Good morning! Here's the scoop:
- Some investors are positioned to make more than $1 billion when Twitter goes public: Chris Sacca, Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital. Even Dick Costolo's initial $25,000 investment could be worth $10 million now.
- Evan Williams founded Medium because he thinks there's something wrong with the way people consume news online. "News in general doesn't matter most of the time, and most people would be far better off if they spent their time consuming less news and more ideas that have more lasting import," he tells TechCrunch. "Even if it's fiction, it's probably better most of the time."
- Ozy Media launched today after months of preparation and millions raised from people like Ron Conway and Laurene Powell Jobs. It is founded by Carlos Watson, a former news anchor, to bring readers everything new and fresh in a visually appealing way.
- Here's what's been happening at Klout, a social influence startup that was worth hundreds of millions of dollars then went dark.
- Conduit is worth $1.4 billion and it just merged with a big email company called Perion.
- Here's what Silicon Valley luminaries think about the NSA.
- HTC had layoffs last week.
- Friends on Snapchat can tell who you send disappearing photo messages to most.
- Some viewers were really upset that an Indian-American woman won the Miss America title Sunday night. They tweeted pretty nasty things.
- A hotel in Sydney, Australia lets people stay there for free if they have 10,000 Instagram followers.