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Last month, we noted that Twitter was testing a “You both follow” feature, showing users you and another user both follow. That’s interesting, but not particularly useful. Today, they’ve begun to roll out a new “Suggestions for You” feature which looks at who you follow, and who the people you follow follow, and suggests new people for you to follow. Yes, just like Facebook does. This is very useful.

In fact, this is arguably the most useful social graph feature that Twitter has rolled out yet. A few weeks ago, Twitter rolled out a new name results area for search — which was incredibly helpful for finding celebrities or brands on Twitter. But this is better. This is all about finding people you may actually be interested in based on your current social graph, but for whatever reason, haven’t connected with yet.

Such a feature would be less interesting if it were only tucked away in the “Find People” area of the site. But Twitter is actually going to put it front and center too. When you click on other users’ profiles, you’ll see a “Who to follow” area in their profile space to show similar users that you might be interested in. And when you follow someone, you’ll get other suggestions based on that follow as well.

In terms of how they determine these suggestions, Twitter says:

The algorithms in this feature, built by our user relevance team, suggest people you don’t currently follow that you may find interesting. The suggestions are based on several factors, including people you follow and the people they follow.

[thanks Tyler]

Sorry, BlackBerry fanboys, the BlackPad — or whatever it will be called — is going to flop in a monumental way. Remember how RIM’s last iDevice clone, the Storm, failed in such a public way? Yep, it’s going to happen all over again. RIM has no business making a consumer tablet.

We all need to give major props to Research In Motion. They were really the first major player to make smartphones relevant by offering a nearly-bulletproof mobile emailing system to business. Eventually RIM started making consumer-orientated email devices that worked with personal email accounts. RIM really showed the world that you need email while you were away from your desk.

But that’s where their claim to fame stops. Don’t misunderstand the Canadian company’s importance in consumer electronics’ history. RIM ranks up there with the best of them, but unless the so-called BlackPad is targeted solely at businesses and enterprise users — and all signs suggest otherwise — the BlackPad will fail.

It’s no secret that loyalty programs — like those hole-punch cards that give you a free Slurpee every ten visits — are a great, cheap way to keep customers coming back to your business. Thing is, running these programs isn’t always as easy as it seems, especially if a business wants to do something more complex than the basic “buy ten get one free”. PlacePop is a new startup looking to make these loyalty programs accessible to any business: the startup has built a self-serve platform based around its new iPhone application which companies can use to distribute virtual, custom-branded loyalty cards.

Today, the company is launching at our Social Currency CrunchUp, and it’s also announcing that it has closed a $1.4 million round of funding.  Participants in the round include Affinity Labs Founder Chris Michel, Bebo Founder Michael Birch, and James Currier and Stan Chudnovsky, both of whom cofounded Ooga Labs.

At a high level, PlacePop is pretty simple for the end-user: you fire up the iPhone app, swipe until you find the appropriate virtual rewards card, and “check-in” at the venue you’re visiting. And the startup says that a business can get its loyalty program up and running in five minutes.

PlacePop isn’t the first startup to try to tackle rewards, and it faces the same chicken-and-egg issue that its competitors have: you need businesses to actually offer rewards to get users hooked, and businesses aren’t going to bother if the service doesn’t have any users to begin with. PlacePop is taking a few steps to deal with this (and help differentiate the startup): first, it offers a number of other social features, like sharing photos of the places you’re checking into so the app has some utility regardless of if a business is offering a deal or reward. And second, it’s letting you earning rewards points toward venue on Earth, even before a business joins PlacePop.

That may sound a little counter-intuitive, but PlacePop is hoping that it will lead to a sort of community-led guerrilla campaign where users urge their favorite businesses to join PlacePop. CEO Kent Lindstrom explains that users can start checking-in at their favorite restaurants and other venues, and when venue owners visit PlacePop and see that they already have traction on the service, they can “claim” their profile.  I’m not entirely convinced this will work (it’s going to get tough to convince users to check in based on the possibility that a venue may one day start offering rewards), but it’s an interesting tactic.

So why would a restaurant want to use PlacePop instead of a service that is already starting to get traction, like Foursquare? Linstrom gave a few reasons: first, PlacePop allows venues to customize and create their own branding for their virtual card. Second, the platform will allow venues to custom tailor how they want to reward program to work — for example, a business could opt to build their own Groupon-style program, where a special deal was activated if 50 people redeemed a coupon.

PlacePop obviously has its work cut out for it. Foursquare and other location-based services are looking to add deals and rewards as a layer on top of their applications, allowing for a more passive approach to earning rewards. Other startups in this space include We Reward, which lets you earn cash for your checkins.

Social search site OneRiot just announced layoffs and staff restructuring on its company blog, in a post entitled “Welcome to the future, it’s coming fast.”

Now, being agile also necessitates making some tough decisions too, if they are the right thing for the company right now. Unfortunately, today, we have had to let a handful of well respected colleagues go. This is a pragmatic decision based on a strategically focused go-forward plan for the company. It’s in no way a reflection of the talent of the people concerned.

While OneRiot’s post does not reveal how many employees or what percentage of staff was cut, it does announce the following executive changes: CEO and Tesla board Director Kimbal Musk will now take on the role of company Chairman and Tobias Peggs, formerly President in charge of Strategy, Sales, Distribution and Marketing, will replace him as CEO. Co-founder Robert Reich will be leaving the company.

OneRiot’s search results are ranked to reflect the realtime social conversations around any piece of content. The company recently tapped both in to the Google Buzz firehose and Facebook’s Open Graph API.

CrunchBase InformationOneRiotKimbal MuskInformation provided by CrunchBase

Today at our Social Currency CrunchUp (which is currently being livestreamed here), Blekko founder and CEO Rich Skrenta gave the first live demo of the startup’s innovative search engine (be sure to check out our initial review). To mark the occasion, Blekko is giving out an invite to 500 lucky TechCrunch readers — just be one of the first people to email a message requesting an invite to techcrunch@blekko.com.

GM is banking large on the Chevy Volt and apparently feels confident about its success. The auto maker just issued a statement, which conveniently coincides while President Obama is touring the assembly plant, detailing the increased production estimate for 2012. The Detroit-Hamtramck facility will now pump out 50% more than previously detailed, an increase to 45,000 from 30,000.
Chances are this production bump is dependent on a successful roll-out of the first 10,000 vehicles slated to hit dealers later this year. If the $41,000 Volt quickly flops, then GM will probably scale the production numbers back to the initial estimate or less.

According to GroupOn CEO Andrew Mason who is on stage right now at Social Currency CrunchUp, the breakout deals site GroupOn was originally a side project Mason started in order to make money, “We tried a zillion things” Mason said.

Including a cheesy-sounding slippers with flashlights deal, which Mason describes as “act of desperation, pretty impressive considering that the company is currently making $365 million in revenues, a million a day according to our sources. Mason gave no thought whatsoever as to whether or not it would work.

With GroupOn now in over 170 cities in over 22 countries, its come a long way from flashlight slippers, and Mason aspires to one day be a replacement for the classic city guide, “We’re focused on creating a market as efficient as possible with regards to getting as much exposure to local business as possible.”

From the humble slipper beginnings, to currently selling deals on laser eye surgery, Mason has not just created a business, he’s created an entirely new business model, now with over 500 clones.  Couponing is currently the hottest thing on the internet; Asking the CrunchUp audience whether or not they had bought a GroupOn deal Mason joked, “Raise your hand if you’ve only bought a GroupOn so you could figure out how to clone us?”

Update: The original slippers with flashlights GroupOn, below.

Photo: Uneasysilence

Today, during our Social Currency CrunchUp, angel investor Ron Conway had some interesting data to share for the first time. Conway says that his company, SV Angel, has recently done an audit on the over 500 companies they’ve invested in over the past 12 years. And he was surprised with the results.

Conway expected it would show that about one-third of companies fail, one-third get investors their money back, and one-third bring a 2x to Google-x return (Conway invested in Google early on). But that’s not the case. Conway noticed that during the Internet Bubble in 1997 to 2001 — the failure rate (startups that go out of business and the investors get nothing) was a staggering 77 percent. “It was catastrophic,” he said.

But things improved. The failure rate in recent years — since 2002 — has dropped to about 40 percent, Conway says. He makes sure to note that that’s just his portfolio — which they’re picky about. They only invest in about one of every 40 companies they see.

Conway notes that he was able to make it through the Bubble years because of a very few smart investments in Google, PayPal, and others that also took place at that time. “We were lucky, others weren’t,” he notes.

He also notes that entrepreneurs have a 66 percent chance of being successful on a startup if it’s their second one. But that’s also partially because they’re often doing a second startup if they were successful the first time around.

All that said, Conway notes that his data shows that regardless of the time period — Bubble or Boom — the rate of very successful outcomes has stayed roughly the same. With that in mind, “anytime is a good time to start a company,” he concludes.

Conway says there is a misconception that “every 10 years we get a Google.” “That’s not true,” Conway says. He notes that AskJeeves came, then six years later, Google came. But then six years after that was Facebook. And now the big companies are coming faster. After Facebook, it was only four years until Twitter came around. Then it was two years later that Foursquare, Zynga, and others have come along. “Great companies are being created at a much greater rate,” Conway says.

You can watch the rest of the Social Currency CrunchUp live here.

Today at our Social Currency CrunchUp in Palo Alto, CA, Michael Arrington sat down with investors Ron Conway and Paul Graham. Obviously, these are two of the biggest names in early-stage investing (with SV Angel and Y Combinator, respectively).

Both Conway and Graham had some interesting data to share. Conway, in particular, was able to give some great numbers because he’s recently done an audit on the over 500 companies he’s invested in over the past 12 years.

You can also follow the full Social Currency CrunchUp live here.

Below find my live note (paraphrased):

MA: Ron Conway is the founder of SV Angel which is a $10 million angel fund.

RC: Over 500 companies I’ve invested in.

MA: Ron has some new data to share today that he hasn’t shared before. It will be great to hear that data. Paul Graham is the co-founder of Y Combinator. You guys have funded 212 companies?

PG: 208 companies. 72 companies a year now. First investment was in 2005.

MA: Yesterday was the Angel Conference. 8-10 super angels were speaking, then me. I presented an argument that perhaps Y Combinator and angel investors were destroying Silicon Valley. Ron wants to rebutt that argument. The “Dipshit” argument.

RC: Well referring to these entrepreneurs as dipshits is bullshit. It’s bullshit in my opinion. It takes a lot of guts and passion to start a company. There’s too many M&A in the $25 to $50 million dollar range. Some of them could have been building the next huge company — but they sell too soon. But that’s the entreprenuers decision to make. But the real fallacy is that it’s hurting Silicon Valley. Because the exits are going up it’s helping.

PG: Around 10% or a little more get series A round from VC funds. Anyone who gets that knows they can’t sell for $25 million.

MA: What about the other 90%?

PG: Well most go to angels, the 10% is just from actual VCs. So everything you said if false.

MA: Let’s talk about Mint. Ron you had a stake. Sold for $175 million to Intuit. There’s an argument they could have not sold and become the next Intuit. Some VCs wanted them to take money off the table instead. Same with Aarvark. Investors were begging them to keep going. Isn’t that a bad thing?

RC: Well they’re good examples, but they didn’t stop hiring after being bought. Their parent companies now have a lot more money. And it’s about scaling the idea — much easier now.

MA: There’s been a trend in deals. Facebook has 5 or 10 in the pipeline right now. A small amount of cash, and no stock — but the employees get stock. Some investors complain this is ridiculous — to fund a hiring process for Facebook. RC: Well I invest in two of them Parakey and Hot Potato — well, if that happens (laughs). I think FriendFeed can been in this category too. Once again you have to respect the entrepreneurs that did all the work. The investors in these companies should consider this a cost of sales. Some will get sucked up — it’s a great thing for the entrepreneur. Getting your money back is not a bad deal. Money back is a win. PG: But Ron invested in Facebook too — so it’s kind of a wash, right?

MA: There’s been a trend in deals. Facebook has 5 or 10 in the pipeline right now. A small amount of cash, and no stock — but the employees get stock. Some investors complain this is ridiculous — to fund a hiring process for Facebook.

PG: The way to make money isn’t on these small deals anyway.

MA: But if they get a tenth of percent in options — that’s a big deal.

PG: That sounds wrong.

MA: I”m never wrong.

RC: I have another ulterior motive. Founders of Hot Potato, FriendFeed, and Parakey won’t be at Facebook their whole lives. An entrepreneur is an entrepreneur.

MA: Let’s talk data. Paul you have enough companies now to predict if a startup will be successful. Ron, we talked about your recent audit with investments over 12 years. And you were suprrised. You thought it would be different.

RC: I’ve invested in 500 companies over 12 years — there’s a ton of data. People ask all the time what’s the success rate. 1/3 fail, 1/3 you get money back, 1/3 you get 2x to Googlex — I THOUGHT. That’s not accurate. If you go back to the bubble: 1997-2001 — the failure rate (out of business investors get nothing) was 77%. It was catastrophic. But we got Google, PayPal, etc. We were lucky. Others weren’t. That failure rate has plummeted to closer to 40% now. That’s post-Bubble from 2002 to today.

PG: But the failure rate is going to be much higher overall. This is just your portfolio.

RC: That’s right. Just our portfolio that we picked closely from. Repeat entrepreneurs have a 66% of being successful on startup #2.

MA: Does it matter if they were successful the first time?

RC: Well 70% of those companies had a successful first exit. Funny how that works.

RC: A high percentage had huge flame outs too. A third.

MA: What’s the average age of investment?

RC: I don’t know. It’s 25 and under.

PG: Ours is 26 — yours have to be older.

MA: What’s the ROI been?

RC: I haven’t shared that — probably never will. There’s more money coming in. Two more data points: entrepreneurs who start a company, regardless of the climate — since 2002 to today — we’ve had ups and down. Entrepreneurs have the same chance of success — Anytime is a good time to start a company.

MA: Who is the coolest entrepreneur you’ve ever met?

RC: I’m gonna dodge that bullet and say Shawn Fanning. He’s started 3 companies.

MA: Zuckerberg vs. Fanning in the startup pit. He takes him out at the knees right?

RC: Zuck has grown in maturity at an algorithmic scale. He’s a leader. You are a different person than you were 6 months ago. One other point that I think is interesting. People are saying ‘every 10 years we get a Google.” That’s not true. I invested in AskJeeves, then came Google. 4 years later was Facebook. 2 years later was Twitter. 2 years later was Foursquare, Zynga, etc. Great companies are being created at a much greater rate. Awesome news for entrepreneurs. Giant companies every 2 years.

MA: Paul your data has helped you pick entrepreneurs.

PG: We haven’t had enough exits. We noticed that 4 person teams have done badly. We’re not for sure why, but I have a theory. 2 and 3 is good but 1 isn’t great. We’ll fund them, but 2 and 3 is optimal

MA: What about 2 if they’re dating.

PG: It depends. If they stay together. Or if they’re married.

MA: What if you’re gay?

PG: So far it’s all good.

MA: Women?

PG: Only 14 women out of 450 so far. But that’s just because of the applicant pool.

Good morning from the TechCrunch Social Currency CrunchUp at the Stanford Campus, where many of Silicon Valley’s most seasoned entrepreneurs and investors are joining us to discuss the future of coupons, social commerce, virtual goods, gaming mechanics, and a range of other timely topics. We’re streaming the event in its entirety live on Ustream.

Google has been cleared of any wrongdoing relating to Wi-Fi snooping in the UK. Well, partially cleared. The country’s Information Commissioner’s Office, whose job is to “uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals,” has said that “it is unlikely that Google will have captured significant amounts of personal data” during its Street View mappings.

Google has added weather data to its Google Earth application. As of now, the new feature only supports locations in North America and parts of Europe.

In January, we broke the news that prolific Silicon Valley angel investor Dave McClure was to set up its own venture capital fund.

Yesterday, the man filed for the fund with the SEC, providing us with more details (hat tip to FormDs.com). The name will be 500 Startups – McClure has long called himself the master of 500 hats – and the initial fund will amount to max. $30 million according to the filing.

McClure has turned to 99 Designs to come up with a logo for the fund (my favorite so far).

Here’s part of the brief for the logo design:

500 Startups is a new, edgy, risk taking seed fund which invests in early stage consumer internet companies.

Incubator/seed investment funds are popping up left and right and we’re looking to differentiate ourself through edgier design. Our founder likes to swear. In public. A lot. Think Ari Gold, but for tech companies and without a suit.

We are not — *not* — your typical fund composed of a bunch of stiff white guys sitting around a board table. We’re young. We’re diverse (Women! People of color!). Our investments are blustering balls of sleepless eagerness, And the markets we’re looking to dominate are murky and emergent.

Our values:

- “Fun at All Costs”… authentic, down-to-earth, *real*
- Creative, Smart, Innovative Environment
- Learn & Educate at Same Time
- Move Quickly, Take Risks, Make [Manageable] Mistakes

Sounds like McClure, alright.

For your reference: McClure has been investing in early stage startups for years.

He is a direct angel investor in a half dozen or more startups, including Mint, Simply Hired, Mashery, bit.ly, UserVoice, SlideShare, TeachStreet and others. And he has invested in dozens more through fbFund, a $10 million Facebook investment fund backed by Founders Fund and Accel, and FF Angel, a Founders Fund early stage fund.

CrunchBase InformationDave McClureInformation provided by CrunchBase

Apple’s earnings and revenue growth in mobile have been awe-inspiring to witness. From zero presence three years ago, Apple is now the most profitable cell phone maker in the world.

Apple’s success in this compressed period has helped it become an enormous buyer of components. In fact iSuppli projects that next year Apple will become the second-largest semiconductor buyer worldwide and may edge out HP in 2012 to become the world’s largest.

Though this scale presents Apple with enormous bargaining power, it also begs the question: Should Apple own its own wireless chip development?

This week’s rumors that Intel is about to acquire Infineon’s wireless chip business to make a run at the smartphone market bring this question front and center. Infineon is Apple’s sole supplier for cellular basebands, the core chipsets used in mobile phones to handle voice and data communications.

Based on Apple’s deep relationship with Infineon, and its famed secrecy around M&A, it is a pretty safe bet that Steve Jobs is analyzing the implications of a deal.

Vertical Integration is Back In Vogue:

We are re-entering a period where companies are integrating vertically instead of horizontally. This is happening at an incredible pace at companies like Cisco and Oracle. Even Microsoft recently hinted at creating its own chips, by obtaining an architectural license for ARM processors.

There are even precedents in the mobile phone market—both Nokia and Ericsson successfully managed cellular chip teams up until 2007 before spinning them off in a quest to move up the services stack.

The fact is that despite Apple’s success with the A4, it trails nearly all other large hardware companies in chip development, including Cisco, Sony, and IBM.

Synergies Between Infineon and Apple are Significant:

In addition to having supplied every cellular baseband chip that Apple has ever bought, Infineon is one of only four companies with an ARM architectural license (Qualcomm, Marvell, and now Microsoft are the other three). This allows Infineon to extend ARM’s basic capabilities, and is clearly synergistic with the charter of PA Semi and Intrinsity, which were acquired by Apple for their respective ARM expertise.

But below the surface, the rationale for Apple owning wireless technology runs even deeper.

Because Apple primarily sells just one hardware version per year, it’s infinitely easier for it to match devices with features. Nokia got rid of its chip business because it was impossible to produce different variants of chips for hundreds of handsets.

In this way, it’s Apple’s minimalistic approach to hardware that makes it the perfect candidate for vertical integration at the wireless level, as R&D can be narrowly focused. For example, if Apple’s not going to release a 4G handset in 2011, they don’t need to worry about cramming in pre-release versions of LTE / 3GPP. Or if they are strategically planning around short range wireless micro-payments, they can begin to integrate NFC technology now.

This edge could conceivably help Apple out-innovate larger competitors like Qualcomm who must produce more generic chips which cater to the needs of the broader market.

Lastly, since Infineon is only the fourth largest 3G baseband provider, there are fewer OEM customer relationships to phase out following the acquisition (LG and Nokia are its next biggest customers and wouldn’t be happy buying from Apple, so would turn elsewhere for subsequent designs). But precisely because Infineon is a smaller player, this issue of buying into the supply-chain is entirely manageable.

Apple could also learn better practices in RF design from Infineon, clearly a weak spot per the recent antenna issues.

Financially, It Makes Sense:

Apple can do no wrong right now with Wall Street. That’s why 2010 is an ideal time for “risky M&A” in the wireless space. With its stock at an all-time high and with over $40 billion in cash, Apple can afford to strategically spend capital on expanding into wireless chip development.

Infineon’s wireless group did $1.2 billion in sales last year, and comparable transactions suggest a premium of about 1.5x sales, or a $2 billion dollar price-tag.

Let’s compare this to the ridiculous rumor in April that Apple was going to buy ARM, the maker of semiconductor IP that goes into all of the world’s cell phones. At that time I outlined why buying ARM for more than $5 billion made zero sense.  Clearly acquiring Infineon for around $2 billion absolutely does make sense.

And here’s the real crux: If Infineon is acquired by Intel or Samsung, Apple won’t ever be able to obtain wireless technology at this price again. Every other chip vendor supplying cellular basebands is enormous and diversified across industries (Qualcomm, ST-Ericsson, MediaTek, Broadcom).

Not Owning Wireless Is Dangerous For Apple:

Aside from the synergies and advantages to owning wireless chip development, you can bet Steve Jobs is thinking about the risks of not doing so.

In the future, handset OEMs will buy “package solutions”, consisting of application processors (e.g. Apple’s A4, which give mobile phones computing power for handling software and applications), integrated connectivity chipsets (GPS, Wi-Fi, FM, Bluetooth, NFC), and multifunction radios—all from one vendor. Qualcomm is nearly there today, and Intel wants to combine Infineon with its Atom processors to get there.

This poses a threat to Apple, since Qualcomm and Intel will start to integrate portions of digital interface logic into their application processors in proprietary ways in an effort to promote bundled solutions. This will marginalize Apple’s ability to marry merchant wireless chipsets with subsequent variations of its A4 application processor.

And it’s why vertically integrating “half-way” is a dangerous journey for Apple as mobile innovation accelerates and integration levels skyrocket. The truth is Apple is a different company today than before it entered the mobile world.  Picking up Infineon would give Apple all the necessary pieces listed above to completely control its future as a mobile device company.

And if Apple misses out, it will likely never get another chance to acquire the wireless technology necessary to do so because the entire mobile component value-chain is consolidating and the remaining players are giants.

Which is exactly why Intel is rumored to be salivating so much at the prospect of snapping up Infineon for itself.  Intel has big ambitions in mobile and understands why it can’t let this one get away.  The only real question is whether Apple wants to get into a bidding war with Intel.

_________________________

Contributor Steve Cheney is an entrepreneur and formerly an engineer & programmer specializing in web and mobile technologies.

CrunchBase InformationAppleInfineonInformation provided by CrunchBase

Focus Media, one of China’s leading digital media groups, this morning announced that it is selling a 62% indirect equity ownership of its Internet division, Allyes, to US-based private investment firm Silver Lake.

Under the terms of the agreement, Silver Lake will pay $124 million to Focus Media, in exchange for the equity ownership of Allyes. Focus Media had acquired the internet advertising service company, reportedly the largest in China, back in February 2007.

Certain remaining shareholders of Allyes also agree to sell their equity ownership in Allyes to Silver Lake, so that in time the investment firm will own a controlling stake in Allyes. The transaction is expected to close soon, subject to customary closing conditions.

Established in 1998, Allyes is said to be the largest online media service provider in China, offering a suite of interactive marketing solutions. Allyes markets a proprietary suite called AdForward,which includes online ad-publishing, creative production, tracking, targeting and performance analysis products.

In December 2008, Google was rumored to be eying Allyes as well, after an acquisition deal with Microsoft fell through, but the deal never materialized.

Silver Lake’s investment portfolio includes companies like Skype, Avaya and IPC.

CrunchBase InformationSilver Lake PartnersAllyesInformation provided by CrunchBase

Despite earlier reports to the contrary, Android Market watcher AndroLib says there aren’t 100,000 applications available in the store – yet. There have, however, 100,000 apps been submitted to Android Market since its public debut, the site wagered this morning, up from approximately 5,000 in June 2009.

The Androlib directory covers multiple markets, including international ones, so not all apps and games are available in the United States, necessarily. Not all markets are counted, even, so AndroLib claims it may potentially undercount the number of apps, although it’s safe to say there’s somewhat of an error margin either way as with every data aggregation.

According to AndroLib, an estimated 18,000 apps have been removed or otherwise unpublished from Android Market, so the current number of active apps currently available in Android Market is closer to 83,300 today. That’s more in line with the number Google itself shared in its latest earnings call, about two weeks ago (more than 70,000 in total).

How long before the number of active Android apps hits 100,000?

CrunchBase InformationAndroidInformation provided by CrunchBase

Bloomberg reports that Facebook is to – probably – put off an eventual IPO until at least 2012, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

Waiting at least another year (and a half, approximately, to be clear) would reportedly give CEO Mark Zuckerberg more time to follow through on his vision without too much public scrutiny and the implications thereof, attract more users and developers, book more sales and work out other issues, such as the user privacy kerfuffle and legal matters.

All this talk about Facebook going public at some time reminds me of similar chatter that has surrounded professional social networking company LinkedIn for years. In both cases, founders and management have repeatedly stated they’ll only IPO when the time is right, and repeatedly expressed that gaining more users and ramping up revenues are the current focus.

And in both cases, media outlets continue to speculate about when they’ll go public anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, both are bound to IPO at some point, and they’ll be high-profile and plenty impactful events. But my assumption is that for both Facebook and LinkedIn, the people who are to make said decision really do want to wait for when the time is right, and they most probably have clear milestones in mind to determine when that is.

It’s hard to predict the future, so it’s near impossible to determine when exactly those milestones will be met and everything falls into place, provided one would even know what the ideal situation in the minds of the decision makers is. Investors and other equity holders, e.g. employees, obviously want to cash in at some point, and secondary markets aren’t going to keep appeasing them in the long run. So yes, there’s going to be pressure, and increasingly so.

But who knows what will happen between now and, say, the next three years? Even if Bloomberg’s sources are extremely familiar with Zuckerberg’s thinking and plans, they too don’t know how quickly Facebook will grow, or what other events might on the other hand make Facebook want to delay an eventual IPO until 2013 or later, even.

It’s fun to speculate, but these reports need to taken at face value as such.

CrunchBase InformationFacebookInformation provided by CrunchBase

Ah, the good ol’ patent minefield.

According to Law360, a paywall-shielded newswire for lawyers, Apple yesterday settled a patent infringement lawsuit with patent troll Minerva Industries, whose website is apparently currently, ahem, ‘temporarily closed under repair’.

This morning, Apple was hit with another patent infringement suit, brought on by Israeli technology holding Emblaze, which alleges the Cupertino company has refused to license its media streaming technology at issue.

Here’s a quick rundown for both cases:

Minerva Industries

Minerva Industries accused Apple of infringing its patent for mobile media technology, filing suit against the iPhone maker back in January 2008, mere hours after being granted U.S. Patent Number 7,321,783.

The patent covers “a mobile entertainment and communication device in a palm-held size, housing has a cellular or satellite telephone capable of wireless communication with the Internet and one or more replaceable memory card sockets for … recording data directly from the Internet and, in particular, musical performances that then can be selectively reproduced by the device for the enjoyment of the user,” according to the patent’s abstract.

It also describes a camera and microphone that can be used to record images and sound onto a phone.

Last Tuesday, Apple and Minerva filed a joint motion to dismiss all claims and counterclaims, stipulating that each party would bear its own costs and attorneys’ fees. On Wednesday, Magistrate Judge Charles Everingham of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas promptly dismissed the infringement lawsuit with prejudice after receiving the alert.

Minerva Industries had earlier settled lawsuits with HP, Research In Motion, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, Alltel, Boost Mobile, Qwest Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Communications. As I said earlier, there’s a patent troll at work here.

Emblaze Group

Ra’anana, Israel-based Emblaze announced on Thursday that it was suing Apple, alleging that the company had ripped off its media streaming patent and repeatedly refused to license the technology it claims to have invented and pioneered in the late nineties.

Emblaze says it warned Apple in December 2009 that the iPhone maker’s recently announced HTTP live streaming application, used on the iPhone, the iPod touch, Mac OS X and the iPad, would infringe the plaintiff’s patent for streaming technology.

The patent-in-suit, U.S. Patent Number 6,389,473 titled “Network media streaming,” covers “a method for real-time broadcasting from a transmitting computer to one or more client computers over a network”.

Emblaze’s streaming technology makes it possible to send live or prerecorded audio and video to other devices without the use of servers dedicated to streaming, the company said. The technology minimizes data traffic and provides “reliable” streaming through firewalls, it added.

The company in February also issued a warning to Microsoft, asserting that its IIS Smooth Streaming system unlawfully incorporates Emblaze’s patented technology.

(Image via Flickr user opensourceway – original)

CrunchBase InformationAppleInformation provided by CrunchBase

A few weeks ago, we were alerted to a new site currently in stealth mode called Voyurl. As the name implies, the idea behind it is to make it so you can see what other people are looking at on the web (and to make your clickstream seen). It sounds creepy as hell. It’s like Blippy but with more potential porn. I love it.

But when I tried to sign up for the service, they sent me a note back that it wasn’t quite ready yet and that they were cranking on the beta. Fine, that happens from time to time. I can be patient. But I’m not sure I can quietly wait any longer when the site starts running ads like this.

As freshly unemployed angel investor Joshua Schachter pointed out this evening, Voyurl has one hell of a way to get potential investors’ attention: buy Google ads targeted at them. “Well, that’s one way to get a potential investor’s attention. I’m either impressed or creeped out,” Schachter notes.

Voyurl’s ad reads: Hi Joshua. We’re VOYURL. We Love Delicious. And We’d Love to Talk!

Well, it definitely worked. He saw the ad — though it’s not clear if he wants to talk after seeing it.

I, for one, am even more intrigued now. The service is giving me some spiel about how it’s all about open data. That’s nice, but what I find really interesting is the concept of people showing off every website they’re browsing at all times — in realtime. From their landing page:

A little creeped out? That’s cool. But don’t worry, it’s ok to look. Besides, you can turn off voyurl at any time, for those, ahem, unmentionable sites. Plus, you can set your own filters. See, it’s not that scary.

Again, Blippy for web browsing.

Ads targeted at angel investors aside, they’re actually trying to raise money through Kickstarter. While would-be Facebook rival Diaspora raised some $200,000 that way, Voyurl only has about $1,300 so far. But they still have 75 days to go to reach their $10,000 goal — so help them out if this idea interests you.

Voyurl co-founder Adam Leibsohn managed to get profiled a couple years ago in the New York Times. Here’s what they wrote:

Adam Leibsohn, a 27-year-old communications strategist who makes roughly $60,000 a year and pays $1,650 a month for his own apartment in the East Village, says the trick to squeaking by in the city is to swear off impulse purchases and credit cards. He cooks for himself, pirates wireless Internet access and buys electronics from Craigslist or eBay. If he wants new clothes, he unloads old ones first at the Salvation Army, keeping the receipt for his taxes. “It’s kind of a spartan lifestyle,” he says. “I eat a lot of street meat for lunch.”

Again, I keep getting more intrigued. Is Voyurl going to be the next big thing, or a haven for online predators? I can’t wait to find out.

As a sidenote, this is the second time Schachter has found oddly targeted ads around his name. The last time, it was Yahoo (the company he quit in 2008 after selling Delicious to them) who was trying to find new employees on Google off of searches for his name. Classy.

Schachter apparently loves Googling himself. As we all do. Soon, we’ll be able to prove it on Voyurl.

CrunchBase InformationvoyurlJoshua SchachterInformation provided by CrunchBase

All this talk about the new Kindle reminded me that I still have some questions about Amazon’s e-reader specifically, and ebooks generally. Why do people persist in comparing the Kindle to the iPad (something I first asked months ago); what is the relationship between hardback book sales and ebook sales (ditto); if e-readers keep getting more accessible, is the end of the paper book nigh? Questions like that.

In the hope of finally getting some answers, I hopped on to Skype with CrunchGear‘s Devin Coldewey and interviewed him until he begged for mercy. Video below.