By Rick Webb 2/28/12 10:07am

Caught In The Webb

Mr. Webb.

Why You Can Blame Your Inability to Find an iOS Developer on VCs

Rick Webb co-founded The Barbarian Group, a digital ad agency, and is now a writer and angel investor in the tech industry.

I meet all sorts of people starting new companies. A ton of them are starting hot new tech startups and are out there looking for funding and often succeeding. Many more are starting much-needed service firms in high tech—providing much-needed services along the lines of iOS app development, web development, marketing, PR, content creation, and backend development. There are massively talented people in both types of companies. They do the same work. They hang out together, they have the same skills. They need each other.

Yet one segment of them have the potential to earn millions, and the other doesn’t.

It makes no sense. Read More

By Foster Kamer 1/31/12 6:56pm

THE INNOCENCE OF YOUTH

Cares about you, kind of. Not really.

Mark Zuckerberg, Pre-IPO: ‘I Don’t Really Like Putting A Price-Tag On The Stuff I Do’

Well, Facebook is probably going to file for an IPO tomorrow. In the event you haven’t already been bombarded with this news and don’t know what it means, it means that Facebook is going to go to the stock market, and soon you—or anyone—will be able to own an over-hyped, overvalued piece of The Most Famous Social Network Basically Ever.

Seeing as how this is the case, there seems to be no better time than to bring forth the quotable Mark Zuckerberg on the matter of selling out. Read More

By Foster Kamer 12/29/11 3:44pm

IP Uh Oh

groupon-cat-360

2011 in Social Media IPOs: The Winners, The Losers, and The Winningest Losers

In 2011, Wall Street caught friending fever. It was a hell of a year for social media IPOs, as investment banks welcomed themselves into the money-hungry arms of Computer Nerds, Many Of Whom Should Have But Didn’t Know Better. Of course, there were a few winners that weren’t said banks, as well as a few you’ve never heard of. In 2012, Facebook will lead one of the largest tech IPOs pretty much ever, and the largest year of tech IPOs since 1999. What did we learn? Mostly, that for every bet, there’s a sucker who’s as desperate for money as most people apparently are for friends. So:

Who won, who lost, and who debuted on the market without anyone really knowing? Read More

By Foster Kamer 12/14/11 1:46pm

IP Uh Oh

Zynga IPO Rated a ‘Buy’ by Guy Who’s Been Correct About Tech IPOs Before and Quotes Mark Cuban

Haven’t you heard? Zynga is the latest awesome(ly hyped) tech company to go for the IPO gold. The last big hyped tech IPO, you may have also heard of, it didn’t do so well. More than a few of the hyper-hyped tech IPOs from 2011 haven’t done so well, either. So if one of the guys who was naysaying the tech IPO euphoria correctly comes out and says to buy Zynga, we’d be interested to hear what they have to say.

Meet Richard Greenfield. Read More

By Foster Kamer 12/07/11 3:37pm

IP Uh Oh

What's the term IPO MANIA worth in Words With Friends scoring?

The Zynga Pre-IPO Alec Baldwin Effect Question: Answered, Affirmatively

Yesterday, the world took note of a revolution brewed in the skies—or ten feet from an airport gate—when Glengarry Glen Ross actor Alec Baldwin stood up for an entire populace of belligerent, gadget-tethered humans and revolted against the oppressive goosestepping of flight attendants who want you to turn your iPad off when airplanes taxi out of runways. He did it by refusing to stop playing Zynga’s ‘Scrabble’-copycat, Words With Friends. Read More

By Foster Kamer 11/29/11 12:30pm

RUMZYNGA!

ZYNGA DOG IS NOT THE NEW GROUPON CAT?

The Best ‘Zynga Guys’ Story Ever Got Buried by the Times

On Sunday, the New York Times’ Dealbook finance vertical—increasingly focused on tech IPOs, naturally—unrolled a monster story by writer Evelyn M. Rusli about just how toxic the culture of Zynga can be to employees, and how it’s hurt the company’s potential growth opportunities. It’s an utterly fantastic read. But—as one Betabeat tipster pointed out to us—the best moment in the piece was missed by many, because it was buried in the 29th paragraph, in a story with 38 paragraphs. Read More

By Foster Kamer 11/23/11 1:59pm

GROUPOCALYPSE NOW!

groupon-cat-360

The Inevitable Groupon Stock Apocalypse is Here, and The Face Of It is Some Drunk Kid We Met at a House Party

Remember that time that one daily deals company IPO’d, and everyone was really excited about it, except for those crazy, mean naysayers (like Google searches for it) who were like, “this will not end well because Groupon is basically a very sophisticated Ponzi scheme” and made flow charts that may have suggested this?

Well, guess what? Today, those people are eating Correct Sandwiches for lunch. Read More