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eFuneral said it raised $250,000 from nonprofit venture outfit JumpStart Inc. The eFuneral’s website lets consumers compare funeral home prices and reviews.

PRESS RELEASE

JumpStart Invests $250,000 in eFuneral

Comprehensive Online Resource Simplifies End-of-Life Planning

CLEVELAND, May 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — eFuneral (www.efuneral.com), a comprehensive online end-of-life planning resource, has received a $250,000 investment commitment from nonprofit venture development organization JumpStart Inc. (www.jumpstartinc.org). The company’s free tools and support enable those thinking about end-of-life to make the best funeral decisions for their budget.

“End-of-life planning encompasses everything from choosing appropriate caregiving services and planning a funeral to dealing with cemeteries and insurance companies,” says Mike Belsito, Co-Founder, eFuneral. “At times, navigating all of these entities can be complicated, frustrating and expensive. Our goal is to simplify this often-difficult process, in order to save people time and money, and give them and their loved ones peace of mind.”

eFuneral’s website offers a suite of free services to help users make informed decisions about end-of-life plans, including a tool to help users compare funeral home prices and reviews, and an educational resource center with topical articles and video. The company has also developed and vetted partnerships with external organizations to connect interested users with estate planners, insurance companies, funeral homes and cemeteries, as well as companies that can facilitate funeral financing.

“Prior to the existence of eFuneral, the end-of-life marketplace lacked an organized single source of relevant, easy-to-understand information,” says JumpStart Venture Partner Mark Smith. “However, the company’s offerings are flexible to an individual’s specific needs, comprehensive enough to cover all aspects of the planning process and clearly organized on a well-designed website. The combination of these traits makes eFuneral a unique and valuable resource, and positions them for significant growth.”

eFuneral will use the investment to ramp up sales, promotion and online marketing, and continue to develop its website and other product offerings.

EFUNERAL eFuneral provides free support and information to those thinking about end-of-life. With eFuneral, individuals can quickly and confidentially find, compare and select a funeral home based on location, price, ratings and reviews. There is no cost or obligation associated with eFuneral’s services. eFuneral is a private company based in Cleveland, Ohio. To learn more about eFuneral, visitwww.eFuneral.com.

JUMPSTART INC. JumpStart accelerates the successes of diverse entrepreneurs, their companies and the ecosystems supporting them. Since 2004, the nonprofit development organization has given intensive business assistance to more than 380 entrepreneurial clients and been an investor in 72 early stage Northeast Ohio companies. For more information on the nonprofit development organization, visitwww.jumpstartinc.org and follow @JumpStartInc on Twitter.

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HealthTap said it raised $24 million of Series B financing in a deal led by Khosla Ventures and joined by existing investors Mayfield Fund and Mohr Davidow Ventures. Keith Rabois will join HealthTap’s board, and Vinod Khosla will join the board as an advisor.

PRESS RELEASE

HealthTap Secures $24 Million Series B to Accelerate Growth of the World’s Most Trusted Digital Health Platform

Khosla Ventures Leads Round for Premier Mobile Health Service

PALO ALTO, CA–(Marketwired – May 8, 2013) – HealthTap, the popular mobile health platform that connects millions of people with a network of more than 38,000 top doctors for free, today announced it raised $24 million in Series B financing. Khosla Ventures led the round, in which prior investors Mayfield Fund and Mohr Davidow Ventures also participated. Keith Rabois will join HealthTap’s board of directors, and Vinod Khosla will join as an advisor to assist HealthTap as it redefines modern healthcare.

HealthTap’s new financing represents one of the most substantial series B investments to date in the digital health industry. HealthTap has grown rapidly over the past year, nearly quadrupling the number of doctors in its network, and serving tens of millions of people worldwide via its web and mobile apps. With the new capital, the company will focus on acquiring top talent, expanding its web and mobile offerings, and accelerating its rapid growth. These undertakings will expedite HealthTap’s progress in making healthcare accessible and affordable for all.

“HealthTap has become the largest digital platform of engaged doctors and users creating a massive shift in how people interact with doctors and access healthcare,” said Ron Gutman, HealthTap’s Founder and CEO. “The new investment and our relationship with Khosla Ventures will help us quickly build on and grow what has become the new paradigm in health information and care. With new top talent joining the HealthTap team from the many new jobs we’re creating, we will help even more people tap the vast data and information on HealthTap in ways that were previously unimaginable. The combination of top technical, design, and business talent, and a strong passion for helping others, will enhance our ability to spread health and wellness faster and save more lives every day.”

“Everyone will soon become the CEO of their own health,” said Keith Rabois, HealthTap’s newest board member and a partner at Khosla Ventures. “HealthTap, with its phenomenal growth in combination with its unique technology, has the potential to become the triaging platform for everyone’s health. I am excited to work with the HealthTap team as the company scales to provide people with unparalleled immediate access to the most trusted medical knowledge, doctors, and health services.”

“In its current state, our healthcare system is expensive, difficult to access, and error prone,” said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures. “On the brink of a massive reform in healthcare, dedicated, bright entrepreneurs and technologists can bring a great deal to the table by developing creative, forward thinking solutions that leverage health care professionals. HealthTap is at the forefront of this development, improving patient care by creating quick, easy, and affordable access to doctors everywhere. The future of healthcare is at the confluence of big data, smart algorithms, and simple-to-use interfaces that will provide amplification of our MD’s resources: HealthTap is breaking ground in all three, and we’re excited to help them make their compelling vision a transformative reality.”

About HealthTap
HealthTap is the best way to connect with the most trusted health information and best doctors. With top-rated web and mobile apps, HealthTap offers immediate and free access to personalized, reliable, and trusted health answers and tips from a network of more than 38,000 U.S.-licensed doctors. Sign up today and download HealthTap’s free app for iPhone, iPad or Android at www.healthtap.com.

The post HealthTap Raises $24M From Khosla Ventures, Mayfield, Mohr appeared first on peHUB.

A little over two years ago, LinkedIn launched LinkedIn Today, the company’s version of a social news destination. It’s been fairly popular, and last year, it got a design refresh. Today, LinkedIn announced another one.

The new design includes personalized content channels, new ways to sort content, and supposedly more relevant content, including more relevant emails. Perhaps it won’t be all emails about Richard Branson anymore (though he is prominently featured in the intro graphic for LinkedIn’s slideshow on the new design):

“Through channels you can follow broader topic areas that cross multiple industries and professional sectors,” explains LinkedIn’s Kevin Gu in a blog post. “By following channels you will have access to timely and relevant professional news and insights that can help you stay one step ahead and be in the know on what’s trending in your professional network. Channels represent a more comprehensive way to discover, share, and engage with high-quality Influencer posts, top news sources, and SlideShare content — all in one place.”

Users can follow over 20 different channels (Your Career, Economy, Social Impact, Big Ideas and Innovation, Higher Education, etc.). Naturally, content from the channels you follow will appear in your stream. LinkedIn says it will be adding more channels in the future.

Users can sort by “Your News,” “Influencer Posts,” “All Influencers,” and “All Channels”. The emails will provide overviews of top Influencer posts, trending professional news, and Slideshare content.

The new design and features are rolling out this week in English.

According to Business Insider, LinkedIn is utilizing its Pulse team to build similar experiences for its mobile apps. LinkedIn announced the Pulse acquisition last month, paying $90 million.

LinkendIn has 225 million users. Earlier this week, it celebrated its tenth birthday. Last week, they announced their Q1 earnings, including a 72% increase in revenue year-over-year, though the forecast for Q2 disappointed Wall Street.

Continue reading…

The stock of electric car maker Tesla Motors hit an all time high of over $60 per share this week. Partly that’s because later this afternoon the company, led by entrepreneur Elon Musk, plans to announce what it says will be its first profitable quarterly earnings in Tesla’s history . While Tesla is enjoying the brightest time in its decade-old lifetime, Musk, and the company’s board, actually have far grander ambitions than the current already impressive $6.4 billion marketcap.

According to documents prepared for Tesla’s upcoming annual meeting, Musk has an equity and stock grant package — called “2012 CEO Grant” — which was granted last summer, and which would deliver him another 5 percent of Tesla’s total shares if Tesla meets certain milestones and certain marketcaps. Musk is already a fabulously wealthy person, but it’s the operational company milestones, and accompanying soaring marketcap, which underscore Tesla’s ambitions.

The first tranche of the grant becomes available if Tesla’s marketcap hits $7.2 billion, and one of its operational goals is met. The remaining parts of the grant become available for every $4 billion added to the marketcap, along with an additional operational milestone, until the market cap reaches $43.2 billion and all ten of the operational milestones are met (see the milestones below).

As of April, when the documents were filed for the annual meeting, none of the milestones had yet been met, and Ford and GM had marketcaps of $53 billion and $40 billion respectively. For comparison’s sake, Apple — which Tesla has often times been compared to in its approach, brand and leader — has a marketcap of $430.52 billion.

• Successful completion of the Model X Engineering Prototype (Alpha)
• Successful completion of the Model X Vehicle Prototype (Beta)
• Completion of the first Model X Production Vehicle
• Successful completion of the Gen III Engineering Prototype (Alpha)
• Successful completion of the Gen III Vehicle Prototype (Beta)
• Completion of the first Gen III Production Vehicle
• Gross margin of 30 percent or more for four consecutive quarters
• Aggregate vehicle production of 100,000 vehicles
• Aggregate vehicle production of 200,000 vehicles
• Aggregate vehicle production of 300,000 vehicles

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Kim Kardashian recently joined her family in Greece on an early-summer holiday, and she wasn’t afraid to flaunt that baby belly.

Wearing a daring string bikini, the mom-to-be had some fun in the sun with her mom and sisters, although we’re guessing she passed on the jet-ski rides.

“She’s loving the seventh month,” a source told Us Magazine of the pregnant reality star. “And she thinks pregnancy is so cute.”

Kim recently spoke about the effects her pregnancy has had on the media, saying they often print nasty things about her weight.

“There are maybe two or three covers just this week that say I am 200 pounds,” she said. “I’m like, ‘You are 60 pounds off here.’… It wouldn’t even bother me if I gained all the weight. And I have the biggest sweet tooth and I love junk food. Being pregnant, I don’t like any of it.”

Kim is reportedly due to give birth in July.

Image: Splash News
Lead Image: Us Weekly

A lot of small and medium sized businesses don’t need all the extra security and device management that enterprise level deployments demand out of BlackBerry Mobile Fusion. Enter ActiveSync: an easy way to manage mobility for your small or medium sized business.

Smartphones were born out of push email and a lot of the BYOD devices that people use for business are for smaller businesses. These deployments are no different than a consumer set up so below are some resources on setting up your BlackBerry 10 device to your mail servers using ActiveSync.

Click here for a guide on how to set up your BlackBerry 10 device to your mail servers using ActiveSync.

Click here for a Knowledge Base article on how to connect your BlackBerry 10 device to Microsoft Office 365.

I’ll be honest, one of the last places on this Earth that I’d want to go is the Arctic Circle. You see I hate the cold, like REALLY hate the cold. I know I’d be missing out on the picturesque beauty and tranquility, but at days end I’d find a way to deal with it. Murph (the guy in this video) is different. So different in fact that he went to the Arctic Circle on his trusty BMW R 1150 GS motorcycle. Even though he may (or may not) have a screw lose, I’ve got to give the guy credit, as this is one thing I’d never attempt.

Like I said, I hate the cold.

Source: MotorTrend.com

The Open Compute Project, which Facebook launched a little more than two years ago, has decided that utterly disrupting the server and storage market isn’t enough. On Wednesday, it said it would solicit input on an open source top-of-rack switch.

The project, in a presentation by Frank Frankovsy at Interop, said it was taking a slightly different tack with its design, deciding to get input from others before actually making and releasing the hardware to the community. However, just because the hardware isn’t designed yet, Facebook isn’t going to twiddle its thumbs for a traditional multi-year design cycle. Frankovsky told me in an interview that he expects the hardware to b out in 9 to 12 months.

“We have built these islands of openness in the data center but the last element, and the one that was connecting the compute and storage, was the network,” said Frankovsky. “And there is a lot of pent-up passion out there for breaking open this appliance model.”

Networking is the last bastion of proprietary profits

Prepare to be disaggregated, switch!

For those who don’t dwell in data centers, the top-of-rack switch is the networking gear that sits on the top of a rack of servers directing traffic between those boxes and between the other racks in the data center. While the networking world is all aflutter over the promise of OpenFlow and software-defined networking, very little real progress has been made in building switches for the webscale data center.

Google, a few years back, had famously issued a request for a new type of switch that would fit its very specific scaled-out needs and no one responded. Now the search giant makes its own hardware. But soon after that, Andy Bechtolsheim saw the need for Google-like speeds and scale and started Arista, a switch company that has dominated in the webscale, financial and high-performance switching space. Meanwhile, at the lower end, Cisco’s cheaper Nexus line of switches have done really well.

Facebook’s Najam Ahmad.

Yet, these options aren’t palatable for Frankovsky or Najam Ahmad of Facebook (Ahmad will be at our Structure conference in June discussing more about Facebook’s networking strategy). On the existing product side, Frankovsky is frustrated by hardware that doesn’t play nicely at scale. He specifically mentioned that the side venting of heat on switches means he can’t place them right next to another switch. Ahmad, who is in charge of the social-networking giant’s network, is concerned about getting out of the proprietary OS model.

“We want it to be OS-agnostic so we can use one from our existing provider or build our own,” he said. He added that he’d prefer an open Linux-based implementation. These proprietary OSes — Cisco has IOS, Juniper has Junos and Arista has EOS — are one of the reasons that companies are locked into one networking gear provider. They are also stuck using proprietary code to make changes.

Who will be the Red Hat of the networking OS?

Networking cables along the ceiling at Facebook HQ.

If you are chock full of technically savvy people, losing the agility that comes from writing your own code as well as paying higher prices for the proprietary hardware and software combination is probably maddening. Hence Facebook’s interest in the open source OS. Of course, building out the underlying hardware is only the first step, the next will be supporting an OS that runs on top of that system.

While Facebook might build its own OS, not every company will want to do that, and Facebook may not open source its own networking OS if it ever makes one. That leaves a market opportunity. Perhaps a firm like Arista might move in here with an open source version of EOS, although given that Arista uses merchant silicon in its boxes, putting up an open-source version of its software would eat into its margins.

This is neither Open Flow nor SDN

But let’s go back to the box. Facebook is working with Broadcom, Intel, The Open Daylight Foundation, the Open Networking Foundation and Big Switch as some of its collaborators on this project. The box itself might run x86 hardware or a proprietary ASIC, according to Frankovsky. As for the protocols, Open Compute is going to see what the other collaborators want.

Software-defined networking

But for those wondering about Open Flow support, it’s likely. Frankovsky said that the Open Networking Foundation asked Facebook to get involved via the Open Compute Project with making open networking hardware. While Frankovsky and Ahmad didn’t cop to it, I know there has been frustration in many areas of the webscale and networking world that the promise of commodity hardware that Open Flow could offer has not really hit the market in a way that offers the most flexibility for data center operators.

Frankovsky said that the ONF approached Open Compute (Facebook is a founding member of both organizations) in part because it believed it could move quickly on this. And it will. But it’s worth noting that this announcement is about an open source top-of-rack switch, not a controller and not some type of software-defined networking play.

Other companies may take this box and perhaps an open source OS if one is developed, and then layer on some type of controller software to make a software-defined network, but this is just a box.

That being said, this is a box that could seriously disrupt the existing players in networking, from giants like Cisco and Dell all the way to smaller startups like NoviFlow or even Pica8. Much like Facebook is changing the server market with Open Compute, we’ll see if it can tweak the model and do the same in networking.

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Nobody really thinks of Amazon Web Services as a startup any more. But it was not all that long ago in 2003 when retail giant Amazon.com readied its push into the cloud infrastructure market. Andy Jassy, senior VP of web services for Amazon, shared some wisdom on hiring for startups for attendees of a Startup Secrets event hosted by Michael Skok, partner at North Bridge Venture Partners, at the Harvard Business School’s iLab on Wednesday.

Andy Jassy and Michael Skok chat at the Harvard iLab.

When he was given the green light to hire 57 people to build AWS back in 2003, here’s what Jassy looked for (and continues to look for) in prospective employees.

1: Intelligence

It’s table stakes but it’s important. When AWS was staffing up, it was key to find people with deep infrastructure knowledge but who “were not pickled,” Jassy said. Knowledge is important but so is intellectual curiosity.

A startup or a startup within a bigger company needs to make sure that the folks it hires know a lot of stuff, but don’t think they know it all already, Jassy told a roomful of entrepreneurs or would-be entrepreneurs.

2: Stick-to-itiveness

It was clear from the get go that AWS would be a huge project so team members had to have the ability to handle a long haul. “We knew this would be hard so we wanted people who would stick it out.  We screened for tenacity,” Jassy said.

3: Big vision, big energy:

Another checklist item was that Amazon wanted “hungry, ambitious people with a high bias for action … any startup needs to move fast not slow,” Jassy told a roomful of entrepreneurs. Folks had to be optimistic that they could “change the world.” At that time the idea of rolling out big data centers and offer services for rent at low margin was a huge bet.

4: Willingness to debate

The debates over spec’ing out which services or features to build immediately, which to hold off on and which to skip, have to come early in the process. Hashing out the plan often before rolling it out was also a huge deal that’s not usually popular with developers, who just want to get on with it.

But it’s really important to validate your plan of action before writing code, Jassy said. ”There is nothing worse for dev teams to believe this is the product and get way down the road and have people flip it around,” he said.

The odd upside of pre-planning is that once it’s done, development usually goes much, much faster, he said.

5: People who listen

The other side of that same coin is that developers and managers really need to heed feedback from users or potential users. “I’ve seen teams soliciting feedback and then not listening to it. Sometimes you have such a strong vision, it’ shard to hear something needs to change. You have to hear and be willing to adjust,” Jassy said. But its also important to drill down into that feedback to make sure what you’re hearing is really waht they’re saying.

“We ask lots of questions,” Jassy said.

6: Startup DNA

Amazon preferred people who had been at startups or at startups within existing companies and it didn’t hurt if the startups had failed. “We just wanted them to be self aware of why it didn’t work. We want people at all levels who are really good learners.”

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The White House Correspondents Dinner is a big to-do every year, drawing in huge names from across the country in almost every field imaginable. When one has the opportunity to go, one goes. But Muslim-American physician Seema Jilani may not be going back next year after experiencing what she says was blatant racism.

Jilani attended the dinner as a guest of her husband, a journalist; as the spouse of the invited guest, Jilani wasn’t allowed to attend the actual dinner, but instead would be spending the evening in a designated cocktail area with others. Soon after they parted company, however, Jilani realized her husband had her keys. Upon realizing she couldn’t contact him on his phone, she approached a group of security officers and asked if she could go into the ballroom just to get her keys. That’s when the trouble started.

“They refused to let me through,” Jilani wrote. “For the next half hour, they watched as I frantically called my husband but was unable to reach him. Then something remarkable happened. I watched as they let countless other women through — all Caucasian — without even asking to see their tickets. I asked why they were allowing them to go freely when they had just told me that I needed a ticket. Their response? “Well, now we are checking tickets.” He rolled his eyes and let another woman through, this time actually checking her ticket. His smug tone, enveloped in condescension, taunted, “See? That’s what a ticket looks like.”

Upon pressing the security officers as to why they would let others in without a ticket, Jilani was threatened by the guards, who said they would escort her out. Outraged, Jilani wrote a seething editorial on Huffington Post, where she spoke about the injustice done to anyone with dark skin and a foreign name, now more than ever.

“I explained that I am a physician, that my husband is a noted journalist for a major American newspaper, and that our guest was an esteemed, Oscar-nominated director. They did not believe me. Never mind that the American flag flew proudly outside of our home for years, with my father taking it inside whenever it rained to protect it from damage. Never mind that I won “Most Patriotic” almost every July 4th growing up. Never mind that I have provided health care to some of America’s most underprivileged, even when they have refused to shake my hand because of my ethnicity,” she wrote.

As of now, the White House has had no response about the incident, though that is likely to change soon; Ms. Jilani’s story has gone viral.

I’m not sure who does whom the bigger favor — Apple or T-Mobile USA. The nation’s fourth-largest carrier started selling iPhone 5 in stores April 12 (preorders a week earlier) and today reports 500,000 sold to date. T-Mobile also added 100,000 previous iPhone owners (presumably the majority from AT&T based on network types). The carrier also sells iPhone 4 and 4S but kept the big news to the 5.

Half-million new iPhones sales is just what Apple needs, too, with the U.S. smartphone market rapidly saturating. Apple is the country’s leader, with 39 percent subscriber share in March, according to comScore. Samsung follows with 21.7 percent share. T-Mobile’s contribution is sure to lift iPhone against rivals, when April numbers release.

iPhone is part of a four-prong strategy to revive T-Mobile. Second is MetroPCS merger, which was official May 1. Network expansion — massive 4G LTE rollout — is the third. Then there is Simple Choice, a no-nonsense contract-free plan, where subscribers pay less upfront for the phone than other carriers followed by 24 payments. There is also the option to buy phones outright.

T-Mobile does not sell phones unlocked, something you might not expect from the marketing. A store representative told me yesterday that unlock codes typically are issued after 45 days, except for handsets purchased outright. Code comes within hours.

The carrier hopes that iPhone and the new “un-carrier” plan will revive subscriber losses. The company’s bigger success is prepaid customers, for whom Simple Choice may resonate. During Q1, T-Mobile added 202,000 branded prepaid customers, the seventh consecutive quarter of gains. However, postpaid subscribers fell by a net 199,000, which is actually a 61 percent improvement — meaning the artery isn’t gushing quite as much blood. Pink — or should that be Magenta — gained just 3,000 branded subscribers. While small number, behind are big implications: First growth in 3 years.

Many carriers let prepaid customers bring their own devices, a strategy that worked well for T-Mobile when its network didn’t fully support iPhone and promises to be better now that the handset is official. Simple Choice lets people bring their own unlocked devices to a postpaid service that starts at $50 per month for unlimited text, talk and web — the latter is high-speed for just the first 500MB of data. There is no contractual commitment.

For people buying phones, T-Mobile courts the budget-minded — those worrying what they’ll pay upfront and on a monthly basis. For example, iPhone 5 is $99.99 upfront and 24 $20 monthly payments — or $579.99 outright. Full price through Apple or big-three carriers: $649. The 32GB is $199.99 and the 64 gigger $299.99 upfront and 24 monthly payments, or $679.99 and $779.99 outright, respectively, from T-Mobile. Upfront price from Apple and the big three: $199 (16GB), $299 (32GB), $399 (64GB). Full price: $749 and $849.

When the phone is paid off, the T-Mobile bill goes down by $20 a month. With, say, AT&T, the bill stays the same after the contract commitment is complete. Meaning: Subscribers pay a subsidized phone price premium, whether or not they have a contract. Last week, I got my first full T-Mobile bill: $161, compared to $294 for my last bill with AT&T.

Until there is a full quarter, or even two, of iPhone sales and Simply Choice, T-Mobile’s bet is uncertain. If the carrier fails, it won’t be for want of trying.

T-Mobile US released highlights of their 2013 first quarter financial results showing positive growth in their customer base. For the first time since 2009, the carrier experienced positive customer net additions. This was a result of continued strength in prepaid net additions, the seventh consecutive quarter of growth, combined with a significant improvement in postpaid losses. Those losses were down to 199,000, a 61% improvement compared to the prior year when that number was in the 500,000+ range. Overall, T-Mobile added 579,000 customers and now claims 34 million customers. The growth in customers was attributed mainly to the introduction of their new “Simple Choice” Un-carrier plans and the addition of the iPhone to their portfolio.

Thanks to the improvement in the customer base, T-Mobile ended the quarter with earnings of $1.2 billion and a margin of 29%. That was 12% higher compared to the fourth quarter of 2012. This performance was achieved even though total revenue was down 7.1% year to year. T-Mobile President and CEO John Legere said, “Our first quarter operating metrics and financial results are showing positive impact from the changes we began making in the fourth quarter. Branded customer net additions turned positive for the first time since the first quarter of 2009 and our postpaid business has demonstrated significant improvement…We ended the quarter with strong operational momentum, which is continuing into the second quarter, driven by the successful launch of our Un-carrier ‘Simple Choice’ service plan and the introduction of the iPhone into our device line-up. Things only get more exciting from here, having brought T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS together to create the wireless industry’s value leader and premier challenger.”

T-Mobile reported capital expenditures of $1.1 billion for the first quarter as they continue the buildout of their 4G LTE network. Seven metropolitan locations were announced on March 26th and T-Mobile expects they will cover 200 million people by the end of 2013. Thus far 16,000 cell sites have been upgraded and modernized as part of T-Mobile’s Network Modernization program.

source: T-Mobile US

Come comment on this article: T-Mobile revenues dip, but customer base growing

A hiker who went missing on Sunday, May 5 in Yosemite National Park has been found dead.

According to the National Park Service, the body of Kenneth Stensby was found near the bottom of Vernal Fall, a 317-foot waterfall located on the Merced River in Yosemite. Stensby’s body was found on Monday afternoon by park rangers, who have stated that it appears the 73-year-old fell from a cliff near the top of the waterfall. The body was found following a full-scale search that included California Highway Patrol helicopters.

Stensby, who is from Edina, Minnesota, is reported to have taken daily hikes through the park while staying at a Yosemite hotel. On Sunday he left a note with hotel staff, as he always did, outlining his hiking plans. Stensby had planned to take a morning hike to the top of Vernal Fall and return by midday. Park Rangers were dispatched to look for Stensby when he had not returned that evening. His backpack was found near the guardrails at the top of Vernal Fall.

This is not the first occasion on which a hiker has died around Vernal Fall. In 2011, three hikers crossed guardrails erected to keep hikers out of the water above the fall. They were swept over the falls by the water’s flow, which was greater than usual due to a large melting snowpack from that winter.

(Image courtesy God of War at the English language Wikipedia)

Path plans to announce a partnership with Sprint on Wednesday that will allow Sprint customers to download the social networking app to their Android phones without having to search for it in the Google Play store.

Allowing Android users of certain phones, including the Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One and Torque devices, to more easily find Path could help the app win more users and improve distribution, which has been a continuing hurdle for CEO Dave Morin’s self-described closed personal network.

The company explained the partnership with Sprint in a statement:

“Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re starting something new with Sprint to make finding Path easy. Sprint has brought together a group of some of the highest quality apps around for its Discover-it Widget on the new Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One and Torque devices, and we’re delighted to be included. Now, millions of Sprint customers can download Path with just a quick tap, allowing them to easily connect and share with the ones they love.”

Path was dinged by users recently for reportedly spamming a user’s contacts telling people to sign up for Path. While Morin denied that Path had ever spammed its users, Facebook reportedly cut off access to the Facebook API that allowed users to invite their Facebook friends to join Path.

The Sprint partnership could give Path a needed boost in adding new members, as the pressure increases on the mobile social network. Sprint most recently counted 55.2 million customers, and while not all of them are using Android, it certainly provides Path with a large new group of possible users.

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Hadoop-in-the-cloud startup Mortar Data is on a mission to bring recommendation engines to the masses, and it has recruited three well-known data scientists to aid its cause. On Wednesday, the company will start accepting applications on its website from companies that would like to have Mortar Data — as well as Bit.ly’s Hilary Mason, IA Ventures Scientist-in-Residence Drew Conway and freelancer (and former OKCupid data scientist) Max Shron — build them a custom recommendation system.

The way it works, said Mortar Co-founder and CEO K Young, is that his company will choose eight companies (in addition to the two it has been working with already) to implement custom systems based on their specific needs and businesses. Mason, Conway and Shron will split their time among the 10 total companies, but will be much more than advisers — they’ll actually dig into the data and be hands-on to ensure the right techniques and algorithms are applied in the right places.

The companies will keep any custom code, but the ultimate goal from Mortar’s perspective is to learn some best practices and create reusable building blocks that will let anyone create recommendation engines without pre-existing data science knowledge. Recommendation engines are commonplace on large web sites (Netflix, Spotify, iTunes, Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, Eventbrite and the list goes on) but smaller companies can sometimes struggle to do them, or to do them well. Young hopes Mortar can establish an open source reference architecture of sorts that makes it easy to implement everything from building data pipelines to the actual algorithms that power recommendations.

“They’re really common and they’re really useful, but they’re really hard,” he said. “That’s why [a reference implementation] hasn’t been done before.”

They can get pretty complex, as evidence by this Netflix example.

Presently, Young explained, anyone wanting to build a recommendation system probably knows some of the algorithms to begin with and then gets to work researching how to implement them with specific processing frameworks (e.g., MapReduce) and on their specific data. Alternatively, they might have to hire a consultant that helps them build the recommendation engine. Either way, he noted, they’re probably not open sourcing it at the end because it’s presumed too valuable a competitive edge.

Mortar Data’s recommendation framework will be based on Pig, Python and Java, just like the company’s flagship platform for creating Hadoop jobs. Those languages will make the implementation more accessible and customizable by more people, Young said.

Really, he added, any web site or service that has multiple customers and deals with multiple entities — be they restaurants, songs, dating profiles, artisan necklaces, what have you — should have some sort of recommendation engine to help provide a more-intelligent customer experience. “It should become so ubiquitous that any service you go to knows enough about you to put forward the things you actually want to see,” Young said.

There is, however, one catch to Mortar’s plans as they stand right now: Because the service is hosted on Amazon Web Services, anyone interested in having Mason, Conway, Shron and Mortar work on their systems must have their data in AWS or be able to move it there. The initial reference implementation will likely be AWS-centric, too, but Young hopes contributors will use it and share methods for running it atop other platforms.

Feature image of Hilary Mason at Structure: Data 2011 courtesy of Pinar Ozger (www.pinarozger.com).

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Last week, as part of President Obama’s visit to Mexico and Costa Rica, I had the pleasure of participating in a roundtable discussion on women’s entrepreneurship.

In Mexico, President Obama and President Enrique Peña Nieto underscored the importance of their countries’ cooperation on regional and international issues, including gender equality.

On this, we were thrilled to hear that Mexico will join the Equal Futures Partnership, a multilateral effort to expand women’s economic empowerment and political participation which I helped launch last September.

Also in Mexico, I participated in a roundtable for Women Entrepreneurship in the Americas, or WEAmericas with Ambassador to Mexico Earl Anthony Wayne. The goal of our roundtable was to discuss and identify potential opportunities to work together to support more women entrepreneurs throughout Mexico, the region, and around the world.

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