Former Googler And White House Staffer Katie Jacobs Stanton Heads To Twitter

Twitter has made another key hire today: former Google vet and White House and State Department staffer Katie Jacobs Stanton . According to Stanton’s Tweet stream, she will be leaving her role at the State Department for greener pastures at Twitter. She will be based out of the company’s California office. At first I thought Stanton would be taking on Twitter’s newly announced role of government liaison, but according to Stanton, she’ll be working on international and business strategy. Stanton joined Google in 2003 and was the Product Manager of Google Finance. She was one of the first Googlers to join the Obama Administration, as the “Director of Citizen Participation,” in which she helped develop of online tools that help Americans get move involved with White House. She then moved to the State Department early this year as the Special Adviser to the Office of Innovation, where she worked on projects related to Twitter. Stanton seems to have the perfect blend of government and technology experience, which makes this a big win for Twitter. CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase

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Former Googler And White House Staffer Katie Jacobs Stanton Heads To Twitter

NextStop Deal Is All About Facebook’s Unquenchable Thirst For Top Talent

Earlier today, Facebook acquired NextStop , a social travel recommendation service . There’s been some speculation as to why this deal went down. Is Facebook getting into the travel space? Is this about their unlaunched location offering? From what we’re hearing, it’s much more simple than that. It really just boils down to Facebook getting a few very talented people at a relatively low price. Facebook has been on a mission to scoop up as many smart management types as possible, we’ve heard from a few sources recently — some of whom have talked directly to Facebook. That may seem obvious — after all, who wouldn’t want the best talent? But Facebook is in the unique position now to have resources to simply acquire companies in order to get these people. And that’s exactly what they’re doing, we’re told. NextStop is just one of a few companies that Facebook has been sniffing around recently in order to bulk up the projects under Facebook Director of Product Blake Ross, we’re told. It’s well known that Ross is leading the charge on Facebook’s Questions product, but their new emphasis on local — including the upcoming Places area of the service — is likely a focus for these deals as well. The NextStop acquisition makes sense in both of those arenas. Two of NextStop co-founders, Carl Sjogreen and Adrian Graham, are former Googlers with impressive resumes. Sjogreen led the Google Calendar team at its launch (and was heavily involved in Google Maps), while Graham launched both Google Groups and Picasa. There are at least a few other members of the small team going over to Facebook as well, including one other former Googler. The team also had one employee who was formerly a member of the user operations team at Facebook. But Sjogreen and Graham seem to be the keys to this deal. At Facebook, both of them will be reporting directly to Ross, we’re hearing. It’s not entirely clear yet what exactly they’ll be working on (and Facebook won’t comment). But the aforementioned projects are good guesses, as is anything Facebook is working on around events. Facebook Questions has been pretty well covered both because the company is currently testing it with certain members and because some have dubbed it the next “killer app” of the service . But Facebook Places may end up being just as interesting. The service, which the company has yet to confirm but we’ve previously spotted , is believed to be a big part of Facebook’s entry into the location space. We’ve heard that Facebook has a deal in place with Localeze to fill out this Places area — similar to a deal Twitter signed with the company. This may explain why Facebook was okay with NextStop releasing their own built up database of places under Creative Commons license — they don’t need that data. Speculation aside, it’s pretty clear that the NextStop acquisition is the latest in a series of acquisitions Facebook has made to bring in high caliber talent. This dates back to Facebook’s first acquisition, Parakey, in 2007 . And it includes their most high-profile buy,  FriendFeed , last year. In both of those instances, Facebook hasn’t done anything with the actual product they acquired, and instead has used the talent behind them to further their own products and core team. Just look at the roster from those two deals. The Parakey deal brought in both Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt. Both worked at Netscape before they moved on to help found Mozilla, and create the Firefox web browser. Ross, as we’ve mentioned, is now the Director of Product at Facebook. Hewitt, meanwhile, created Facebook initial mobile web app (before there were native third-party applications on the iPhone) and went on to create the company’s excellent iPhone app (though he has since moved on to other projects). With the FriendFeed deal, Facebook picked up a number of ex-Googlers, but none more important than FriendFeed co-founders Paul Buchheit and Bret Taylor. Buchheit is often credited as being the creator of Gmail (and the Googler that coined the phrase “don’t be evil”) as well as the builder of an early prototype of AdSense (you know, that thing that makes Google all its money now). It’s not entirely clear what he’s working on at Facebook at the moment, but whatever it is, you can be sure it’s vital. Taylor, meanwhile, was the original manager behind Google Maps. He’s now Facebook’s CTO. So that’s the creators of Firefox, the creator of Gmail, the creator of Google Maps, the creator of Google Calendar, and the creator of Google Groups and Picasa that Facebook has picked up through acquisitions. Not bad. From what we’ve heard, Facebook got NextStop “cheap” as the company had done a couple rounds from a private investor, but never a big round. There had been some talk that they weren’t able to pull in a larger round and that’s why they went with the sale, but other sources say that’s not the case, it was just a good fit and good timing [see: update below] . Either way, Facebook is stocking up. They’re on a mission . Update : Another source is now confirming that NextStop was unable to secure VC funding. So it would definitely seem as if Facebook got the team for a good price. [photo: flickr/ popfatticus ] CrunchBase Information Facebook Nextstop Information provided by CrunchBase

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NextStop Deal Is All About Facebook’s Unquenchable Thirst For Top Talent

Whiteboard Friday – 7 Ways to Take Advantage of Google’s Site Speed Algorithm (Pop-Up Video Style)

Posted by Danny Dover

Former Googlers Launch TellApart, Raise $4.75 Million From Greylock

Silicon Valley based TellApart , founded by ex Googlers Josh McFarland and Mark Ayzenshtat , unveiled its service today. They also are announcing a $4.75 million first round of financing in a round led by Greylock Partners , and Greylock partner James Slavet has joined the board of directors. The service helps ecommerce companies increase revenue by analyzing and targeting buyer behavior. Here’s how it works – ecommerce services share deep user data with TellApart, which then targets those consumers with advertising and other mechanism to get them to return to the site and buy more stuff. This includes targeting ads at those buyers when they are out surfing the web, identifying them via the cookie from the original ecommerce site. The company has been in trials with at least three ecommerce sites – Hay Needle, Ebags, Diapers.com – since late last year. They charge the sites only for a percentage of increased sales (basically an affiliate fee), and they say that the value a user brings to an ecommerce site through them is roughly 2x the original value of the customer. Revenue run rate is “in the seven figures” already, Greylock tells us. I sat down with the founders and Slavet earlier today to talk about the service and the funding. The video is below. CrunchBase Information TellApart Greylock Partners Information provided by CrunchBase

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Former Googlers Launch TellApart, Raise $4.75 Million From Greylock

Former Googlers Launch TellApart, Raise $4.75 Million From Greylock

Silicon Valley based TellApart , founded by ex Googlers Josh McFarland and Mark Ayzenshtat , unveiled its service today. They also are announcing a $4.75 million first round of financing in a round led by Greylock Partners , and Greylock partner James Slavet has joined the board of directors. The service helps ecommerce companies increase revenue by analyzing and targeting buyer behavior. Here’s how it works – ecommerce services share deep user data with TellApart, which then targets those consumers with advertising and other mechanism to get them to return to the site and buy more stuff. This includes targeting ads at those buyers when they are out surfing the web, identifying them via the cookie from the original ecommerce site. The company has been in trials with at least three ecommerce sites – Hay Needle, Ebags, Diapers.com – since late last year. They charge the sites only for a percentage of increased sales (basically an affiliate fee), and they say that the value a user brings to an ecommerce site through them is roughly 2x the original value of the customer. Revenue run rate is “in the seven figures” already, Greylock tells us. I sat down with the founders and Slavet earlier today to talk about the service and the funding. The video is below. CrunchBase Information TellApart Greylock Partners Information provided by CrunchBase

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Former Googlers Launch TellApart, Raise $4.75 Million From Greylock

Clarifying a couple points

[Just as a reminder: everything below is my personal opinion. I haven't sent it to anyone else at Google for a review, etc.] Valleywag used a recent podcast I did as material for two points in Six Delusions of Google’s Arrogant Leaders . The two assertions that used my comments as material were “Google’s wealth means Google ‘gets it’” and “Google must sacrifice user privacy to grow.” Valleywag has either misinterpreted what I said, or I didn’t express myself clearly, because I don’t believe either of those claims. I’ll try to explain the intent of what I said, in case I wasn’t clear during the podcast. I’ll address the latter claim first (“Google must sacrifice user privacy to grow”), because I certainly don’t believe that “Google must sacrifice user privacy to grow.” I think Google benefits the most when users understand what Google is doing and why; I also think that user trust in Google (and by extension our privacy policies) is paramount to our success. A good example is our Google Ad Preferences page. As one blog concluded a couple days ago: “Google’s Ad Preference Manager, with its persistent opt-out plug-in, offers precisely the kind of robust opt-out that privacy advocates have always demanded.” And it’s not that we’re shy about talking about privacy; Googlers Alma Whitten and Nicole Wong recently talked privacy for an Ars Technica article that came out earlier this week. It’s a long article, but an example useful fact is that if X is the number of people who visit the Ad Preferences page and opt out, 10X people don’t opt out and 4X people actually edit their categories to improve the targeting relevance of the ads they see. Let me say that again: four times as many people change their settings to make their ads *more* relevant than opt out of interest-based targeting . I think the Ad Preferences page is a good example where users get more transparency and control regarding their privacy. Another example where Google helps your privacy (rather than sacrificing it) is the Google Dashboard . This is a single site that gives you an overview of what information Google has from various services, and allows you to edit and to manage settings. This is another example where Google is trying to give more information to users, not less. I could point out lots of examples where we try to debunk privacy misconceptions . Where we actively fight for our users’ privacy . Or where we talk about privacy and engage in debates about user privacy . And of course there’s Google’s full privacy center (with videos!) at http://www.google.com/privacy.html . Suffice it to say, I don’t believe that Google “must sacrifice user privacy to grow.” Okay, what about the other claim that Valleywag used me for: “Google’s wealth means Google ‘gets it’”? Ryan Tate wrote “It’s a truly bizarre moment, in which Cutts defends some horrendous management decisions based on Wall Street trades.” I don’t agree with that either, so let me try to clarify. Eric Schmidt joined the company in 2001. The first time I got to meet Eric was at the weekly TGIF meeting where he was introduced to the wider company. He answered questions for an hour, and I thought his answers were spot on. He was one of the original authors of lex , a well-known Unix utility that I had used in the past, so I knew that he was also a solid engineer and technologist. Schmidt also had experience at large companies (Sun and Novell). All in all, I was very happy and impressed that Eric was joining Google. When I went home that day, my wife asked what had happened at work. And I replied with something like “I think the value of our stock options just went up a lot.” What I meant by that was that I thought Google had recruited the perfect person to lead the company from start-up to the next level. I still believe that. Eric has been a truly great CEO–and I’m not just saying that because for the last several years he has worked for $1 a year . Maybe I didn’t tell the anecdote well or clearly, but my intent was to explain that I think Eric Schmidt has been a great CEO right from the beginning of this decade, not to defend any decisions “based on Wall Street trades.” If you want to listen to the full podcast, it’s available , but I hope this post helps to clarify.

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Clarifying a couple points