Sunday, June 25, 2006

Which Y Company will be purchased first?

If inkling is really the seer that it claims to be, then we'll soon know which Y company will be bought out first. Or, more precisely, we'll know the probability, for each Y company, of it being bought out in the next two years. As of this post, reddit is in the lead big time. Incidentally, I saw this idea on reddit a few months back.

I believe that there's supposed to only be one answer in these inkling markets. But it's certainly possible that more than one company could be purchased in the next two years. In the event of more than one, does the first one to be purchased win the market?

Update: I realize that I think I've misunderstood the market. We aren't picking the one company that will be purchased. It seems to be an individual market for each company. And the dollar value for that company is an estimate to the probability that that company will be acquired in 2 years. Each company started at $50, corresponding to 50% probability (why 50% I wonder?).

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Pixoh Changes Name to Snipshot

I'd heard the chatter before on the wiki, but now it's confirmed: Pixoh is now Snipshot. Their site reads, "We’ve been asked to change our name due to a possible trademark conflict." Snipshot credits a Zach Baker with thinking of the name. He's a guy with a Startup School link on his blog, and one who, according to an apparent self-report on the Startup School wiki, "just left game developer Luxoflux to work on startup." Might this be another Y company?

So who has the trademark that potentially conflicts with Pixoh? Well, Baker's most recent blog post is about Pixar. That, of course, might just be coincidence, but the names do sound similar.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Wufoo Getting Funding?

Chris Campbell, co-founder of Y Combinator funded Wufoo, posted The Top 10 Questions Investors Asked Us. Chris writes, "We had one investor invite us out to a casual dinner... We got a follow-up meeting and an offer out of it." Did they accept? No word yet, but even if they didn't, if they're turning down offers, that's looking good for them.

Another Y company, the still-in-stealth-mode flipt, got $5 million bucks from a series A round led by Sequoia. No word if any other of the Ys have been able to secure VC funding.