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Check out tonight's CNET panel with top Silicon Valley investors

Our live stream is over. Thanks for watching. Check CNET tomorrow for clips from the live event.

Join me tonight as I talk tech startups with three of Silicon Valley's most respected investors and overall startup advocates -- Dave McClure of 500 Startups, Naval Ravikant of AngelList, and George Zachary of Charles River partners

You can read more about the event here. If you want to understand who gets funded and why, come back to this post tonight at 7 p.m. PT, where we'll be streaming it all live.

And if you are in San Francisco, we … Read more

With Bump Pay, sending money is easier than ever

Owe your friend $20? There's no need to go to an ATM. Just bump him the money.

Starting today, sending money can be easier than ever with the launch of Bump Pay, a new iPhone app from the makers of the popular contact and photo sharing service Bump.

If you've used Bump, you already know how to send money with the new app: you simply tap your iPhone against your friend's, and the cash gets sent (see video below).

For Bump Pay to work, both you and your friend need to have the app and a PayPal … 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

The startup accelerator boom...er, bubble

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- The pace of startups popping up seems matched only by the emergence of new "incubators," or "accelerators," whichever word you chose to describe these startup boot camps that have cropped up across the country.

And Paul Graham, the man behind the grandaddy of them all, Y Combinator, barely pays attention to them. What he is convinced of, though, is that many will die, and that they're formed for the wrong reason.

"People are doing it because it's the cool thing to do," Graham told me during a break … Read more

The sound of crickets: VC offices on Y Combinator Demo Day

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--If you 're an entrepreneur looking for money today on the famous Silicon Valley venture capital row known as Sand Hill Road, yes, that is the sound of crickets you hear.

That's because today is Y Combinator Demo Day, and the lion's share of the biggest tech-oriented VCs in the Valley are packed into one auditorium here, listening to 65 early-stage companies pitch their wares.

The list is a veritable who's who of investors: Ron Conway, Tim Draper, Jeff Clavier, Mike Arrington, Stewart Alsop, and many, many others. And they've got their checkbooks … Read more

A demo pitch that resonated: 'We're Siri on steroids'

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- The army of startups -- some 65 in all -- pitching a packed room of investors at Y Combinator's Demo Day today all begin the same way: Explaining what problem they're trying to solve.

Some resonate more quickly than others. That was the case with Sonalight. Its basic pitch is that it makes a better way to text and drive. This startup isn't even bothering with the idea that texting and driving might be a bad thing; it's taking as its starting point that people do just that.

Founder Curtis Liu, a … Read more

Is Jybe the recommendation app Yelp should be?

If you ask a friend where to eat or for their favorite dish at a specific restaurant, you'll probably give their suggestion a lot more weight than an automatically generated one, especially if that friend knows your tastes in food.

That's the basic premise behind Jybe, a brand-new iPhone app that launched today. Built by a small team led by three longtime search industry veterans, the app is designed to give users highly relevant suggestions for restaurants--including specific dishes--as well as movies, books, and other things.

These days, there's plenty of ways to get recommendations and reviews … Read more

Startups at SXSW: Lots of buzz, little substance

For all the hype that Highlight received during SXSW Interactive, the app pretty much went silent when it came to the music part of the conference. Awareness of Highlight among techies was high, but it just never made it to the outside world. I'd like to say that this is surprising, but really, it's not.

Buzz apps seldom achieve osmosis between the tech world and the real world. Those that do sometimes find fame and fortune, but the majority just swirl around the industry vacuum before pivoting into oblivion. It's a problem.

One of the most basic … Read more

A site where getting poached is the whole point

Time and time again, the old adage that it's easier to find a job when you already have one rings true. One young Austin, Texas-based entrepreneur decided to capitalize on that notion and created a Web site with a perfectly descriptive name: JobPoacher.com.

When building the site in his spare time, John Everett Creighton said he drew on his own experience. As an MIT graduate with a degree in physics and nuclear engineering, he was in hot demand when entering the job market and had to juggle multiple offers and rounds of negotiations. Creighton sought to simplify that … Read more