Not a British person. (Photo: Neuroscience Marketing) What’s faster? Watching a turtle wade through a path of peanut butter in a 5K or downloading a file? It’s probably the former, and according to new research, slow-loading files and computers is one of the most stressful things we encounter every day.

Betabeat - Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Zulily, a private-sale shopping site targeted at busy moms and their kids, has filed its S-1, aiming to raise as much as $ 100 million in an IPO (this is a placeholder amount and could change). In its last funding round a year ago, the company was valued at $ 1 billion. Zulily was co-founded by Darrell Cavens, the former senior vice president of marketing and technology at Blue Nile, and Mark Vadon, the chairman and founder of Blue Nile in 2009. Zulily raised $ 139 million from Maveron, Andreessen Horowitz, Trinity Ventures and Meritech Capital Partners. Similar to other ... → Read More

TechCrunch - Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Nest, the company founded by iPod creator Tony Fadell, just announced its newest product, a $ 129 smoke and carbon monoxide detector.  It’s called the “Nest Protect.” The Protect is supposed to be a more intuitive, simpler, and better looking version of the standard smoke and carbon monoxide detector, which can be bought for $ 32 on Amazon.  Instead of blaring an alarm at the slightest smoke, the Nest Protect is smart enough to figure out if it’s just, say smoke from burnt bacon, and then warn you verbally. If it is just bacon smoke, then you can wave your ... → Read More

Silicon Alley Insider - Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Apple will give customers two options for a new iPhone, worrying some analysts that the less expensive 5C version could hurt sales of its flagship model, the 5S. The Affordable Care Act could be… AlleyWatch

Alley Watch - Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Every entrepreneur tries to maximize his startup growth by building and selling more product and services for the widest geographic area that he can support. This strategy is called “organic growth,” yet it alone may yield only a fraction of the potential you could achieve, unless you add the additional strategies of partnerships and M&A (mergers and acquisitions). Many entrepreneurs are paranoid about the partnership approach, and think that M&A is only an alternative for large companies who are flush with cash. Both of these qualms are wrong and shortsighted. Laurence Capron and Will Mitchell explain why in their book, ... → Read More

Startup Professionals - Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Sry what I wasn’t listening bc Twitter (Photo: Getty images) People love to grumble about how Twitter and Instagram are ruining society and making ppl 4get how to express themselves. Well, it turns out, only 5.2 percent of people in the world are actually considered digital natives, so just chill. A digital native is defined in this report as “a youth who has five or more years’ experience using the Internet,” the Register reports. Cool how such a small proportion of the population can terrify almost all of the world’s Olds!

Betabeat - Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Vivek Wadwha, the writer whom Twitter CEO Dick Costolo called “the Carrot Top of academic sources,” demanded a “formal apology” for the remark today in a column in the Wall Street Journal. Costolo made the remark when Wadwha was quoted in the New York Times criticizing Twitter for the fact that its board of directors is composed entirely of white men, and the only woman on its management team — general counsel Vijaya Gadde — had the job for just five weeks before the company filed its IPO. Here’s Wadwha’s demand in full: Yes, Costolo’s comments were inappropriate and he ... → Read More

Silicon Alley Insider - Tuesday, October 8, 2013

David and Goliath stories used to make good copy.    We love the myth of the plucky little underachiever who overcomes the big bully—it’s baked into our psyche. The 1980 USA Olympic hockey… AlleyWatch

Alley Watch - Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Company / App Name: Keefak http://www.keefaktheapp.com Twitter – What does it do? The Keefak mobile application allows you to learn the Levantine dialect of Arabic through phonetic transliteration. Why do we need it? Anyone wishing to learn Levantine Arabic through phonetic transliteration. Who is it for? Lebanese/Levantine descent and their family and friends. Foreign expats working or visiting in MENA. It is available for English, French, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese native speakers. What makes it stand out from the crowd? It is the ONLY Lebanese Arabic Language Universal Mobile Application with more than 30 000 users worldwide. What’s next? ... → Read More

The Startup Pitch - Tuesday, October 8, 2013

I am a bit surprised by this report, which says that NYC’s second largest job sector is tech. According to The Verge, which wrote a post about this report: Dr. Mandel counts 262,000 well-paying jobs in tech and information, an 11 percent jump since the economy crashed in 2007. The $ 30 billion in annual wages generated by the tech sector is small compared to the $ 90 billion in wages paid to the still-dominant financial sector, but tech wages have grown since 2007 while finance wages decreased. I would have thought the real estate sector was larger (it may ... → Read More

AVC - Tuesday, October 8, 2013