Jason Goldberg’s Fab raises $150 million in bid to rival Amazon with ‘emotional commerce’

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Jason Goldberg sure has come a long way since Jobster, the Seattle startup company he founded in 2003. Now, at the helm of New York-based e-commerce upstart Fab, the charismatic and controversial entrepreneur just pulled in a whopping $150 million funding round at a reported valuation of $1 billion. Investors in the deal include Andreessen Horowitz; Atomico… Read More…

Amazon: No, we won’t release entire TV seasons all at once like Netflix

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Netflix has recently been dropping entire season’s worth of episodes all at once — Arrested Development, House of Cards — allowing people to engage in “binge viewing.” Amazon isn’t following suit. While the Seattle online giant released all 14 pilots of its original comedy and children’s series at the same time when seeking customer feedback, the company won’t be using the… Read More…

LivingSocial closes Seattle office; employees told to work remotely

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Amazon.com-backed LivingSocial, the Washington D.C.-based daily deals site, has shut down its Seattle office. The news was first reported by Forbes and we’ve reached out to the company for confirmation. Less than 40 employees who worked at the office were not let go, but rather told to work from home, Forbes reported. The company is still hiring for three… Read More…

Amazon debuts group gift cards for birthdays on Facebook

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Facebook already makes it easy to remember the birthdays of your friends. Now, with a little help from Amazon, you can send group-based gift cards, too. Amazon Birthday Gift debuted today as an easy way for anyone to start an Amazon gift card, and then recruit mutual friends on Facebook to add $1-to-$25 to the… Read More…

This startup mines your Twitter stream to tell you what books to read

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Struggling to figure out what books to take to the lake house this summer? Well, you might want to consider BookVibe. The service, a product of San Francisco startup Parakweet, mines your Twitter feed to discover the most appropriate books that your friends are recommending or chatting about. Here’s a look at my BookVibe, which… Read More…

Q&A: Instacart CEO on competing with Amazon Fresh and the future of grocery shopping

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While Amazon Fresh has been dominating the headlines lately, a San Francisco-based startup led by a former Amazon employee is looking to revolutionize the way people get groceries. We’ve all had those days: you meant to go out and get groceries, but something came up, and there just wasn’t any time. Grocery delivery is supposed… Read More…

Early Amazon investor Nick Hanauer disappointed Amazon isn’t more civically engaged

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Is Amazon.com doing enough to support its hometown? That question has been raised many times over the years, with local publications like The Stranger and The Seattle Times ripping the online retailer for essentially being a scrooge when it comes to corporate giving and engagement in Seattle. In a poll last year following The Seattle Times’ four-part… Read More…

GeekWire Radio: Nick Hanauer and Rich Barton on investing, technology, open skies and big bets

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Nick Hanauer and Rich Barton are investors and entrepreneurs who have created and shaped some of the most significant companies in the Seattle region, and the world. They’re also friends, and we’re happy to have them both together in the studio this week for the GeekWire radio show and podcast. Barton is the co-founder of… Read More…

Teams from Amazon, Microsoft battle on StarCraft in After Hours Gaming League

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It’s not uncommon for company employees to organize teams for recreational sports leagues. Participating is a good way to leave the work environment, get the competitive juices flowing and bond with your colleagues. Some of us, though, may not want to get out on the field, but still would like a way to get some… Read More…

Another reason for Google and Microsoft interns to be happy: They’re making bank

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While The Internship may have showcased some truths about Google, one thing it didn’t bring up is just how much those interns get paid. And, guess what? They may be making more than you. As it turns out, Google interns make an average of $6,100 a month, according to a report by Glassdoor. That means… Read More…

Whoops! Book by Jeff Bezos’ wife delayed by Amazon logistics

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Amazon prides itself on having a top-notch infrastructure for getting products where they need to go, and quickly. But sometimes, there are hiccups, and as it turns out, being married to the company’s CEO doesn’t make someone immune from Murphy’s Law. Mackenzie Bezos, an award-winning novelist and the wife of Jeff Bezos, has a new… Read More…

Engineering students want jobs at NASA, Google, Boeing, Apple and Microsoft — in that order

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If space is the final frontier, today’s engineering students want to be a part of exploring it, according to a new survey. Universum has released its annual rankings of employers by undergraduate engineering students in the US, and the results are clear: NASA is still a top draw for America’s rising engineering talent, even as… Read More…

Amazon’s huge $600M cloud contract with CIA now up in the air

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Back in March, it appeared Amazon had hit a home run with a $600 million cloud computing deal with the CIA. Now, though, the Seattle online giant could be left with nothing. IBM, a company with longstanding partnerships with government agencies, protested the contract and now the CIA is reviewing a recommendation by the Government… Read More…

With Apple’s iBook coming to desktop, Amazon has new competition

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Among Apple’s bevy of upgrades to its new desktop operating system, there is one change that likely caught the attention of the folks at Amazon. The new OS, named Mavericks, will see the arrival of iBooks on the Mac desktop. Any book a user is able to get on their iOS device will also be available through the… Read More…

Walmart Labs acquires Inkiru as Amazon rivalry heats up

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Thanks to an acquisition, Walmart’s online store is getting smarter. In a post Monday on the official Walmart Labs blog, the company announced the acquisition of Inkiru, a predictive analytics company based in Palo Alto, Calif. Inkiru is the latest in a series of acquisitions by the big box retailer designed to augment its e-commerce… Read More…

Amazon opens doors on 3D printer storefront: Is this a sign of things to come?

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If a structural change to Amazon.com is any indication, the company is looking to take on the 3D printer scene. According to reporting from 3D printing enthusiast blog Personalize, the online retail giant has recently opened a 3D printer storefront for U.S. consumers. It’s a bit hard to find ordinarily–you have to look for the… Read More…

Amazon noticeably (and admirably?) absent from cyber-spying controversy

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The revelations about the U.S. government’s cyber-spying program this week centered on reports that the NSA and the FBI are routinely accessing data from major tech companies to feed intelligence operations, leveraging the fact that much of the world’s online traffic flows through domestic servers. The reports by the Washington Post and the Guardian implicated companies including Microsoft, Apple,… Read More…

Lighting a fire in Beijing: Kindle now available in China

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Amazon’s Kindle lineup just made its debut in the world’s most populous nation. Last month, Amazon launched its Android app store in China, and at the time we speculated that might indicate the upcoming launch of the Kindle. Today, Amazon announced the official release of its Kindle e-book reader and Kindle Fire tablets in China,… Read More…

Amazon launches Indie Game Store for PC, Mac and web games

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Indie game developers have a new way to market and show off their latest creations. Amazon just debuted an Indie Games Store to help promote PC, Mac, and browser-based games. It mimics just like an ordinary Amazon storefront with a couple additional goodies. There’s an Indie Spotlight, a weekly Q&A with a featured game company, as well as… Read More…

Amazon opens access to cloud database service

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Amazon’s Relational Database Service (RDS) has officially opened to all users after three years of only being available to chosen Amazon Web Services customers. The service allows users to host MySQL, Microsoft SQL and Oracle databases in the AWS cloud. Payment is charged per month based on the size of the database and the number… Read More…