Webware

Timothy Draper

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

SEATTLE, Wash.-- Despite the growing list of toppling multinational corporations, Timothy Draper, the founder and a managing director of VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, told an audience full of Seattle entrepreneurs and investors that right now is the "best time ever" to start a new business.

To illustrate the point, Draper pointed to over two dozen companies that were founded in recessions and depressions including giants like General Electric, Chevron, and Coca-Cola. Also included were more tech-oriented companies like Skype (of which Draper was an investor), Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Kodak, and Adobe Systems.

In his keynote address to attendees of WTIA's Fast Pitch Forum & Technology Showcase, Draper made the case that each of these companies had done something to drastically change the way others in that industry were doing business, or that they had created completely new and different categories that solved real-world problems.

Draper noted that existing and established companies are reeling from crunched credit and skittish consumer spending, and that newer technologies continue to make it easier to fill out components of a business that in years past required more staffing and capital. That, and it's far easier to build in these components when starting from a clean slate.

One of Draper's latest ventures, XChange, builds on this idea. It allows investors to put their cash into a venture in return for company stock that can be created and liquidated with far fewer regulations than traditional IPOs. Draper believes this will make it easier for companies to get chunks of funding through stock purchases without having to jump through the hurdles of going public--including the need to hit a certain valuation.

It's also taking an eHarmony-style approach to matching up investors with potential start-ups by taking whatever information both parties have provided about themselves and setting up the meeting. If the "date" goes well, the investing can begin.

XChange is set to open up this fall.

Online travel itinerary and trip-planning service TripIt announced Monday that it has launched a new application programming interface for developers who want to integrate the company's travel itineraries into their respective service. The API will allow developers to share itinerary information between sites and travel agents. The first iteration of the TripIt API, which is available now, will only allow users to read, add, or delete trip plans.

ChaCha, a human-powered answers service, wants to raise $30 million in a Series C round of funding, reports PEHub. So far, the company has been able to raise approximately $11 million, but investor information has yet to be disclosed.

YouTube now allows users who leave comments to delete them. Those who wish to do so can click a new "delete" button that appears in the "Text Comments" section below a video. So far, YouTube will only allow users to delete their own comments.

ProPay, a service that competes with PayPal and provides the same basic service, announced Monday that it's now extending its offering to eBay Bronze PowerSellers. Prior to the announcement, ProPay was available only to eBay Silver, Gold, and Platinum PowerSellers. The ProPay eAuction service requires Bronze PowerSellers to pay 3.1 percent and 30 cents per transaction or lower for Silver, Gold, and Platinum PowerSellers.

The Internet has been voted the best source for investors to make financial decisions, claims a new study from Forbes. The study, which was conducted in November, found 65 percent of respondents believe the Web is the "most important source of investing information." In 2005, only 52 percent of respondents made the same claim. Newspapers, on the other hand, are losing importance. The study found that only 17 percent of all respondents say they use newspapers to make investing decisions.

Sure, the economy is in bad shape. Investing now can be dangerous. But that doesn't mean you should be scared; it's also a time of opportunity. There are companies in the Market right now that are worth investing in and thanks to the recession, shares in many of them can be acquired at a discount.

Finding those companies isn't always easy. You can go to sites like Yahoo Finance or Bloomberg to find data, but there are also some smaller, yet useful services that provide different perspectives.

Covestor

Sometimes, especially when you're new to investing, investing in the same companies as someone with a proven track record of making money in the stock market is worth considering. A small service called Covestor provides users with the ability to do just that. But unlike sites like GuruFocus, which allow users to monitor professionals like Warren Buffett, Covestor lets its users track individual investors.

Covestor's main goal is to "de-institutionalize fund management." To do that, it requires users to sign up and create a profile that tracks all the investments they make by linking their brokerage account to the service. Covestor tracks user performance and provides a leader board for other users to find and follow top performers.

Once a user starts following another, they can determine if the person they're following really knows what they're doing and if so, instruct Covestor to make trades on their behalf by following exactly what the other person does. Once that happens, the followee will then receive some compensation from Covestor based on the follower's performance.

It may sound risky to perform all the same trades as a person you don't know, but in a strange way, it makes sense. If you use a fund manager, that's all you're doing anyway and at least by following others through Covestor, you can see what works and what doesn't. Simply put, it's a neat service that's not only free, but very educational.

Emerginvest

One of the main issues facing sites like Bloomberg or MarketWatch is that most of their focus is placed squarely on U.S.-based companies. It makes sense--most of the visitors to those sites are looking for information on companies that operate in the United States. But that doesn't mean we don't need international data, and that's exactly what Emerginvest provides.

The self-proclaimed "Yahoo Finance for the rest of the world," Emerginvest provides financial data about companies that are operating outside the U.S. Once you register for the site, it displays a "heat map" detailing the performance of markets around the world. That's just a starting point for what is a deluge of financial information about companies operating in more than 120 countries. That data includes news, market overviews, sector data, individual company performance, analysis, and much more.

Even better, Emerginvest provides a link to brokerages that allows users to purchase the security in international markets. Unfortunately, though, I've found that few brokerages will allow their clients to acquire obscure international securities.

InvestingMinds

InvestingMinds is an investment community where members can share opinions and advice on a variety of topics like stocks, bonds, and financial planning. And it's that community that makes InvestingMinds such a unique and useful service.

InvestingMinds aims to combine the knowledge of the population to help the individual. And although there are some opinions by some users that are totally outrageous ("never considering buying Google stock," for one), most of the information on the site helps investors gain a better understanding about investing and what precautions to take before jumping into it.

Once the user signs up, they can create a personal profile and start communicating with other members on the site through its instant messaging and group platforms. The site also features an area to research companies of interest and create an investment portfolio that can be shared with the rest of the community. But the real value comes in the forums and blogs where investors share their insight into investing. That doesn't mean it's all valuable and it's advised that research play an important role before making investment decisions. But by and large, the community does a fine job of correcting many of the outlandish ideas posited by some users.

SaneBull

Although SaneBull doesn't provide anything unique to set itself apart from a site like Yahoo Finance, it's a great service that makes tracking and researching stocks much easier.

SaneBull's main attraction is its Market Monitor. The tool provides users with live stock quotes, real-time news, and key comparison factors like financial ratios and Balance Sheet assessment, making it easier to determine the financial health of a prospective investment. Even better, it's free.

But the real attraction to SaneBull is the way in which users can access all that data. SaneBull is actually more that a research site; it's a widget platform. And after opening the Market Monitor, users move a series of stock price, news, and key ratio widgets around the screen in any order they wish. They can even resize the images to squeeze more information on the canvas. The site also lets users embed those widgets into their Wordpress blog or Facebook profile.

SaneBull won't make you a better investor, but you will become a more informed investor. And that's not such a bad thing.

I spend a considerable amount of time perusing financial sites for data that impacts a respective company's financial statements. Because of that, I've developed a liking for certain sites, and a severe distaste for others that have no business providing information to anyone.

But it's the great that I'm highlighting today. And in the following list of services, you'll find some obvious choices and hopefully some new services you may have never seen.

Emerginvest

One of the main issues facing sites like Bloomberg or MarketWatch is that most of their focus is placed squarely on U.S.-based companies. It makes sense--most of the visitors to those sites are looking for information on companies that operate in the United States. But that doesn't mean we don't need international data, and that's exactly what Emerginvest provides.

The self-proclaimed "Yahoo Finance for the rest of the world," Emerginvest provides outstanding financial data about companies that are operating outside the U.S. Once you register for the site, it displays a "heat map" detailing the performance of markets around the world. That's just a starting point for what is a deluge of financial information about companies operating in over 120 countries. That data includes news, market overviews, sector data, individual company performance, analysis, and much more.

Even better, Emerginvest provides a link to brokerages that allow you to purchase the security in international markets. Unfortunately, though, I've found that few brokerages will allow their clients to acquire obscure international securities.

Emerginvest's claim that it wants to be the "Yahoo Finance for the rest of the world" is a bit troubling, though. What would stop Yahoo, Google, or any other major firm from creating a similar service that would put this company out of business?

Investopedia

If you want to research stocks and mutual funds, while learning about them, Investopedia is the best place to do it. With thousands of articles on investing, the stock market, and other financial topics, Investopedia offers an exceptional amount of value to the novice and professional investor alike.

The real beauty however is in the breadth of information it provides. Want to learn how to buy a security for the first time? It will walk you through the process. Want to learn about pink sheets? Investopedia has your answer. Oh, and if you want to find out if Google is a good buy right now, Investopedia will fill you in with analyst opinions, historical prices, and much more. Suffice it to say that if you're looking for anything related to business, Investopedia will have it.

It's that good.

StockCharts

Sometimes, when I use Yahoo Finance, I take historical stock price charts for granted. After all, they're really only useful to show price differences of a particular stock over time, right? But when I find my way back to StockCharts, I can't believe that I even considered using Yahoo Finance charts to make a decision about a company.

StockCharts doesn't just provide historical share price data in its charts, it provides a full solution for analyzing the value of a stock. Along with price changes, it can display key indicators of financial health like Moving Average Convergence/Divergence, Relative Strength Index, Moving Averages, and Volume. It even lets you embed those graphs into your own site, social network profile, or presentation if you want to share the information you've gathered with others. That said, be aware that a couple trips to Investopedia may be in order--StockCharts is specifically designed for those who are knowledgeable about investing and have a keen understanding of company valuation.

ValueEngine

If you want to know what a stock is really worth and you don't want to do the heavy lifting with a service like StockCharts, ValueEngine is the perfect alternative. There's only one catch: you'll need to pay $199.95 per year or $19.95 per month to do it.

ValueEngine provides accurate valuations for any stock you throw at it. According to the company, it analyzes each stock based on a number of key factors and ratios to determine what a share should be priced at and whether it's a good buy or not. Upon entering a particular security, ValueEngine provides extensive data that not only gives you a valuation, but financial evidence to support its claim. It even runs market trend analysis and price reversal calculations to estimate stock performance over the next few years. I'm not convinced that kind of long-term planning is reliable, but it's tough to argue with the company's success: it claims its recommendation engine enjoyed a 25 percent rate of return during 2008.

Yahoo Finance

Any mention of financial data research cannot be complete without talking about the de facto leader in the space, Yahoo Finance.

Although some prefer Google Finance to Yahoo's because of its slightly less-cluttered design, I don't think it compares to Yahoo's page. Combining news, analyst opinions, key ratios, and charts with an outstanding design that makes it simple to navigate from one security to another, Yahoo Finance is set apart as the most useful financial research tool on the Web. And although it's lacking in international data and Google is making inroads, Yahoo's finance page provides the best information as quickly as possible.

Charles Schwab improved its online trading platform Tuesday with the introduction of new features for its site, StreetSmart.com. According to the investment firm, clients will now have real-time performance reporting for closed positions, new short-selling tools, and more order types. The app will also feature new tabs for realized gain and loss data and information on shorting securities. The updates are available now on the Schwab service.

Privus Mobile, a company that provides mobile calling services, announced Tuesday that its Caller ID app is now available through Handmark stores, as well as mobile stores that offer apps for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Palm devices. Privus Mobile's Caller ID feature gives users a cross-carrier option to find out who is calling, regardless of whether their name is included in the user's contacts. The app is available now without cost, thanks to a free trial period.

Move Networks, the company behind online video streaming for Fox, ABC, and a variety of cable networks, said it streamed 180 million hours of video last year. A hundred million hours of that coverage was in HD. The company estimates that it provided video for 55 million unique viewers during 2008 and it expects even more viewership during 2009 as more professional content makes its way to the Web.

TechCrunch is reporting that Clearspring, a widget distribution firm, has laid off several of its staff, though the company's CEO, Homan Radfar, would not say exactly how many employees were affected. Radfar told TechCrunch that the layoffs occurred during the "fourth quarter of 2008." For more layoff information, see CNET's Layoff Scorecard.

RipCode, a provider of Web and mobile video streaming services, announced Tuesday that it raised $12.5 million in funding to help it gain worldwide traction. The round was led by Granite Ventures, along with Hunt Ventures and Vesbridge Partners.

Geezeo, an online financial management service, announced Wednesday that it has expanded its Marketplace to include ratings of online brokerage firms.

According to the company, visitors can now evaluate brokerage firms based on the initial investment required to sign up for an account, associated fees related to stocks, and the overall experience of using the service.

"Geezeo is all about helping our community of users save and make money," Peter Glyman, Geezeo co-founder, said in a statement. "The addition of the Brokerage Marketplace will provide another resource for our users to find the best investment products to help them reach their financial goals."

Geezeo believes its new feature goes beyond providing more information for the user. According to Glyman, user reviews give brokerage firms a glimpse into what people like and dislike from the service and offer them an opportunity to improve. The company will also allow brokers to join in on the discussion.

"Brokers themselves stand to gain from their placement on, and involvement with, Geezeo," Glyman said. "Brokers can join in on discussions with customers in a way that demonstrates their commitment to transparency and quality service."

Users can start adding reviews now on Geezeo's page.

See also: Wesabe, Mint, and Buxfer.

Investments to the tune of $17 million are a rarity these days, but app-factory RockYou has done just that: the San Francisco-based company has announced that Japanese mobile giant SoftBank and Korean telecom investment company SK Telecom Ventures have invested $17 million to create a new joint venture to build apps for the Asia-Pacific market.

RockYou's Series C venture round, which pulled in $35 million, was in June--with the fresh $17 million, the company has raised $67 million so far.

This marks the entry of RockYou, which is best known for its Facebook and MySpace widgets, into the mobile space. "In Asia, over half the social networking occurs on mobile," CEO Lance Tokuda told CNET News. "It's both Web and mobile, and we think we'll get good penetration. The results on (Chinese social network) Xiaonei so far have been very good." RockYou says it is the first non-Chinese company to build apps on Xiaonei.

There will be a separate team handling RockYou's new Asia-Pacific operations, with operations coming from the new joint-venture investors as well. "In a lot of cases it's more cultural, where they'll take our assets and they'll port them and localize them," Tokuda said.

But there will be synergy as well, with mobile apps likely coming to the U.S. market after they're released in Asia. SoftBank is the Japanese carrier for Apple's iPhone, and iPhone apps created for it may eventually be converted to U.S. versions.

"We have no U.S. iPhone apps, and yes, we will port them back (from Asia)," Tokuda said.

So is the company giving up on Facebook's platform? No, Tokuda said, adding that they plan to keep building for it. Nor is the round specifically designed as recession padding, he added.

"There's still opportunity out there," he explained. "That said, it's good to raise a lot of money and have money in the bank, and this latest strategic round helps."

InterActiveCorp's Evite might still be the biggest name in online invitations, but Martha Stewart has made her endorsement elsewhere.

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has partnered with and made an undisclosed investment in Pingg, a much smaller competitor.

The chief executive of New York-based Pingg, Lorien Gabel, spoke to CNET News a few months ago to make the case for his company as a more refined alternative to the clip art-friendly Evite, saying he hoped Pingg would be appropriate for "a whole segment of event types that people just (do) not want to use electronic invitations for," like graduation parties and bar mitzvahs.

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia said in a release that its investment in Pingg was designed to improve its digital presence. Through the partnership, Pingg will be promoted and have its tools worked into the Martha Stewart Web site; Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia will sell ads on Pingg, and some of its content will appear on the invitation start-up's site. Joseph Holland, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's vice president of strategy and development, will join Pingg's board of directors.

This certainly gives Pingg an advantage, as it has plenty of other competitors attempting to eat into Evite's market share: MyPunchbowl, Socializr, and Renkoo are just a few of them.

Our request for a catfight between Stewart and IAC czar Barry Diller went unanswered.

Intel Capital, the chipmaker's venture arm, has signed a deal to acquire a $20 million stake in Telligent Systems, which specializes in social-networking software for businesses.

Intel is an existing client of Telligent.

The two companies have not disclosed a valuation for Dallas-based Telligent. Part of the $20 million stake has already been acquired, the companies said Tuesday, with the rest to follow within 12 months.

"This significant investment from Intel Capital will allow us to grow our team, our capabilities, and our reach during a time of market expansion," Telligent CEO Rob Howard said in a statement. The investment will be directed toward geographic expansion, hiring more sales professionals, and increasing Telligent's advertising and marketing budget.

Telligent manufactures a product called Community Server, which provides clients with blog, forum, wiki, and other collaborative and social software; the software is used primarily for customer relations and marketing. Those clients include the Associated Press, MySpace, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Visa, Honda, Dell, and the NFL.