Another How-To instructional site

From TechCrunch Boy, $8M is a lot of money for this type of early stage thing (they couldn't have done it with say $3M to start? I guess it is time to "scale fast" again...) Still one of these how-to sites will be a big winner

The site is launching with professionally-shot instructional videos on everything from “How to Paint a Wall” (see embed below) and “How to Groom Your Cat” to “How to Get Laid.” There is a familiar formula for each one: The Howcast graphic, an intro explaining what you’ll need for the task at a hand, and step-by-step instructions explained in a voiceover. The video player on the site lets you jump to different chapters or steps, lets you zoom in for a better look, and provides the transcript as well. Viewers can add comments in the form of tips, warnings, and facts to each video. And the Flash-based site lets you browse the video directory on the left hand side while you are watching a video without interrupting it or going to a different page.

The Web is Using Us

Great video from a cultural anthropologist for Kansas State University. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE]

Online Prayers to Jerusalem

The Cypriots modernizing fast!

NAZARETH, Israel (AP) -- Dressed in his embroidered robes, the Rev. Andreas Elime steps from the altar of St. Gabriel's Church and into the view of the Web cams on the church's marble pillars. His voice fills the empty 250-year-old sanctuary with a Greek Orthodox hymn, while a computer on a nearby pew transmits personal blessings to three Americans thousands of miles away.

Greek orthodox priest Andreas Elime prays near a laptop computer in the Basilica of the Annunciation in the northern Israeli town of Nazareth.

Christian pilgrims have long traveled to the boyhood town of Jesus to seek blessings. Now the Internet can save them the trip.

A service recently launched by Modefine Ltd., a Cyprus company, enables worshippers to log on and watch as a priest utters a prayer for them.

"This takes things to a new level," said James Martin, a Jesuit priest and associate editor of the Roman Catholic magazine America, who has watched religious trends develop on the Internet. Martin said in a telephone interview that the technology also gives believers a new way to carry out an old practice: asking others to pray for them in sacred place

Full link here

The Value of Development

Business.com on the block for 40x + its 1999 "bubble" valuation. That is because the site was developed out...

Business information directory and search enginame Business.com is for sale, reports the Wall Street Journal, and it may fetch as much as $400 million. Investment bank Credit Suisse is representing the company.

The domain name was purchased for $7.5 million back in 1999. Later, the purchase was widely ridiculed - in 1997 the domain was acquired for just $150,000.

Those were the days before CPC ads and parked pages, though, which brought the value of domains up exponentially. The risk paid off. Business.com now has EBITDA of around $15 million/year. A $400 million acquisition price is a 26 multiple on current revenue, which is on the high end of current valuations.

From TechCrunch