Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0

If you’ve a decent social network but still haven’t jumped onto the Twitter bandwagon yet, here’s another reason to get on: when you find yourself arrested in a foreign country that may not offer you contact with the outside world, send a tweet out before you get taken down. Like James Karl Buck, who tweeted himself out of jail in Egypt.

After getting arrested for taking photos of a demonstration, Buck tweeted the word “ARRESTED.” His friends, obviously knowing what that meant, talked to the right people, because the next day Buck walked out with an attorney paid for by U.C. Berkeley while having the U.S. embassy on the phone with him.

This story of a Twitter emergency use highlights two things: 1) using Twitter on a cellphone can be a great way to let a lot of people know fast that something is wrong, and 2) it’s probably only as effective as the social network in your Twitter-sphere. Which is really just a guess, but an emergency tweet is unlikely to carry the same amount of weight with people that you don’t know.

Although probably no one should rely on Twitter as an emergency service, it’s nice to know that it’s there in case we need to let everyone know we’re in trouble. Thanks Twitter.

[via Techmeme]

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Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Six Apart has released a new Facebook Application called Blog It that lets users write blog posts directly from Facebook. That in and of itself wouldn’t be particularly exciting or useful. But here’s the cool part. You can also associate Blog It with your accounts on multiple blogging and micro-blogging platforms so that you can update a series of blogs from one location.

Blog It supports TypePad, Blogger, LiveJournal, Moveable Type, WordPress, Tumblr, Pownce, Vox, and Twitter. Users can choose to simply use the application to simultaneously (or individually) update their status messages on Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, or other micro-blogging services. Or you can write a full blog post, have it show up on your various blogs, and send out a quick note through Twitter, Pownce, and your Facebook news feed to let your friends know you’ve got a new post up.

You can check out a demo video after the jump.

[via Mashable]

Continue reading Blog It: Post to a dozen blogs and social networks at once

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Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Six Apart has released a new Facebook Application called Blog It that lets users write blog posts directly from Facebook. That in and of itself wouldn’t be particularly exciting or useful. But here’s the cool part. You can also associate Blog It with your accounts on multiple blogging and micro-blogging platforms so that you can update a series of blogs from one location.

Blog It supports TypePad, Blogger, LiveJournal, Moveable Type, WordPress, Tumblr, Pownce, Vox, and Twitter. Users can select to simply use the application to simultaneously (or individually) update their status messages on Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, or other micro-blogging services. Or you can write a full blog post, have it show up on your various blogs, and send out a quick note through Twitter, Pownce, and your Facebook news feed to let your friends know you’ve got a new post up.

You can check out a demo video after the jump.

[via Mashable]

Continue reading Blog It: Post to a dozen blogs and social networks at once

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Filed under: Internet, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Facebook has rolled out two new features. The first is a Google Trends style tool called Lexicon that lets you graph popular keywords that have appeared on Facebook profiles, groups, and walls. The second is the addition of third party data to Facebook Mini-Feeds.

The graph feature is pretty much self explanatory. You enter a term, and Facebook will show you how frequently it pops up on the site. Enter two terms, separate by a comma, and you can compare their popularity. The Mini-Feed update is a little more interesting, but only a little. Users can now associate their Facebook accounts with Flickr, Picasa, Yelp, and del.icio.us so that pictures, reviews, and links they post to those sites will be added to their Facebook feeds.

The move seems designed to help Facebook compete with a number of new “lifestreaming” services like FriendFeed and Socialthing! which allow users to track updates from across a series of social networks. The difference between Facebook and those other sites is that FriendFeeed and Socialthing! let you track far more than 4 networks. Where’s Twitter, Pownce, Digg, Reddit, and YouTube?

It should be interesting to see if Facebook fleshes out its lifestreaming features in the future. It would seem to be in the company’s best interest to do so. Because if users decide that it’s easier to keep track of their social networking data while visiting a 3rd party site like FriendFeed, that means they’ll be spending less time at Facebook’s page, which means less advertising revenue.

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Filed under: Deals, Management, Raising money, Apax Partners, Bain Capital, Private equity industry, Investments, Value and lack thereof

An article by South-African based Business Report summarizes private equity trends this year amidst the crunched credit markets and slowing U.S. Economy. While it isn’t exactly 2007 or 2006, the numbers are still impressive.

According a Private Equity Intelligence Study cited in the article, in the first three months of 2008, private equity funds have raised $163.5 billion.

Last year, leveraged buyouts tripled the $73 billion posted in the same period this year. This article is also confirming what we’ve started seeing in many such private equity trends for the start of 2008, as it notes that leveraged buyouts are being replaced with distressed debt. That’s amounting to $40 billion being raised by 31 firms so far. For example, Bain Capital’s hefty $13.5 billion fund targets distressed debt, as well as venture and property.

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Filed under: Management, Raising money, Venture capital industry, Private equity industry, Investments

IndexAtlas has announced the launch of the $50 million Art Industry Fund, an substitute private equity fund targeting only businesses that serve the art industry.

This will include such operations as auction houses, advisory services, financial and security firms, software and media companies. Each investment is intended to last four years and will range from $3 to $8 million. The fund is expected to shut by December 31, 2009.

CEO and founder of IndexAtlas, Sergey Skaterschikov, believes the fund will generate an IRR of 35% and bases his investing strategy on his book, “Skate’s Art Investment Handbook.” Skaterschikov established IndexAtlas in 2001 and manages $400 million in fully invested funds and has advised on $2.4 billion in transactions.

There have been many such reports in here showing how there has been a convergence of private equity and venture capital. If this isn’t a prime example of that, then nothing else is.

If I didn’t know better, it nearly sounds a lot like a Sotheby’s (NYSE: BID) incubator fund, although it’s not.

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