MyNines Relaunches Private Sales Aggregator With New UI, Sales Calendar And More

MyNines, an aggregator of private sales sites, is relaunching today with a number of new features and a more streamlined user experience.

Launched in March of 2010, MyNines aims to help consumers sort through the daily flash sales sites. MyNines aggregates products from various online sample sale sites and allows shoppers to find them all in one location. Users can search and filter by designer, category, highest discounts, as well as deals ending soonest, most viewed items, deals under $100, and newly listed. MyNines currently aggregates from over 80 sites, including eBay’s Fashion Vault.

With the relaunch, MyNines has rolled out a complete redesign of the site and a new feature called “Boutiques,” which includes sets of products from various sample sale sites curated by stylists, fashion bloggers and celebrities (this is very similar to Google’s Boutiques.com).

One of the most useful additions to MyNines is the sample sales calendar, which will aggregate the sale events from pretty much every sample into a calendar format to see which designers are featuring their sales on flash sale sites each day. You can also subscribe to the Sample Sales Calendar via Google Calendar, Outlook, or Apple iCal and you can set sale reminders for specific sales and MyNines will email you when those sales start.

While MyNines does aggregate actual products from a massive number of flash sales sites, some of the biggest players in the space, like Gilt Groupe, have not signed in to be included in the site’s feeds (although Gilt’s sales are included in the Sample Sale Calendar). The site’s founder, Apar Kothari, seems optimistic, however; that eventually all private sales sites will sign on to give MyNines a feed of their daily sales. Kothari adds that MyNines will soon start rolling out more personalized shopping features and will suggest certain sales and items to members based on what sales they click on.

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May 1, 2002: Larry Page And Eric Schmidt Talk About Google, The Future, And Their Dynamic

On May 1, 2002, two men took the stage at a Stanford University event to answer some questions about their startup. The startup? Google. The two men? Eric Schmidt and Larry Page.

That was less than a year after Schmidt officially became CEO of the company, taking over the role from Page. Yesterday, after a decade of success, the two announced they would be switching back. And while some answers are starting to trickle out as to why such a change is taking place now, it’s fascinating to look back in time and see how it all began. Luckily, Stanford captured the talk in 24 short videos clips found here.

One particularly interesting clip is where Schmidt talks about “new leadership and organizational change”. Schmidt talks about the differences between running Novell and Google. “What I found was a company that was working extremely well, but just needed a little bit of list-making and structure. And that’s frankly what I’ve been relegated to,” Schmidt says of Google with a laugh. “Oh no, that’s not true,” Page chimes in. Still laughing, Schmidt says, “It’s okay, your strategy is working pretty good. It’s working well so far.“

Reports today have similar tension being behind the switch. And while they’re clearly at least half-joking here, it’s actually kind of amazing the partnership lasted in the same capacity eight and a half years later.  It’s also funny to hear Schmidt refer to the company as “the Google”.

Another clip has Schmidt talking about how Google won the then all-important partnership with AOL for search. He kicks things off by saying, ”One of the most wonderful things about being a private company is that we don’t have to answer any of those questions.” Remember, that was over two years before Google’s IPO. And that response sounds a bit like something Facebook would say today.

In another clip, Page shows off a picture of a really happy day at Google. Why was everyone so happy? They had just signed the AOL deal. (Hey, like us!)

In this clip, Page talks about innovation at Google. “I guess as Google’s gotten bigger — we’re almost 400 people now — you start to notice that s you get more and more people working on one thing, it’s harder and harder for them to be innovating just because of the communications cost and the inertia and all those kinds of things,” Page says. Again, that was an issue with 400 people — Google now has nearly 25,000 employees. And so perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that this slow down in innovation was one of the reasons cited for yesterday’s change.

Here, Schmidt jokes that “I should say, by the way, that after seeing the way we hire people, I’m amazed that I got through the filter.”

But this video may be the most interesting of all. On the topic of legal issues, Schmidt and Page joke about a couple of different things facing the company, but they’re also clearly serious. Schmidt is concerned about a lawsuit against Google, while Page is concerned about DMCA takedowns (pertaining to Scientology, in this case). Schmidt cares about the business side, Page cares about the information side.

Finally, here Page talks about Google censorship in some countries. While he notes it isn’t a big issue at the time, he worries that it could become a big issue. A report today in the New Yorker by Ken Auletta has one of the main reasons for the CEO shakeup being that Page sided with co-founder Sergey Brin over their pull-out of China, while Schmidt, again from a business perspective, wanted to go the other way.

Each of the short videos is a fascinating look into the early days of the company and the perspective of Page and Schmidt, the once and future CEOs of Google.

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Facebook Raises $1.5 Billion At $50 Billion Valuation

Facebook has officially announced that it has just raised $1.5 billion in funding at a $50 billion valuation, according to a release issued today (we’ve embedded the release below).

As stated in the release, the investment was broken into two parts. Goldman Sachs participated in the first round (via an offering to its non-U.S. clients in a fund), which totaled $1 billion. In December, DST and Goldman separately invested another $500 million into the social network. Both rounds gave Facebook a $50 billion valuation, says the company. This brings Facebook’s total funding to a staggering $2.336 billion.

It’s interesting to note that Facebook didn’t take the full $1.5 billion from Goldman Sachs in the first part of the investment. As stated in the release:

Under the transaction’s terms, Facebook had the option to accept between $375 million and $1.5 billion from the Goldman Sachs overseas offering, at the discretion of Facebook. While the offering was oversubscribed, Facebook made a business decision to limit the offering to $1 billion.

One has to wonder if the fact that Goldman excluded U.S. investors from the round had to do with Facebook not raising the full $1.5 billion (which would push the total investment to a whopping $2 billion).

Another interesting tidbit from the release is this: Even before the investment from Goldman Sachs, Facebook had expected to pass 500 shareholders at some point in 2011, and therefore expects to start filing public financial reports no later than April 30, 2012.

Clearly, it looks like Facebook plans to IPO no later than April 2012.

So what will Facebook do with this massive amount of cash? The company says it has no set plans but vaguely stated that it will be “investing to build and expand its operations.”

The Goldman investment was first reported by New York Times’ Dealbook.

So much for that slow Friday news day.

Facebook Raises $1.5 Billion

Facebook Receives $1 Billion from Goldman Sachs Overseas Offering; Digital Sky Technologies and Goldman Sachs Also Recently Made $500 Million Direct Investment

Investment Values Facebook at $50 Billion

PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Facebook today announced it has raised U.S.$1.5 billion at a valuation of approximately $50 billion.

The transaction consisted of two parts. Today, Goldman Sachs completed an oversubscribed offering to its non-U.S. clients in a fund that invested $1 billion in Facebook Class A common stock. In December, Digital Sky Technologies (DST), The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., and funds managed by Goldman Sachs invested $500 million in Facebook Class A common stock at the same valuation.

“Our business continues to perform well, and we are pleased to be able to bolster our cash position with this new financing,” said David Ebersman, Facebook’s chief financial officer. “With this investment completed, we now have greater financial flexibility to explore whatever opportunities lie ahead.”

The investment generated a significant number of questions from interested parties and Facebook has addressed the most common ones below.

Why did Facebook raise this money?

DST and Goldman Sachs approached Facebook to express their interest in making an investment, and Facebook decided it was an attractive opportunity to bolster its cash reserves and increase its financial flexibility with limited dilution to existing shareholders.

Why did Facebook choose to raise $1 billion in the overseas offering?

Under the transaction’s terms, Facebook had the option to accept between $375 million and $1.5 billion from the Goldman Sachs overseas offering, at the discretion of Facebook. While the offering was oversubscribed, Facebook made a business decision to limit the offering to $1 billion.

What are Facebook’s plans for the proceeds of this transaction?

There are no immediate plans for these funds. Facebook will continue investing to build and expand its operations.

Does this investment mean that Facebook will have more than 500 shareholders?

Even before the investment from Goldman Sachs, Facebook had expected to pass 500 shareholders at some point in 2011, and therefore expects to start filing public financial reports no later than April 30, 2012.

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