After Silicon Valley woke up to the economic crisis last week and VCs rang the alarm bells, startups are starting to heed the call and tighten their belts for a long winter. As the slide above from Sequoia Capital illustrates, belt-tightening now may be the most prudent thing a startup can do. While nobody likes layoffs, least of all the employees losing their jobs, it increases a startup’s chance for survival by reducing how much cash they burn each month.

This week alone, we’ve seen layoffs at Zillow, Pandora, Zivity, AdBrite, Hi5, Jive Software, and Redfin (which laid off 20 people). The week before was Seesmic, and before that eBay. We’re hearing rumblings of more to come.

It’s hard to keep up with it all. So we’ve created a simple Layoff Tracker to keep count. We’ll add layoff data here for tech companies big and small going forward. Hopefully, all the companies on this list will come out stronger on the other end.Source:TechCrunch
The layoff train continues: Zillow CEO Richard Barton reports 42% year over year visitor increases and 25% layoffs. The last time we updated Crunchbase Zillow had 155 employees, so it sounds like at least 35 former employees are now looking for a job.

Richard’s blog post:

This week we are reducing our workforce by 25%. This was an incredibly painful decision for me and the leadership team, but, in the end, we concluded that we had no choice but to securely batten down the hatches as we sail into a major economic storm.

Remember the days before the Internet when you would go to the library to browse old microfilm of newspapers and magazines for research? I don’t either, but in any event, Google’s latest initiative looks to bring all of that content online and make it searchable. The company is adding digital archives to Google News, allowing you to see full scans of original newspapers from the pre-Web era in addition to being able to search the text of them.

To use the new service, you can either go to the Google News Archive, or search Google News and switch to the “timeline” view. When a story is viewable in its original format, the search result will list “Google News Archive” next to the name of the source.

It’s not clear how much content has been indexed so far, but searches for huge events like “Kennedy Assassination” and “Pearl Harbor” don’t seem to yield any digital archives yet, so I’d assume the index is still fairly small. As an example of a search that does show some results, Google suggests “Americans walk on the moon” which brings up original articles from a number of newspapers on July 21st, 1969.

Google already makes historical content from The New York Times and The Washington Post available in search results, though the publishers generally charge you money to access it. For its new effort, Google has partnered with the likes of ProQuest and Heritage, two of the companies responsible for all of that microfilm you find at the library.

—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:Google News Goes LocalGoogle To Launch Google WikiGoogle News Now Looks Beautiful On Your iPhoneBreasts on YouTube, Archive.org Sued, Ask Turns EvilGoogle Ditches Video Link, Replaces It With ProductsMySpace News: The Digg Killer?All New Mashup Matrix!

Source:Mashable!

The Echo Nest and its “Musical Brain” developer website was introduced at DEMOfall 08 today. This so-called Musical Brain is really an open API platform for developing rich new musical experiences. There are more than 30 tool sets available for developers on their DeveloperNest. Here are the three primary API platforms:

- Recommend: Powers recommendations for users by understanding songs, reviews and articles from a target music site.

- Analyze: Generates an XML musical score for uploaded songs analyzing details such as beats, time signature, song sections, timbre and other attributes.

- Feed: Aggregates information about every musical artist on your website including all audio, video, reviews, blog posts and more.

A Piece of their mind

The Application Showcase shares several examples of what can be created with the Echo Nest. There are some silly fun apps such as More Cowbell which allows you to upload a song and actually adjust the amount of cowbell you want to hear for that particular song (based on the famous Saturday Night Live sketch). You can then share the results with anyone.

Here are some others:

- The MyXdup app seems to have broader appeal. It uses the Echo Nest’s API to create an app that can combine two separate YouTube music videos and create a new one.

- The Echo Chamber is a personalized radio station application for imeem’s members. It analyzes your listening history to make suggestions for new music to hear.

- Recomme is a Twitter bot with musical memory. Send tweets to @Recomme and it’ll reply with links to music resources on the Web based on your request. If you follow @Recomme then you can send private direct messages to the smart bot that will reply with the information you want.

Conclusion

The tools from Echo Nest will definitely help create entirely new experiences for music fans online. Making the process easier and less expensive than traditional methods, we can expect a great deal more original Web apps that will enhance our music listening experience. I guess one could say this is a no-brainer?

—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:Caught in the Echo Chamber - Insights into the Marketability of Tech CompaniesReport: CNET Cuts 10 Percent of StaffRecently Acquired Sling Media Making a YouTube Killer Too?BBC iPlayer Opens Up To Open-Source: Access Granted To Firefox UsersEcho Versus Insight Within The World Of BlogsTV Guide’s Upcoming Video Search Filtering ToolObservations from Outside the Echo Chamber

Source:Mashable!

Real estate prices are low, and to say that the real estate industry in the US is facing a crisis is an understatement. So, what do you do if you have an online real estate community with 5 million unique monthly visitors, like Zillow? You combine it with 282 newspapers from 11 companies to form the largest online real estate advertising network. Because, you know, sooner or later people are going to start buying houses again.

The terms of the deal are as follows: newspapers will be able to reach Zillow’s respectable user base, while Zillow advertisers will gain access to the users visiting real estate sections of the newspaper’s Web sites. The newspaper companies in the consortium include Hearst Newspapers; Lee Enterprises, Incorporated; Media General, Inc.; MediaNews Group, Inc.; Morris Communications Company, while newspapers include The San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, The Tampa Tribune, and many others.

Greg Schwartz, vice president of advertising sales at Zillow, said this about the agreement: “The Zillow Advertising Network gives local and national advertisers unprecedented access to the largest online audience of home buying and selling consumers available, including the loyal, engaged audiences visiting Zillow and our newspaper partners. This affluent and qualified audience of consumers making major home-related purchases is extremely valuable to advertisers and can now be targeted across a range of geographic considerations.“

—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:Zillow Taps Newspapers for Real Estate ListingsZillow Gets First Official Real Estate Listings through ERAZillow Adds Listings from RealogyZillow Q4 Report Says: Housing Market Still Declining. Is it Good for Zillow?Zillow Growing Fast with RE/MAX ListingsOnline Real Estate Sites Work To Get A Listing StandardZillow Banned in Arizona

Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: Streamfile

20-word Description: Streamfile is an emerging startup with revolutionary technology in the file transfer space.

CEO’s Pitch: Streamfile.com allows anyone to “stream” files that are too big to email without any additional need of installed software other than a browser. Streamfile is a hosted FTP replacement solution that allows streaming functionality. By streaming, we mean that when an uploader sends a file, downloaders are able to start the download process immediately. This single functionality enhancement actually allows time savings of up to 90% (compared to a traditional FTP server-to-client transfer). It’s like P2P, but with a 24h answering service. All of the file transfers have the option to be encrypted with high-grade AES 256-bit SSL encryption.

Mashable’s Take: Streamfile is intriguing not only for its ability to rather quickly broadcast files of up to 2GB in size to specified email addresses, but its simple construction as well. Everything is done via the browser within an elegant and sparse input menu. There is absolutely no need to operate proprietary software. Just browse for a file, provide one or more email addresses (you can also specify whom the package is from), and begin “streaming.”

At the backend, Streamfile operates as a replacement to your traditional FTP transfer service. As with some other modern transmission options of today, Streamfile allows for files to be downloaded almost immediately after an upload is begun. A similar option is offered by Pando, yet that service requires the use of proprietary software at either end of an established link to function properly. Streamfile can go without. And the fact that it is able to maintain 256-bit encryption if requested will please some privacy seekers.

As it explains within its site copy, Streamfile hosts data for a total of 24 hours. Which might irk some users, particularly if a situation isn’t time-sensitive and could ideally do with, say, a week’s worth of server/network access. The reason provided for this limit is quite logical for a startup of its type to cite: “By storing data for shorter time periods than our competitors… we can maximize performance and bandwidth to guarantee superior door-to-door delivery speeds.”

For the time being, Streamfile, based in Stockholm, Sweden, comes free of charge for users. (Period ends August 31.) Its stated profit model is business-to-business file transfers (integration with corporate websites is said to be possible). Such subscriptions run 49€/month or more.

Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials

Source:Mashable!

It seems that everywhere I look, there’s someone telling us why corporate blogs are not only a waste of time if you’re looking for something to read, but they offer no value and should be taken down as soon as possible.

The detractors claim corporate blogs lack transparency, fail to adapt to the changing times, and generally play the PR game without ever admitting issues or entering into a discussion with the reader.

I think that’s pure rubbish.

Sure, most of these corporate blogs play the PR game and would rather tell you how wonderful they are than how awful they’ve performed over time, but who cares? Do you really go to a corporate blog looking for the company to bash itself? I seriously doubt the shareholders would be too happy with that.

Instead, corporate blogs provide me with some insider knowledge into what’s really going on behind the scenes at some of these companies. And while some make the complaint that transparency is an issue and corporate blogs keep things guarded, most corporate blog posts are actually quite transparent if you read between the lines.

Is the company trying to hide something when it uses some clever language and side steps some major issues? Is the company saying something different than it’s writing by including some innuendos? These are the questions you need to ask when you read a corporate blog and generally, the answer is yes.

That said, not all corporate blogs are created equal. Zillow has a great blog and Garmin has done a fantastic job of adding some personality to an otherwise vanilla landscape. Twitter has a nicely informative blog now that it’s trying to have a dialogue with its users and explain its issues and Google is easily one of the most entertaining companies in the corporate blogging space.

These blogs, much like countless others from companies across vastly different industries, may not offer something compelling with each post and sometimes they’re nothing more than an extension of the PR team, but even the most self-adulating blogs tend to offer some entertaining and extremely informative posts that not only act as the backbone for news stories, but for shareholder consumption as well.

Who can forget Palm CEO Ed Colligan’s response to Engadget’s open letter? Who else finds value in Garmin’s answers to reader questions? How about Zillow’s celebrity listings that show you how much some of your favorite celebrities’ homes are worth?

See, it’s not that I love corporate blogs because they only talk about a company, but I love corporate blogs because they give a company some personality and they offer you some insight (no matter how guarded) into the people behind an organization that seems so cold and calculating.

Lest we forget, tech companies are moneymaking machines. Sure, some may not turn the kind of profit Microsoft does and others don’t seem to have their finger on the pulse of consumers like Apple, but each is managed by individuals with unique identities and something interesting to say – if we’ll listen.

I don’t love corporate blogs because they spread propaganda – that’s a guarantee that you should be aware of before you head to the site – or because they tend to gloss over some of the less glowing facts. I love corporate blogs because at the very least, they provide a human element to something that is devoid of emotion, understanding, and personality.

On top of that, I love corporate blogs because they’re the easiest way to file a complaint and tell more than a recording or a customer service agent that something is wrong. In a matter of seconds, you can file a complaint in the comments and if people agree, they’ll jump on the bandwagon and in one fell swoop, your singular issue becomes a major problem and someone will be forced to listen.

I understand that most people look at corporate blogs as nothing more than another propaganda machine, but I don’t. Sure, they’re inundated with useless crap from time to time, but I see them as more than a place for a company to write things about itself. Corporate blogs give you clues about the organization’s culture, its people, and why (right or wrong) most of its employees believe in what they’re doing.

And if you ask me, there’s nothing wrong with that.

[Image credit: Wyetha Lipford (attribution)]

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Zillow, an online real estate service, is announcing this morning a new partnership with 11 newspaper publishing companies representing 282 newspapers nationwide. The partnership is what I call a reverse partnership. When customers place ads in the newspapers (offline and online), they will soon be able to also add their listing to Zillow.

Zillow and the newspaper companies said they expect to launch the alliance and roll out the new features in the first half of 2008. More newspaper companies are expected to join the network prior to launch.

From the release, "Reading the weekend real estate section is a ritual that many enjoy and to brokers and agents, the paper is a core marketing tool. Now, the process of real estate discovery will be further integrated into the online world. We are honored that this consortium of newspaper companies has chosen Zillow as the partner to fast-track their presence in the digital real estate world," said Lloyd Frink, Zillow president. "Research shows that 80 percent of home buyers use the Internet in the home-buying process. That, combined with Zillow’s audience of engaged real estate enthusiasts, creates a huge opportunity for local brokerages looking to expand their reach online."

I keep going back to something that Marc Andreessen said at TechCrunch40: Distribution is king. Zillow just made a pawn to bishops knight move today. While newspapers are out of style, the real estate section is still one of the most read sections.