Grassroots Investing

English: Diagram of the typical financing cycle for a startup company. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

FundersClub Wants To Bypass VC And Let YOU Invest In Startups

If this all sounds like it could usher in a new era of investment, that indicates only that you are still sane. Yesterday it may have taken $20,000 or $250,000 to invest in a startup. Not it takes just $1,000 and a solid nest egg. What’s more, hedge funds, real estate investing, or lending could be the next financial systems upended by a startup like FundersClub.

It used to be called the friends and family round. It still is.

But the idea that you can go out there to raise first few thousand dollars is inherently liberating. You raise money out there from the get go. Small sums from a bunch of people.

There's room for many crowdfunding startups. FundersClub seems to yet another promising entry into the space.

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An Athlete's Racist Tweet

Coat of arms of Greece since 7 June 1975. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Greek Athlete Kicked Off Olympic Team For Tweet

She tweeted, “with so many Africans in Greece, at least the West Nile mosquitos will be eating food from their own home.”

Free speech is protected but racist tweets bringing social ostracism is a good thing. This was a good move on the part of the nation of Greece.

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Pando Monthly: Finding The Groove

Sarah Lacy (Photo credit: jdlasica)

Drama and Mike Arrington go together, or did when he was a blogger. His selling of TechCrunch to AOL to a lot of TechCrunch oldies breaking off from the mothership when he got fired from AOL: drama.

Pando Daily entered a crowded space. It got funding, alright. It had talent, fine. But the space was crowded. But I saw room for some long form journalism. And Pando Monthly fits the bill. Although I have yet to watch any of the Pando Monthly videos, it feels like a Charlie Rose thing.

PandoMonthly Presents: A Fireside Chat with Ben Horowitz

Pando Monthly is the most outstanding thing Pando Daily has done so far. It is an innovation.

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Path Maneuvres

PandoMonthly - March 2012 - Sarah Lacy Interviews Path's Dave Morin (Photo credit: thekenyeung)

Path started out by saying it is insane you can have 5,000 friends. 50 should be it. And it started out by being mobile only. That second might be a bigger differentiator than the first, if you are talking Path and Facebook. Hopping onto Android was a pretty big move. By now the app is in a sound place.

Path Debuts Version 2.5: Bigger Photos And Videos, Book And Movie Sharing, New ‘Nudge’ Feature

Good thing the "Poke" Facebook is not going after the "Nudge" Path. I guess we are not talking Apple and Samsung.

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Wikileaks And SOPA

Image via CrunchBase

I see a connection between the two. In both cases the traditional nation state felt threatened, or still does.

The NYT’s Bill Keller on why we should defend WikiLeaks

Internet technology is bringing about a fundamental rethink on the relationship between the individual and the state. And state actors often times act defensive. The embrace part is when politicians use social media.

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Amazon-Apple

Image via CrunchBase

Amazon is a sturdy property. Jeff Bezos some have talked as the next Steve Jobs. But 12 years ago it would have been very hard to imagine the two companies would ever cross paths. The two have inexorable moved toward each other's turfs.

Apple-Amazon War Heats Up

Amazon's Kindle App was recently the fifth-most downloaded free iPad app of all time, according to Apple. And Amazon sells a substantial number of iPods and iPhones on its namesake website. ..... Apple and Amazon have a common and key weapon: unparalleled data about their customers, particularly their credit-card numbers.

Will Amazon build a smartphone? How can it not? Amazon should perform a similar price trick as did with the Kindle Fire. That would be an instant differentiator.

But this is not two dimensional chess. It can be argued this is four dimensional chess. Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook. Each has or will have a smartphone. We live in the age of mobile.

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