Their public service announcement was released in July, far ahead of the holiday season, but it is most applicable in the upcoming weeks, as smart toys will inevitably wind up under trees across the nation. Toy companies have been hacked or found leaking information in the past, and the FBI was clear in its warning: U.S. shoppers should “consider cyber security prior to introducing smart, interactive, internet-connected toys into their homes or trusted environments....

Thuuz Sports, based out of Palo Alto, created an app that is the envy of every ESPN Insider membership holder in the world. It measures the most exciting players, games and moments based on a wide range of factors, and immediately alerts fans to the excitement. You’ll be able to find sports highlights from your favorite leagues, teams and even players thanks to Thuuz Sports. Plus, with fantasy sports compatibility, every sports fan can benefit from this highlight-driven model....

Thanks to Cybersecurity Ventures, we now have a comprehensive list of 500 cybersecurity companies, dubbed The Cybersecurity 500, that have joined the fight against cyber attacks. Whether it’s a huge company taking on hundreds of hackers at once or a small startup developing innovative technology to make cybersecurity easier for everyone, this list covers it all from A to Z. If you didn’t already know, cybersecurity is incredibly important, particularly for startups....

Business Insider broke the news yesterday, saying Buzzfeed is “ditching its anti-banner-ad stance to better cash in on its huge audience” by relying on global third-party display ad technology. And they’re going for the duopoly of Facebook and Google to help them: the Facebook Audience Network and the Google DoubleClick Ad Exchange are their partners. The news is a bit of a blow against those who proclaimed the end of advertising amid the rise of subscriptions, but Buzzfeed’s making a smart move: For all the brand power they have, it’s still tied to the attention economy, not a targeted niche of users....

Last night Twitter co-founders Ev Williams and Biz Stone sat down for a “burning” fireside chat with BusinessWeek senior reporter Brad Stone in the gorgeous Julia Morgan Ballroom in San Francisco, CA – just a hop & a skip away from Twitter HQ. The focus of the event, organized by The Commonwealth Club’s Inforum SF division, was to “go beyond 140 characters with the Twitter founders,” and delve into Twitter’s true tail from its founding to what’s coming next....

Since its launch in 2006, Twitter has changed dramatically. From the added character count to the Explore page, the brevity-focused social media platform has gone through some serious transformations over the years, often at the behest of users. But with Twitter now launching audio tweets during one of the most significant civil rights movements in history, one question comes to mind: Who asked for this? Twitter Rolls Out Audio Tweets for iOS In a company blog post, Twitter announced the audio tweets would be rolling out this week on iOS for “a limited group of people....

In the holiday video released this morning by venture capital firm, First Round Capital, members of the First Round team (including the firm’s partners) and the firm’s portfolio companies (like AppNexus and Blue Apron) can be found parodying some of this year’s musical hits, including Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk”, Justin Bieber’s “Sorry”, and Drake’s “Hotline Bling”. What’s great is not just it’s representative of First Round’s culture, but the lyrics provide very real representations of how VCs operate with the startups they invest in: This isn’t the first time First Round Capital has released this kind of end-of-year holiday video; in fact, it’s become a tradition at the VC firm....

According to TechCrunch, Tik Tok was downloaded more times in the past month than Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube. But what actually is TikTok? A cursory Google search will reveal a handful of news stories about the app, plus a selection of YouTube compilations of TikTok user videos – these are typically based around trending ‘challenges’ or popular memes. Most of the videos are completely decontextualized and end just as quickly as they begin....

At least that’s what SumAll CEO and bar owner Dane Atkinson learned when he realized a bartender was stealing from him. Running some numbers, he saw a correlation between sales and number of limes used – so much so that he could count the limes and guess the sales within 5 percent. So when money started to go missing, Atkinson rotated the staff in and out to see who was working when the sales-to-lime ratio was off....

– Register for the Event Here – We’ll have a dozen up-and-coming startups on hand showcasing their goods, but before the event kicks off, we want to know what you think – who is San Francisco’s Hottest Showcasing Startup? Let us know your thoughts by answering the poll at the end of this post (ends at 6:00pm local time on the day of the event – cheaters will be disqualified). The winner will be announced live at the event and will receive a couple additional minutes on stage to pitch their startup in front of all attendees, invitation to an upcoming Tech Cocktail Week, as well as the honor of being recognized as SF’s Hottest Showcasing Startup....

That’s because employees often come armed with a laundry list of grievances that organizations either don’t want to hear or don’t believe are problems. The result? Issues that never get fixed and employees that never feel heard. What I’ve discovered since co-founding the creative design agency eLearning Mind is that I’ve learned the most valuable lessons, and have discovered solutions for the hurdles that come with building a business from our people....

NoteStream was born from the desire of Michelle and her husband to learn more about French wine beyond listicles and shorter news stories easily found on the internet. She realized there was no mobile platform for a magazine-style article to provide content to readers who wanted to fill their spare moments with more than just the stock news or the latest gossip about the Kardashians. You may think this goal could be accomplished by just buying a book or magazine on the subject and carrying it around with you....

Zoom is officially ramping up its business offerings, as everyone’s favorite web conferencing platform just acquired Five9 — the company behind the intelligent cloud contact center — to bolster its hybrid work functionality. With the pandemic in a state of constant flux, the ability for businesses to offer hybrid work options has become integral to their success. Employees want flexibility and the virus just won’t go quietly, so being able to offer this option is at the forefront of many business owners’ minds....

The web conferencing giant – famous for its legendary ‘breakout rooms’ – says Zoom apps with metaverse-like qualities will now be available to use within calls, and there’s a new feature called “Collaboration Mode” too. The updates certainly set Zoom apart from most other providers and mean it’ll be able to compete with Microsoft’s metaverse project called Mesh, which was announced towards the tail end of last year. Part of that includes changes to Zoom’s Breakout Rooms....

According to data from BroadbandNow, Rhode Island has the fastest internet speeds in the country. With an average download speed of 55.1 mbps, the small New England state is definitely the place to binge watch your favorite Netflix original series. As for the rest of the list, two states tied for second place, Maryland and Massachusetts (54.3 mbps), with California (53.8 mbps), Washington (51.6 mbps), and New York (51.2 mbps) rounding out the top six....

Television and Theaters Are Finally Dying The 2018 Golden Globes saw an 11 percent drop in their demographic earlier this month, and this year’s NFL ratings continued their multi-year decline, according to a just-released Moffettnathanson analysis: 2017’s Regular season ratings fell 13 percent, and playoff games were down between 12 percent and 20 percent. That drop in NFL ratings in particular is a bad sign for the television industry, as the league is currently buoying the entire ecosystem....

1. Save Money with Smart Lead Generation The best way to increase margins as an event planner is to get your company’s marketing and lead generation efforts in order. One model to seriously consider is the allowable marketing cost per customer model. Instead of making marketing a fixed cost (X amount per month), marketing should be a variable cost worked into the per customer cost structure (X amount per customer). If marketing is a variable cost, you should figure out how much in marketing costs you can afford per customer and then scale lead generation based on this cost....

In the last two to three years, close to 85 percent of our clients have integrated their PR and SEO efforts. At Brilliance, our content marketing efforts are leveraged by our PR team. While PR pitches to media partners, our SEO team pitches to bloggers and influencers. PR is tasked with acquiring high-quality, authoritative links while SEO uses PR contacts to generate authoritative links and mentions. From Link Building to Link Baiting Before the content marketing revolution, link building was the strategic foundation of SEO....

WordPress is the most robust, scalable, flexible and personalized Content Management System and powers more than a quarter of all websites on the Web. It is also the best platform to build powerful e-commerce sites that are capable of selling thousands of digital and physical products. With the multitude of plugins available, it is not difficult to incorporate e-commerce into a website. You can also build an e-commerce site from scratch on WordPress and customize it suit to your unique needs....

This week water has been on my mind for several reasons. One is the sale of Israel’s Netafim, the company that invented drip irrigation, to Mexichem for $1.5 billion. Netafim’s technology essentially enables farmers to “grow more with less,” increasing yields and improving crop production while preserving quality and quantity of water and soil fertility. The story of Netafim is profiled in the Coller Venture Review issue on deep innovation....