Google misses Street targets, shares tumble: "The slide, which at one stage wiped out more than $20 billion of Google's market value, illustrated the big risks investors have taken by buying the shares after a meteoric rise their initial public offering in August 2004." —Yahoo! News

Why is the rise called 'meteoric'? Aren't meteors actually falling stars?

Sling Media raises $46.6M: "The product enables people to watch TV shows on the go, by tapping into programs they record on TiVo or other places." —SiliconBeat

So with $46M in venture money you can either develop drugs to treat blood clots, acute coronary syndrome, and atherosclerosis or let people watch TV on their phones. Weird.

The Resurgence of E-Cards: "American Greetings will not release figures for its e-commerce division, but Ms. Babcock said its profits were 'incredibly strong,' and growing." —The New York Times

I hope those profits are 'incredibly stronger' than in the first nine months of 1999, when Egreetings.com (now owned by American Greetings) recorded $22M in losses on $1.5M in revenue.

Davos 2006: Partying Like It's 1999: "Hands down, the best event at Davos was the Google party on Friday night. Never mind the glittering guest list, which included the likes of Michael Douglas and Shimon Peres (who gave an off-the-record talk). Let's talk about the wines..." —Fast Company Now

Among the favorites? Click Fraud 2004, Stupid Price Targets 2005, and Shaoxing [redacted] 2006.

IPO Watch: On the Fast Track : "The road map to the initial public offering market has always been found in its calendar. Since the beginning of January, the calendar has been telling us the 2006 IPO traffic is moving from Wall Street's back alley to its superhighway." —Red Herring

Dog.com buys Fish.com for $1 million: "Online shopping for your pets is big business again but this time the company is focused on selling smaller items such as dog treats instead of 50 pound bags of dog food. Is the fish food market worth a $1 million domain name?" —Niall Kennedy

This is a joke, right? Right?

Don't Fear the New Boom: "Silicon Valley is buzzing again, as startups mint millionaires and web dreams start to soar. But, no, this is not another bubble. Here's why. By Chris Anderson from Wired magazine." —Wired News

I hope the new boom will be longer than The Long Boom was.

ABIA passenger traffic breaks a record: "Austin-Bergstrom International Airport last year saw its greatest number of passengers, breaking a record set in 2000." —Austin Business Journal

This is either a good sign the economy is picking up or a side-effect of the fact that ABIA has better food than any other airport in the country.

Never Profitable Dot Com Goes Public: "Remember the days when dot coms with no history of ever earning a profit could go public? Oh wait. That's today." —Techdirt

Albeit in a WR Hambrect dutch auction IPO. Still...

WisdomArk to provide you insights on your life: "WisdomArk, a new start-up in Los Altos, has raised $6.3 million in a first round of funding for yet another social networking site." —SiliconBeat

You really don't want your first press mention to describe you as "yet another" anything.

Million dollar home sales up 47% in California: "A record number of million dollar homes were sold in California in 2005, according to a report released Tuesday." —Silicon Valley Business Journal

Boo.com dusts down website for June relaunch: "Boo.com—the high profile fashion flop that blew megabucks before going titsup within months of launching—could be about to make a dotcom comeback." —The Register

To quote They Might Be Giants, "Everything right is wrong again."

1999 Is Calling. It Wants Its Hype Back: "Once the money starts flowing (and, if you hadn't noticed, it's flowing), it seems that 'lessons learned' get tossed out in favor of doing anything possible to jump on the gravy train. The only problem is that we've seen how this train ride ends, and it's a train wreck that we'd all probably be better off avoiding." —Techdirt

Best. Headline. Evar.

Google co-founders cash in: "Google's triumvirate have made billions off stock sales since company went public, but there's still a lot more where that came from." —News.com

IPO Watch: Back in Full Swing: "Seven initial public offerings are on tap for this week including two Internet companies." —Red Herring

To quote M. Night Shyamalan, "Swing away!"

Amp’d To Close Another $100 Million Funding: "The MVNO, which recently raised $50 million from MTV Networks, will announce another $100 million raise soon. He writes that the deal was oversubscribed and the company opened its pockets a bit wider." —MocoNews.net

Thanks again to Seth Levine for the pointer.

New MBAs finding education pays off big time: "Salaries and signing bonuses of fresh graduates took a double-digit jump in 2005 to a record average $106,000 and signaled an end to the 'perfect storm' of sour news this decade that included the dot-com bust, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a subsequent recession" —USA Today

Web 3.0: "But how to persuade the other sharks in the tank that this blood feast was different from the previous boom-and-bust? Easy: Dismiss everything that came before as 'Web 1.0.'" —A List Apart

Name this town: "During the week of the company's first product launch, a CEO of an angel funded mobile start-up is sitting on the floor at 8:30 at night putting together Ikea desks, not for his company, but for a venture funded wiki start-up, in exchange for free office space, when ..." —Silicon Valley Himalayan Expedition

I love reading the phrases "angel funded mobile start-up" and "venture funded wiki startup" in the same sentence. Thanks to Seth Levine for the pointer.

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Naked Conversations Party at TechCrunch: "This will be our most extravagant event so far, thanks to the generosity of our sponsors: Eurekster, Flock, Kaboodle, Pandora, Pluck, Rojo, and Zazzle." —Mike Arrington (TechCrunch)

That list of startups sounds like an incantation. Maybe if you say it while waving a magic wand, it will turn a business plan into a pile of cash.

Navigating the annual earnings onslaught: "Yahoo missed its earnings estimate by a penny after Tuesday's close. Wednesday's reaction says more about the market than about Yahoo's stock." —MarketWatch

Miss The Number by a penny, lose $7B in market cap. Bubbles are not for the squeamish.

“Vince, It Looks Like Jim and Larry are Going All In! Incredible!”: "But the last headline-splashing, high-stakes takeover-poker-match I recall was RJR. And after the initial thrill of walking away from the table with all the chips, KKR spent years living it down." —Jeff Matthews

Let's hope this drama results in a book as good as Barbarians at the Gate.

August Capital Bets on VideoEgg: "There are a bevy of other financing announcements for various startups being announced over the next couple of weeks." —Michael Arrington (TechCrunch)

And so, after the long nuclear winter, it's once again springtime in the Valley.

Has the Web 2.0 Crash Arrived?: "Steve Rubel thinks so, based on the severe reaction to Yahoo's earnings miss on Tuesday." —BusinessWeek Tech Beat

When Steve Rubel talks about a crash it reminds me of a high school kid who, having taken his first sip of beer, starts talking about a hangover. Don't get ahead of yourself, Steve. We've got a whole lot more partying to do tonight if we're going to be hating life tomorrow.

VCs Invest $127M in Startups: "Some 15 startups report funding Tuesday as venture capitalists disburse some of the money raised last year." —Red Herring

Not bad for a Tuesday. Not great, but not bad.

Now Hiring: Silicon Valley: "Jobs rise in the tech-centric area for the first time in five years." —Red Herring

But is anyone yet offering BMW Z3's to all new engineering hires?

Blogger site Gather.com gets $6 mln in venture funding: "If the site continues to grow, the company could position itself for a possible IPO or other kind of transaction, Gerace said." —MarketWatch IPO Report

I know, this is the third post in a row about Gather.com, but I couldn't let pass the fact that MarketWatch is simultaneously reporting the company's seed funding and speculating about the timing of its IPO.

Gather Blather: "If Gather doesn't stumble over all the VCs on its board (c.f., the Martini Rule), it could one day blunder into selling this silly site for a high enough price to make money." —Paul Kedrosky

That's the spirit!

Gather Them Eyeballs!: "The eyeballs are back and with a vengeance. And they are being chased by VC money." —Om Malik

Oy.