Parmy Olson's Blog, page 55

Facebook Plays The Long Game With $2 Billion Bet On Oculus Rift

Zuckerberg talks up his hope for the future of virtual reality moments after the deal is announced. New money, same spiel says one analyst.

Alibaba Sinks $215 Million Into Messaging App Tango, Valuing It At More Than $1 Billion

China’s Alibaba is the latest Internet giant to make a bet on the messaging space, and it’s a big one. The company is spending $215 million for a minority stake in the messaging and free-calling app Tango, the startup revealed today.

WhatsApp Founder Defends His Commitment To Privacy After $19B Facebook Deal

Jan Koum, the founder of messaging giant WhatsApp, has defended his company’s commitment to user privacy in the wake of a $19 billion acquisition by Facebook and “inaccurate and careless information” that Koum says has circulated as a result.

Meet The Wearable Gadget That Outsources Your Personal Trainer To India

A simple problem has been stumping wearable device makers. Customers buy their shiny fitness trackers, show them off to friends, and then wear them religiously for maybe a month or two. Not long after, many get bored and throw the gadgets in a drawer. How do you motivate customers to keep wearing these wrist bands, to the point they might even pay for future services?

Candy Crushed? Here's A Chart To Make You Think Twice About King's Looming IPO

Candy Crush is a maddeningly addictive game on which people are willing to spend a buck or more to lengthen their vividly-colored screen time. But potential investors to King.com's forthcoming IPO should note it's also a game that brought in roughly three quarters of King.com’s revenue in the fourth quarter, and that there may be a cost to relying so heavily on a digital golden goose, no matter how hooked its users or how much King values itself to be -- a remarkable $7.6 billion .

Candy Crush Maker King Sets IPO Valuation As High As $7.6 Billion

The prevailing skepticism about tech IPOs is that frothy valuations sans profits are contributing to a bubble. Yet King Digital Entertainment, maker of the highly addictive game Candy Crush Saga is one of the few big mobile companies posting hefty revenues and profits ahead of its own IPO.

The Secret To Yahoo's Latest News App: One Teenager's Old School Approach

News has traditionally been told by a voice of authority, hence why so many people instinctively believed Thursday's Newsweek’s story claiming to unmask the founder of Bitcoin. Of course when that authority lacks a strong foundation of facts, it’s vulnerable to being ripped apart by the Internet -- precisely what has happened to the 81-year-old Newsweek in the last 24 hours.

Apple Reportedly Plans To Open Siri To Third Parties (Just As Hackers Force It Open)

For anyone that wants Siri to do more than set iCal appointments and dictate messages, there may be hope beyond a hack. is reportedly working on allowing third-party services to integrate with Siri so that the iPhone’s digital assistant can carry out tasks -- book flights or send texts on other messaging apps -- which go beyond the services Apple can provide. Currently Siri syncs to other services with whom Apple has made business arrangements, such as Wolfram Alpha or Open table, but future integrations wouldn't require painstaking deals according to the report from tech news service The Information.

Inside The Facebook-WhatsApp Megadeal: The Courtship, The Secret Meetings, The $19 Billion Poker Game

"Get together?"

Exclusive: The Rags-To-Riches Tale Of How Jan Koum Built WhatsApp Into Facebook's New $19 Billion Baby

Jan Koum picked a meaningful spot to sign the $19 billion deal to sell his company WhatsApp to Facebook earlier today. Koum, cofounder Brian Acton and venture capitalist Jim Goetz of Sequoia drove a few blocks from WhatsApp’s discreet headquarters in Mountain View to a disused white building across the  railroad tracks, the former North County Social Services office where Koum, 37, once stood in line to collect food stamps. That’s where the three of them inked the agreement to sell their messaging phenom –which brought in a miniscule $20 million in revenue last year — to the world’s largest social network.