investing

Jeff Bezos backs Social Gaming Network

Even though the iPhone has been dominating developer headlines recently, it looks as if there's still some air in the social-network gaming space.

The Social Gaming Network, a start-up that develops games for social platforms such as Facebook and OpenSocial, has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos' personal investment firm, Bezos Expeditions.

This comes just months after the company closed a $15 million Series A round from Greylock Partners, the Founders Fund, and others.

Founded by the creators of Web 1.0 page creator Freewebs (which now calls itself Webs.com), the Social … Read more

U.N. report: Clean energy booming globally

Global investment in sustainable energy amounted to $148 billion in 2007, a 60 percent gain over 2006, according to a United Nations report (PDF) Tuesday.

That will grow to $600 billion past 2020, reported New Energy Finance, a consultant to the U.N. Environment Programme.

The report forecast that an anticipated U.S. carbon tax, along with a new administration in Washington, D.C., and shifting attitudes by banks, will drive clean tech growth in America beyond the borders of California, despite the credit crisis.

Public investment in wind topped $11 billion globally last year, but none of that came … Read more

Google allowed to sell AOL stake Tuesday

Google, which has a 5 percent stake in Time Warner's AOL division, has the option to sell it beginning Tuesday.

Google got the stake in AOL through a 2005 deal with Time Warner under which Google invested $1 billion.

According to a Time Warner regulatory filing, Google can sell that stake if it wants, with Time Warner, which owns the remaining 95 percent of AOL, getting first crack at buying the shares.

"Beginning on July 1, 2008, Google will have the right to require AOL to register Google's 5 percent equity interest for sale in an initial … Read more

CFO survey: 57 percent see adequate returns on IT

Maybe IT doesn't matter, after all. At least, not as much as it should.

A recently released survey of chief financial officers and their views on technology spending found that roughly 57 percent say they are getting an acceptable return on investment (ROI) from their tech spending. Lest you think that the CFOs are too distant from the chief information officer to have a true grasp on ROI, keep in mind that the survey found that 41 percent of organizations have CIOs reporting to CFOs. The Computer Sciences Corporation conducted the annual survey of 629 CFOs in association with the Financial Executives Research Foundation.

Other data from the "Technology Issues for Financial Executives" study was equally interesting:

Among those surveyed, IT spending has increased over the last three years, and is expected to grow in 2008, as well. Greater than 50 percent suggest medium to high ROI on technology investments but only 11 percent reported a "high" ROI.… Read more

Citi: Solar prices to sink rapidly in looming shakeout

Financial analysts at Citigroup have joined the ranks of solar-company watchers that see falling prices and collateral damage in the next two years.

For consumers, the up-front price of getting solar-electric panels is still high--in the range of $20,000 to $35,000. A shortage of silicon cells is one reason that panels remain expensive.

But the overall demand for solar cells and panels is still very strong, driven by corporate customers and utilities. The solar industry has been ramping up production of silicon wafers in an effort to keep up.

In a report published on Thursday, Citi said … Read more

Tudou, after facing death by Chinese regulator, pulls in $57 million

Tudou, which had been scolded for insufficient censorship (namely, of porn) and faced either threats or rumors of a government shutdown as recently as last month, is looking a little healthier this week.

China Web 2.0 Review reports:

Tudou, the largest video-sharing Web site in China, finally officially announced its $57 million series D financing at a $150 million valuation, which is the largest round of funding ever for a Chinese Internet company. (This takes) Tudou's total fund-raising to $85 million over the past three years. (In previous rounds of funding), Tudou raised $500,000, $8.5 million, … Read more

As expected, Buzznet inks a major music label deal

Universal Music Group has invested an undisclosed amount in pop-culture social network Buzznet.

Beyond the financial investment, this means that Universal artists will post promotional blogs on Buzznet, and the social site will have access to the label's music and video catalog.

Last week, Buzznet CEO Tyler Goldman told CNET News.com to expect a partnership announcement that would bring more audio content to the site.

According to a release from the two companies, this is "one of the first times that a music company will be directly involved in developing editorial programming for a social-media site, with … Read more

Will Smith thinks PluggedIn can get jiggy with it

Actor Will Smith--or rather, his entertainment company, Overbrook Entertainment--is one of the investors behind a $2 million funding round for PluggedIn Media, a new site for watching high-definition and broadcast-quality music videos online, PaidContent.org reported Tuesday evening.

PluggedIn (wonder how much they paid for that domain?) reportedly has about 10,000 music videos in its catalog, thanks to contracts with Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group, and Universal Music Group. The videos are accompanied by artist profiles and some community features.

The site is powered by Move Networks, the high-definition content delivery network that pulled in $46 million earlier this week … Read more

What's a better investment: Computers, chips, or coffee?

Sometimes I'm so uninspired I can't come up with a decent blog post to save my life. When that happens, I turn to what comforts me: numbers. Yes, I know how weird that sounds. What can I say, I'm a geek.

Anyway, I just got to wondering how investors in various technology companies fared over the long haul. I was just as interested in how technology companies performed versus companies with a more traditional business model.… Read more