Techmeme: On Road to IPO, Shopify Raises $100M to ‘Bridge Clicks and Bricks’ (Lora Kolodny/Venture Capital Dispatch)

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December 12, 2013, 10:40 AM

Top News

Instagram Blog:

Introducing Instagram Direct — Today, we're excited to bring you Instagram Direct, a new way to send photo and video messages to friends. Over the past three years, the Instagram community has grown to over 150 million people capturing and sharing moments all around the globe.

More: VentureBeat, The Verge, TechCrunch and Phandroid

Tweets: @emilysteel, @pkafka and @jwherrman

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Instagram announces Instagram Direct, a photo and text messaging feature — At an event in New York City today, Instagram announced a new messaging feature that lets users send text and photo messages to each other privately. “Communication is not about photography, necessarily,” said CEO Kevin Systrom.

More: TechCrunch, NYT Bits, Gizmodo, The Next Web, 9to5Mac, Engadget and CNET

Tweets: @zpower, @erinbury, @anildash, @austincarr, @mikeisaac, @pkafka and @danprimack

Miyoung Kim / Reuters:

Apple scores legal victory over Samsung in South Korea — (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Thursday lost its bid to ban sales of Apple Inc's older iPhone and iPad in South Korea, as a court dismissed a lawsuit claiming the U.S. firm had infringed three of Samsung's mobile patents.

Jason Del Rey / AllThingsD:

Bitcoin's Biggest Bet: Andreessen Horowitz Leads $25 Million Investment in Coinbase — Coinbase co-founders Brian Armstrong (l) and Fred Ehrsam, sporting we-got-money grins. — If you're a bitcoin doubter, you might want to turn away. The doors to venture funding in bitcoin startups are about to swing wide open.

More: The Coinbase Blog, DealBook, TechCrunch, The Switch, The Next Web and Business Insider

Tweets: @delrey and @btcfoundation

Charles Arthur / Guardian:

iPhone 5S makes rapid start in China and hits 10% of iPhones in use, data shows — CounterPoint Research report comes before China Mobile deal, while iOS 7 adoption running faster than last year, statistics show — Apple's iPhone 5S has been a dramatic hit in China, comprising 12% of sales …

More: CNET, Counterpoint Research, Gotta Be Mobile, Forbes and Electronista

Lora Kolodny / Venture Capital Dispatch:

On Road to IPO, Shopify Raises $100M to ‘Bridge Clicks and Bricks’ … Canadian startup Shopify Inc. has raised $100 million to challenge juggernauts like Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc. in the arena of merchant software and services. — Shopify's systems help merchants sell as easily online as they do offline, or vice versa.

More: BetaKit, TechCrunch, PE Hub Blog, Street Fight, Gigaom, DealBook, Mashable and Globe and Mail. Tweets: @asenkut

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

What might a new Windows Start Menu look like? — If Microsoft does end up reintroducing a Start Menu to a future release of Windows, as sources are hinting, does it necessarily mean that menu will be identical to what exists now? And if it's not, does that defeat the purpose? win7startmenu Your best friend or worst nightmare?

More: Softpedia News and BGR. Tweets: @maryjofoley

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

AmazonFresh Launches In San Francisco — As we previously reported, Amazon has launched its grocery-delivery service in San Francisco today. — The service was previously available in Seattle and Los Angeles, but has now extended to the San Francisco Bay Area.

More: AllThingsD, SiliconBeat, USA Today, PE Hub Blog, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Bloomberg, MarketWatch, The Seattle Times, SlashGear, Eater SF, KQED News Fix, Digits, Mercury News, The Verge and CNET

Aoife White / Bloomberg:

Samsung Said to Near EU Antitrust Settlement on Patents — Samsung Electronics Co. (005930)'s offer to settle a European Union antitrust investigation over key patents requires only minor changes to win approval from regulators, according to two people familiar with the case.

More: SlashGear. Tweets: @fosspatents

PandoDaily:

John Doerr's last stand: Can a dramatic shakeup save Kleiner Perkins? — Jesus Christ, Kleiner Perkins just can't catch a break. — The latest news - in a year-long deluge of mea culpas, nasty lawsuits, and admissions of strategic missteps - is that the firm is retrenching …

Tweets: @jason_pontin, @sarahcuda, @alexia and @katiefehren

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Kleiner Perkins Names Bing Gordon As Chief Product Officer; Debuts Founder Education Program ProductWorks

More: Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, PandoDaily, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and Gigaom

Tamar Lewin / New York Times:

Study of a million users of MOOCs says they are a failure, only four percent completed courses — After Setbacks, Online Courses Are Rethought — Two years after a Stanford professor drew 160,000 students from around the globe to a free online course on artificial intelligence …

More: Forbes, Valleywag and Engadget

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Kick the Can — Yahoo Mail Is a Consumer Disaster, but Company's Response Is Even Worse — On Friday, November 8, Jeff Bonforte, the well-regarded techie who is now in charge of Yahoo Mail and all its communications products after the Silicon Valley Internet giant bought his startup Xobni …

More: ZDNet, BBC, The Verge, Tech Trader Daily, Newsy, SocialTimes, Los Angeles Times, Yahoo Mail and WebProNews

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Trouble At Yahoo: Partial Webmail Outage Continues, While Surprise Small Business Websites Shutdowns Anger Customers

More: help.yahoo.com, BetaNews, SiliconANGLE, BGR, Inquirer, CNET, MacNN, The Tell, Business Insider, Yahoo Small Business …, PC World, Fortune, Gigaom, ZDNet, Techzim, VCPOST, KUSA-TV, Consumerist and Softpedia News

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Microsoft Brings Together 25 Partners For The Cloud OS Network To Drive More Windows Azure Use — Microsoft has been adding firepower to its Windows Azure cloud platform to compete against the likes of Google, Amazon and Dropbox and Box to attract enterprise users to create, host and distribute data around the world.

More: Gigaom, The Official Microsoft Blog, Network World and TechNet Blogs

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Twitter's Latest Partnership, With Truecaller In India, Links Phone Number Look-Ups With Tweeting — Twitter has been inking deals with third parties outside of the U.S. to drive more international usage, both in emerging and mature markets. Today comes news of yet another deal that it hopes …

More: MediaNama, ArcticStartup and Gigaom

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

AT&T accused of violating privacy law with sale of phone records to CIA — Consumer advocates have asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to declare that AT&T violated a privacy rule in the Communications Act by selling phone records to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

More: Public Knowledge, Policy Blog, DSLreports, SlashGear, CNET, The Hill, Free Press and PhoneArena. See also Mediagazer

Grant Gross / Computerworld:

Show us a better way than collecting metadata, NSA director says to critics — Critics of the U.S. National Security Agency's bulk collection of U.S. residents' telephone records should offer a better way to track terrorists and protect the country against attacks, the agency's director said Wednesday.

More: Computerworld, Guardian, Washington Post, CBS News, ZDNet, Bloomberg, RT, TheHill and Ars Technica

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:

Apple Adds ABC, Bloomberg, Crackle, and KORTV Channels to Apple TV — Apple today added yet another set of channels to its Apple TV set-top box, including a “Watch ABC” channel to allow subscribers to certain cable services to watch content from their local ABC affiliate through Apple TV.

More: 9to5Mac, blog.chron.com, ValueWalk, The Verge, Mashable, Macworld, SlashGear, AppleInsider, TechnoBuffalo, iLounge, iDownloadBlog.com, App Advice and iPhone in Canada Blog

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

Behind the scenes look at Apple TV app development w/ the new Bloomberg channel

More: CNET, 9to5Mac, Bloomberg, Digital Trends, iMore, AllThingsD, Gigaom, TUAW and Gotta Be Mobile. Tweets: @markgurman. Thanks:@benjaminzamayo. See also Mediagazer

Diane Bartz / Reuters:

Former Google executive to run U.S. patent office — (Reuters) - Former Google Inc executive Michelle Lee has been named deputy director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and will run the agency until a new director is named, the agency said on Wednesday.

More: 9to5Google, AllThingsD, AppleInsider, bizjournals, Mercury News, Trends, IPWatchdog.com and SiliconBeat. Tweets: @fedcourtjunkie

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook Puts Its Web Feed In Motion With Auto-Playing Videos — The News Feed is about to get a lot more lively. Just days after pushing its auto-play feature for videos to all mobile users, today we spotted auto-playing videos on Facebook.com, and the company confirms to me …

More: TUAW, The Verge, Electronista, iPhone Hacks, Cult of Mac, Businessweek, iDownloadBlog.com, Engadget and Gigaom. Tweets: @chrismessina. Thanks:@jeffwidman

Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:

Facebook to Join S&P 500 and 100 Indices — Facebook has just ascended to one of the most closely watched measures of the global market for stocks, the Standard & Poor's 500 index. — According to a statement from S&P Dow Jones Indices, a division of McGraw Hill Financial, Facebook will also join the S&P 100.

More: Wall Street Journal, DailyFinance.com, BBC, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Bloomberg, CNNMoney.com, Reuters and Yahoo! News

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