Delicious Founder Debuts Jig: "A Marketplace for Things People Need"

Newly unveiled Jig lets you tell people what you want so they can help you fill your need, from suggestions for weekend activities to recipes.   

Jig is the first product from Mountain View-based Tasty Labs [ @tastylabs ], started in November 2010 by Delicious founder Joshua Schachter, former Google engineering manager Paul Rademacher and Nick Nguyen, formerly of Mozilla and Delicious.

Tasty Labs raised $3M from Union Square Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, also last November. USV backed Delicious, which Yahoo bought for a reported $10M to $15M in 2005. Joshua then worked at Yahoo as director of engineering for Delicious.

Jig is clearly in the same space as Q&A sites like Quora and Answers.com and to some extent competes with peer-request services like Zaarly.

"When I was at Yahoo, I saw Yahoo Answers grow and then fail. I thought a lot about the Q&A format and I realized that...

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Groupon CEO Memo: Pleased With Growth, Says August a Pivotal Month

[ Andrew Mason on NBC New York in fall 2009. ]

We covered the speculation around Groupon's finances on Aug. 15 with our story Groupon Panic: Is It Insolvent--and Could IPO Get Pulled? But in a recent AllThingsD article, Kara Swisher reports that "it looks good" for Groupon and shares an internal memo from Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, republished here.

Dear Groupon,

This weekend, I did a Google News search on our company — my first in awhile. The first story that popped up was called The Fall of Groupon: Is the Daily Deals Site Running Out of Cash? I laughed when I read the headline (in the car by myself, weirdly). First — with this article, the degree to which we’re getting the shit kicked out of us in the press had finally crossed the threshold from “annoying” to “hilarious.” Second, I was struck by...

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Google+ Now Lets You Ignore People (without Blocking Them)

 

Google+ now allows you to "ignore" less interesting or prolific people in your circles, similar to hiding posts in your Facebook news feed -- but won't tell those people you're ignoring them.

When you "ignore" someone, Google+ blocks that individual's posts from appearing in your incoming stream, stops notifying you of the person's activities and ...

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Michael Robertson: "MP3tunes Wins Lawsuit - Have Confidence In Your Locker!"

[ DAR.fm's presentation at the LAUNCH Conference in Feb. 2011 ]

EMAIL from Michael Robertson, founder of MP3tunes and DAR.fm, sent Aug. 25 to all MP3tunes users.

I want to personally thank you for being a loyal MP3tunes user who has stood by the company during our long legal battle with EMI - I really appreciate your support. On Monday, August 22nd, a ruling was published in the EMI v MP3tunes case and it is definitely a victory for cloud music and MP3tunes. The Judge OKed our core business of storing and playing music in our cloud-based service.

We've always operated MP3tunes in a responsible manner which is why the Judge found that "MP3tunes did not promote infringement" and...

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Klout the Next Force in Book Publishing? Influencers Get Early Access to New Stephen King Novel

Klout's new partnership with book publisher Scribner gives influential people first access to Stephen King's new ebook, "Mile 81," through its Klout Perks program.

Those selected can download a free edition of "Mile 81" a week before it goes on sale nationwide Sept. 1 and can share the ebook with one other person.

The goal is to create a "unique social media conversation" about Stephen King's novel, according to a Klout statement. The company expects other authors will want to give influencers early access to their work.

The Klout Perks program bases perks not just on someone's score but also on how influential a person is in a particular topic. Klout lists 14 perks to date (past and current) ranging from...

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