Rafe's Radar- Page 7

Reporters' Roundtable: Can an employer ask for your Facebook password?

Social-network users have an expectation that their views of their networks are theirs alone, that there is a private side to the public persona. But to get some jobs or scholarships, that expectation is thrown to the wind. What's truly private in a networked world?

Recently, reports have popped up about potential employees being required to divulge their personal social-network passwords or let hiring managers view their account. Some college sports players have to let "compliance officers" into their online social worlds.

What can a hiring manager or school reasonably ask of a person when it comes to monitoring their online social life? And where can, or should, a person draw the line? On this Roundtable, we discuss the topic with Bob Sullivan, author of the Red Tape Chronicles for MSNBC.

Startup Secret 53: Seduce like Evernote

"People like to buy. They just don't like being sold to."

--Phil Libin, CEO, Evernote

Phil Libin likes Apple stores. As a nerd and "a huge Apple fanboy," he told me, he finds a stroll through an Apple store soothing. So much so that when he strolls into one, he'll find himself just looking for something to buy. He often leaves with a new case or accessory for a device in his family's fleet of Apple gear.

Evernote's sales model, he says, is based a little on that feeling. Phil wants … Read more

EquityNet claims crowdfunding patent

Crowdfunding will soon become a legal way for small startups to raise funds. This new financial market will lead to a fierce battle among crowdfunding directory sites. It's also going to flush out a bunch of patent holders. For example, EquityNet claims a patent -- with a working business around it -- for a process that evaluates startup risk.

The general opinion on patents is not favorable in the tech field, but I would not throw EquityNet CEO Judd Hollas under the bridge and call him a patent troll yet, for two reasons. First, EquityNet is a working business; … Read more

Startup Secret 52: Be pound wise and penny foolish

"Forget about spending money."

--Chance Barnett, CEO, Crowdfunder

So much of a startup CEO's job is raising money, that it stands to reason that the CEO will also spend a lot of time worrying about spending it. Or not spending it.

It can tie you in knots, according the Chance Barnett, the CEO of a crowdfunding portal, Crowdfunder (see Chance on Reporters' Roundtable). But in the early days of a company's existence, what you spend money on, or what deals you make to save it, do not tell the tale. Yes, running out of money … Read more

Box trying to unify cloud storage for business apps

Dropbox-for-the-enterprise company Box is launching a new program today that aims to unify data storage for online and mobile business apps.

The company's OneCloud app launcher (iOS only so far) is a centralized spot for users to get into business apps, but more important, it's also a window into data and files created in those apps. And it lets users users open files created in one app in another.

For example, if a user grabs a signature in EchoSign, he or she would be able to see that contract in OneCloud, and then open it in another … Read more

Startup Secret 51: Do it like Draw Something

"Usually, features make things worse."

--Don Porter, CEO of OMGPOP & creator of Draw Something

About a week before Draw Something was acquired by Zynga for $180 million, I spoke with the creator of the game and CEO of the company, Dan Porter. He dropped this little Startup Secret. It's hardly unique. We hear it all the time in different variants: build the "minimum viable product." Or, "Ship early, ship often." And my new favorite: "If you're not embarrassed by your first version, you shipped too late."

Now that Porter'… Read more

How Box.net became Box.com for just shy of a million bucks

I just had a nice talk with Aaron Levie, the CEO of Box.net. I mean, Box. I had to ask him how much it cost for the company to drop the ".net" and become a ".com," a change that happened in December of 2011. I expected that the three-letter common-word domain of an already-successful, well-funded company would go for a lot, several million dollars possibly.

"How many zeros?" I asked.

"Six," Levie said.

How big an integer in front of those zeros? I asked.

"The lowest. And actually, it was … Read more

Reporters' Roundtable: JOBS Act makes crowdfunding the law

Crowdfunding is one step from becoming the law of the land. The JOBS Act, which has passed the House and the Senate in slightly different versions, is soon to be voted on again in the House for final approval, before it goes to the President, who has indicated he will sign it. This new law will make it possible for entrepreneurs to raise money from anyone they want to. It will also make it easier for new companies to go public, or to delay going public if they wish.

When JOBS becomes law, the landscape for technology startups will change dramatically. If you want to know how, and why it's happening, and what could go wrong when it does, watch this episode of the Roundtable.

Our guests today are:

George Zachary, partner at the VC firm Charles River Ventures Chance Barnett, CEO of the crowdfunding marketplace, Crowdfunder Tim Rowe, CEO of the Cambridge Innovation Center

Startup Secret 50: Wait for the right one

"Hiring a compromise is a false economy."

--Jon Reynolds, CEO, SwiftKey

Hiring is a CEO's most important job, especially in the earliest days of a company. Jon Reynolds, founder of SwiftKey, has the story of not doing this the right way and having to pay to to fix the mess it made. It worked out for the best, but he thinks it proves the rule.

As with many startups, in the early days Swiftkey had a good demo but the product wasn't ready to back it up. In December 2009, with Mobile World Congress approaching and … Read more

Pinterest design spreading like a virus, because it works

"It's the Pinterest of..."

Just stop right there. It's not a unique pitch. Quite the contrary. We are hearing about, and seeing, more Pinterestification of the Internet every day. Why?

I asked a few entrepreneurs why they're adopting the grid look on the Web sites. The most informative: J.R. Johnson, the CEO of Trippy, the Pinterest of travel advice.

Originally, Johnson says, Trippy was a narrow, linear utility. It funneled users through the single experience of getting advice if they knew where they were going. The new, Pinteresty Trippy "moves us up the … Read more