias 820 and 920 are powered by Windows Phone 8. What does that mean?
Well, one thing for sure, it means that even though Nokia suffered a tremendous decrease in its market share, "the numbers do show that there is a good amount of interest in Windows Phone as a platform and the Nokia brand. The improved hardware support in Windows Phone 8 may be just the help the company needs to push Windows Phone into the spotlight and further grow the platform and the Nokia brand."

Is That the New iPhone?

Well, at least iLab Factory thinks so.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Evolution of Balakam: From prototype to alpha and beta

Everything in this life evolves through a certain number of stages. A rock band has to come up with the idea of its musical frames, then the line-up, then the name, then the label (but not necessarily in that order). The same goes with any TV show: the genre, the script, the actors, the pilot, the frantic search for the ideas for a new season.

Balakam is also in constant process of refining itself. After we have decided on the outline for conquering the world, the name and the technology to deliver the best entertainment for you in the most hands-down way we were due to present a prototype of the search engine.

 

Prototype

• Basic search functionality
• Ability to categorize streams by types (TV, Radio, webcam)
• Publicly available