IT Buoy

Start-ups that offer users big discounts via socially-charged local group-buying services are getting a lot of attention these days, especially from venture firms. Today, it’s Washington, D.C.-based LivingSocial , which just announced a $25 million Series B round, led by U.S. Venture Partners. The funding will be used to expand its footprint of cities, among other initiatives. Sites such as LivingSocial feature a “daily deal” with a huge discount from a wide range of local businesses, such as restaurants and spas. They use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to turbocharge consumers into action. This kind of thing has been tried before, of course, centering on users who group together to get discounts on items by purchasing them in bulk.

Celebrity entrepreneurs are nothing new. But, in the 15-or-so years since the dot-com revolution, only a few famous faces have successfully ventured into the digital industry. And some of them might surprise you. Read the rest of this story

Celebrity entrepreneurs are nothing new. But, in the 15-or-so years since the dot-com revolution, only a few famous faces have successfully ventured into the digital industry. And some of them might surprise you. Read the rest of this story

There’s been a battle going on between the “broadcast” TV networks and the cable networks over something called “retransmission fees.” Cable networks have traditionally paid for “cable network programming” but not “over the air programming.” But that is changing and the broadcast TV networks are demanding these retransmission fees from the cable companies. Read the rest of this story

The last time I really was truly bullish on a start-up and its founder–BoomTown’s motto is wait-and-see rather than hype-it-up–was AdMob’s Omar Hamoui . That turned out pretty well, with the sale of the mobile advertising site to Google (GOOG) for $750 million last fall . My 2010 start-up that passes the slightly-less-raised-eyebrow test is Groupon , a group-based social buying service that nabbed another $30 million in funding in December . So earlier this week, I sat down with Groupon’s Midwesternly-nice Andrew Mason, 29, to talk about where the start-up is headed with its pile of dough and growing base of consumers who want to make a deal. The Chicago-based Groupon has actually raised a total of just under $36 million from angels, New Enterprise Associates and Accel Partners so far. Not that it needs it. The company–like AdMob–is profitable, despite having 200 employees and and a lightning growth path to expand its base of local sites.