Technology and (many) other things
Sometimes a movie or book touches you deeply. Here is a movie based on an immigrant theme that really struck a cord with me.
I saw this movie recently on a plane trip to India. Haaz Sleiman’s acting as Tarek, an illegal immigrant from Syria, is wonderful. He gives the character a very energetic and high-pitched feel.
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In case you want to see the movie, here is a link to the DVD on Amazon.
Glassdoor announced yesterday that they closed a $6.5mn funding round. Billshrink announced Oct 14th that they closed a $8mn series B round. IMHO, in addition to all the reasons why a VC might invest, these two companies have a big macroeconomic factor going for them. They will do well in the down market that we are in now and will likely continue for at least a year. People will keep a close eye on their credit card bills try to trim their expenses (Billshrink). With so many people getting laid off and looking for work, Glassdoor should also handsomely benefit from the downturn.
The Wall Street Journal (behind a paywall) reported today Advertising.com, a subsidiary of AOL will be Ad distributor for the as-yet-unnamed NBC - News Corp. joint venture for online video. It seems like advertising.com is leveraging some of the IP it got through AOL’s acquisition of Truveo back in Dec 2005. The technology allows advertising.com to insert ads into video clips seamlessly at any point in the video. I can see advertisers being very interested in this. Imagine a Kellogs ad right as a family sits for breakfast in the video or a Circuit City ad just as viewers are in the middle of watching a football match.
Three subscribers have sued AOL. Their search data was released as part of an intentional release by AOL of some 19 million search requests made by 650,000 users. The three subscribers are seeking a class-action status for their lawsuit. My guess? This lawsuit will soon gain class action status.
