Chinese technology conglomerate Xiaomi has continued its trend of copying American tech companies by releasing its Mi Band. Known for blatantly infringing upon Apple’s (AAPL) intellectual property, the Xiaomi Mi Band is a fitness tracker designed to compete with the Apple Watch, Fitbit bracelets, and Jawbone bands
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Fitbit Files For IPO
As of last Thursday, private health and fitness monitoring company, Fitbit, filed for an initial public offering (IPO) of common stock under the ticker symbol "FIT." In selling equity, Fitbit plans to raise $100 million in additional operating capital; the company also hopes to gauge investor sentiment and promote its product portfolio.
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Corrupt Costolo Out Of Time
In what was one of the more unusual events on Wall Street last week, Twitter’s (TWTR) Q1 earnings report was leaked before the closing bell. Ironically, the results were made public via a series of tweets from Selerity, a data science firm. The tweets revealed that Twitter missed revenue expectations by more than $20 million and also cut quarterly and annual guidance. Not surprisingly, Twitter’s stock price plummeted more than 20%.
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Goldberg's SurveyMonkey Legacy
SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg unexpectedly passed away late Friday night due to head trauma from an exercise accident in Mexico. Goldberg was not just one of the most popular CEOs in the Silicon Valley, but he was also one of the most successful. Goldberg was married to Facebook (FB) COO Sheryl Sandberg and was just 47 years old at his time of passing.
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Facebook To Dethrone Google
Last week marked the 10-year anniversary of the first video ever uploaded to Google’s (GOOGL) popular video sharing service, YouTube. As one of the most popular websites on the Internet, and the second leading search engine behind Google, YouTube clearly has a lot to celebrate. However, as a profitless Google subsidiary, YouTube’s future could prove quite volatile, especially as its main competitor continues to invest in an entirely new video-sharing platform.
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$2.8 Billion In One Year
Slack, a relatively new messaging and communications application, specifically aimed at increasing business efficiency, has announced that it recently raised $160 million in new funding at a valuation of $2.8 billion. Its investors include big VC names like Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, and Google Ventures. To date, Slack has raised $340 million of working capital to fund expansionary business strategies.
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Facebook's Recent Release
Social media giant Facebook (FB) recently took a page out of AOL’s (ancient) playbook by creating a standalone desktop messaging platform similar to AIM (for those who remember, this was the greatest invention of all time). The goal of Facebook’s new PC application is to expand its user base, increase data collection, and generate higher revenues.
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