LaLa Was Bought By Apple For $17 Million, Not $80 Million

Sometimes you have to apply the smell test to what your sources are telling you, and the rumors we're hearing about Apple's purchase of music service LaLa are definitely smelling a little off. $80 million for LaLa? That isn't what we're hearing.

LaLa was purchased for $17 million by Apple, according to our sources with indirect knowledge of the deal. And the company supposedly had $14 million in cash in the bank, meaning the actual purchase price was really $3 million.

That's in line with recent competitive sales like iLike ($20 million) and iMeem ($1 million). LaLa had plenty of cash in the bank, but they were burning $500k/month, say our sources. There's just no reason Apple would pay $80 million for the company.

We also believe that LaLa was acquired mostly for the star engineering team and the awesome recent Google deal more than for the product. iTunes in the cloud isn't something we should hold our breath for. $3 million for top-of Google music results and a top team of engineers makes a lot of sense. $80 million not so much.

Sometimes you have to apply the smell test to what your sources are telling you, and the rumors we’re hearing about Apple’s purchase of music service LaLa are definitely smelling a little off. $80 million for LaLa? That isn’t what we’re hearing.

LaLa was purchased for $17 million by Apple, according to our sources with indirect knowledge of the deal. And the company supposedly had $14 million in cash in the bank, meaning the actual purchase price was really $3 million.

That’s in line with recent competitive sales like iLike ($20 million) and iMeem ($1 million). LaLa had plenty of cash in the bank, but they were burning $500k/month, say our sources. There’s just no reason Apple would pay $80 million for the company.

We also believe that LaLa was acquired mostly for the star engineering team and the awesome recent Google deal more than for the product. iTunes in the cloud isn’t something we should hold our breath for. $3 million for top-of Google music results and a top team of engineers makes a lot of sense. $80 million not so much.

LaLa has raised $35 million and was valued at $180 million or so in it’s last round of funding. The reason for the misreports on the $80 million sale may have to do with those numbers. We’ve heard that the purchase price was “forty or fifty cents on the dollar” from one source, meaning 40% or 50% of the $35 million in venture capital the company has raised. But a misunderstanding of what that means could easily have people thinking it was 40% or 50% of the last round valuation, which gets you the $80 million number.

If we get additional sources on this story either way we’ll update. LaLa, which used to love to talk to us, has become scarce when we call or email.

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Mozilla’s Thunderbird 3 To Take Flight With Faster Search, Tabbed Email And More

Tomorrow, the makers of Firefox will be launching the third version of Thunderbird, its open source and free email application that is produced out of Mozilla Messaging, which is a subsidiary of Mozilla devoted to producing innovation around communication and the internet. Thunderbird 3, which is available in 50 languages and is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, has made more than 2,000 improvements and fixes to the new email client. Thunderbird 3 will be available to the public mid-day tomorrow here.

One of the main improvements to Thunderbird 3, says Mozilla Messaging CEO David Ascher, is the client's search capacity. The new search interface contains filtering and timeline tools to try to help users pin-point emails by words, correspondents or attachment types. Thunderbird 3 also includes tabbed email, which lets users view emails and folders in tabs within the client, similar to the way that you manage tabs in Firefox. Tabs are remembered in the client, so you don't have to keep re-saving tabs.

Tomorrow, the makers of Firefox will be launching the third version of Thunderbird, its open source and free email application that is produced out of Mozilla Messaging, which is a subsidiary of Mozilla devoted to producing innovation around communication and the internet. Thunderbird 3, which is available in 50 languages and is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, has made more than 2,000 improvements and fixes to the new email client. Thunderbird 3 will be available to the public mid-day tomorrow here.

One of the main improvements to Thunderbird 3, says Mozilla Messaging CEO David Ascher, is the client’s search capacity. The new search interface contains filtering and timeline tools to try to help users pin-point emails by words, correspondents or attachment types. Thunderbird 3 also includes tabbed email, which lets users view emails and folders in tabs within the client, similar to the way that you manage tabs in Firefox. Tabs are remembered in the client, so you don’t have to keep re-saving tabs.

Thunderbird has also added a new archive feature that moves email from your inbox into separate archive folder, a sleeker address book, a new setup wizards, and the ability to combine individual mailboxes to manage multiple email accounts in one spot. The email client has been tweaked to integrate more seamlessly with Gmail and Windows and Mac OS X.

Ascher tells me that Thunderbird currently has 10 to 15 million users. While this doesn’t reach the user base of Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and others, Thunderbird has seen steady growth in a field with formidable competitors. And this version is the most powerful iteration of the email client yet, so I expect Thunderbird to gain a few more fans with this release.

We expect for Thunderbird to collaborate with Mozilla’s recently launched, open-source, experimental email and communication platform, Raindrop. Ascher tells me that Raindrop is still constantly evolving but it will be interesting to see what two-way interactions the platform will feature and what content it eventually will bring in.

Full disclosure: My husband works for the Mozilla Corp.

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Assistly Comes Out Of Stealth, Adds Mark Cuban And David Liu As Advisors

We've just gotten our first look at Assistly, a new startup that's looking to provide businesses with a robust platform for engaging customers on everything from Email to Facebook and Twitter. We first caught wind of Assistly back in October when its founding members left AOL in tandem, but until now the company remained firmly in stealth. Today it's launching a new 'sneak preview' version of its site at Assistly.com, and they've given us a handful of screenshots to showcase some of the features we can expect. The company is also announcing that Mark Cuban and David Liu are officially coming on as advisors.



CEO Alex Bard says that Assistly looking to capitalize on some key trends: first, that more and more businesses are establishing themselves on the web, and that consumers now have louder voices than ever with their presences on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs which makes customer service more important than ever. Bard says that existing customer service solutions are either old and difficult to use, or are new and easier to manage but lack much depth. Bard says that Assistly is looking to provide a platform that combines the best of both worlds, offering a robust customer service with self-service ease of use.

We’ve just gotten our first look at Assistly, a new startup that’s looking to provide businesses with a robust platform for engaging customers on everything from Email to Facebook and Twitter. We first caught wind of Assistly back in October when its founding members left AOL in tandem, but until now the company remained firmly in stealth. Today it’s launching a new ’sneak preview’ version of its site at Assistly.com, and they’ve given us a handful of screenshots to showcase some of the features we can expect. The company is also announcing that Mark Cuban and David Liu are officially coming on as advisors.

CEO Alex Bard says that Assistly looking to capitalize on some key trends: first, that more and more businesses are establishing themselves on the web, and that consumers now have louder voices than ever with their presences on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs which makes customer service more important than ever. Bard says that existing customer service solutions are either old and difficult to use, or are new and easier to manage but lack much depth. Bard says that Assistly is looking to provide a platform that combines the best of both worlds, offering a robust customer service with self-service ease of use. You can see some of the upcoming features, including engaging with a customer on Twitter and managing multiple customer service tickets, in the screenshots below.

We still have’t gotten a chance to try out Assistly for ourselves, but the team behind it is enough to make us optimistic about its potential. The site was founded by Alex Bard, Gary Benitt, Jeremy Suriel, and Brad Birnbaum, each of whom previously worked together in building customer service-based companies back in the 90’s. The first, called eShare, was acquired in 1999; the second, called eAssist Global Solutions, was eventually acquired in 2004 after stumbling through the dot com bubble burst. Following the eAssist acquisition three of the team members left the space to start Goowy, a Flash widget maker that later sold to AOL. Now all four are reuniting as they return to the customer service space.

Bard says that Assistly is targeting an early 2010 public launch.

Other startups looking to help businesses interact with customers via social media include BuzzGain, PeopleBrowsr, Viralheat, and Scout Lab.

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Go FISHn Casts Off As A Fishing Site For The Facebook Age

Ned Desmond has gone fishin' and he wants you to Go FISHn too. Today, Desmond launched a fishing site for the Facebook age. You can sign in with your Facebook ID, share fishing stories and photos with your friends, ask questions to fishing pros and the community, and review all the gear in your tackle box.

Go FISHn is an enthusiast site for people who love to fish—and there's an estimated 30 million recreational anglers in the U.S. alone who spend about $45 billion a year on gear, supplies, and trips. "Nobody has done a good job in enthusiast sites," says Desmond, who is the former president of Time Interactive and was once my boss (we launched a magazine together).

There are other social networks for fishermen such as Angling Masters, Fishing Files, and the Fishing Network where people can share fish tales and photos. But they seem to be modeled more after MySpace than Facebook. Go FISHn isn't trying to create a new social network. "People fish for the challenge, but also for the companionship," says Desmond. Go FISHn starts out by connecting you to your fishing buddies on Facebook (and, yes, it has a Facebook Fan page as well).

Ned Desmond has gone fishin’ and he wants you to Go FISHn too. Today, Desmond launched a fishing site for the Facebook age. You can sign in with your Facebook ID, share fishing stories and photos with your friends, ask questions to fishing pros and the community, and review all the gear in your tackle box.

Go FISHn is an enthusiast site for people who love to fish—and there’s an estimated 30 million recreational anglers in the U.S. alone who spend about $45 billion a year on gear, supplies, and trips. “Nobody has done a good job in enthusiast sites,” says Desmond, who is the former president of Time Interactive and was once my boss (we launched a magazine together).

There is something deeply satisfying about seeing an old boss of mine from my mainstream media days embrace niche media. Go FISHn is the first site from his new company, Go SPORTn, which will take the same model and create communities for different enthusiast groups much in the way magazines like Field & Stream used to do. “I think a mass audience is the ability to address a lot of niches within a category,” he says. Hmm, where have I heard that before (cough, nichebusters)?

What’s even more satisfying is to see him do it so well with a bootstrap budget, five engineers in India, and a few other contractors. The whole site was built on Rails, MediaWiki, and the Sphinx open-source search engine. I’m obviously biased because Desmond is my friend, but judge it for yourself.

There are other social networks for fishermen such as Angling Masters, Fishing Files, and the Fishing Network where people can share fish tales and photos. But they seem to be modeled more after MySpace than Facebook. Go FISHn isn’t trying to create a new social network. “People fish for the challenge, but also for the companionship,” says Desmond. Go FISHn starts out by connecting you to your fishing buddies on Facebook (and, yes, it has a Facebook Fan page as well).

Once you join, you can add fishing-related status updates, longer blog-post-length stories, and fishing photos and videos to your Go FISHn data stream and share those with your friends on Go FISHn as well as on Facebook and Twitter. The site is also designed as a social marketing tool for guides, charters, outfitters, lodges, and other small businesses. They can have their own version of fan pages which are more likely to show up on Google than their own Websites, and it gives them an opportunity to connect with potential customers. For instance, there is a Q&A part of the site where anyone can ask or answer questions, with the best answers being voted to the top. Pros can get in front of potential customers by providing the best answers to the fishing questions they are expert in.

Another section of the site is the reviews. Anyone can write a review about their favorite piece of gear. These products are linked to affiliate sales via Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s.

Underlying the site is a database of about 100,000 fish species, lakes, rivers, fishing gear, guides and outfitters which helps to create a consistent taxonomy throughout the site. So whenever you post a report or ask a question and start to tag it, an auto-complete suggests the names of species, gear, and so on. Anyone later searching for those topics will be able to find your updates. The taxonomy also makes possible an online fishing encyclopedia seeded with licensed content, built on MediaWiki.

Desmond thinks the same model can be applied to many other outdoor enthusiast activities such as hunting, gardening, surfing, backpacking, even classic car rebuilding (is that a sport?). His criteria: “There has to be big enthusiasm, lots of small businesses, and a narrative that attaches to it in a daily, ongoing way.”

But first, he has to prove the model with Go FISHn. The bait has been cast. Will anglers bite?

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