How would you do it without causing problems (ie people thinking you're up for sale)?

Built to Flip. An intriguing idea: No need to build a company, much less one with enduring value. Today, it's enough to pull together a good story, to implement the rough draft of an idea, and — presto! — instant wealth.

How quaint! How endearingly refreshing! Quick, say "instant wealth" again, Tom Anderson from MySpace didn't quite hear you.

Built to Flip [Fast Company, 2000]

Technorati is a robust blog search engine with the largest user base in its industry. Those users are served an array of text and graphic ads, often matched to search terms. It seems like a perfect recipe for revenue.

But just last week, the company took a $7.6 million round of funding that likely makes the VCs its majority shareholders. This is something a desperate startup does, not a healthy one with profit and growth potential. Why sell control for a quick shot of capital?

Remember that when a company sells, the investors get paid first. And now the VCs will take over half that money. So even if CEO Dave Sifry is willing to give up control, he's probably not crazy about carving away at his founder's share.

But this shouldn't happen! If anyone should have sold for millions, years ago, it's Technorati! Valleywag's still digging for answers. If you want to help, tip tips@valleywag.com. Your anonymity will be protected.

Earlier: Technorati belongs to the VCs now

1. Have a revenue model, right now: 30 Boxes, twttr
2. Be a complete business, not just a feature: Slide
3. Affect real people, not just bloggers: Share Your OPML
4. Get a real, memorable name: Tagged/Tagworld/TagJag, Meebo/Meetro, Oodle/Ookles/Odeo
5. If applicable, get unaffiliated with Web 2.0: Everyone.
6. Find some friends who don't drink the kool-aid and get their honest feedback: People Aggregator
7. If you are revolutionary, make sure that a revolution is coming: Pinko Marketing
8. If you are evolutionary, then there needs to be a big enough market to address with a "we're a little better than them" vision: Zooomr
9. Fit your business into an existing food chain: Everyone except Craigslist
10. Do not expect to be Google and, just as importantly, do not expect them to buy you: AOL
11. Ignore the hype and have fun: TechCrunch

11 Suggestions For Not Being a Dot-Bomb 2.0 [Dead2.0]

Blogbeat explains that Feedburner bought them for their technology. In other words, look for a couple of layoffs, or people who just plain weren't picked up in Feedburner's purchase, especially outside the engineering department.

Blogbeat says the terms of its deal are "not even whispered in hushed tones among those in the know." Instead, they're sent to tips@valleywag.com.

Feedburner acquires Blogbeat [Blogbeat front page]

In fact, the press release for the real story is already in journos' hands, but everyone's obeying the embargo. (Come on, TechCrunch, we all know you're sitting on this.)

If you want to leak the announcement, drop a line at tips@valleywag.com, or ping "heyvalleywag" on AIM.

Earlier: Scoop: Feedburner buys Nooked (No it doesn't.)

A reader follows up on an earlier tip to report that Feedburner will soon announce that it's buying Nooked, another player in the RSS marketing space. Nooked will get both cash and stock in the deal.

Nooked is based out of Ireland and mostly does business in Europe, bringing Feedburner some international reach. The companies foresee no trouble meshing their technologies, says the source.

Earlier: Feedburner's buying someone. But who?

Now this could mean that someone's buying Feedburner. (Yahoo? Google? They already have massive ad programs, but Feedburner's RSS ad network could be a growing asset.) But given how this was phrased, it's more likely that Feedburner's buying someone else. I'd guess feed search company Feedster, but that little startup just took more VC funding.

Still looking into this story. If you know more, whisper it to tips@valleywag.com.

The disappointing sale price is Tribe's punishment for staying private too long (three years, actually). After dumping a third-round investment of $3 million into the company, investors must have given up grander hopes and looked for the first decent offer.

More motives revealed after the jump.

While the venture capitalists ground their teeth, Tribe's user growth slumped, and investors Knight Ridder and the Washington Post Co. failed to launch Tribe-based local classified systems. As recently as May, Tribe CEO Jan Gullett excused her company's profit struggle, saying "We don't want to pollute Tribe.net with an external economic motivation."

Ali says Tribe is only useful for its community technology, which NBC property iVillage needs. TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington congratulates Tribe just for selling before the technology's cheap as water.

NBC's motives for buying Tribe on the cheap were explained by a Valleywag guest writer: the network wants to nail the progressive demographic it's courting with iVillage and a partnership with YouTube.

Tribe.net being bought by NBC [paidContent]
Earlier: Guest post: Why NBC is buying Tribe.net [Valleywag]
Earlier: Exclusive: NBC is buying Tribe — but why? [Valleywag]

NBC, the broadcast network, is in the process of acquiring Tribe Networks, Inc. It sounds like the investors have some hope now. I understand that the deal is far enough along that a letter of intent has been signed by NBC and delivered to Tribe, and that a team will be visiting the Tribe offices soon to go through the basic steps of due diligence.

It seems NBC is truely trying to get into the social networking business. The recent purchase of iVillage, the deal with YouTube for distribution of shows, and now the potential purchase of Tribe. Is this simply NBC trying to keep pace with Fox, or do they have some greater plan in mind?

Good question. Fun activity to try at home: Call up your favorite NBC exec and ask that. See how well he makes up a plan on the spot.

Earlier: Rumormonger: Tribe wants old chief back
Later: Guest post: Why NBC is buying Tribe.net

So this rumor about Yahoo courting the social music startup last.fm is so unbubbly that you hardly deserve to hear it. What's cute is that no one told last.fm about Yahoo's thriftiness before they wasted time negotiating.

I heard it that Yahoo was looking to buy last.fm last week but dropped the deal. Wasn't interested in spending more than $30M apparently, so when talks reached $40M, things collapsed.

Know of another recent broken-up engagement? Tell tips@valleywag.com.

• YouTube, the biggest independent Web 2.0 firm that needs a lucrative deal like a hooker needs a free clinic, wins distribution of NBC shows. After NBC's SNL clip "Lazy Sunday" went viral on YouTube (and got yanked), the network finally realized that its viewers all moved to the Internet. [Washington Post]
• Geez, is any microindustry safe from invasion of the do-gooders? [GoodSearch]
• If you're building your social network around rare sneakers, you really need to flip down your collar, put the Wes Anderson DVDs back in their cases, and listen to Prince for a while. [Sneakerplay]

The Wall Street Journal pimps the mad buying skillz of IBM and Microsoft. Yep, buying the competition is still Business Strategy #1, with IBM chalking up 16 buys, Microsoft 22.

Which mega-corporation should you flip to? Here's a rough guide:

• Boring and useful: The Chronicle won't put you in the Datebook. The WSJ says you're too ugly for a pointillated portrait. Your B2B startup runs something "across the enterprise" and even Larry Ellison yawns when he hears your business plan. You're perfect for IBM.
• Innocent babe: "Babe" means "infant," as your pastel-colored microsite shows. Hell, you're still in a cozy incubator, hiding behind a private beta. Quick, before you have to put out a public product, sell to Google.
• Hot babe: "Babe" means "smokin'," 'cause your beta brings all the boys to the yard. You're social, you're sexy, you're on the cover of Newsweek. You'd fit in with the beautiful people at Yahoo.
• Anyone, anyone at all: You breathe. You can talk. You've never worked for MSN. Oh dear lord please come to Microsoft.
• Hollywood, babe: "Babe" meaning "Let's do lunch." Everyone knows the Internet is the new TV. Tony Perkins taught you the buzzwords, and your teenager taught you the attitude. Set a custom Nickelback ringtone for Fox Interactive.

Pick of the Crop [WSJ]

I wish I'd never heard of techcrunch and their geeky viewers

Not sure if this is a tip, but ever since techcrunch did an article on www.solomodels.com - we are getting numerous middle aged men signing up for free trials and sending messages to our models asking for dates or even worse, trying to sell themselves to our models with stupid lines like "I'm a big shot tech investor with lots of money" ... funny part is that this is the last thing most our model girls care about ... I feel like telling these guys, "it's looks they care about, stupid!, they are already making money for their looks!".

And this is after Arrington warned his readers not to treat the models like flipmeat. The rest of Solomodels' letter (including the line "Sometimes it's best to remain unknown to the people you don't care about") is after the jump.

In all fairness to techcrunch, he warned people that it's against our policies to contact members for non-modeling related purposes, but apparently people don't care. It's been a major headache filtering these bogus accounts and somewhat damaging to our reputation.

Sometimes its best to remain unknown to the people you don't care about!!! We never had this problem before and now we've had to add extra checks to our system before messages can be sent, so for anyone who might want to try this now, be warned, your messages will no longer go thru and your credit card will be charged and your account will be cancelled if you violate our terms of service which prohibits this.

Please don't sign up on our system!!!

Solomodels

A response to: Solomodels: Ajax perfection [TechCrunch]

Q: Facebook just turned down a $750 million offer, saying they were seeking $2 billion. Do consider yourself a million-dollar-kind-of guy or a billion-dollar-kind-of guy?

A: What we're really committed to is providing the best experience, and we're not really thinking about what we're worth. We're just viewing this as solving a really hard problem and that's how to distribute video in an entertaining way. So as we move forward, we're just going to stay committed to that.

In other words, "All the big shots are throwing me Benjamins, baby. So I don't need to beg."

An Interview with Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, Founders of YouTube.com [Gizmodo]

¬ Asoboo
¬ Cluckoo
¬ Congoo
¬ Doostang
¬ Favoor
¬ Goowy
¬ Gumshoo
¬ Kaboodle
¬ Kanoodle
¬ Loopnote
¬ Mooflex
¬ Newroo
¬ Ookles
¬ Picaboo
¬ Pooxi
¬ Qoop
¬ Qooxdoo
¬ Revoo
¬ Springdoo
¬ Squidoo
¬ Webaroo
¬ Wufoo
¬ Yoono
¬ Zooomr

The oo is, by the way, the secret to Yahoo and Google's wild success.

A Laptop Comes Preloaded With the Web, Abridged [John Markoff on NYT]
A Home Where Bloggers Can Plumb Those Obscure Passions [Bob Tedeschi on NYT]
Resource: Web 2.0 Directory [eConsultant]
Photo: OO [ikes on Flickr]

I work for a small dot com that just was acquired by a larger dot com (one with a historically shady reputation). What are some signs that my job may not be safe, even though I've been promised it is? What are signs that we are just going to be chewed up and discarded? How will I know when it's time to rewrite the resume and get out?

So which little dot-com just got snapped up and might be dropping employees? And how long will "Anonymous" last before the boss catches them reading MetaFilter all day?

Pets, and Kozmo, and eToys oh my! [Ask MetaFilter]

newroo [newroo.com]
Fox to acquire startup newroo [TechCrunch]