FORTUNE -- A month ago, Kevin Rose, the founder and former CEO of Digg, built something creepy. He had been nursing an idea that would test the limits not just of how much we wanted to share online, but also how much we wanted to know what others were sharing. So Rose and a friend coded a quick program called Peeka. It featured a "bomb button" that would do more than just share an article with a friend. It would take over her browser window, forcing her to read whatever you bombed. Rose invited a handful of friends to try Peeka, and the reaction from all, Rose included, came clear and came quick. "It's not a good product. It doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel fun. It feels scary," Rose says. It was an idea that simply wasn't working. So, after a few weeks of development, Rose shot it in the head.
"Shoot it in the head" is Rose's favorite way to murder an idea. Last week, when Techcrunch's Sarah Lacy first reported the details of Rose's next startup, Milk Inc., he told her that at Milk, "if something isn't working after four months, we'll just shoot it in the head and start again." A week later, on the phone with Fortune as his dog whined in the background, Rose picked up the revolver again. "We just wanted the flexibility going into this to be able to shoot something in the head if it's not working."
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Daily deals site LivingSocial, which has made a splash over the last few months with half-off deals from Amazon and Fandango, just clinched $400 million in funding from existing investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners and Amazon, at a valuation of $3 billion. (Wall Street Journal)
Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO MORE
Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We've assembled the day's most newsworthy bits below.
Facebook topped expectations at their media event yesterday -- they didn't just launch an email service, but a revamped Messaging app that fuses email, SMS, IM and Facebook chat. All communications between two people, regardless of format, MORE JP Mangalindan, Writer-Reporter - Nov 16, 2010 6:00 AM ET
Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We've assembled the day's most newsworthy bits below.
"Street View, we drive exactly once. So, you can just move, right?" -- Google CEO Eric Schmidt, when asked about Street View (Fortune Tech)
Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison says he has proof that new MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer-Reporter - Oct 27, 2010 8:26 AM ET
Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We've assembled the day's most newsworthy bits below.
Outgoing Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie, who joined the company in 2005 when his company Groove was acquired, sent out his farewell memo yesterday. "It's important that all of us do precisely what our competitors and MORE JP Mangalindan, Writer-Reporter - Oct 26, 2010 5:48 AM ET
A round-up of the companies, deals, and trends that made headlines.
Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We've assembled the day's most newsworthy bits below.
Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Redbox is rolling out video game rentals to "thousands" of its 24,000 kiosks around the U.S. (MCV) Intel posted a quarterly net profit of MORE JP Mangalindan, Writer-Reporter - Oct 13, 2010 6:30 AM ET
A round-up of the companies, deals, and trends that made headlines.
Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We've assembled the day's most newsworthy bits below.
HP (HPQ) selected ex-SAP executive Léo Apotheker to take the vacant CEO spot once held by Oracle's Mark Hurd. "Leo is a strategic thinker with a passion MORE JP Mangalindan, Writer-Reporter - Oct 1, 2010 6:45 AM ET
A round-up of the companies, deals, and trends that made headlines.
Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We've assembled the day's most newsworthy bits below.
"In my opinion, your motives are driven by self-serving factors around ego satisfaction and 'making a buck.'" -- Angel investor Ron Conway to a group of super MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer-Reporter - Sep 27, 2010 7:00 AM ET
A round-up of the companies, deals, and trends that made headlines.
Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We've assembled the day's most newsworthy bits below.
Oracle (ORCL) co-president Mark Hurd unveiled the latest in its line of high-performance data processing systems, the Exadata Database Machine X2-8, MORE JP Mangalindan, Writer-Reporter - Sep 21, 2010 8:06 AM ET
A round-up of the companies, deals, and trends that made headlines.
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Given Intel's (INTC) mergers and acquisitions track record -- it spent $11 billion-plus for some 40 companies between 1999 and 2003 only to MORE JP Mangalindan, Writer-Reporter - Sep 20, 2010 8:09 AM ETEvery morning, discover the companies, deals and trends in tech that are moving markets and making headlines. SUBSCRIBE
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| Company | Price | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of America Corp... | 7.95 | -0.16 | -1.97% |
| Microsoft Corp | 31.27 | -0.17 | -0.54% |
| Ford Motor Co | 12.28 | -0.25 | -2.00% |
| General Electric Co | 19.39 | 0.17 | 0.88% |
| Citigroup Inc | 32.36 | -1.00 | -3.00% |
| Index | Last | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dow | 12,938.67 | -27.02 | -0.21% |
| Nasdaq | 2,933.17 | -15.40 | -0.52% |
| S&P 500 | 1,357.66 | -4.55 | -0.33% |
| Treasuries | 2.00 | -0.04 | -1.96% |
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