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VC `lemmings' have a new fad to run after

By Matt Marshall

Mercury News - March 01, 2005 - The VCs are doing the lemming thing again -- this time they're all rushing to invest in online consumer technologies. The result is a whole lot of similar VC-funded companies, all facing some very tough odds.

Take search technology. The phenomenal success of Google has spawned countless me-too search engines: Some search people, others search blogs. One, Speegle, even speaks out search results in three voices.

The hottest niche is shopping search. There's already PriceGrabber, NexTag and public company Shopping.com, not to mention Yahoo and Google, which offer shopping services through their Yahoo Shopping and Froogle brands.

But new ones keep coming. Tim Haley of Redpoint Ventures has teamed up with Lightspeed Venture Partners and Cambrian Ventures to invest $8 million in IM2. The Palo Alto company has developed FatLens, for now focused on shopping for event tickets, allowing users to collaborate over instant messaging.

Newcomer Become.com: The latest entrant to the shopping scene is Mountain View's Become.com, a comparison shopping company founded by the two entrepreneurs behind the comparison site MySimon, Michael Yang and Yeogirl Yun. (MySimon was bought by CNet in 2000 for $700 million.) Become.com intends to focus on helping people comparison shop while at the same time giving them clean search engine results, unbiased by advertising influences.

For now, Become.com is best suited for researching product reviews, but it will eventually introduce information on prices and other specifications from vendors, according to Chief Executive Michael Yang.

Become.com removes all the non-shopping related pages while searching the Web. At the same time, Become tweaks its results to make certain shopping guide and product review sites -- including CNet, Gizmodo and Epinions -- more important.

They've raised $2.5 million from a series of angel investors, including Bob Bozeman and Ron Conway. Yang fronted another $2 million, for a total of $4.5 million.

Refreshed after some time off and soul searching, both co-founders hope to harness their earlier magic to overcome the tougher odds facing them.

Kaplan returns: While search seems to be the holy grail for VCs, they're pumping money into an array of different consumer technology companies, from those that deliver advertising on search engines, to those that offer digital media networking or tools for mobile blogging.

Even Philip Kaplan, who founded a notorious Web site that chronicled the woes of companies crashing after the Internet bubble burst, has raised money. (We can't name the site because this is a family newspaper.)

His new San Francisco company, AdBrite, which sells online advertising, raised $4 million from Sequoia Capital. (The Wall Street Journal recently noted the strangeness of the connection between the publicity-shy Sequoia and Kaplan, who runs another Web site, Mobog.com, that hosts photos, many sexually explicit, taken with cell phone cameras.)

LinkedIn steps up: Speaking of crowded online consumer areas where it's tough to make money, social networking is near the top of the list. But one social networking company, LinkedIn, has decided it's time to try.

The Mountain View social networking company that lets people view the contact details of people they're linked with through multiple degrees of separation will announce today that it will charge employers $95 a month to list jobs on the site.

After months of building out its services, co-founder Konstantin Guericke says the company has about 300,000 job postings listed. For most users, it will stay free. The site has ramped up its offerings considerably. Type in a company you're interested in working for, and up come the jobs listed at those companies, and the names of people in charge of recruitment. It also shows how you're connected to that person, and gives you the names of other people at the company you're connected with, ranking them by degrees of separation. There's a number of other interesting tools, too, like JobInsider, a free download that lets job searchers find inside connections when searching other job boards.

It's no surprise VCs would encourage their start-ups to work together. LinkedIn, a Sequoia-backed company, has placed ads from Sequoia's other company, AdBrite, on its Web pages since September.

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Contact Matt Marshall via his blog at www.Siliconbeat.com, where there is more on Become.com and other news.

Answer the Phone: Your Identity is on the Line

Beverly Hills, CA -- (ArriveNet - May 06, 2005) -- There hasn't been much good news in the battle against identity theft lately, with fraudsters staying one step ahead of the game. But don't panic, our old friend the telephone has come to the rescue.

We're all aware of the problem of identity theft, but did you know that your local pizza chain has had a solution for years? You recognize it as the system that prevents little Johnny from having twenty pizzas delivered to your door at midnight: the pizza chain calls you immediately after the order is placed to verify the validity of the order. Because little Johnny is afraid to be caught, he'll think twice about causing this pizza-related havoc.

TeleSign's patent-pending verification system has transferred this pizza concept to the high-tech world. It works like this: after filling out a form on a website, the user is prompted to enter his phone number. A robotic system then places a call to that number and speaks aloud a unique three digit code. Once that code is entered into the website, the authentication is complete. This system can be implemented at any point on a website: at registration, purchase, a specific time interval, or at the request of a user.

Email verification is the current standard for user authentication, but email may end up filtered, junked, bulked, or trashed. Because of spam, viruses, and phishing, email filtering has become so aggressive that even legitimate emails don't reach the inbox. But a telephone call cannot be stopped, making this the perfect time for the introduction of TeleSign’s solution.

The future of ecommerce is threatened by rampant fraud and lack of trust. TeleSign will force anonymous users to expose their faces by revealing their working phone numbers.

To try an interactive demo, visit (http://www.telesign.com/demo2/demo.asp) and have your phone ready.

For more information about TeleSign’s products and services, visit (http://www.telesign.com/demo2/) or email press2@telesign.com.

About TeleSign Corp.
TeleSign is a leader in innovative internet security solutions and provider of intelligent telephone-based verification solutions for any entity conducting business online where trust is essential and where fraud is a concern. TeleSign’s patent-pending Verification System provides a critical layer of security for the e-commerce world and is a proven deterrent against ill-intentioned web users. The company’s first product, the TeleSign Verification System, blends the latest internet, security and telephony technologies into a powerful new tool to combat fraud and enhance trust in e-business.

TeleSign Corp. seeks to provide simplified solutions for any company conducting business online where trust is essential and where fraud is a concern. TeleSign’s patent-pending Verification System provides a critical layer of security for the e-commerce world and is a proven deterrent against ill-intentioned web users. TeleSign’s Verification System is able to legitimize a web user’s claimed identification at a miniscule cost and with little inconvenience to all parties involved.

TeleSign’s Verification System is based upon the premise that ill-intentioned web users hesitate to disclose their working phone numbers. By placing a computer-generated telephone call coupled with a unique security code, we insist that a web user provide a legitimate telephone number or be rooted out. The company’s first product, the TeleSign Verification System, blends the latest internet, security and telephony technologies into a powerful new tool to combat fraud in e-commerce.

Visit http://www.telesign.com/demo2/ or call 310-276-5900 for more information.

TeleSign Corporation
Contact: Sam Gonen
Telephone: (310) 276-7843
Email: press2@telesign.com

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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