Technology News and IT Business Intelligence

It’s official. Yelp is raising a huge chunk of change from Elevation Partners. According to a release, Elevation will invest as much as $100 million in the startup. For now, Yelp will be raising a $25 million in a Series E round from the firm. We broke the news last week here, when talk of the round was in the $50 million range. The initial infusion is half that, but Elevation could end up investing much more over time.

Elevation co-founder Marc Bodnick will be joining Yelp’s Board of Directors. We originally hear that Bono, an Elevation Partners partner, was to be the board representative for Yelp but it looks like Bodnick got the seat in the end.

The investment comes on the heels of dissolved buyout deal with Google. Yelp walked away from an all but signed deal to buy the startup for $550 million.

The investment includes both a primary investment component as well as a secondary offering for long time employees. These deals are now being referred to as “DST deals,” since DST first invested in Facebook in May 2009 at a $10 billion valuation and later funded employee buyouts at a $6.5 billion valuation. They did a similar deal with Zynga.

The release also revealed that traffic on the site increased to more than 26 million unique visitors in the month of December 2009 and the site now has 9 million reviews.

The big day finally arrived, and Apple introduced the iPad this morning (yeah, you heard that already).

Strangely, during the course of the much-anticipated event, Apple’s stock went down, as observed by many. And then, Apple finally got around to talking about pricing.

Chief executive Steve Jobs took the stage, and wowed the crowd (and the world) by saying that the starting price for the iPad was a stunning $499.

Guess what happened next?

At the time of this writing, the stock spiked +3.61.

We wouldn’t be surprised to see it hit an all-time high today.

More coverage can be found here.

Today, during the unveiling of the iPad, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that you’ll be able to get an iPad that has both Wi-Fi and 3G access, meaning you can download new content from nearly anywhere. That’s great news. The not-so-good? It’s powered by AT&T, which has been absolutely notorious for already being unable to cope with the 3G data usage of the iPhone. This sure isn’t going to help things.

However, there are some upsides. For one, this internet access will not be based on a contract — you’ll sign up for the 3G access directly from the device, paying on a monthly basis. You’ll have two options for dataplans: a not-too-impressive 250 Megabytes for $15.00, or Unlimited downloads for $29.99 (though that will almost certainly have an unwritten cap as well). And you’ll be able to use AT&T’s Wi-Fi hotspots, free of charge. You’ll also be able to use these internationally — iPad 3G models will be unlocked, and will included GSM micro SIMS.

It’s worth pointing out that most of what you’ll be doing with the iPad will consist of consuming content and surfing the web. Unlike the iPhone, where a dropped connection can result in cutting off an important phone call, a lost data connection on the iPad will probably just mean your website stops loading halfway. That said, the increased strain could make things even worse for iPhone users.

Also note that while the iPad starts at $499, 3G models cost an extra $130, so the cheapest you’ll get is $629 for a 16GB model.

More coverage can be found here.

Steve Jobs revealed the Apple iPad today, its much-awaited tablet computer (see our live notes). Jobs positions it as a third computing device between a laptop and a smartphone geared towards the “key tasks” of Web browsing, email, sharing photos, watching videos, playing games, and reading digital books. All current iPhone apps will run on the device, as well as new games and digital books designed specifically for it. An enhanced iPhone SDK released today will support both the iPhone and the iPad.

Some specs: The device has a 9.7 inch display, weighs 1.5 pounds, and is half-an-inch thick. It is powered by new chip made by Apple itself, a 1 GHz A4 and will come with 16Gb to 64 GB of storage. It supports WiFi, has an accelerometer, compass, and built-in speaker and microphone, just like the iPhone. The screen is a full capacitive multi-touch screen. Battery life is supposed to be 10 hours. In addition to WiFi, it will have a 3G option from AT&T. The Wifi-only version, with 16GB of memory, will cost $499. A 32GB version will be $599, 64 GB will be $699, and with 3G from AT&T it will cost $829 (for the 64GB version). AT&T will offer two data plans: $14.99a month for 250 MB of data or $29.99 for unlimited. All the 3G iPads, however, will be unlocked, meaning they can be used on other carriers as well.

On-stage, Apple highlighted the iPad’s use as a digital reader. The iPad comes with a new app called iBooks and an iBooks store. Apple partnered with five publishers to make books available for sale through the iBooks store. “Amazon has done a great job of pioneering this technology,”says Jobs referring to the Kindle. “We’re gonna stand on their shoulders and go farther.” The iBooks support the ePub format, allows readers to flip through pages and supports pictures, video, and other graphics. The first book available will cost $14.99.

It is clear one of the main functions of the iPad will be as a reading device. Martin Nisenholtz from the New York Times showed its own app onstage for the iPad, which looks like a larger, lusher version of the one which is now available on the iPhone. “This is the next version of digital journalism,” declares Nisenholtz. We’ll see.

More coverage can be found here.

Another year, another iPhone OS upgrade to get excited about. They’re not saying much about it just yet, but Apple has just announced that the new iPhone SDK (complete with support for the just announced iPad tablet) will be available today.

As partially predicted by the rumor mill, iPhone applications will run on the iPad. They won’t, however, run in little floating windows, as early faked leaks assumed. Instead, they will run in “blackboxed” mode at their standard resolution, or in a simulated fullscreen mode by doubling the pixels. Everything developers (and users) have come to know and love from the iPhone — from multi-touch gestures to accelerometer support — are fully supported in the iPad.

Developers (or anyone just dying to play with the included iPad simulator) can look for it in the usual spot (http://developer.apple.com/).

All the naysayers can feel free to eat their hats. Today Apple finally revealed the device we’ve all been whispering about for a good year or more. The Sasquatch of gadgets is real. We’ll update this with all the details as they happen; in the meantime, follow our live coverage.

Looks like a big iPhone to us.

• 1GHz Apple A4 processor (custom)
• 0.5? thick
• 1.5 pounds
• 9.7? Capacitive touchscreen (1024×768)
• 16-64GB of SSD storage
• 3G available but not in all iPads
• $14.99 for 250MB, $29.99 for unlimited data on AT&T (no contract)
• 3G iPads are unlocked, have GSM micro SIMs
• Accelerometer, Compass
• 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1
• Runs iPhone apps in window or pixel doubling
• Hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics
• SDK out today
• $499 for 16GB base model, $830 for all maxed out
• Dock with hard keyboard available

There’s a very custom interface that I won’t bother describing — we’ll put video here as soon as Apple puts it up. Needless to say it’s very good looking. Prices start at $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64GB. Adding 3G costs $130.

We’re seeing lots of great-looking apps from the live coverage of the event, including 3D games, a really sweet-looking calendar, a nice email app, and a New York Times app that looks really stunning.

Concerns, though:

• No camera so no video chat
• Limited space — 64GB may be a lot for an iPod, but when you’ve got movies and such, it’ll disappear real fast
• Multitasking?
• No SD or multi-card reader means that’s all the storage you get
• It’s obviously no more customizable than the iPhone
• iPod dock connection only means no easy connection of USB devices

Our minds all just got blown by the $499 starting price, though. I was thinking way more for sure. Nice move, Apple.

Update: Apple’s video and our first hands-on.

Local business search startup Localeze just announced that they will power some of Microsoft Bing’s local business listings. Microsoft will use Localeze’s 14 million listings for Bing Local and Bing 411.

As part of the deal, Bing will use Localeze’s premium business content, including more than 500,000 business-verified and managed listings, which have been edited directly by local businesses. In addition to name/address and contact info, Localeze’s listings also include hours of operation, products and services offered, credit cards accepted and more. All of this information will appear on Bing’s local business profiles. Any local search results on Bing utilizing Localeze content will be attributed to Localeze.

Bing seems to be building up its local listings to compete with Google’s vast database of local listings. Localeze promises keyword rich, verified and current local business content to local online search directories, vertical local search engines, social networking search sites, mobile search applications and Internet Yellow Pages. The company competes with InfoUSA and Acxiom.

The local listing space is getting hot. Earlier today, AT&T announced the launch of its own local listings site, Buzz.

Ah, Bingo and high technology. They go together like peanut butter and motor oil, except for the few times each year that Apple announces something. In that spirit, please enjoy a little “Tablet Bingo” while you follow the coverage of Apple’s mood-altering gadgets.

And while you’re playing Tablet Bingo, consider the following questions: do you like Apple announcements? Do you like to drink? Do you like to drink while following Apple announcements? Whether you answered yes or no to any of those questions, here’s an Apple announcement-specific drinking game. Play along with real booze or your favorite non-alcoholic beverage. Enjoy.

Drink One Every Time…

• Any blogger on any site misspells a word
• Any blogger on any site uses an exclamation point
• You see the word “Apple”
• You see the word “app”
• You see the word “iTunes”
• You see the word “iPhone”
• You see the word “iPod”
• You see the word “tablet”
• You see the word “Genius”
• You see the word “Safari”
• You see the word “unibody”

Drink Two Every Time…

• Any blogger on any site complains about network connectivity issues
• Any blogger on any site comments about Steve Jobs’ health
• Any blogger on any site comments about Steve Jobs’ outfit
• Any blogger on any site types a simple one-word interjection into a live blog without offering any useful information (for example: Whoa! Nice! Wow!)
• Any numeric figure over 1,000 is quoted
• iTunes is referenced as the largest music store in the world
• Someone else besides Steve Jobs takes the stage

Drink Three Every Time…

• A journalist/blogger claps
• An update to one of Apple’s various operating system is announced
• One of Apple’s products is compared to a competing product
• A photo of a chart or graph is uploaded to any blog’s live post
• The price of an existing product is lowered
• Storage or memory upgrades to existing products are announced

Drink Four Every Time…

• Any commenter on any site says something like “This live blog sucks. Oh well, off to [competing tech news site] I guess.”
• A journalist/blogger claps and cheers
• A seemingly-innovative control scheme for gaming on the iPhone or iPod Touch is mentioned
• The environmental-friendliness of a product is discussed
• Blu-ray is mentioned
• Something that’s “never been done before” is mentioned
• Apple shows a video on stage

Drink Five Every Time…

• Steve Jobs announces some sort of tablet
• The Apple store goes offline
• A journalist/blogger stands up and cheers
• A journalist/blogger cries
• An update to one of Apple’s various operating systems is announced and iPod touch users have to pay extra for it
• Steve Jobs says “One more thing.”
• Any blogger on any site says complains that Jobs didn’t say “One more thing.”
• A moderately famous musician takes the stage