Filed under: Raising money, Venture capital industry, Private equity industry, Public or private?

If you’ve been following the substitute energy saga alongside ridiculous oil prices going from rising to high to astronomical, you’ve run across the name Tesla Motors. Tesla is a venture capital and privately funded auto maker that produces a high performance electric powered sports car.

The Tesla Roadster and soon to be sedan are now both now going to be manufactured in California, or so a report in the San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere are noting. Governor Schwarzenegger included some incentives that have kept the electric auto maker from moving manufacturing to New Mexico (besides the Governator ordering one unit for himself). But it appears that the State of California is giving it more than mere tax incentives.

It appears that this is going to get equipment leases from the state, as well as additional allows. What is interesting here is that this gets the company even further on the map. There have been current reports that Tesla was in the market for another huge financing. Whether or not that comes about now isn’t certain. Other reports show that the company may even supply battery units to Daimler or other vehicle manufacturers.

What’s becoming fairly certain is that Wall Street expects to see Tesla file for an initial public offering. As capital intensive as these businesses are, the company needs to have a steady automobile (no pun intended) to be able to raise the capital it needs.

Think of the good news…. At least one US auto manufacturer will be considered cool.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Cards, Debt, Recession

As lenders realize that they spent the last few years throwing cash at anyone with a pulse and an IQ over 20, they’re slicing back credit limits for a lot of people, even those who have never been delinquent.

Here’s where it gets really bad: one component of your FICO score is the amount of credit you currently have drawn down divided by the amount you’ve available. Lowering your limits decreases the denominator and can swiftly send your credit score plunging — although you didn’t miss a payment, open a new account, buy a Ferrari, or do anything else to draw the ire of the credit gods.

So millions of people have seen their credit card stories go something like this: use credit card, make regular payments to build strong FICO score, see your credit limit slashed because of broader macroeconomic conditions, be required to pay a higher interest rate because of changes in your credit score caused by something the bank, not you, did. Oh, and you’ll also have to pay a higher interest rate if you borrow money from someone else to buy a house, which cost you thousands of dollars over the years.

The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work out: lend someone money, reduce the limit, and then lend them more money at a higher interest rate. It’s brilliant!

I would be nice to see the Fair Isaac take some action to prevent these credit limit cuts from increasing the cost of credit for people who have behaved responsibly. Somehow I doubt that’ll happen.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Macintosh, Freeware, Social Software, web 2.0

Cocoalicious is a really slick — but, unfortunately, Mac-only — dedicated browser for your Del.icio.us bookmarks. If you’re a bookmarking junkie, and you’ve way more sites saved to Del.icio.us than you could ever hope to keep track of, this could be an best solution for you. It’s laid out a bit like Apple Mail, with your tags running down the left side, your bookmarks on top, and a browser pane at the bottom.

You can put bookmarks directly into Cocoalicious — it syncs with your Del.icio.us account — or use the bookmarklet to add stuff to Cocoalicious straight from your browser. This way you can take advantage of autocompletion, tagging by dragging, and other features that make Del.icio.us easier. Cocoalicious also supports Spotlight, so you can search for your bookmarks straight from the Finder!

[via Lifehacker]

Read

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Debt, Transportation

aIf achieving financial security is important to you — and it probably is if you’re reading WalletPop — the completely worst source of information is the Madison Avenue marketing genius. If you want to be rich and happy, you would do well to take a sledgehammer to your TV.

But even by Madison Avenue standards, the message behind the funny FreeCreditReport.com commercials is bad. Here are the lyrics to catchy song I recently found myself humming:

Well I’m shopping for a new automobile, which one’s me? A cool convertible or an SUV.

F-R-E-E-E, that spells “free”, credit report dot com baby …

I’ve said before that I oppose the idea of vehicle loans for the vast majority of consumers, and this commercial makes abundantly clear why they’re so stupid: mortgaging your financial future to prevent strangers from laughing at your posse is … well let’s just state that my thoughts on that one sentence would have to be edited considerably to qualify as merely vulgar.

Here’s my advice for car shoppers: pick them like upwardly mobile executives pick wives. First get the automobile you can afford, and then upgrade when your fortunes are improved.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: World wide web, Social Software

Weheartit is a fun way to share photos or videos you’ve seen while browsing the World wide web. Others can see what you find interesting and also comment on them as well.

Weheartit works by bookmarking their I heart it bookmarklet and as you visit websites, images and videos are outlined in pink with an “add to my heart” text above it. Clicking on this link adds the image to your heart page where you can add tags, mark it NSFW or unheart the image. From there the image becomes viewable to all Weheartit members so that everyone can see what’s hearting you.

The only issue we had while using the service is that it outlines all the potential images in pink and makes everything look like its February 14.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Share This

Filed under: News, Social Software

Have you ever heard a public figure make a claim that seems a bit preposterous? In the year of a U.S. presidential election, more people are going to be scrutinizing candidates — and political bloggers — and wondering if what they’re saying is true, exaggerated, or just totally made up. That’s where Ameritocracy comes in. You can add a quote, and Ameritocracy users will rate its accuracy and its relevance.

We think this is great fun, because it takes a step toward realizing our fantasy of siccing Slashdot commenters on all of our nation’s politicians. Sure, the accuracy ratings might be questionable, but they should continue to improve as the site gains additional users. Ameritocracy is full of diverse issues and opinions, so if you can’t get worked up over the election, maybe you have an opinion on propositions like, “The mobile phone may be the most potent tool ever invented for the elimination of poverty.”

Read

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Utilities, Social Software, web 2.0

Web-based list-creation service Blist has made a couple of changes recently, and the biggest one is “less a feature and more a philosophy.” Because Blist is easier to demonstrate than it is to explain, you can now try Blist without an account. You can play with all the features, browser other people’s Blists and even make your own — you just can’t save it.

At the same time, they’ve introduced social features, similar to the ones you’re familiar with from places like Digg and Google Reader. You can add contacts and share Blists with others via your contact list. Previously, you could only share via email (that feature is still available.) We love to see intelligent uses of social features like Blist’s. It looks like they’ve added something that people will actually use, without going overboard with elaborate profiles.

[via Mashable]

Read

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Internet, Social Software, Search

With all the social networking sites out there it’s hard to keep track of who’s on what site and what are they doing. Whoisi is attempting to bring everything together so that keeping track of your friends doesn’t feel like a second job.

Just enter their user name and have it added to the whoisi database. From there add them to your “follow” list and every time you visit the site it will display their latest activities. Keep in mind that once added, anyone can follow them from the whoisi site.

An interesting feature of whoisi is the ability for anyone to edit information about any user. You can add additional sites that this person is a member of or delete the site. Currently whoisi supports information from Flickr, Picasa, Twitter, LinkdIn and rss feeds.

Once you get over that whole privacy thing of anyone can add you to the site, the convenience of being able to follow all your friends on a simple website is quite appealing.

Read

Share This

Share This

Filed under: World wide web, Web services, Social Software, Search

With Twitter, you generally follow people you know or at least have heard about from others, but that limits your social circle. Twellow attempts to change how you find people to follow by indexing all the publicly available messages floating around the twitter network into searchable categories.

Twellow’s website is laid out so you can click on a category and it will display all the members that have expressed some interest in that particular subject. In addition, Twellow also provides a search box for more free form searching.

But if the idea that your messages are being indexed so that others can find you is a bit unnerving, just make sure you send your twits in private.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Share This

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

Chi.mp is an online identity aggregator — don’t begin groaning just yet, it’s different from the ones we’re used to. Chi.mp stands for Content Hub and Identity Management Platform, and it’s centered around your own yourname.mp domain. Instead of keeping your data fragmented across several different social networks, you own your data, and you can keep it all on one domain and control what flows out to where (and to who).

Chi.mp is still in alpha, but we can’t wait for a opportunity to see what it can do. We already know that your chi.mp domain will work with OpenID, and consolidating your login is definitely a good start. The specifics of chi.mp’s interface and how it will interact with existing networks are still under wraps, but this looks like one to watch. Signups for the beta are still open, so head over and check it out.

If you’re curious about how chi.mp has got its hands on all those .mp sites, here’s the explanation: “.mp, the ccTLD for the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) is being repurposed for personal identity and social networking. Second-level .mp domains will be integrated into the chi.mp offering and given away to personal owners free of charge.” If you want to get in on the sunrise registration for .mp, you can score a domain for $50.

Read

Share This

Share This