Lunch Links - April 8th, 2014

Major Moves

Neura focus on how people interact with their smart devices, and tries to make it as simple as possible.

Neura, a Bay-area / Israeli startup that seeks to integrate "internet of things" and wearable devices under common layers of technology, has raised $2M in Series A funding in a round led by Greenhouse Capital Partners.

Another Bay-area / Israeli startup, Tel Aviv's Kenshoo, just raised $20M to set their valuation between $400M and $500M.  Kenshoo provides a software platform for advertisers to manage their online marketing campaigns, and makes revenue from taking a percentage of the $5B in ad spending done on its platform annually.

North of the border, Toronto-based Wattpad raised $46M in Series C funding to aid in its vision to create a mobile online community of writers and readers.


Personal Blogs

Chris Dixon, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, describes how the rise of mobile apps is drawing development talent out of the mobile web:

This is a worrisome trend for the web. Mobile is the future. What wins mobile, wins the Internet. Right now, apps are winning and the web is losing. 

Moreover, there are signs that it will only get worse. Ask any web company and they will tell you that they value app users more than web users. This is why you see so many popups and banners on mobile websites that try to get you to download apps. It is also why so many mobile websites are broken. Resources are going to app development over web development. As the mobile web UX further deteriorates, the momentum toward apps will only increase.

Entrepreneur-turned-VC Mark Suster notes that a lot of reference calls end up being useless, and offers a guide on how to make better ones:

10. How to interpret references 

Finally, I’d like to point out that you need to be careful about how you actually interpret references. If you get somebody who doesn't say totally glowing things about your candidate make sure: 

• You think critically about whether that person may have biases that led him to the conclusions he has about your candidates  

• Make sure to ask other people about those specific qualities that the reference said weren't good – even if you have to call back people with whom you’re already spoken. 

• Understand whether any negative information is something that would stop you from wanting to hire the person. Everybody has weaknesses. 

The things that are always non-starters for me? People with attitude problems. Negative people. People who cause conflicts unnecessarily. People I perceive as not having good moral compasses.

Practical advice of the day:  Scotty Loveless of Overthought.org writes a detailed guide on using your iOS device battery to maximum efficiency:

Step 6: Turn Off Battery Percentage 

That's right, you heard me. 

Turn off that battery percentage meter and stop worrying about your battery drain. You can find this setting in Settings > General > Usage, right above where your battery times are listed. 

One thing I found in my Genius Bar experience is that people that are anxious about their iOS device battery life are constantly checking it to see the percentage and how much it has dropped from the last time they checked it. So if you check your device twice as much, simply to check on the battery life, you are essentially halving the time your device will last. 

Stop freaking out and enjoy your life. There are more important things to worry about than your device's battery life. The control freak inside you might freak out the first few days you do this, but you'll get used to it.