LivingSocial - $200m raise not IPO

Daily online deals startup LivingSocial might delay filing its initial public offering in favor of a new $200 million funding round, according to a Bloomberg report citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter.
The fact that both LivingSocial and rival Groupon are rethinking their IPO strategies could signal a slow down in the market demand for daily deals across the board.
T
he potential round, which would value LivingSocial at $6 billion, could include both equity and debt, according to the report. Investment for the new round would come from existing and new investors.
Previously, LivingSocial was discussing an IPO valued at more than $10 billion. However, the stock market slump that began in July is causing the company to rethink its strategy.

Daily deals company Groupon has also been rethinking its strategy toward going public because of market conditions and questions of whether the company will successfully sustain a profit in the future (Groupon has yet to turn a profit since launching in 2008). Also, both Facebook and Yelp have scaled by their own daily deals efforts, reinforcing the notion that daily deals demand is declining.
Washington D.C.-based LivingSocial has pulled in $632 million in funding to date.

The company was not available for immediate comment about the potential funding round.

Greatness - its in your grasp

US Defence Spending $$$

thank you www.theday.co.uk - explaining matters

The future of newspapers

This is a lot of fun as it imagines what a newspaper reading experience might be like in the (near) future.

New York Times R&D Lab: The kitchen table of the Future from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

Apple on a role

Apple is on a phenomenal role right now.  Revenues rose to $28.6bn in the quarter, up from $15.7bn last year, while profits soared to $7.3bn, more than twice as much as in the same quarter in 2010.


Most exciting is the fact that two thirds of the computer company's revenues are now coming from mobile devices which did not exist four years ago. Thats just incredible. 

Where to next for the mighty Apple? into the cloud

LivingSocial next deal of the day service to IPO?

 Kate Kelly at CNBC just reported LivingSocial — a Groupon-like daily-discount company — is in the process of picking bankers for its IPO.

Here are the details, as reported by CNBC:

• An IPO could value LivingSocial at $10 billion to $15 billion.

• LivingSocial is likely to pick a banker by the end of the week.

• LivingSocial is expected to reach $1 billion in revenue this year, and they expect to be free cash flow positive by 2012.

China in Africa

Two centuries ago, Napoleon observed: "China is a sleeping giant, but when she wakes she will shake the world."

Certainly the case it Africa where an estimated 1 million Chinese now live

China is redefining the continent's economic landscape and gradually displacing the influence and relevance of western governments, corporations and development agencies.

Beijing now lends more to Africa than the World Bank does.

Trinity Mirror Exec Pay

The heat has finally been turned on Trinity Mirror CEO Sly Bailey by shareholders regarding her executive pay. As the article in the ST stated the size of her pay is completely out of wack with the (current) size of the business.

It may well be time for Ms Bailey to do the right thing and re balance her pay package to the size of business she has presided over for the last 10 years.

Shrinking business should equal shrinking executive pay.

I doubt it will in this case but it should.

Facebook hits a wall

Facebook has seen "big traffic drops" in the U.S. and Canada, even while it slowly closes in on 700 million members globally, according to Inside Facebook<http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/06/12/facebook-sees-big-traffic-drops-in-us-and-canada-as-it-nears-700-million-users-worldwide/>, which monitors membership rates of the social network.
The behavior of the social network's North American and (some) European membership suggests its growth potential in these nations is now limited. And that's potentially a big detriment to a Facebook IPO.
And this news on the day that Facebook IPO rumored<http://www.cnbc.com/id/43378490/> to be at $100bn valuation

Ad Placement (not funny)

Nokia and Apple friends again?

Nokia And Apple Bury The Hatchet, Settle Patent Suit http://cnt.to/os5

high50 launches

I am delighted to announce the launch of high50.

Its taken rather longer than we expected (3.5 years) but good things come to those that wait dont they? And over a million more people have turned 50 in the meantime so the delay isnt all bad.

So for those of you who have made it through the last half-century in reasonable shape and are looking forward to the next. Join us.

A big thank you to web wizard Toby Kay for all his hard work and the genius that is (Beta).

Apple arrives in the cloud

For those of us hard at work on developing cloud products that make it easy to access data from any device it was great to see Mr Steve Jobs unveil iCloud.

Following hard on footsteps of Google and Amazon Apple are
the latest 'big beast' to offer consumers the ease and convenience of storing data in the cloud and the ability to access it from any device.

Its a great space and one that will radically improve the way we manage our personal content and our media.

I can think of no better space to be in right now.

Groupon Q1 revenues blast

Groupon 2011 Q1 revenues of $645m, almost as much as for the whole of 2010 at $713m (FT)

Where are the true believers?

Startup fundraising isn't about convincing skeptics but rather finding true believers.

Twitter buys Tweetdeck

Taking out another potential competitor, Twitter has reportedly acquired TweetDeck for more than $40 million in cash and stock.

Apple dominates profits with 57% profit share in Mobiles globally

With 19% smartphone (Canalys) market share, and 5% Mobiles (IDC) market share, Apple takes a disproportionate 45% of the industry profits.

Blackberry (25% of Industry Margins), HTC (15%), Samsung (12%) and Nokia (8%) complete the list.

Microsoft to buy Nokia!

Microsoft rumoured to be negotiating to buy Nokia's phone business. Watch this space

Trinity Mirror continues to struggle

Trinity Mirror has reported a 10% fall in advertising revenue in the year to 1 May and warned of the continuing challenging and fragile economic environment facing newspaper publishers.

The Times iPad

Twenty-five thousand people read The Times on iPad each day. Its stablemate The Sunday Times counts 22,000 readers, including two million iPad page views.