Recent posts and comments

• Rapid7′s Mike Tuchen on Cyber Espionage and Startup Lessons

  How are companies spying on each other these days? One of the surprising ways I’ve heard about recently is through the webcam in boardrooms.

  That’s right, apparently it’s easy to hack into... Read more »

• Founders of Harvard Experiment Fund Talk Goals, Strategy, & Zip Codes

  Don’t know about you, but I’m less interested in Facebook’s IPO than I am in the efforts of people trying to find the next Facebook out of Boston/Cambridge. One such effort is... Read more »

• Apperian, Fiksu, Mobiquity, & Paydiant Join Mobile Madness Lineup

  Here’s a quick update on the agenda for Mobile Madness 2012: Total Mobility, the annual half-day mobile conference we are organizing here at Xconomy Boston. The event is taking place on... Read more »

• Harvard Experiment Fund, Backed by NEA, Joins Crowded Investor Field

  There’s a new player in the seed-stage investment game in Boston. As of this week, the Experiment Fund is open for business at Harvard University, backed by the Silicon Valley venture firm... Read more »

• Akamai to Zipcar: A Snapshot of 10 Public Tech Companies in Boston

  As we wind down the first month of 2012, I thought I’d take the pulse of some of the bigger technology companies around town. In addition to tracking startups and entrepreneurship, this... Read more »

• Assholicism: Do CEOs Need to Be Jerks to Be Successful?

  It’s a question as old as human nature. You’ve heard the stories, you know all the famous examples. Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Michael Eisner, the list goes on. All difficult characters with... Read more »

• Monster Slashes 400 Jobs, Restructures for Profitability

  Monster Worldwide (NYSE: MWW), the New York parent company of Maynard, MA-based Monster.com, the jobs and recruiting site, said in a regulatory filing that it has laid off about... Read more »

• Hadoop Meetup Feb. 15 Looks to Connect Big Data Community in Boston

  Sometimes the most interesting gatherings have the strangest names. What does “Boston Hadoop Meetup Group” say to you? To me, it says “future of big data in Boston.”

  Hadoop is an open... Read more »

• Meet the 13 New TechStars Boston Startups

  The cool thing about TechStars is that it is often surprising. The startup accelerator and seed-stage investment firm, which runs programs in four cities around the U.S., announced its newest class... Read more »

• Burgess, Cormier, Kane, and Lynch Join Mobile Madness Lineup on March 14

  The speaker list for Mobile Madness 2012 keeps getting better and better. I’m still plugging away at the agenda, but wanted to post a quick update here.

  Boston’s premier conference on mobile software... Read more »

• Hewlett-Packard Expands to Cambridge via Vertica’s “Big Data” Center

  There’s a new big tech company in town. In fact, it’s arguably the world’s biggest technology company (by revenue), and it’s joining the ranks of IBM, EMC, Microsoft, Google, and, most recently,... Read more »

• Boston’s Top 10 VC Deals of Q4: Warp Drive, Rapid7, & More

  We’ve recently reported on venture capital deal trends from last quarter—for example, Massachusetts regained its No. 2 ranking behind California and ahead of New York in dollars and deals—but let’s take... Read more »

• Join Us on March 14 for Mobile Madness 2012: Total Mobility

  Everyone knows mobile is everywhere, and everything is mobile. Smartphones, tablets, and mobile software are transforming how we all shop, connect, get around, and lead our daily lives. In the five... Read more »

• Constant Contact Buys CardStar, Moves Into Mobile Loyalty Tech

  The evolution of Constant Contact continues. The Waltham, MA-based online marketing firm (NASDAQ: CTCT) said today it has acquired Boston-based CardStar, a maker of a mobile app that lets people consolidate... Read more »

• Five Companies Making Noise: ByteLight, HeyWire, Rapid7, Tap Lab, & Vivox

  Heading into the holiday weekend, I thought I’d pull out a few highlights from recent discussions I’ve had with some Boston-area tech companies that are generating buzz. None of them will be taking... Read more »

• Microsoft, PayPal, Ford, & Facebook: Boston Tech Tidbits

  Some big-company-related news to report in the Boston area. Let’s get right to it.

  —Microsoft Research New England has made three new hires in its social media research group, joining danah... Read more »

• Extreme Reach Expands with Acquisition, $9M Credit Line

  Some interesting developments in ad distribution and video this week. Needham, MA-based Extreme Reach, the maker of a video-ad platform for TV and Web, has secured more money for its growth... Read more »

• Jerome Rubin of E Ink and LexisNexis Dead at 86

  A dark day in Boston is a little darker now. Jerome Rubin, the publishing executive and inventor who co-founded the display company E Ink and helped commercialize the online database that became LexisNexis,... Read more »

• Mobile News: From Apperian to Zmags, Jumptap to Mitt Romney

  Some interesting news tidbits in Boston-area mobile and marketing/ad tech today.

  —Zmags, the Boston-based mobile and social commerce company, has raised $7 million from Square 1 Bank and existing investors OpenView... Read more »

• Neolane, DataXu, ClickSquared Ink Deals in Digital Marketing

  [Updated 12:20 pm] Here are a couple of notable Boston-area deals in digital advertising and marketing, each with a certain je-ne-sais-quoi European flair. Plus one more local company worth watching…

  —Neolane... Read more »