Despite the popularity of Facebook and Instagram, a growing number of smartphone users are clearly looking for alternative communications platforms. The question is whether such new apps are real businesses, or if they’re just as evanescent as the technology solutions they provide.

The current, accepted wisdom is that those who understand Big Data will rule the roost in the future. There’s just one problem: there aren’t nearly enough “data scientists” to go around.

You don’t often hear venture capitalists talking about the world’s biggest crowd-funding site, Kickstarter. But maybe they should.

Thanks to astute deal-making, a strong point of view, and a long and savvy relationship with social media, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures [USV] is widely recognized as one of the most influential venture capitalists in the country.

His influence is about to be tested.

This week, the CEO of SecondMarket, the secondary market for illiquid assets, traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos, where SecondMarket was given a “technology pioneer” award. The distinction didn’t come as a surprise to anyone in Silicon Valley. In the process of fueling the celebrity of companies like Facebook and Zynga, whose secondary [...]

I chatted earlier today with Venky Ganesan of Globespan Capital Partners, and much as we all watch with fascination as the venture industry is downsized, Ganesan had an astute observation about the growing number of “walking dead” venture firms: “Fundraising is turning out to be an enormous pain for most VCs, but things can turn around, [...]