What's your poison, Valleywag asked a Silicon Valley startup founder last night, Instagram's new Cinema feature or Vine? "Instagram for sure," he shot back. "Easier network effect. Faster gratification. Polished product and more expressive. Twitter has always had this problem with every product."
David Karp, the proud new owner of generational wealth (despite 2012 revenues of less than $5 million), is in France this week making some new best amis! At the Cannes Lion International Festival of Creativity—a posh back-patting bonanza designed to make advertisers feel special—Karp took the main stage, only to throw his employees under the bus:
If there's a way to make money from a 6-second loop of poking an old man in his dignified European man boobs, by george, startups will find it. Jerome Jarre, the Jerry Lewis of Vine, judging by his repertoire, has partnered with multimedia wino and angel investor Gary Vaynerchuk to launch a talent agency for (gulps) "Vine Stars."
Do you find your job, diet, and existence inadequate? If not, make sure to read this latest dispatch from the New York Times trend squad: the city's startup jockeys are spending day after day pressing "calorie-packed" things into their fat fucking maws, chugging beer, and taking naps. They'll also probably be billionaires.
Further proof from Jakob Lodwick that you don't necessarily have to have a good idea to make money in tech. Two of the fameballer's investments have been acquired this year: Tumblr and now MakerBot, where, until recently, he described himself on his blog as a "founding investor." Depending on how many shares he held, it should be enough to keep Elepath's ball pool filled.
One of life's grand injustices is that it's very hard to come up with an idea that's both original and good. Even harder to make money from it! But that's not stopping anyone from trying to cash in with a half-baked version of someone else's startup. Uber for nose jobs. Pandora for plants. Silicon Valley has a serious imagination problem.
If you bought a $60,000+ Tesla Model S between May 10th and June 8th, read this: Tesla CEO Elon Musk says these cars might have a defect that "reduces our confidence that the left hand seat back will be properly retained in the event of a crash." Eep.
Twitter closed a deal with Viacom in its big push for TV ad dollars. Since you can already find video highlights on Twitter, the sponsored clips amounts to "not much more than sticking an ad (for a product) on an ad (for a TV show)." The partnership will debut at the MTV Video Music Awards. Is no orgy of self-promotion sacred?
