Directory/Free guide

News

• 
  
  Still Smiling, Eduardo? Senators Schumer, Casey Want To Collect Your $67M In Facebook Taxes Anyway
  Another development in the ongoing story of how Eduardo Saverin has given up his U.S. citizenship to avoid paying $67 million in taxes related to Facebook's IPO: the U.S. government doesn't want him get away with it quite so fast. Today, Senators Charles Schumer and Bob Casey are expected to announce a plan they have to re-impose the taxes on Saverin, part of a bigger scheme to go after expatriates who give up citizenship in order to avoid taxes. On top of that, they want to make it official that people who do avoid paying their taxes by renouncing citizenship are unable from ever re-entering the country again.
• 
  
  The Weather Channel Beautifies And Socializes Its iPhone App
  In an effort to streamline its digital offerings, The Weather Channel has today announced that its popular iPhone app has undergone a major redesign. It started with the launch of the iPad app, and just a few weeks ago The Weather Channel followed suit on the web. But the iPhone marks a major portal between TWC and its consumers, in that mobile and weather undoubtedly go hand in hand. The redesign reminds me a bit of HTC's Sense 3, with the home screen offering up a weather-themed background based on the weather outside. The user interface seems much more navigable, but the features themselves are getting a bump as well.
• 
  
  AppHarbor Launches Its Azure Competitor In Europe
  Heroku was a hit with Ruby developers because it was an easy-to-use development platform. Others have tried to do the same with other languages such as PHP Fog, dotCloud. Then last year AppHarbor, a 'Heroku for .NET' out of Y Combinator launched. And today AppHarbor has extended its service to European developers. EU applications will still run on Amazon's infrastructure, but they'll be running out of the EU-West region (Dublin) instead of US-East, where all current applications are located.
• 
  
  Rakuten CEO On The $100M Pinterest Round: We Want Pinterest Users To Pin Images And Buy Using Our ID
  Rakuten, the Japanese e-commerce giant leading a $100 million investment in Pinterest, will be making two major contributions to the image-based social network as it gears up for its next stage of growth: the funds to take the image-based social network into new international markets, and a business model. First up, Rakuten's home market of Japan, where "Pinterest is growing very fast," notes Rakuten's CEO, Hiroshi Mikitani, in an interview with TechCrunch. He wants Rakuten to grow right there with it by using Rakuten's services to become the basis for buying things off the site.
• 
  
  Quora Investor Peter Thiel: ?The Samwers Are Never Going To Clone Quora,?
  There's been a lot of armchair valuation punditry across the Valley this week. As the Facebook IPO looms, our intricately entwined ecosystem of startups and investors seeks to benefit from the domino effect of a population feeling flush with cash. This is the picture that the WSJ painted in its Quora funding announcement yesterday, headline: "Former Facebook Hands Capitalize on Buzz." Okay, sure, smart people will always adapt to a favorable environment -- but the WSJ missed a deeper and more long-term dynamic at play.