It’s official: Yelp has now turned away more suitors than Penelope, the long-suffering wife of Odysseus.

In December, the blogosphere reeled at the announcement that Google was stepping-up to buy restaurant-review site for a cool $500 million. Not bad for Yelp, considering it brief history as a startup, nor for Google, considering its botched [...]]]>

It’s official: Yelp has now turned away more suitors than Penelope, the long-suffering wife of Odysseus.

In December, the blogosphere reeled at the announcement that Google was stepping-up to buy restaurant-review site for a cool $500 million. Not bad for Yelp, considering it brief history as a startup, nor for Google, considering its botched attempts to dominate the local review market.

Observers did a double-take a few days later when it was announced that Yelp had walked away from the offer, citing fiduciary duty. It was further disclosed that an unnamed suitor was willing to pay more than 50% above Google’s offer price. Some observers correctly predicted that the only company desperate enough to make such an offer was Microsoft, which has never balked at paying excessive prices for a piece of the social networking pie. We now know that it was, indeed, Microsoft, which approached Yelp with an offer north of $700 million.

Which Yelp rejected.

Founder Jeremy Stoppleman is now sharing more details about his vision for the company, including a distant IPO:

Yelp “will definitely not go public this year,” he said. “2011, who knows? But why rush out the door if I can avoid it?”

This disclosure suggests at least a couple of things–

1. Yelp has enough cash in the bank to make it for a while, to which its recent injection of $100 million from private equity-shop Elevation Partners certainly attests.
2. Yelp estimates its true value north of $1 billion.
3. Yelp expects the IPO market for tech startups will significantly improve after 2010.

Time will tell if Yelp’s holdout strategy will work. It is a risky business, however, considering how quickly the market can turn against review sites.

Just ask CitySearch.

Yelp CEO Doesn’t See An IPO Anytime Soon.

Twitter, however, is undaunted by such stats, and, instead, promotes the fact that its monthly number of tweets continues to climb ever higher:

But what is the value [...]]]> Concerns have recently been voiced about Twitter’s user base: churn is over 90%, and the average number of tweets sent by a Twitter user is, er, 1.

Twitter, however, is undaunted by such stats, and, instead, promotes the fact that its monthly number of tweets continues to climb ever higher:

But what is the value of a tweet? Metrics I’ve seen range from a couple of cents to a few fractions of a cent. Is Twitter selecting the data that presents it in the best possible light, while ignoring the fact that its astronomic growth rate may have peaked? And how many of the tweets in the above graph are result of spam bots?

Now that Facebook, and, more recently, Google, have gotten into the realtime microblog scene, expect to see Twitter’s user base numbers continue to erode in the months ahead.

via Twitter Is Still Growing Rapidly [STATS].

Transplanting social network success to distant shores can be damn near impossible.

Unless you’re Facebook.

Consider MySpace’s experience: pushed by Murdoch to expand its international operations, the social network opened a series of foreign offices in countries as far-flung as South Korea and Turkey. These outcroppings at the edge of the digital empire were sacrificed [...]]]>

Transplanting social network success to distant shores can be damn near impossible.

Unless you’re Facebook.

Consider MySpace’s experience: pushed by Murdoch to expand its international operations, the social network opened a series of foreign offices in countries as far-flung as South Korea and Turkey. These outcroppings at the edge of the digital empire were sacrificed early in the economic meltdown, and MySpace has since reconsidered its plans for international expansion in the post-DeWolfe era.

Now, Bebo is shutting down its Australian offices. While this will not result in any disruption to Bebo users down under, it is significant nonetheless, because it suggests that Bebo is suffering a similar fate to MySpace in that it is simply unable to compete against Facebook’s international crush:

A remarkable story from this picture is that MySpace, once heralded as the social network of our generation, will soon be reduced to the same tiny share of Bebo, a social network most Americans have never heard of before– and all because of the emergence of a relatively late entrant to the field of social networks. One wonders whether Bebo can pick up any opportunities to steal share from MySpace as both networks continue to lose ground.

Hitwise Intelligence – Alan Long – Asia Pacific.

It may be a far cry from the $15 billion valuation it received three years ago from Microsoft, but Facebook has jumped to a new valuation of $9.5 billion. While this represents a downgrade since the highs of 2006, it is a considerable win for the social networking behemoth, which saw its valuation [...]]]>

It may be a far cry from the $15 billion valuation it received three years ago from Microsoft, but Facebook has jumped to a new valuation of $9.5 billion. While this represents a downgrade since the highs of 2006, it is a considerable win for the social networking behemoth, which saw its valuation sink to $1.3 billion on the private exchanges as recently as one year after Microsoft took a stake in it.

What’s moving the stock? The fact that Facebook has continued its meteoric rise despite the global recession certainly counts for something. Chances are, however, that it has more to do with the fact that Facebook recently turned cash flow-positive. The holy grail of social networks– monetization –is beginning to happen, and investors are noticing. Also hovering in the background are persistent expectations that, as the economy continues to improve, Zuckerberg and company will have more opportunities to consider their exit strategy:

“The fact that the stock on these private exchanges moved — I’m sure that has to do with the fact that people think a deal is coming sooner rather than later,” said Bard, whose firm is based in Greenwich, Connecticut.

via Facebook Common Stock Valuation Jumps 42% to $9.5 Billion – Bloomberg.com.

Bebo recently implemented a new site button which let’s its users report priority issues:

The button is called the CEOP Report button, (CEOP stands for UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre), if you click on it, you’ll get advice and help about issues such as child abuse (but also viruses and hacking), as [...]]]>

Bebo recently implemented a new site button which let’s its users report priority issues:

The button is called the CEOP Report button, (CEOP stands for UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre), if you click on it, you’ll get advice and help about issues such as child abuse (but also viruses and hacking), as well as details on how to inform the police and CEOP.

It’s a smart move that signals to law enforcement just how serious Bebo takes child safety. The fact that it is user-driven is another plus, as it does not require Bebo to do anything other than react in a timely manner to reports coming in. Of course, there will always be users who see a predator behind every tree, but wading through the false positives is hopefully something that Bebo bore in mind prior to releasing this feature.

Will MySpace and Facebook release a similar feature? Don’t count on it. MySpace appears to be in a kind of cozy equilibrium with law enforcement, and has little reason to take a proactive measure like this unless compelled to do so. Due to its walled garden approach, Facebook also does not seem to require such a feature. Its users already seem capable of reporting such issues to the mothership without the need for additional mechanisms.

Of course, all of these sites are one ambitious politician’s press conference away from implementing significant new controls to keep their users safe.

via Bebo’s Abuse Button: Should Facebook and MySpace Follow Suit?.

A great compilation of VC questions from Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. One that particularly stood out to me concerned having a deep grasp of your economic indicators & understanding what they are really telling you about your business:

The financial statements we look at every month don’t tell us what a small business will [...]]]>

A great compilation of VC questions from Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. One that particularly stood out to me concerned having a deep grasp of your economic indicators & understanding what they are really telling you about your business:

The financial statements we look at every month don’t tell us what a small business will look like when it grows up: sure we need to account for all sorts of fixed costs like how much we spend on engineers or maps, but what really matters is whether we make more money from a customer than it costs us to get and serve that customer. So to see if a business works on a large scale, VCs first want to understand it on the smallest scale.

For us, this meant explaining what Redfin made this summer on a single home purchase, with a per-transaction account of what we spent on marketing to get customers ($27), on local data ($153), on customer service ($2,906) and so on. We also calculated how much annual revenue we got for every monthly unique visitor.

The entire list is good reading for anyone planning to start a business that will eventually require VC funding.

via Good Question! The Eight Best Questions We Got While Raising Venture Capital.

It appears that the venture capital community is remaining cautious about investing in new businesses, despite the much-trumpeted idea that the Great Recession is over. Funding is down 44% so far this year, and banks are continuing to sit atop all that capital given to them by the government.

…new business starts fell 14% [...]]]>

It appears that the venture capital community is remaining cautious about investing in new businesses, despite the much-trumpeted idea that the Great Recession is over. Funding is down 44% so far this year, and banks are continuing to sit atop all that capital given to them by the government.

…new business starts fell 14% from the third quarter of 2007 to the third quarter of 2008, and failed to rebound significantly in latest fourth quarter data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As a further sign of trouble, many business school students have been opting for safer large-firm employment instead of turning their new ideas into start-ups.

The last point is difficult to quantify. I continue to see a large number of start-up ideas coming out of business schools, but how many of these will translate into going concerns remains to be seen.

We’re not out of the woods yet.

via Don’t Bet On Job Growth From Start-Ups.