“Consumers come to Yelp ready to make a spending decision and they rely on Yelp’s wealth of valuable content to find a local business to fit their needs,” wrote Vivek Patel, the company’s vice president of business products.

A storage business could allow users to reserve a unit directly from Yelp. Ticketmaster is also using the feature to sell event tickets on the website.

Yelp is selling the feature as a form of advertising, and will allow businesses to customize the transaction their listing supports.

Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman indicated earlier this month at LeWeb London that the company was looking into supporting commercial transactions on the website.

The Call to Action feature works on both desktop and mobile.

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“There are certain companies where you’re going to have unlimited unsophisticated demand, and clearly Facebook was an example of that. In those cases I’m a strong advocate of another kind of IPO,” said Lise Buyer, a principal at Class V Group, which advises companies on going public. Buyer referred specifically to the so-called Dutch auction style of initial sale that Google opted for in 2004.

Kate Mitchell, a partner at ScaleVP venture capital firm, agreed that overheated interest among non-institutional, or “retail” investors had caused an overly high initial price on Facebook stocks.

“They waited an awful long time to go public,” she said. “You don’t want to go too early, but you don’t want to go too late, especially with these consumer brands that get hyped too darn much.”

Mitchell said there were signs that the IPO would go badly when institutional investors such as fund managers and investment banks, who drive most of the U.S. market, were backing away from the deal while retail investors were not.

The amateur interest proved especially troublesome as Facebook had changes in its business outlook just weeks before its public debut. Institutional investors had better access to that information. Facebook should have opted to delay the IPO at that point, Buyer said, but acknowledged that doing so would have been difficult once the wheels were in motion.

Facebook’s failure caused a substantial bout of bearish investing, particularly in consumer-facing technology companies, even though few other companies have as high a profile when they go public, the experts said.

“It really hurt the U.S. capital markets that summer. There was a big black eye given to the U.S. capital market,” said Doug Chu, who leads the Western region of NYSE Euronext.

Consumer-facing software companies are only now beginning to march at a normal pace toward toward public offerings, Mitchell said. Because many companies file in secret in the wake of the JOBS Act, she said, she couldn’t name specific companies, but Twitter, for example, is widely expected to hold an IPO late this year or early next.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The series returns on August 11 for the final eight episodes of its fifth and final season. Redditors have already been talking about the show using the subreddit, r/breakingbad.

In addition to the reddit AMA, Cranston is also promoting a contest to benefit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. One winner and a guest will take an RV ride with the actor to the “Breaking Bad” premiere, where they can meet the cast, watch the episode before it airs, and attend the after-party. The prize also includes a free flight and a stay in a 4-star hotel.

To enter, go to the contest page on Omaze.com and make a donation of $10 or more.

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“We’re focused on the user experience, so we are willing to pay an aggressive premium sometimes where we think there’s room for user growth,” Harrison said.

Harrison was speaking at a panel on mergers and acquisitions at Bloomberg’s Next Big Thing Summit.

Also on the panel was Ken Hao, managing partner at Silver Lake, a private equity firm that specializes in technology businesses. Hao joked that one of his firm’s investment rules was “never bid against Google,” but also validated in general terms the high price tag for a product that Google will be able to fit in neatly with its own social and navigational offerings.

“It’s stunning what kind of earnings these guys can generate by plugging it in to their other offerings,” Hao said.

Harrison indicated that Google would not shut down or dramatically change the Waze mapping app.

Drago Rajkovi, the head of technology mergers and acquisitions at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and another panelist, put a darker slant on the acquisition. He said that the biggest companies in technology account for a “staggering” 30-40 percent of the merger and acquisitions market.

“A lot of them, having grown that big, have lost their way in innovation. Google is trying very, very hard for that not to happen,” he said.

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“I previously briefly met Evan at a few conferences and was incredibly impressed with him,” explained GetGlue CEO Alex Iskold in an email. ”The past few months, I was just browsing LinkedIn and saw that he left Shazam. I reached out to him about a GetGlue opportunity and we started chatting and got really excited about working together.”

GetGlue is an entertainment hub for finding recommendations for shows and movies to watch, to meet other fans, and to earn stickers and prizes for watching TV.

Revenue had been on the back burner while the second screen app gained momentum among viewers, who now total 4 million registered users.

In January, GetGlue launched its “Promoted Entries” platform just in time for the Super Bowl, with Pepsi as its launch partner. YouTube also leveraged the advertising platform for its “Comedy Week” series in May.

Krauss had experience monetizing second screen applications, having worked on the Shazam team that pioneered the tagging of commercials — ”an offering widely recognized as very promising and the future way to engage with consumers on the second screen,” Iskold said.

Huston Haro, who now works out of GetGlue’s Los Angeles office, led the advertising efforts at Fandango as well as Flixster, which was acquired by Warner Bros. in 2011, before moving to Penske Media Corporation.

“We’d been looking for senior sales executives to join our team for several months,” said Iskold. ”We looked at companies in the entertainment space and were recommended through our network to talk to Shelby. Luckily, she was looking for her next big opportunity.”

Iskold added, “We are very fortunate to have executives with Shelby and Evan’s caliber and experience join our team.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Find people you know.

My friends = your contacts
My friends of friends = their friends who are not also friends with you
People = other people on Facebook that you are not connected to at all

Figure out what your friends do and where they work.

who are = occupation or job title
who used to be = former occupation or job title
at = company, school, or organization
who work at = current employer
who worked at = former employer
who like = pages, interests, genres, etc.

Find people who went to your school.

who went to = school
who graduated from = school

Drill down by date.

in = location, year, etc.
before = year
after = year

Drill down by location.

who live in = city, state, country
nearby = city, state, country

Try these sample sentences.

• My Friends or my friends of friends who work at [company]
• My Friends or my friends of friends who are [occupation or title]
• My Friends or my friends of friends who are or used to be [occupation or title]
• My friends of friends who are friends of [occupation or title]
• My Friends or my friends of friends who work in/ nearby [city, state, country]
• Employers of my friends or friends of friends
• People who studied [subject] and currently work in [city, state, country]
• Employers of People who live in [city, state, country] and like [pages, interests, genres, etc.]

The search results only offer as much information as your friends are willing to share on their Facebook profiles, but your starting point is not limited to people you’ve actually worked with, just to people you know well enough to have as a Facebook friend.

For more search tips, try Facebook’s newsroom.

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Rounds marketing director Natasha Shine-Zirkel said that the apps are designed to connect friends, not strangers, across different platforms in a safe environment. But it’s the activities that friends can share over the phone that make the hangouts more like hanging out in real life.

Much like they could with Google+ Hangouts, Rounds users can watch YouTube videos and create camera effects while they chat, but they aren’t limited to using their Google accounts to log in. Rounds works with iPhone, Android, Web, Facebook, Desktop, and Chrome.

Mobile users can share pictures from their phones and scribble on each others’ video images with a drawing tool. There are a number of games to play as well, including one that’s similar to Tetris.

With the co-browsing feature, friends can not only see each others’ screens, they also have simultaneous control over the sites they visit, so they can both click on links or type in a new URL within the same page. (The technology comes from Dutch company Channel.me.) In this case, users choose from a list of supported sites, including Google Search, Wikipedia, Preen.Me, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, Amazon, eBay, ESPN, The Huffington Post, wanelo, Imgur, and TheFancy.

Right now, the application is free with no advertising. Check out this demo:

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Digg Reader Will Launch Just Before Google Reader Shuts Down (SocialTimes)
Digg will open its new RSS platform, Digg Reader, just weeks ahead of Google Reader’s expiration date, the company announced on Monday. Beta testers will see the first version of the tool starting next week; everyone else will have access on June 26. CNET The first version of the reader — which lets users import feeds and folders straight from the soon-to-be defunct Google Reader — will have basic functions, along with a tool that allows users to push what they think are the most important stories to the top. Digg promises to add more over the next few months. TechCrunch The Digg team says the service will ultimately become a “freemium” product. All of the features it is releasing now as part of this free beta will remain part of the free experience, however. The Guardian It seems the mobile element may be iOS-only at launch, because Digg says an Android app is on its to-do list for the 60 days after its reader goes live. The company is also promising better integration with services like Buffer, Evernote and IFTTT, as well as more tools to sort, filter and rank reading lists and feeds. VentureBeat Google Reader was really good at collecting RSS feeds of all your favorite news sites and blog posts as they were published throughout the day. Personally, I found the service to be more than a bit overwhelming, but others (such as my VentureBeat colleagues) were outraged when Google announced it was shutting down the service earlier this year.

Skype Has its Own Answer to Snapchat (Business Insider)
Skype launched its video-messaging service Monday on Windows 8, Mac, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. Though video-calling has been available on these platforms for some time, the ability to record a quick message and send it off to a few friends is a new addition, undoubtedly inspired by the success of Snapchat, which also lets you send video messages. The Next Web The entire process is pretty straight-forward; just tap the “Video Message” button, followed by the record icon to begin a new message. Recordings can be up to three minutes in length and also previewed before they’re sent to the desired recipients. Skype users can also delete and re-record video messages at any time, which is particularly useful when contacting someone relatively important. WebProNews “Just like the millions of users around the world who have already previewed video messaging, you too can now record and share a personal video message, even when your friends and loved ones are not available,” Skype’s Yasmin Khan says in a blog post. “The best part is that they’ll be able to view your video message as soon as they sign into Skype. Skype Video Messaging is easy and convenient, and only the contact you’ve chosen to receive your message can view it.”

Automattic Acquihires Mobile WordPress App Poster (VentureBeat)
Poster, an app that allows you to post articles on WordPress from you iOS device, has been acquired by WordPress.com parent company Automattic, the app’s creator announced Monday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Study: News Feed Page Post Ads Deliver 26X More ROI, 20X Greater CTR Than Facebook Right-Hand-Side Ads (AllFacebook)
Page post ads in Facebook’s News Feed are becoming the ad unit of choice for marketers on the social network, mainly due to their return on investment performance, according to a study released Monday by Facebook advertising platform Nanigans. Nanigans said advertisers in its study used its ROI-based bidding and optimization algorithms to include News Feed page post link and page post photo ads, as well as right-hand-side domain ads, in their campaigns.

Five Questions Edward Snowden Didn’t Answer During His Live Q&A About NSA Surveillance (GigaOM)
Edward Snowden, the former CIA staffer who recently leaked a trove of documents about an NSA surveillance program known as PRISM, hasn’t exactly been a shrinking violet since he provided the information last week: in addition to a live interview with The Guardian shortly after the documents were published, Snowden did a live question-and-answer session hosted on the newspaper’s website on Monday, in which readers submitted questions via Twitter and online comments. As more than one person noted while the discussion was going on, however, the former spy (who is now reportedly in hiding in Hong Kong) left a number of significant questions unanswered — perhaps in part because the newspaper is holding that information back for future stories, which Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald has promised will contain further revelations.

University to Fund Twitter-Based Australian Election Coverage (The Drum)
Sydney’s Macquarie University has announced it intends to fund the first Twitter–based election coverage by a professional journalist. Journalist Margo Kingston is to work with the University to cover the upcoming federal election using social media.

Big-Name Viners Launch a Collective Vine Account, ‘Unpopular Now’ (AllTwitter)
A group of about 30 popular Viners have teamed up to launch the ironically titled “Unpopular Now,” a riff on Vine’s “Popular Now” category. In addition to sharing their Vines, the group plans to host contests and curations.

Government Working on Draft to Restrict Social Media in Turkey (Hürriyet Daily News)
The Turkish government has launched a study to restrict social media, an attempt that has been inspired by the Gezi protests that have spread across the country. The Justice Ministry has started working on a draft on crimes over the Internet, ministry sources told the Hürriyet Daily News.

YouTube Reaches More U.S. Adults Than Cable Networks [Infographic] (SocialTimes)
Should YouTube be part of your social marketing strategy? This infographic links top advertisers’ success to their YouTube presence and shows how the growing video-sharing platform has surpassed the cable networks in catching the 18-to-34-year-old demographic in the United States.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

San Francisco, with a population of 800,000, is home to more than 1,800 technology businesses that employ 42,000 employees. The city has claimed a larger share of startups since Lee made the controversial move of waiving Twitter’s payroll taxes if it located in the city’s troubled Mid-Market area last year.

Lee said the same pocket of the city is now home to nearly a dozen other companies as well.

But even at the business-friendly Bloomberg Next Big Thing Summit in the swank Ritz-Carlton hotel in Half Moon Bay, just south of San Francisco, the interviewer and audience members wondered whether Lee hadn’t been too generous to technology, as skyrocketing rents have spurred an epidemic of evictions. Locals recently protested the private tech buses that deliver the tech workers to their San Francisco homes.

Lee pointed to a recent study that found that four additional jobs are created for each new position in the tech industry, as workers buy lunch and coffee and get haircuts. Unemployment rates have fallen from 9.6 percent to 5.4 percent since he took office in early 2011, he said.

Near Twitter’s offices, some 4,400 rental units are under construction, Lee said.

Asked whether it might be dangerous to bet so heavily on an industry that is notoriously volatile, Lee said, “It’s very critical for any mayor not to put all the eggs in one basket.”

Tourism remains San Francisco’s strongest industry, Lee said. But the policy efforts the mayor cited as a basis for the city’s long-term economic health relied on his partnerships with technology companies, such as his efforts to raise money for the city’s public schools with the help of Salesforce. Lee also recently sponsored a hackathon in search of improvements to city government and bureaucracy.

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From the article:

Visitors viewed 63 percent more pages in the first quarter of 2013, ending in May, than they did in the quarter a year earlier, according to the earnings report. Mr. Roth said traffic to all its news products had increased eightfold since Influencers was introduced, although he would not say from what base it was measured. Top posts routinely record more than 100,000 views, according to the site’s own accounting. With obvious delight, Mr. Roth conveyed what may be the most telling measure of success: “We have a long list of C.E.O.’s who are asking to get in,” he said.

Executives take note: the response for the program was so overwhelming that LinkedIn stopped taking applications in February, but there’s an email address for sending inquiries here.

Image by  Nagy-Bagoly Arpad.

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Based on early feedback from power users, Digg will release a basic version of Reader that can import feeds and folders from Google Reader and will also include tools for subscribing to news feeds and sharing, saving, and organizing posts and other media. In the 60 days following the launch, the team will build new tools for filtering reading lists based on the users’ networks and personal tastes and will integrate the platform with third-party services including Buffer, Evernote, and IFTTT. Other features, such as search and notification tools, will be rolled out incrementally.

“While you’re at the beach and doing foliage cruises (or whatever people do in October), we’ll be spending the summer and fall building out a richer feature set, drawing heavily on users’ feedback, ideas, and requests,” the Digg team wrote in a blog post. “But first, we want to get the basics right, starting with a clean and uncluttered design and a powerful backend infrastructure than can operate well at scale.”

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Speaking at Bloomberg’s Next Big Thing Summit in Half Moon Bay, Roku’s Anthony Wood said that live TV was “dying quickly.”

“Most TV on Roku is on demand that’s the real benefit. The top 25 percent of Roku users stream 30 hours a week, and almost all of it is on demand,” Wood (top left) said.

Roku originally launched as a set-top adapter that allowed Netflix subscribers to watch programming on their television sets. It has since expanded to include content from Hulu Plus, HBO GO, sports programing and Internet radio from Pandora and Spotify.

But Wood and Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia (bottom left) said that neither channel bundling nor advertising were likely to go away as video programming is increasingly distributed through the Internet.

Aereo allows consumers to record traditional network programming using a cloud-based DVR and watch the programming later. Its main use case is that it allows viewers to watch programming on their own schedules.

“Behavior and habits are changing, and to be where the consumer is at a certain point in time is a good thing,” Kanojia said.

Aereo is fighting a number of legal claims from media companies that claim that the subscription-based service deprives them of advertising dollars, as ratings companies are unable at present to count viewers using the service. But the service does not remove advertising.

Internet-streaming services like Roku and Aereo will reduce the bundling of channels that cable companies use to push viewers into higher-cost subscriptions. (For instance, consumers cannot subscribe just to HBO, but must purchase a bundle of channels that includes HBO.) They may also reduce the amount of advertising, but they won’t eliminate either, the executives seemed to agree.

“We’re fraying the bundle, but there’s still going to be bundling,” Wood said.

“What’s happening is fundamentally more choice. Customers do like bundling; it’s over-bundling they don’t like,” he said. “The least popular way to purchase content online is a la carte, because it’s expensive.”

Kanojia was more critical but still depicted streaming as a supplementary solution to conventional content packaging.

“Technology aside, the business models are still stuck in the 50s. New niche producers can’t get in front of the consumer. If that’s what it’s going to be, let’s create a very wide fringe,” he said.

Some products in the bundles Roku and Aereo provide rely more heavily on advertising than others. For instance, Netflix subscribers don’t see any advertisements, but Hulu Plus’s do.

“The amount of advertising per content that Roku users watch is generally a lot less. Ads per content will grow but I think there’s always going to be less,” said Wood.

Kanojia, given his company’s precarious legal victories over media companies, was terse.

“We have a philosophical bias that content creators should deal with advertisers, not us,” he said.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

First on the list is “Turbo F.A.S.T,” a kids’ show premiering in December that follows the speedy snail character from the upcoming film “Turbo.” The other original series in the queue have yet to be announced, but some will draw inspiration from the Classic Media library that DreamWorks acquired in 2012.

“DreamWorks Animation is a valued partner in our global efforts to provide families the most engaging stories delivered however, whenever and wherever they want,” said Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos in a statement. ”This deal represents a major expansion of what’s already a phenomenal relationship, allowing us to bring beloved DreamWorks characters to the 40 countries where Netflix operates and setting the stage for us to innovate together as we expand into new markets.”

The animation studio has been planning to stream its existing films and television specials on Netflix since 2011, when DreamWorks ended its deal with HBO.

After its run in theaters, the film version of “Turbo” will go straight to Netflix in U.S. and Latin America, along with the prehistoric adventure “The Croods” and an upcoming film adaptation of “Rocky and Bullwinkle” called “Mr. Peabody and Sherman.” 

Earlier this year, Netflix let its deal with Viacom expire, sending Nickelodeon shows like “Dora the Explorer” and “The Backyardigans” to Amazon Prime.

But the company has managed to build out its kids section through deals with Disney/ABC Television Group, which brought “Jake and the Never Land Pirates” and ”Tron: Uprising” to the streaming service; and Hasbro, which has pledged episodes of “My Little Pony Friendship is Magic,” ”Transformers Prime,” “Transformers Rescue Bots,” “Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters,” and “Littlest Pet Shop.”

Netflix will add the original kids’ series after releasing a number of new shows aimed at adults, like the original drama “House of Cards” and new episodes of the previously cancelled TV comedy “Arrested Development.”

“This is an unprecedented commitment to original content in the internet television space,” said DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. ”Netflix is a visionary company that continues to redefine the way audiences watch television and it is a thrill to add to their growing momentum.”

Photo courtesy of PRNewsFoto/Netflix Inc. 

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