The Arab tech world gets its first Venture Capital arm as Bayt.com, Arab worlds largest job portal launched Intilaq, the first initiative of its type. Intilaq (which means launch in English) will provide startups provide support in every aspect to innovative startups from the Arab world and even International ones that target the region. ArabCrunch reports that Intilaq is interested in people who are technologists; who think they have got a winning idea to start a company or Strategist having a an aptitude to help technologists transform their idea into a successful company.
Archive for April, 2009
Today Google‘s has released its first quarter report that ended on March 31st and it is by all means above what analysts would have anticipated. The recession came hitting almost every sector hard and Google was no exception as its own stocks dropped to an all time low. The net income for the current quarter surged up by almost 9% or $1.4 billion, bringing its overall $17.6 in form of cash and marketing. It sowed overall consistency, despite the fact its revenues plunged by 3% quarter over quarter. This was the first time ever that Google faced sequential drop, although the year on year revenue rose up by 6%. Google also confirmed that it laid off a few employees as the number fell to 20,164, compared to 20,222 in December, 2008.
0
There appears to be a ray of hope about IBM acquiring Sun Microsystems, as reports talk about Sun Microsystems showing interest in the deal. The deal appeared to have been axed as IBM continued to toy with financial terms of the deal. The only condition put forward by Sun Microsystems is that the talks resume only if IBM is serious about the acquisition. Both are still hesitant and want the other to take the first step. All this in no way means that the talks have once again gained momentum, they just appear to be hanging by a thin rope.
2
The week appears to be closing and it feels as if I am reporting more on numbers, especially in millions. Be it Ning hitting a million networks or TwitPic, but reports today talk about the larger players in the social network arena; Facebook a mere 9 million users shy of MySpace. Those stats are for the US, with estimates that Facebook will overtake MySpace by next year, something that sounds a bit too pessimistic. Once again, the basic reason why MySpace continues to suffer over time is that it kept itself caged far too long when it could have expanded beyond borders. The result? MySpace growth seems to be stunted compared to that of Facebook. If the already snailed growth slows down any further, I bet its just a matter of a couple of months before Facebook devours MySpace.
0
Ning is all set to make its mark in a few days while it waits for the social network count created on its platform to hit one million. Ning provides users with an easy to use platform to help them create networks associated to the topics that they are concerned about. It had earlier put a ban on the creation of adult networks, which saw a lot of backlash as many thought that the platform relied heavily on these networks for traffic. Well if those people are right (by any chance) then the one millionth network will probably take ages.
2
Muze, the entertainment discovery engine has been acquired by Macrovision, the digital distribution service. The acquisition cost Macrovision $16.5 million, while this would add around $5 million to Macrovision’s revenue for the current year. With the deal coming to an end by this month, Muze with its service prove to be pretty fruitful, expanding Macrovision’s digital entertainment purchase and search.
0
Slagsmålsklubben – Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.
This one’s off the hook, but I just couldn’t help myself sharing this one. I understand that engineers are known for giving great importance to even the most minute details, but Red Riding Hood, the engineer’s way? I guess we do need bedtime stories as such for the engineering toddlers.
0
We earlier covered ToLingo, the online translation service, well if you are looking forward to have ad another one to your choice then try ToMedes. The service provides low cost and better translations in a quicker time using its base of a large number of native speakers. You can upload your document and select the language you need your document to be translated in and get a quote on it. much like ToLingo. The only difference is that you can simply enter the total number of words in the document as well to get the cost and how long will it take for your translated document to be delivered.
1
