Category: Tech news

Nokia this morning announced the launch of two dirt cheap phones, the Nokia 101 and Nokia 100, which the company says are its most affordable phones to date.

Priced only 25 euros ($35) and 20 euros ($30), respectively, that should hardly be a surprise.

Of course, ‘dirt cheap’ is relative – the feature phones are meant for people in countries where phones have to be this inexpensive to even be considered for purchase (large parts of Africa and Asia, in particular).

“We recognize that for many of the next billion people, a phone purchase is an investment. People are looking for a phone that offers great features but also one that is dependable,” said Mary McDowell, EVP, Mobile Phones, Nokia.

The Nokia 101 is a dual SIM device that enables users to connect to two different networks to receive calls and messages, helping them manage costs and maintain decent coverage without the need for multiple phones. It comes with an FM radio, MP3 player and a 103 phon loudspeaker, and provides support for up to 16 GB microSD memory cards.

The phone will be available in the third quarter of 2011 and comes in black and red.

The Nokia 100 is a rudimentary color display phone with an FM radio. It will be available in the fourth quarter of 2011 and comes in blue, pink, black and red.

Both the Nokia 101 and Nokia 100 offer Nokia Life Tools (albeit limited to selected markets) and Nokia Money (in India), providing access to locally-relevant information on healthcare, education, agriculture and entertainment.

Both handsets are based on the Series 30 operating system and can support up to five separate address books and store personalization details for up to five different SIM cards.

Last month, Fujitsu in Japan unveiled the IS12T, announced as the world’s first cell phone running on Windows Phone 7.5 aka Mango. And the country’s second biggest mobile carrier (and exclusive provider of the handset) KDDI au, didn’t lose much time: the IS12T became available today over here (here‘s Fujitsu’s official press release in English from today).

As we reported previously, the Mango handset comes with a 3.7-inch LCD with 800×480 resolution, a 13.2MP CMOS camera, a water- and shock-proof body, 32GB internal memory, a microUSB port, IEEE 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (no tethering), DLNA support, GSM/CDMA, etc.

There are nine languages for the UI, and the IS12T is available in three “neon” colors (citrus, black, magenta).

I went to the only cell phone store in my neighborhood to have a look at the handset today, but unfortunately, I got to take just a few pictures (see above) and play around with it for a few minutes before I had to leave (no pictures-no videos policy).

My initial impression was that the phone itself felt light and thin, but also extremely cheap and plasticky (I couldn’t give Xbox Live, the Internet Explorer and other apps a spin because Wi-Fi and 3G were turned off – in the few minutes I played with it, the UI felt great).

Price-wise, the IS12T is positioned on the higher end of the spectrum for phones in Japan: the store (and every other retailer, for that matter) sells the phone for up to $955 (but with drastic discounts under certain circumstances). So if Fujitsu really starts selling the handset outside Japan (they do have international plans), don’t expect this to be a budget model.

Music search and discovery company SoundHound has inked a deal with digital music service provider Spotify to enable SoundHound users in Europe to instantly access the latter’s catalogue (of over 15 million tracks). From the sound of it, the partnership doesn’t enable users outside of Europe to cross that particular bridge just yet.

Starting today, SoundHound users on iOS and Android devices who also subscribe to Spotify Premium will be given the option to ‘Play Now in Spotify’ after identifying a song through the music discovery and recognition service. That goes for users of both the free and the paid SoundHound apps.

SoundHound users in Europe who don’t subscribe to Spotify Premium will be redirected to a page inviting them to become Spotify users before proceeding to listen to the track.

A direct Shazam (Encore) competitor, SoundHound’s ‘Sound2Sound’ technology searches sound against sound, thus bypassing traditional sound-to-text conversion techniques.

Headquartered in San Jose, California, SoundHound is backed by Global Catalyst Partners, TransLink Capital, Walden Venture Capital, and other Silicon Valley investors.

Inuit’s GoPayment reader, which competes directly with Square, is making a significant move in the mobile payments space today, partnering with Verizon Wireless to sell its credit card readers in Verizon Wireless’ 2,300 retail stores and business-to-business sales channels.

Launched two years ago, GoPayment offers a complimentary app and credit card reader to allow small businesses to conduct charges via their smartphones. GoPayment is available for iOS, Android and Blackberry phones and the card reader simply plugs into the audio jack of a phone or tablet. The credit card data is also encrypted, (and never stored on the phone).

Now, GoPayment will be offered in retail outlets and on Verizon Wireless’ website for $29.97 but you can receive the reader for free with activation of a GoPayment account and a mail-in rebate for the purchase price. Similar to Square, the GoPayment mobile payment app is free and the basic service has no monthly, transaction or cancellation fees, and offers a 2.7 percent rate for swiped transactions. Intuit and Square actually both eliminated the per transaction fee.

While Square’ reader has been free for some time now, it was only in the past year that Intuit shifted its model to offer the its GoPayment card reader for free. A paid version of GoPayment is also available for more high-use businesses for $12.95 a month and provides rate of 1.7 percent for swiped transactions. With the partnership, Intuit is offering Verizon Wireless customers two months of free service when they select this monthly paid plan.

Verizon says that customers who purchase a smartphone for their GoPayment use will need to subscribe to a Verizon Wireless Nationwide Talk plan beginning at $39.99 for monthly access. Tablet and smartphone users require a data package starting at $30 monthly access for 2GB of data.

Chris Hylen, general manager of Intuit’s Payment Solutions division, frames the partnership around attracting small businesses that are using Verizon Wireless’s smartphones or tablets. And a move to Verizon makes sense considering that the carrier features the iPhone, Android phones and BlackBerries. It’s also important to note that this is GoPayment’s second retail availability—Intuit’s reader is available on Apple’s retail site (as is Square and VeriFone). For basis of comaprison, Square’s device is selling at the Apple store for $9.95 but users get a $10 square credit when they sign up for an account.

Hylen explains: “Rather than lose out on potential business, anyone who sells a product or a service can now easily and affordably give their customers the option of paying with plastic…GoPayment is meeting a huge need and is one of the fastest growing mobile payment solutions in the market. With Verizon Wireless, we’ll help even more people discover that they too can process credit card payments on the phones or tablets they already own.”

Of course, a vote of confidence by a carrier as popular as Verizon is sure to help GoPayment remain competitive with Square, who took an investment from Visa recently, as well as VeriFone and other smaller players like Erply.

Hylen tells us that there are number of reasons to choose GoPayment over competitors, including Intuit’s ‘trusted brand,’ the company’s ‘focus on consumers,’ 24-hour customer service support, security, and most importantly, the integration with Intuit’s immensely popular accounting software Quickbooks. GoPayment can also sync transactions with recent versions of QuickBooks. GoPayment also supports up to 50 users on one account, which is ideal for businesses with multiple employees who work in the field.

GoPayment is actually one of Intuit’s fastest growing businesses and Hylen says the service is on track to process over $1 billion in transactions for the year. Intuit declined to reveal how many businesses are using GoPayment but did say that customer acquisition has gone up by eight times since January.

Intuit says that it will consider similar partnerships in the future. I will say that the whole rebate trap does throw me off a bit, and considering that many people forget to send in their rebates, the credit option that Square adopted with their Apple deal seems like a better fit for the consumer. But there’s no doubt that an endorsement from a carrier is a win for Intuit’s GoPayment and should help boost usage.

CouchSurfing International is one of those rare Web companies– like Mozilla or Craigslist– that has eschewed the normal Silicon Valley values of growth, greed and venture capital. Started in 2004 and smaller than some for-profit iterations it inspired, the company has turned away investment offers for years, happy to focus on doing right by its community of three million or so surfers. Its user profile contains questions like “What is your personal mission in life?”

It’s one of those startups that uses the word “community” to mean people that have lasting, real-world connections to one another, not just the new industry jargon for “eyeballs.”

And its CEO Daniel Hoffer still talks a bit like a man running a combination of an ashram or an online dating service: “We specialize in creating meaningful connections.”

But as of today, CouchSurfing is going all corporate on us. B Corporate to be specific. The company is announcing a $7.6 million round of funding and its transition from a nonprofit to a B Corporation. B Corporations are a relatively new classification that allow socially responsible companies to function like a for-profit company, but they’re regularly audited by a certifying body that decides whether they’re living up to their do-gooding promises at the same time.

The dual-bottom-line approach is echoed by who their investors are: Socially responsible Omidyar Ventures and the more classic VC Benchmark Capital.

The big question I had for Hoffer: Didn’t you just embrace the worst of both worlds? Now you have investors to answer to, and no matter how warm and fuzzy they may be, they are investors who will want a big return. Investors are going to want to see a hell of a lot more user growth than three million users over six years, and could push the company towards business models that could make that community balk. Meantime, CouchSurfing is still holding itself up as a company trying to do something good, not simply provide a service or utility. It can never brush aside user concerns with “we have to do what’s best for the business.”

He brushed such concerns aside saying, “I think the best possible structure is the one we have. One of the challenges with nonprofits is it’s difficult to adapt quickly and easily from a business model perspective because you need clearance from the IRS. Now we get that flexibility and we’re still making a statement.”

The message he hopes comes across loud and clear to his community: “We are the same organization we have always been; we are merely changing our legal structure.” For instance, he insists CouchSurfing will still be about free accommodations, and that the company will find other ways to make money. To date, it has charged only for doing background checks on guests and hosts.

Some things will of course change. The company which has been appropriately virtual and nomadic until now is moving to a proper headquarters in San Francisco and will aggressively hire engineers. Indeed, one of the big reasons they decided to take funding and switch the company’s classification was to make it easier to recruit stock-option seeking engineers.

And one can only hope some of that money will go towards contingency plans for any Airbnb-like meth-head episodes. Like Airbnb several months ago, CouchSurfing boasts a stellar track record of millions of visits without nefarious incidents. But the question of whether that scales as the company grows is– like anything in social media– an open one. Matt Cohler of Benchmark Capital– who is joining CouchSurfing’s board– noted that people raised the same fears about meeting people over online dating networks and social networks back in the day. I countered that those people aren’t necessarily immediately sleeping on your couch.

Both Cohler and Hoffer pointed to the existing reputation systems already in place on the site. Additionally, part of the outrage surrounding the Airbnb episodes was that unlike Craigslist or CouchSurfing people were paying for the service, so there was an expectation of higher scrutiny. Either way, I imagine it’s a question users will ask as CouchSurfing seeks to expand its audience.

The most amazing thing about Steve Jobs and the revival of Apple he engineered over the last 15 years is so improbable it is. Most of the digital innovations that have transformed our lives have been logical outgrowth of increasing power and decreasing cost of semiconductors. Someone was going to invent personal computers, cell phones, the Internet, even search engines.

But there was nothing the slightest bit inevitable about a company whose digital products are perceived as so distinctive they attract dominant market shares despite premium prices. As recently as 2002, personal computers were seen as such a commodity business—dominated by high volume and low costs—that Hewlett Packard paid $25 billion to buy Compaq and vault past Dell to be the No. 1 in the market. Last week, HP, still the leader, said it is considering abandoning PCs altogether, at least partially a concession that Apple was taking an increasing share of the market and most of the profits.

I haven’t been a Mac user since I sold my first generation model—with 128K of memory and one floppy drive. But I recently walked into an Apple store and fondled the latest MacBook Air. I was blown away by how the use of multi-touch gestures and a few other innovations transformed the experience of this very mature category of products. Again.

The succession of new products from the iPod to the iPhone to the iPad has become the business lore of our age. A keynote by Steve Jobs is anticipated, at least by many, more eagerly than the State of the Union address. Even aspects of the computer business that most rivals see as—product sourcing, manufacturing process, and even retail store operations—have become areas of disruptive innovation at Apple.

Jobs created a growing snowball of innovation, hype, customer loyalty, and scale that could be seen with astounding force in the iPad. Here was a product category that was entirely new (except for some regrettable Microsoft missteps). But instantly it was a hit—not just among gadget geeks—but with tens of millions of people who saw something that immediately appeared useful and alluring. They trusted that Apple could deliver something that would just work without the glitches and disappointments that dependably accompany the first generation of products from lesser companies.

Behind this success was not an engineer, like the troika that until recently led Google, nor a professional manager, like the succession of leaders at HP, nor even an entrepreneur like Michael Dell.  Steve Jobs was an impresario, in the tradition, more than anything, of a classic Hollywood studio boss (which he also was in his spare time). It’s fitting that Jobs is now the largest individual shareholder of the company founded by one of the 20th Century’s all time great perfectionists: Walt Disney.

This approach didn’t make apple a pleasant company to deal with or to work at. Everyone at Apple worked with the anxiety that they must meet the impossible demands of Jobs or endure his anger. To the public and even to Apple’s biggest partners the company was about as responsive as Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory; no one ever went in and no one ever came out. And yes to work at Apple was to accept the lot of an Oompa Loompa. The company took secrecy to such an extreme that employees were divided into small groups and ordered not to talk to each other, let alone anyone outside of the company.

My one encounter with Jobs was true to form. In 2004, I had just started covering consumer electronics, and I was writing about the battle between iTunes and Microsoft’s initiative at the time “Plays for Sure,” an effort to create an open standard for music formats. This was before Apple’s reputation—and the arrogance it enabled– blew past all previous records. Still, when I asked Jobs at the end of a press conference to discuss Apple’s strategy in the music market, he blew me off saying “We don’t like to talk about that.”

We all know lots of people who are nice. We know many people who are smart. We’ve seen a bunch of corporate leaders who have the rare combination of skills to surf the waves spawned by Moore’s Law. But it’s hard to think of anyone besides Steve Jobs who through the sheer force of will, self-confidence, vision and perfectionism could upend the powerful forces of technology to make so many products that delighted so many people precisely because they were improbable.

There really should be no argument when I say that a case for your iPhone 4 is nothing short of necessary. Unless you’ve got cash to burn, the iPhone is just too damn expensive to leave unprotected. The only problem is that most of them make your phone pretty clunky, which sucks since Apple works hard to make the iPhone as slim as possible. Unfortunately, the only trade-off for all the heft is protection against impact. But what if you drop your iPhone in the toilet?

The folks at Catalyst have an answer for you: EscapeCapsule.

This thing is more than just a tough exo-skeleton. Made from a high-impact clear polycarbonate, the case protects against water, rain, snow, sand, mud, impacts, scratches… everything. Did I mention water? You can also double-check whether or not the case is securely sealed around the phone through the clear shell.

Catalyst says the phone’s hardware buttons are protected through a specially designed membrane, as is the touchscreen. The camera works surprisingly well with the cover on, proof of which can be found in the video on the project’s Kickstarter page. The case also comes with an attached lanyard to go around your wrist while you’re playing in the ocean with your iPhone. Because with the EscapeCapsule, you can play in the ocean with your iPhone. Crazy.

The case comes in a number of colors, but if you make a pledge on Kickstarter you’ll get Catalyst’s Kickstarter-only edition Capsule — a green case with a white glow-in-the-dark rubber bumper and a glow-in-the-dark lanyard. It’ll take a $50 pledge to pre-order your very own EscapeCapsule, which is an OK deal considering Catalyst plans to sell the case for $70 when it officially becomes a reality.

As of right now, Catalyst has 28 days to reach its $30,000 funding goal. It has thus far received $3,780. Head on over to Kickstarter to check out a video of the EscapeCapsule in action.

We all know the broad strokes: a boy is born to a graduate student and her Syrian boyfriend. She places the boy for adoption. He comes to live with Paul and Clara. Paul is a machinist who moved to San Francisco after WWII. He grows up in Santa Clara county. It’s flat, lots of one story buildings, mostly middle/upper middle class, outside of the bad parts. Parts of it are pretty, parts aren’t. He wasn’t coddled. His biological mother makes his adoptive parents promise to send him to college. In fourth grade he has a great teacher and, presumably, another and another.

His parents scrape to send him to Reed. He drops out of college and starts dropping in on classes that interest him. He makes money returning bottles and he hits the Hare Krishna temple now and then for a free meal. He takes calligraphy, eschews the typical coursework, and at age 20 he and a buddy start a company.

He’s a buddhist with a temper. He cuts down rivals and builds up a team of 4,000 dedicated to his singular vision. He’s ousted, builds another company or two, and comes back. He’s kind of a hippie, enjoying Bob Dylan and the Beatles. He loves music.

He’s leaving, now, the victim of something gnawing at his health like sea spray whittles a wooden pier.

Where does that leave Apple? And where does that leave us?

I wasn’t always a Mac lover. I thought they were over-priced and pretty, the candy colors far too silly for my 486 tastes. Any chip that had the word Power in its name was overcompensating, I wagered.

But over the past decade I learned the satisfaction of a machine that just works. It’s a machine that the boy put most of his life into, a machine that has the heart of a much older thing, a thing that lay blinking and frantic in a Stanford computer lab somewhere and then, over time, shrank down to something you and I can fit into our pockets.

Many complained that the ecosystem that he created was a walled garden, but I’d equate it to a pasture. “The reason everything looks beautiful is because it is out of balance,” wrote Zen master Shunryu Suzuki. “But its background is always in perfect harmony.” In the front, anything can happen. In the back, perfect calm and order.

There is a strain of Internet thought that requires us to tear down, to refuse to see the other side. There will be plenty of that going on in the next few days as talking heads talk. But name one CEO who, on leaving his company, will raise such a wave of well-wishes and interest? When Michael Dell dodders off or Howard Stringer plops into a club chair for his final cigar, will anyone care the next day?

We all know the broad strokes: The man got sicker, he almost quit, kept at it. He embraced a successor and groomed him to be as calm a force as he once was. He kept us surprised, entertained, constantly speculating. We wondered where he was. If he was well.

We all know the broad strokes: He isn’t well. He’s stepped down. Another Buddhist (or near enough to one) said “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.”

Godspeed, Mr. Jobs. We’ll miss you on stage.

Apple’s Steve Jobs has resigned from his position as CEO and Apple has just announced that COO Tim Cook has taken over as CEO.

As COO, Cook was responsible for all of the company’s worldwide sales and operations, including end-to-end management of Apple’s supply chain, sales activities, and service and support in all markets and countries. He also headed Apple’s Macintosh division and plays a key role in the continued development of strategic reseller and supplier relationships, ensuring flexibility in response to an increasingly demanding marketplace.

Before joining Apple, Cook was vice president of Corporate Materials for Compaq and was responsible for procuring and managing all of Compaq’s product inventory. Previous to his work at Compaq, Cook was the chief operating officer of the Reseller Division at Intelligent Electronics. Cook also spent 12 years with IBM, most recently as director of North American Fulfillment where he led manufacturing and distribution functions for IBM’s Personal Computer Company in North and Latin America.

Jobs will be Chairman of the Board of Apple and Cook will take a position on the board as CEO. Jobs actually submitted his resignation to the Board today and ‘strongly recommended’ that the Board name Tim Cook as CEO.

In January, Jobs took an indefinite medical leave of absence from the company, and while he remained as CEO, Cook took on the day-to-day operations for Apple.

Jobs’ previous medical history includes Pancreatic cancer as well as a liver transplant. In 2004, Jobs contracted Pancreatic Cancer, which he beat. Then Jobs underwent a liver transplant in 2009, and also made a full recovery. During Jobs’ absence in 2009, then COO Tim Cook took over Apple’s day-to-day activities.

Check out my colleague MG Siegler’s analysis from January: A Few Thoughts On Apple’s 2011, Stock, Tim Cook, And The Future

The full release is below:

Apple’s Board of Directors today announced that Steve Jobs has resigned as Chief Executive Officer, and the Board has named Tim Cook, previously Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, as the company’s new CEO. Jobs has been elected Chairman of the Board and Cook will join the Board, effective immediately.

“Steve’s extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world’s most innovative and valuable technology company,” said Art Levinson, Chairman of Genentech, on behalf of Apple’s Board. “Steve has made countless contributions to Apple’s success, and he has attracted and inspired Apple’s immensely creative employees and world class executive team. In his new role as Chairman of the Board, Steve will continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration.”

“The Board has complete confidence that Tim is the right person to be our next CEO,” added Levinson. “Tim’s 13 years of service to Apple have been marked by outstanding performance, and he has demonstrated remarkable talent and sound judgment in everything he does.”

Jobs submitted his resignation to the Board today and strongly recommended that the Board implement its succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO.

As COO, Cook was previously responsible for all of the company’s worldwide sales and operations, including end-to-end management of Apple’s supply chain, sales activities, and service and support in all markets and countries. He also headed Apple’s Macintosh division and played a key role in the continued development of strategic reseller and supplier relationships, ensuring flexibility in response to an increasingly demanding marketplace.

Title says it all. More to come. For now, the letter from Steve Jobs himself:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

Update: Apple has confirmed that Apple COO Tim Cook will replace Jobs as CEO, following Jobs’ own recommendation. Considering that Cook has filled in for Jobs in the times of his medical leaves (including the one he has been on this year), this has been widely expected if and when it came time for Jobs to step down.

Also as requested, Jobs has been elected as Chairman of the Board and will remain with the company in that capacity. Cook will join the Board as well.

Sometimes the need to test outweighs the need for total secrecy. I’m going to assume Color CEO Bill Nguyen shares that belief. The past two days his Facebook stream has been filled with some seemingly bland pictures. But they’re not bland — they’re test pictures. And they’re sent from a new app called “Blue”.

I don’t know much about the app itself, but I was able to dig up a little bit of information — including the logo above. Judging from the name alone, I think it would be pretty safe to assume that this is at least one of the new projects the Color Labs team is working on after Color itself fizzled out.

And there’s a bit more hinting at this being Color’s next project — namely that many of the developers listed on the Blue app Facebook page work at Color (and a number work at Apple as well, where Nguyen worked prior to Color Labs). The app currently has 29 monthly active users listed.

A bit more: it appears that they settled on the “Blue” name recently after using the codename “TestJckJck” (seriously) for several weeks. You can find that Facebook app here, again with several Color/Apple people as developers.

Nguyen has been testing TestJckJck on his own profile for some time now. Blue certainly has a better ring to it.

My guess right now is that Blue is a new mobile app with deep ties into Facebook Photos. That’s interesting since Facebook may be working on their own stand-alone app in that regard. Earlier today, Nick Bilton reported that Facebook was readying a range of photo filters to use in a mobile app. This may all be related somehow.

One more thing: the URL for Blue for Facebook contains “bluecolor”.

Update: We’ve since confirmed with multiple sources that Blue will indeed be Color’s next app.

Today, mobile payments company Boku is launching direct carrier billing agreements with two of the largest mobile carriers in France— Bouygues Telecom and SFR, offering over 32 million French customers the ability to pay for virtual goods and services using only their existing wireless service account.

Historically, mobile payments companies face the challenge of lofty carrier rates. Wireless carriers have charged roughly 30% to 40% to process transactions made via mobile phone accounts, making it very difficult for mobile payment companies like Boku to scale beyond virtual goods. These transactions costs are passed down to developers using Boku, which are then passed to the consumer. To avoid these costs, Boku has been negotiating direct relationships with carriers as a way of possibly avoiding these costs. While the company declined to reveal the financial terms of the agreements, Boku says the France rates are similar to those negotiated in the U.S. and Germany.

These deals give Boku nearly 100% coverage of the French mobile market, which is nearly 50 million mobile subscribers total. Bouygues Telecom and SFR are actually launching a new service, called Internet + Mobile, allowing consumers to purchase goods online and use Boku to pay with their mobile phone number. Boku says the purchase process only requires two-clicks and gives online merchants access to a full range of price points of up to 10 Euros.

Direct carrier relationships only serve to reinforce the strength of and demand for mobile payments for companies like Boku and competitor Zong. And Zong was actually acquired by eBay earlier this year, for $240 million. Companies have also been eyeing Boku and the company has reportedly become a possible acquisition target for both Google and Apple.

Social enterprise giant Jive has just filed its S-1, and will raise as much as $100 million in the offering.

Modeled to offer Facebook-like features to enterprises, Jive’s software combines computing with social collaboration to offer fully-featured social networks for businesses. Its suite of applications help businesses collaborate on a variety of tasks, including holding discussions, communication, sharing documents, blogging, running polls, and social networking features and more.

Some of the key information in the filing relates to revenue. For the years ended December 31, 2008, 2009 and 2010, and for the six months ended June 30, 2011, Jive’s total revenues were $16.9 million, $30.0 million, $46.3 million and $34.0 million, respectively.

The company actually took a loss in 2008, 2009, 2010 and the six month period ending in June 2011. Losses appeared to actually increase—the company lost $27.6 million in 2010, and $30.6 million this year. The company says that it is continuing to invest revenue back into infrastructure, development of and sales and marketing, and expects operating expenses to increase significantly.

Jive also says that it is in the process of transitioning its customer data centers from a third-party service provider to a co-located facility managed by Jive’s own network operations team, which will require significant capital.

As of June 30, 2011, Jive has 635 enterprise customers, including Hewlett-Packard Company, SAP AG, T-Mobile and UBS AG, with over 15 million users. The company currently had 358 employees as of June 30, 2011.

Jive says that it plans to use the proceeds of the offering to pay down outstanding loans ($20 million) and towards general corporate purposes, including working capital and potential acquisitions.

In terms of investment, Jive has raised a total of $57 million, and the company’s largest investor Sequoia Capital owns over a third of Jive (36 percent). Kleiner Perkins owns 14.24 percent of Jive.

If you’ve ever roved around Facebook’s developer forums, you may have noticed that — aside from being loaded with complaints and bug reports — they’re pretty basic. There’s nothing wrong with them per se, but they feel like a pretty generic forum install, and not a hub for developers on one of the web’s most popular web platforms.

Today, Facebook is announcing how it’s going to fix the situation: it’s abandoning its old forums, which it says are “showing their age”, and launching a custom site on Stack Overflow, the Q&A hub that’s very popular with programmers (and is loaded with helpful content). You can find the new site at facebook.stackoverflow.com.

The benefits from the swap are obvious. Stack Overflow has a robust reputation system, a more structured Q&A platform, and is generally easier to sift through.

Stack Exchange is the parent company of Stack Overflow, which is one of a network of 60+ Q&A portals. In a post discussing the news, Stack Exchange Chief of Staff Alex Miller writes that this the Facebook launch also marks the introduction of a new feature for the platform, which allows for the creation of custom mini-sites.

But facebook.SO isn’t just a sub-domain, it’s an entirely new feature set that we’ve been considering and working on for months. Ever since launching, we’ve gotten requests to start dedicated communities for niche programming topics, but we’ve always been hesitant to do so for fear of balkanizing the great community we already have. So we came up with a solution that provides the best of both worlds. We can now create a mini-site by selecting relevant tags (in this case, anything Facebook related) and grouping together just the content from those tags. When you visit a mini-site, you’ll see only the content from those tags. Not only will you be able to see only questions related to Facebook, but the reputation on the user ranking pages will also only show reputation earned on questions tagged Facebook.

We’re through, GameStop.

I turned a blind eye when you offered me peanuts for a game that you were still slinging used for bucks shy of full retail. I shrugged it off when your employees endlessly pressured me to pre-order games that I didn’t want every time I set foot in the store. I laughed when I was turned away for trying to buy a new release on launch day sans preorder, only to have a copy miraculously appear as I went to leave. These were all prices I was willing to pay, I figured, to support one of the last remaining brick and mortar game stores.

But breaking the seal on brand new copies of games to take out (valuable!) things you don’t like, then selling the game as new? Yeah, I quit you.

Here’s the deal:

Yesterday morning, a long awaited title called Deus Ex: Human Revolution was finally released to an eager audience. Tucked inside the box was a little surprise: a coupon for a free copy of the same game through the still relatively new game streaming service, OnLive — something which, if purchased directly through OnLive, would cost $49.99. At least, there was supposed to be a coupon…

The reports started trickling in fairly quickly: for some reason, the coupon seemed to be absent from nearly all copies sold through GameStop.

What had happened? Had the folks at the factory forgotten to pack some of the coupons? Nope. Had GameStop worked out a distribution deal to keep the coupons from ever finding their way into their copies? Nope.

GameStop employees had opened the boxes, removed the coupon, and put the product back on the shelf… after orders from above to do so.

The first evidence came from an e-mail acquired by GameSpy, allegedly sent by a GameStop Field Operations Manager. The key bit is bullet point #1:

“Please immediately remove and discard the OnLive coupon from all Regular PC versions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution,” it read. Surely, this couldn’t be real! A corporate command to open a sealed product, throw out something tradable for a $50 product, and act like nothing happened?

But sure enough, GameStop followed up with confirmation on Facebook after word got out:

Regarding the Deus Ex OnLive Codes: GameStop’s policy is that we do not promote competitive services without a formal partnership.
Square Enix packed a competitor’s coupon within the PC version of Deus Ex: Human Revolution without our prior knowledge and we did pull these coupons.
While the new products may be opened, we fully guarantee the condition of the discs to be new. If you find this to not be the case, please contact the store where the game was purchased and they will further assist.

Note the wording. “May be” opened? Try “are” opened. And what a guarantee! If your disc doesn’t work for some reason, they’ll give you a new ( presumably equally stripped down) copy. But if you’re just pissed that you’ve been shorted a coupon worth $50? La la la la, we can’t hear you.

The GameStop-owned service with which OnLive is a “competing service” is called Impulse, which GameStop launched back in July after acquiring Spawn Labs.

Look, GameStop: if you want to work out a deal with the distributor to get special copies without the coupons, that’s reasonable. People will still be annoyed they got shortchanged, but it’s at least not incredibly shady. But opening a sealed box, removing a coupon exchangeable for a $50 product, and then sticking it back on the shelf? Terrible. Could a customer have walked in, purchased the game, removed the coupon, and returned the box for a full refund? No? Then this is not okay.

Alas, they went with the shady route — and now they’ve gone and given OnLive far more marketing than that silly coupon ever would have.