Google is under fire in the UK for its tax practices in the country, and a new key witness (who spoke to The Sunday Times) might put them in deeper hot water when he hands over a reported 100,000 emails and documents to the British Revenue & Customs (HRMC) services. Barney Jones, a former Googler who was at the company between 2004 and 2006, says he has material proof that Google’s London sales staff which would negotiate and close sales for the UK market, despite claiming its Dublin HQ handled finalizing all deals.

Jones was prompted to speak out by testimony given to the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) last week by Google VP Matt Brittin, who said that London-based Google staff were never closing any ad sales deals, though some selling efforts were made there. Brittin had previously gone on record in November 2012 with statements asserting that no one in the London office was doing any kind of ad selling.

The matter of where the deals were finalized is especially important because if a sale closes in London, it’s likely they’d be taxable in Britain, rather than in the extremely low tax-rated Ireland. Jones told the Sunday Times that Google is fully aware of this, yet there are still records of Google staff closing major deals from companies like eBay and Lloyds TSB, but Google doesn’t seem at all certain that any of the documentation will absolutely prove that it has done anything strictly against UK tax law, according to a statement provided by Google Direct of External Relations Peter Barron to the Sunday Times.

“As we said in front of the public accounts committee, it is difficult to respond fully to documents we have not seen,” the statement reads. “These questions relate to Google’s business in the UK going back a decade or more. None of the allegations put to us change the fact that Google pays the corporate tax due on its UK activities and complies fully with UK law.” Google reiterated this statement to TechCrunch when we contacted them for comment.

Ireland uses its lower corporate taxation rate, which is 12.5 percent, or a little over half of Britain’s 23 percent, to attract big names who base their European corporate headquarters there, including Apple and Facebook in addition to Google. The search giant is currently under fire from UK parliament members for its tax practices, thanks to a Reuters investigation that revealed statements it made last November to the PAC about its London operations may not have been entirely accurate.

Amazon is next in the PAC’s sights for its UK tax practices, as Reuters has also recently uncovered evidence to suggest that it, too, is doing a lot of selling through an autonomous London-based unit, despite routing its sales on paper through a tax-exempt affiliate based in Luxembourg. In fact, for most on Google’s footing, avoiding taxes seems to be the exception, not the rule, and a recent piece by V3′s Madeline Bennett explains that even if this fresh round of hearings reveals that these schemes do run afoul of UK tax regulations, it’s unlikely we’ll see situations change all that dramatically. Governments are too dependent on the general economic benefits of hosting big corporations, and get too much out of awarding them contracts, she says, to risk doing long-term harm to those arrangements.

Still, what Jones claims to have would be incredibly embarrassing for Google, especially if it spells out in no uncertain terms that closing deals was regularly handled by Google’s London staff, in direct contradiction to what Brittin has told the committee, but until we see the goods, there’s no telling how deep down the rabbit hole his information actually goes.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

TechStars London, the UK outpost of Boulder, U.S.-based uber-accelerator TechStars after it merged with Jon Bradford’s Springboard, has announced that its found a permanent home at newly-established Warner Yard, a co-working space owned by early-stage fund Playfair Capital.

Why is this news, you may ask. Well, not only does it means that teams will now get up to 6 months free office space in the UK’s capital city, rather than just the 3 months they are on the program, but it follows the recent news that TechStars London has been approved as a Recognised Seed Competition, smoothing the way for participants to qualify for a UK Entrepreneur Visa. This means, I hasten to add, that TechStars London startups are far more likely to stay located in London long after they graduate.

Zooming out a bit more, it also adds further weight to London’s claim as a leading tech hub, espoused by the British government’s Tech City project (now led by Joanna Shields, ex-Google, AOL/Bebo, and most recently Facebook’s head of EMEA operations), alongside the network effects that have grown out of the organic “Silicon Roundabout” tech cluster in East London, which has seen the likes of Google and Amazon invest in the area.

The official announcement says TechStars London’s new base is located in “the heart of Tech City”, though in a later statement Jon Bradford, Managing Director of TechStars London, describes Warner Yard as “close” to Tech City, proving that nobody knows for sure where the UK government’s branding for the London tech scene starts and ends. For those who are familiar with London, Warner Yard is actually in Clerkenwell. Due to open on the 29th of May, it will feature 154 desks over 4 floors including 5 quiet booths, 4 meeting rooms, 3 kitchens and space for presentations and pitching. It will be open 24 hours a day and will house both PlayFair Capital’s portfolio companies, and external companies — including TechStars London, of course, who will also use the space to host events for the wider community and provide hot-desking facilities for TechStars alumni.

In a further boost to the local ecosystem, the new co-working space, which is modelled on Passion Capital’s nearby White Bear Yard, is being targeted at early-stage investors and angels as an alternative to hot-desking at various coffee shops in London. At launch, it’s signed up EC1 Capital, #1Seed, Hotspur Capital Partners, Ballpark Ventures, Doug Scott and Richard Fearn — a sign of more cozying up by London’s investment community.

Here’s Bradford’s statement in full: “Finding the right environment for TechStars London has been a priority since our launch. Warner Yard provides both TechStars London teams a great central location being close to both TechCity and also the West End with an awesome environment alongside other seed funded companies for the duration of the programme and also immediate run out period.”

Meanwhile, applications for TechStars London close on 5th of May 2013. Startups interested in applying can come from anywhere, not just Europe, but must physically come to London for the three-month program. In total, €85k of funding is up for grabs per team, though the majority of this is a convertible note.

However, funding mechanics aside, the fact that the accelerator’s investment in each startup crosses the £50k mark, combined with TechStars London’s newly acquired Recognised Seed Competition status, means that its entrepreneurs have sufficient “points” to qualify for a UK Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) Visa.

Here’s how TechStars describes the win:

The approval will allow TechStars London teams from outside of the EU, to work in the UK for up to 3 years and towards the end of this period, can apply to extend their stay by a further 2 years if they want to continue living here. Furthermore teams, after 3 years have the right to apply for permission to settle in the UK if their business has created at least 10 new full-time jobs in the UK. Partners and children of the teams can also apply for settlement.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Netflix reported positive first-quarter numbers, including revenues of $1.02 billion during the first three months of the year. The company also announced that it added 2 million domestic in the quarter, bringing the total number of subscribers to 29.2 million.

The results represent a positive response to Kevin Spacey-led political thriller House of Cards, which just happens to be the first major release in Netflix’s original programming slate this year. And they’re driving investors to jump on the stock in after-hours trading, driving shares up nearly 20 percent.

Netflix announced net additions of 2.03 million subscribers in the U.S. compared to 2.05 million in the fourth quarter — which historically is its strongest period of subscriber growth — and 1.74 million in last year’s first quarter. As a result, it said that it’s growing its subscriber base and revenues faster than its content spend in the streaming business. It reported that its domestic streaming contribution margin increased to 20.6 percent in the quarter, which was up 140 basis points from the previous quarter.

Analysts estimated that the company would report about $1 billion in revenue, as well as earnings of 18 cents a share. But the number everyone is looking at is Netflix’s subscriber number, which Wall Street forecast would be around 29 million streaming subscribers in the U.S.

Netflix is betting big on the release of exclusive shows like House of Cards as a way to differentiate its service from the syndicated content that it’s licensed from existing TV networks. It’s investing hundreds of millions of dollars in these series, and hoping that investment will be paid back with greater subscriber interest.

While Netflix had released its first original show, the Steve Van Zandt-led Norwegian mob comedy Lillyhammer last year, this quarter marks the introduction of House of Cards. That series debuted to strong reviews and a huge marketing push by Netflix, which was hoping to capitalize on the acting of Kevin Spacey, producer David Fincher, and the popularity of the original British miniseries of the same name.

So far, that strategy appears to be working, as House of Cards very quickly became Netflix’ most-watched program. More importantly, more subscribers than expected signed up for the service since the launch of the new series. In its analyst comments, Netflix noted:

“Some investors worried that the House of Cards fans would take advantage of our free trial, watch the show, and then cancel. However, there was very little free-trial gaming – less than 8,000 people did this – out of millions of free trials in the quarter.”

That’s a great response to House of Cards — but Netflix has even more exclusive content in its pipeline. Netflix just introduced Hemlock Grove, a 13-part horror series from Hostel director Eli Roth. Next month, there’s the return of offbeat comedy Arrested Development, which will be available only on Netflix. Later, Weeds creator Jenji Kohan’s new series Orange Is The New Black will also be released.

In addition to its domestic streaming numbers, Netflix reported 1 million new subscribers in its international business, growing that number to 7.1 million total. That compares to 1.8 million international subscribers added during the holiday quarter, and 1.2 million a year previous. While those numbers might seem low compared to previous quarters, Netflix said it benefitted from launches in new markets in earlier quarters. The company plans to continue its expansion overseas, with a new international market to be added in the second half of the year.

To no one’s surprise, Netflix DVD membership continued to decline, but just modestly. The total DVD subscriber base fell by about 250,000 users, to 8 million total. But contribution profit continued to hold strong at $113 million, despite higher usage in the quarter and a small USPS price increase.

Netflix reported that its first-quarter net income was $3 million, or 5 cents a share, but that included a $16 million loss on the extinguishment of debt related to refinancing of a loan from February. Without that, the company would have reported net income of $19 million, or 31 cents per share, well above guidance.

Going into the second quarter, Netflix is forecasting slower growth in streaming subscribers — most likely due to Q2 seasonality — to end the quarter with between 29.40 and 30.05 million subscribers. That will amount to about $665 million to $673 million in U.S. subscriber revenue and between $139 million and $149 million in contribution profit. All in all, it expects earnings between $14 million and $29 million during the second quarter, or 23 to 48 cents per share.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Streaming set-top box manufacturer Roku has hired a new CFO today, bringing in an executive who had cut his teeth at Logitech and eBay. Erik Bardman, former SVP of Finance and CFO of Logitech International, is joining the company as it seeks to expand globally and also work out more deals with cable and satellite providers.

Bardman has been a part of Logitech since 2009, and plans to leave the peripheral hardware manufacturer at the end of this month. He’s also served as a board member for Trulia, a seat he’s planning to continue holding while at Roku. Prior to his Logitech days, Bardman spent six years at eBay, where he served as CFO for eBay Marketplaces. And before that, he was at GE, in a variety of roles.

The new CFO joins Roku as the seeking to expand not just its product line, but also its availability around the globe. Last summer, Roku raised $45 million in funding from a bunch of strategic investors, including News Corp, British Sky Broadcasting, and Dish. Since then, it’s been working to make a wider variety of cable and satellite TV content available through its streaming set-top boxes.

It’s also working to expand and improve its product line. Earlier this spring, the company introduced the Roku 3, a more powerful set-top box with an improved user interface and universal search capabilities. In addition, Roku is pushing its Streaming Stick as a way to make it easier for device manufacturers to quickly add streaming video capabilities to their TVs, without having to build the technology into the devices themselves.

The company has sold more than 5 million of its streaming devices to date, but it’s probably looking to increase that number. And it’ll probably do so as the big cable companies are trying to lower the cost of their own set-top box deployments. By providing a way for subscribers to stream video to the second or third room in a user’s home without having to introduce a new device into the home.

And, of course, there’s the opportunity to cash in on the number of users who are streaming TV, rather than just watching it through a cable subscription. This is the idea that Roku started with, after all, as a division within Netflix. But as companies like Netflix and Amazon Prime bring on more original programming to appeal to users who don’t pay for TV, streaming devices like Roku’s boxes and the Apple TV are becoming more widely adopted.

Full text of the release is below:

Erik Bardman to Join Roku as Chief Financial Officer
Trulia Board Member and Logitech Executive Brings Strong Expertise as Leading Streaming Media Platform Scales

Saratoga, Calif. – April 15, 2013 – Roku® Inc. today announced that Erik Bardman will join the company as Chief Financial Officer. Bardman was appointed Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Logitech International (NASDAQ: LOGI) in September 2009 and will depart the company this month. Bardman was elected to Trulia’s Board of Directors in June 2012 and will continue to hold that seat while at Roku.

“We look forward to having Erik Bardman join the Roku executive team,” said Roku Founder and CEO Anthony Wood. “Roku is a fast-growth company in a rapidly changing industry and Erik brings a wealth of relevant experience to our mission of leading the streaming era.”

“Roku is a dynamic company with outstanding products, a strong competitive position and compelling avenues for growth,” said Bardman. “I look forward to joining the business and helping it achieve significant scale in the years ahead.”

Prior to Logitech, Bardman spent six years at eBay and served as the Chief Financial Officer for eBay Marketplaces, the company’s largest portfolio of businesses. At eBay, Bardman led a large global team focused on financial strategy, acquisitions, resource allocation and performance analysis. Prior to joining eBay, he was with General Electric for 15 years in a variety of roles, focused on consumer financial services, international finance and mergers and acquisitions.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Sorted, the UK startup that originally soft-launched as a reverse marketplace for local jobs akin to TaskRabbit in the U.S. (or a number of local “clones”, such as Sooqini, and TaskPandas), has relaunched today after rejigging its model.

Instead of users having to post what is essentially a classified ad for each job they want done, and then wait for a response, the new site turns the user-path on its head by having the task-doers (or “Sorters”, of which there are already 12,000 signed up) do the upfront work by creating a detailed and structured profile which forms the basis for matching the task-doers with those searching for a specific task to be carried out.

There are 9 categories of task: “Admin”, “Cleaning”, “Cooking”, “Delivery”, “DIY”, “Dog Walking”, “Driving”, “Gardening”, “Manual Labour”, and “Other”. The latter will work like the original model, enabling users to post bespoke tasks that they want carrying out, which are then seen by Sorters who have specified that they are willing to go off the beaten track, such as “dress up as a gorilla and terrify my friends”. Or presumably anything legal and safe.

The end result is a service that solves the original problem — finding local, casual labour — but with a very different user experience, and one that doesn’t have the customer re-invent the wheel every time they want to commission a task to be carried out.

“We basically realised that a reverse marketplace model won’t work in the UK,” says James Pursey. “The British public have so many trust issues and putting them in a scenario of having to be pitched by Sorters is counter intuitive. When somebody is looking for a supplier they typically ask their networks, and failing that they turn to Google, call up a supplier and see if they’re available. They don’t say ‘hey, why should I trust you’, and they definitely don’t send a message through a contact form, like creating a task, and wait for someone to get back to them.”

Instead, Pursey thinks a user interface more akin to Airbnb, which emphasises search and large profiles, will work better. “You land on a beautifully designed page with a search box in the middle asking you to detail your task. Sorted then applies your task needs as filters to its Sorter database and returns the best people for your needs.”

What you end up seeing is a detailed profile page for each result, which includes links to a Sorter’s presence on social networks, and a list of their rates and tasks. You then book and/or correspond with your chosen Sorter. And, as before, Sorted holds the payment until you confirm that the job is completed.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

British Airways today announced the first of its “UnGrounded” innovation lab flights that will assemble 100 Silicon Valley luminaries on a flight to London to devise a platform for connecting tech talent with big problems around the world. A partnership with the UN, the inaugural UnGrounded flight will fly on June 12th with 100 leaders from Google, Andreessen Horowitz, RocketSpace and more on board.

“Great innovation happens when you bring people together face to face, not when you have people sitting alone in rooms” explained EVP of British Airways Simon Talling-Smith today at a press conference about UnGrounded. BA’s plan is to fill the 100 seats on the flight with founders, funders, engineers, academics, and a couple of journalists, and give them ten hours to work on a big problem.

The plan is for the UnGrounded “innovation lab in sky” flights to become a somewhat regular occurrence with different destinations. On the first one, though, the passengers will address the problem of mismatches between where technology innovators live and where the problems they could solve reside.

Upon touch down in London, UnGrounded 1′s assembled team will present their progress to the United Nations’ sponsored Decide Now Act (DNA) Summit and the Secretary General of the UN’s International Telecommunications Union. Todd Lutwak of Andreessen Horowitz, Leor Stern of Google, Celestine Johnson of Innovation Endeavors, Duncan Logan of RocketSpace, Gerald Brady of Silicon Valley Bank, Marguerite Gong Hancock of the Stanford GSB are amongst the passengers, and the rest will be selected based on their potential for contribution.

BA will get help from Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors fund and the RocketSpace startup accelerator, and IDEO will be designing the in-flight experience. That’s a huge challenge, as smart people can be tough to corral, and if the organizational structure for turning ideas into solutions isn’t right, the whole flight could be a waste. There’s also talk of pulling out seats along with the reduced 100-passenger cap to make sure the plane is a decent working environment.

So why is British Airways doing this in the first place? Talling-Smith says that “We’re a premium airline. We exist as a product and service business, which means we’re an innovation company. So innovation has alrways been at the heart of what we do. The spirit of innovation has changed. A lot of the activity is happening in the technology sphere. We asked ‘what could we do to play our part?’ The airline had a eureka moment when it realized its fuselages could become crucibles for progress. Plus, UnGrounded t can’t hurt the company’s image amongst anyone who fancies themselves an ‘innovator’.

Now “Connecting talent to opportunity” might sound vague but it’s a real issue we see at TechCrunch all the time. There are so many techies in Silicon Valley that they’ve started chasing small inconveniences instead of truly changing the world for the better. Forcing great minds into close quarters to focus on a problem could help address this issue, and more in the future.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Spotify today confirmed to TechCrunch that it has finally completed the rollout of its new social following features that model music discovery after offline behavior — where you find songs through tuned-in friends and influencers. Here’s our hands-on demo and review of Spotify’s move to discovery through actual humans instead of algorithms.

Back in November, I wrote that sources told me Spotify planned to launch a Twitter-esque following feature for music discovery. Then at a flashy event in New York featuring performers like Frank Ocean and an after-party with Vampire Weekend, Spotify officially unveiled its “music graph.” But the rollout has been slow, and the redesigned Discover tab and instant previews features aren’t yet available to everyone. But influencer following is, and it’s a big step up for the on-demand music service.

A Cure For Paralyzed Ears

Discovery is Spotify’s biggest problem. Its search box can be paralyzing. When you can listen to all the world’s music, where do you start? Spotify’s answer is “with what your favorite artists and most music-savvy friends are listening to” through the new Follow tab plus revamped profiles and an activity feed.

By now you should have received a prompt to update to Spotify version 0.8.8. When you fire it up the first time, you’ll get walked through the Spotify Social on-boarding. Congratulations, you’re now automatically following the artists you listen to most and people whose playlists you’ve subscribed to (though you can ditch them if you want).

Next, Spotify recommends you follow some Facebook friends, in contrast to the old version where your feed was clogged with listening activity from all your friends. This update makes a lot of sense, since just because you’re friends with someone doesn’t mean you respect their musical tastes. If you dig pop, don’t follow your hipster friends. If you aspire to be the first on your block who knows about the new buzz band, follow music blogs or buddies who live in London.

Finally, you’ll see suggestions of artists and influencers to get updates from, including bands like Pearl Jam, news outlets like Pitchfork, and celebrities like Mark Zuckerberg or Barack Obama. The process is breezy and doesn’t default you into too many connections. If you’re ever looking for new people to get recommendations from, you can click on the Follow tab in Spotify’s left navigation side.

Intimacy With Influencers

Woo! Alright, now let’s listen to music — socially. These subscriptions populate the redesigned social feed in the Spotify right sidebar. It shows songs listened to, tracks shared, playlists updated, and more from the people you follow. At the top is a recommendation of a featured influencer to follow. The bar is a bit narrow so it cuts off track names but at least it wraps text to show you the full message when people purposefully share.

A single click of the play button in any story instantly plays that song or playlist without changing the page you’re viewing so you can quickly sample what people are bopping their heads to. There’s this oddly intimate feeling when you see that a rock legend like Lou Reed is listening to a song and you can join him. You feel immediately closer to them, like you’re getting a personal tour of their tastes.

If you want to dive deeper into someone’s style, you can visit their redesigned Spotify Social profile. For verified artists, this will show their standard discography and their most popular songs according to the Spotify user base. It’s a bit too subtle (I missed it at first), but you can click the “Spotify Profile” button below their name to switch to see their recent Spotify listening activity and playlists. The latter is all you’ll see for non-musicians.

DJs By Default

In days of old, you’d discover music from professional DJs broadcasting their picks on the radio and at clubs, or through one-to-one interactions. Though modeled after this behavior, Spotify evolves it by turning everyone into DJs without the need to do anything different. You, your friends, journalists, and celebrities simply continue the one-player Spotify experience by listening to songs and building playlists. But similar to the Facebook news feed, Spotify’s new social features create of sense of ambient intimacy around music. It’s like a town square, except filled with your personal music influencers, and they’re all holding boom boxes above their heads.

There’s plenty of room for improvement, though. Spotify used to let you “favorite” non-friends to add them to your feed, but there was no way to find these people. The social on-boarding and Follow tab are a step forward, but they don’t offer much context. I’d be a lot more likely to trust recommendations  if Spotify told me we love the same artists, or their playlist contains the song I have on repeat.

Considering their latest listens are in the feed, its strange and dysfunctional not to have someone’s listening history on their profile. The subscription recommendations atop the feed seem ill-targeted. I rarely listen to pop music, but I get suggested Katy Perry and Bruno Mars. When I was recommended a band I hadn’t heard of called The Script, I gave it a shot. What I heard was FM dial slime I imagine was concocted by removing anything edgy from Coldplay and replacing it with album filler by American Idol semi-finalists.

Social is relegated to the sidebar and feels disconnected from the What’s New homepage. Luckily, Spotify will eventually roll out its redesigned Discover tab, which combines tips from those you follow with hits and new releases from artists you don’t. Until then, discovery still feels a bit marginalized on Spotify. That’s a big contrast to competitor Rdio, which features multiple tabs of charts and personalized recommendations.

Despite these shortcomings, I’m already discovering new music through Spotify’s new social feed. Subscribing to Los Angeles indie radio station KCRW and British music blogger Stuart Dredge has helped me expand my taste. If an algorithm had recommended a sleepy crooner like Escondido’s “Black Roses”, I’d have probably skipped it 15 seconds in. But since the recommendation comes from someone I trust, I gave it an honest chance and fell in love with the lullaby. That’s how social music discovery should work, and it’s making Spotify sound sweeter than ever.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

I was an unpaid blogger and I’m proud of that. After following the recent back and forth between an established journalist and The Atlantic over the depressingly low pay of freelance writers, I thought I’d explore what it meant to me to work for, essentially, free.

Corporate health insurance and a moderate savings account are new additions to my life after spending five impoverished years as an underpaid freelance blogger, sleeping on the floor of my unfurnished Southern California apartments. While many critics deride the exploitation of new writers by financially beleaguered media outlets, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to trade a living wage in exchange for exposure.

Reuters financial blogger and lovable British dry-humor enthusiast Felix Salmon rekindled the ongoing debate when he tweeted about a testy exchange between a freelance writer and an Atlantic editor.

“By the end of the week? 1,200 words? We unfortunately can’t pay you for it, but we do reach 13 million readers.” natethayer.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/a-d…

—
felix salmon (@felixsalmon) March 05, 2013

“I am a professional journalist who has made my living by writing for 25 years and am not in the habit of giving my services for free to for profit media outlets so they can make money by using my work and efforts by removing my ability to pay my bills and feed my children,” wrote Nate Thayer.

The Atlantic’s digital tech editor, Alexis Madrigal, has written an impassioned, sympathetic, and math-y 4,000-word response to yesterday’s kerfuffle, concluding “the economics of our business are terrible in some ways. And like everything else, the worst of it falls on the workers, the people making the widgets, doing the journalism, making the beds.”

Media Outlets didn’t always offer depressingly low rates. Prior to the Internet and Craigslist-apocalypse that sparked the financial decline of newspapers dependent on physical advertising revenue, freelance journalists could make an enviable living. Magazines and mainstream papers could offer $2/word, meaning a substantial 2,000 word feature would net +$4,000 (and often much more).

With an explosion of new media competitors (like TechCrunch) and plummeting online ad revenue, each individual story made far, far less profit. Media outlets still in need of content were forced to offer low or no-pay stories in exchange for reputation-building exposure.

Madrigal explains the weird odds that an expensive freelance writer could help him fill his traffic needs:

“But here’s the weird thing: while the top six or seven viral hits might make up 15-20 percent of a given month’s traffic, the falloff after that is steep. And once you’re out of the top 20 or 30 stories, a really, really successful story is only driving 0.5 percent or less of a place like The Atlantic’s monthly traffic. But that’s the best-case scenario. In most cases, even great reported stories will fizzle, not spark. They will bring in 1,000 or 3,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 visitors. You’d need thousands of these to make a big site go.”

As a result, it’s only sustainable to fund in-house writers or accept some freelancers for little-to-no money.

Contrary to the opinion of some of my media colleagues, I’m thrilled there was an opportunity to be a poor freelance blogger. If it weren’t for underpaid writers, I never would have had the opportunity to be a journalist.

I got started as an unpaid “expert blogger” for Fast Company’s new user-generated content program. After hustling my way into tech conferences and bagging choice interviews, Fast Company featured my posts on the front page, which gave me just enough leeway to pitch paid blogging gigs. But “paid” is a laughable exaggeration: we’re talking $50 for 8 hours of work and, often, interstate travel. I hit the jackpot when I received a whopping $500 for a front-page investigative business report that took weeks to write, on top of travel and all-day interviews.

But, here’s the secret I never told editors: I would have done it for free. Putting CNN, The Atlantic, and Fast Company on my resume gave me extraordinary access to the top rungs of the business and political world. I was addicted to meeting fascinating people and writing (hopefully) compelling stories. It eventually gave me the credentials to get my first paid gig back at Fast Company.

Even now that TechCrunch is a full-time-plus job, I still take time out of my scarce dating life to write. Last month, I published an op-ed for The Atlantic’s politics section supporting Congress’ move to defund the discipline of political science from the National Science Foundation. From the emails I’ve received in response, it’s sparked an important discussion within the political science community about the relevancy of modern-day academic research.

I’m yet to get around to invoicing The Atlantic. And, let’s keep this our little secret, I probably would have paid them for the opportunity get my thoughts in a publication I know political scientists read. (For conspiracy theorists: No, I’m not cozying up to The Atlantic. I’ve written criticisms of their stories in the past, which I’m sure doesn’t ingratiate me to their editorial staff.)

Now, I wish we lived in a world where content was a profitable business. But I don’t blame editors who offer to take pieces for no money. In fact, I’d be angry if the media business somehow developed an ethos of refusing to take freelancer pieces because they didn’t want to appear to be exploiting writers. In that moral-high-horse world, there’s a lot of wonderful information that would never be published.

I’m not sure if the career of professional freelancer will even exist in a decade. When I got started, I was a humble graduate student on the path to being a professional academic. There are a lot of great pieces written by those who never plan on being full-time writers.

I think few if any writers get into this job for the money; therefore, the money shouldn’t get in the way. Because, when times are tough (and they are very tough), the most important priority is the free flow of information.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The U.K. MOOCs alliance, Futurelearn, which was announced last December and will be offering its first free courses “from mid-2013″ with the aim of creating a globally accessible British higher education brand, has added another member to its consortium of backers. The British Council is the latest to join the Futurelearn alliance, following the British Library and a further five universities which piled in last month. The total number of institutions now supporting Futurelearn is 19.

The British Council, which operates in more than 100 countries and has charitable status, operating under a Royal Charter, has particular experience in running English language courses and in arts and culture-related education. It’s unclear whether it will be offering its own branded courses via Futurelearn or helping other partners develop course content. Possibly a bit of both.

A spokeswoman for Futurelearn commented via email: “The British Council will be working with Futurelearn on a variety of levels including course development, assessment and examinations. Last year, over 2 million people took exams with the British Council in more than 90 countries. They’ll be bringing this and their vast experience of Higher Education to bear in their work with Futurelearn.”

Commenting on the tie-up with Futurelearn, the British Council’s Chief Executive, Martin Davidson, added in a statement: “The British Council has been bringing the UK’s education sector to people around the world for almost eighty years, so it’s very exciting that with Futurelearn we’re able to expand that to millions more people through the MOOC platform.

“We hope that our recognised experience in English-language learning and delivering assessments and examinations in nearly a hundred countries will contribute to making Futurelearn even more attractive for ambitious learners around the world.”

Futurelearn Launch CEO, Simon Nelson, described the British Council as a “tremendous addition to the Futurelearn family,” in another statement, flagging up its “long track record of creating educational opportunities for people on a global scale.”

U.K. universities backing Futurelearn are the five that joined last month – Bath, Leicester, Nottingham, Queen’s Belfast and Reading — along with the original 12 partners: Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, East Anglia, Exeter, King’s College London, Lancaster, Leeds,  Southampton, St Andrews, Warwick and UK distance-learning organization The Open University.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Rally.org, the U.S.-based crowdfunding platform designed for socially-minded causes, is taking its mission to Europe. Today, the startup is opening an incubator in Berlin, its first outside of the U.S., and on a limited beta will start to process donations made on its proprietary payment platform in euros, with the intention of adding British pounds and other currencies in the very near future.

Rally.org — which, commendably, used its own platform to raise $7.9 million from the likes of Relay Ventures, Mike Maples of Floodgate Fund, Reid Hoffman of Greylock Partners, Kevin Rose of Google Ventures, Craig Shapiro of Collaborative Fund, Michael Birch of Bebo, Tim Ferriss and Eric Ries — recently passed 3 million people contributing to 23,000 campaigns on its platform, and the idea is to tap into more local social causes and fundraising activities in this part of the world to grow that base even more.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Rally.org co-founder and CEO Tom Serres says that the company chose Berlin for its incubator and head office partly because Rally.org had already opened a Rallypad co-working space of sorts in the city last year; and partly because it’s a very startup-friendly city economically (in other words, it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to start a new company there). “We wanted a community, not just a product,” he said.

But the intention is to expand very soon to the UK, which Serres notes has the highest concentration in Europe of people who donate money to good causes. For Rally.org, a cause can be anything from a donation drive for a non-profit; to an environmental startup project aimed at improving, say, energy consumption; to someone looking to raise money for their education — not a small issue in Europe, where student fees are skyrocketing in many countries as states pull back spending in these recessionary times. (Rally takes a 5.75% commission on all final fundraises.)

While crowdfunding sites seem to be approaching a dime a dozen these days, Rally.org has a few points that distinguish it from the pack. Its emphasis on good causes is the obvious one. But the other may be the one that helps it grow: it has built its own payment platform — independent of PayPal, Amazon and the rest — that underpins the service, which is already capable of handling 17 different currencies, says Serres.

“My long term vision is to be the infrastructre of the next economy, the cause economy,” Serres told TechCrunch, describing a future where we make purchasing decisions based on making bigger statements and helping the world: think Tom’s Shoes and its idea of donating one pair to a needy child for each pair bought, expanded into all of your daily transactions. “The idea is: Everywhere I go I make a statement to the world.”

Serres points out every person who makes a contribution through Rally.org gets a virtual wallet, and the idea is to eventually make that wallet into something that consumers can use for more donations, as well as for purchases elsewhere.

For now, those posting campaigns on Rally.org will need to have German bank accounts to receive funds — although this will expand over time, Serres says. Companies based in the company’s Berlin incubator — Startup Weekend, music resource-sharing company Muzup, and social relocation community G1OBALS — will be the first Europeans to use the product. Another group is starting a campaign to preserve Berlin’s princesses garden, Prinzessinnengarten.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch