Nonplussed

I sat down to write up the new YouTube comment system earlier this week, and before I finished the article, I had deleted my Google+ account - my real one, not the joke one that you acquire during the YouTube signup process. The labyrinth of settings and accounts involved struck me as so absurd, and the process so hostile to comprehension, that they needed to be described as they might have been experienced by an ordinary user, and not from the more meta perspective of a tech writer or web designer. Here's how it felt like it would go for your average YouTube visitor. Ah, yes. That was a quality YouTube video. I've never felt the need to comment before, but this bathing rabbit deserves my approbation like none other! Wait, my name is up there in the bar, and my face is next to the comment field. Ah, it would be a comment with my real name… curses. For reasons I do not care to explain (you can imagine compelling circumstances on your own) I would rather not use my real name or associate this particular video with my official identity or Gmail address. But I heard there's a new system. I'll sign up for an account! Probably I can just click the comment field to - Oh. It wouldn't have let me comment on the field even though my face was next to it, huh? Weird. Instead, it wants to know whether I want to use my Google+ account with my real name or “create a new channel.” Are those really my only options if I just want to comment? Very well, YouTube, I'll create a new “channel.” Ah, now you tell me. This new channel “comes with a Google+ page.” Why do I need another one? I already have one, and it's because I didn't want to use it that I clicked this button in the first place! Okay, well, I guess it can't be helped. I can always delete it later. Great, now I have a channel. I'll just check the options just in case - I see I've been opted into a number of ads and newsletters! And even though this is a separate account with its own Google+ account, those will go to my Gmail address, I'm sure. Would have been nice to hear about this up front, but no use crying over spilt permissions. Uncheck, uncheck. On, then, to Google+. Pretty sure this new one is redundant so we'll just do away with it. Oh, it's a “page”? How is that different from my profile “page,” or a photo “page”? And why is it associated with my real name account? Never mind, it won't live long enough to matter. Dashboard, settings… scroll past a dozen or so notifications and other things I've been opted into without my knowledge… here we are: the tiniest option. “Delete this page.” Goodbye, page! What, I can't delete it? I have to delete the YouTube channel first? Why would I do that? Why wasn't this mentioned before? I don't want some random accounts I don't use or care about! Wouldn't it have been more accurate to say I was making a Google+ page that “comes with” the ability to comment on YouTube? But the YouTube channel has its own inbox and notification settings and stuff. I don't need both, do I? Oh, it says I just have to disconnect it first, that's fine. Just one more step, and there's even a link. Clicking that should… nope. This is just the basic settings page. Well, it has to be here somewhere. Ah, “Connected accounts.” Not for long, poor things! Damn, not there either. Where would I disconnect except in “Connected accounts?” Advanced settings? I see “delete” but not disconnect. More features? If I search exhaustively through these, it will surely appear. No… no…. You know what? Forget it, I don't even want to comment any more. It was a dumb video anyway. I'll just post it on Facebook and put my comment there, where my friends will actually see it. Delete… yes, I'm sure. You may have just been a baby, but you had it coming, YouTube channel. Now for that pesky G+ page, since its lifeline is gone. There's no link anywhere on YouTube that I can see, but luckily, I know that I can go to plus.google.com to manage this stuff, something that wouldn't be obvious if you weren't already a Google+ user. Manage, settings, and delete, and yes, damn it, I'm sure - boom. Back to square one. What was that other video I wanted to watch anonymously? Oh yeah, the dog. Okay, so now it says “Log in” up there, so I'm definitely logged out. That's fine, I'll just watch stuff, that's what YouTube is for anyway. And I can back out even if I were to accidentally click the comment button or something, like so… “Use YouTube as…” And the only option is my email address? Not likely, kemosabe! Not even going to click! No x to close this thing, thanks a lot… but I can sure close the tab! Nice knowing you, login box! Let's try this again. I desperately need to see that ex-military dog nuzzle its first kitten. What?! Why is my face next to the comment box! I'm logged in with my email address? I never did that! Sign out. Hey - why did my Gmail and chat sign out? Get back in there. All right, one more time. Video URL pasted, and… I can hear the video but can't see it? It's just a login screen with one option! Is that a bug? Reload… and I'm logged in again? So wait, signing in and out of Gmail signs me in and out of YouTube and vice versa? In what world does that make sense? For god's sake! It turns out you can view YouTube privately and without logging in only from an “incognito” or “private” browsing window, or if you are not logged into any other services. You can also block cookies on YouTube, though that's not something mos users would think of. But fiddling around with Google+ and finding how often things I thought were disabled were not, how many settings I thought I'd changed had reverted, and how many accounts were being linked into the service for reasons I found pointless… I just decided to end it. I don't mean to rag on Google+, as some people find it useful as a social network, and it's not as if signing up for an extra account and ignoring it is some huge chore. But its growing position as a sort of hub to be conflated with unrelated services like YouTube is distasteful to me. It's not that I find Google or even Google+ itself bad. But the connections between the account, the Google+ profile, the Google profile, the various websites and contact lists, to say nothing of interdependencies with Android - it's becoming stifling. This little fracas around YouTube comments, and my inability to use the website as I please except by using Google's own identity-hiding techniques against it reminded me of that. When I imagine my parents or less wary friends undertaking the process, I shudder to think how little they would bother diverging from Google's ideal plan for a good data-producing consumer, because they would not have the patience to dig through settings, search after orphan accounts, and so on. Google has chosen the method and degree to which these things are connected, and few will have the wherewithal to resist. Sure, it's their prerogative, but we don't have to like it, and we don't have to dislike it in silence. Simplify, simplify. My online life is already cluttered enough, and I never did like Google+, so I deleted it, and perhaps you should, too. Now there's one less egg in my Google basket, and I never have to pay attention to anything that has the word “Google+” in it again - just like I did with LinkedIn (stop inviting me, everyone in the world), Pinterest, and a number of other things I had no use for. My worry is that I'm going to have to double back on my tracks in a year or so when the next few services coalesce under the Google+ umbrella. Hopes that it will be done well no longer seem realistic, so anyone who shares a similar low-key dread about the impending changes would do best to take matters into their own hands.

Prefundia, A Platform For Crowdfunding Projects To Gain Backers Ahead Of Launch, Exits Beta

Prefundia wants to help crowdfunding projects get backers before they launch their campaigns. The startup, for startup it is - launching out of U.S. accelerator Boomstartup this summer – has been operating in beta for the past three months, and has just released some early performance data as it opens its doors to the public. Prefundia said 195 projects have used its platform since June to publicise their crowdfunding campaigns before launch, and it's claiming that projects using this auxiliary on-ramp to generate pre-launch momentum have been successful 71 percent of the time. Its site showcases forthcoming crowdfunding projects - offering hosting space for photos, videos and text info on a project in the works. There's then an option for Prefundia users to sign up to be alerted when the project launches its funding campaign. It's a pretty simple idea. But if Prefundia can get decent traction, it could because a useful platform for makers to test their ideas - to see whether a minimalist wallet made of papier-mâché or a stand for your iPhone is actually worth the time and effort required to try and siphon off some crowdfunds. “People certainly do use the platform to test viability of projects,” says Prefundia co-founder Daniel Falabella. “Here's one we know is using it for that purpose. In fact, we're developing a component for the creator dashboard which will compare a project's stats to all others on Prefundia in order to benchmark and give a clearer indication of demand.” A successful crowdfunding campaign takes a lot more than luck. A great idea, a well-presented project with the right level of detail, and judicious use of social media to promote your campaign are all key ingredients. Timing is also important. And lady luck inevitably plays a part, too. Getting this recipe right is never going to be an exact science. According to recent data covered by my TC colleague Darrell Etherington, Kickstarter's average success rate for crowdfunding projects is less than half (44 percent) of listed projects. Indiegogo doesn't report an official success rate, so estimates vary - from around a third (34 percent), to a mere 9.3 percent if you factor in the projects delisted by the site for failing to raise $500 (albeit Indiegogo disputes both estimates). Whatever the official success rates for the biggest crowdfunding platforms, there's still clearly a large proportion of projects that flounder and sink without a trace. And a sizeable chunk of those are probably dead in the water because they deserve to be. For every good idea hitting the crowdfunding trail, there are many more mad-cap crazies running around cap in hand. Prefundia's 71 percent success rate may sound impressive, but its data sample is very small. Also, it's not clear how much money the campaigns were seeking - obviously, as a rule of thumb, the smaller the funding target, the easier it is to achieve. Prefundia does say that its users have raised $2.5 million since the launch of its platform. Doing a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation to generate a per-project average (assuming that all the projects using its platform went on to attempt a crowdfunding launch) that comes out at just over $18,000 raised per successful project (138 of the 195 total being successful) on average. And while $18,000 may be all you need to get the ‘revolutionary' ZipTie to market, tech projects typically need a lot more funds to fly. But of course that's just a flat average. Prefundia does single out one example, the gStick Mouse project, which used its platform to help relaunch its project after initially failing on Kickstarter. Second time around the gStick was able to raise $23,901 on the first day, and hit its $40,000 goal on day two. It ultimately garnered close to 4,000 backers and took in almost $130,500 in 16 days. Early crowdfunding momentum tends to beget more success as projects that raise money quickly tend to attract more attention - both from the media and also from users, being as media attention can help a project bag a slot in the “most popular” categories of crowdfunding sites - which in turn gets it in front of more potential backers, owing to greater visibility on the homepage. It's that virtuous circle of kicking a funding campaign off with a big bang which ripples out and generates even more bucks that Prefundia is aiming to engineer. ”Kickstarter's ‘popular' algorithm heavily favors projects that gain traction very quickly (see Kickstarter's ‘popular' algorithm hacked here), so projects that build a lot of momentum before they launch and then drop it all into their crowdfunding campaign on the first day do much better than those who don't,” adds Falabella. Prefundia is free for forthcoming crowdfunding projects to list on, and isn't currently taking any cut of successful projects, so there's no reason not to give it a go - apart from the time required to upload a few media assets, etc. “Monetization plans are on hold until the first quarter of 2014 but will include partnerships with manufacturing brokers, marketing firms, crowdfunding sites, etc - relationships and deals are already tested and inked,” says Falabella. He names LaunchRock, which offers services for startups such as landing pages where beta users can sign up, as Prefundia's main competitor but argues Prefundia stands out on merit of its focus being exclusively on pre-launch for crowdfunding projects. He also argues it has a lower barrier to entry, because there's no need to buy a new domain to add a project to Prefundia, and claims the platform can drive more traffic to a crowdfunding page “by consolidating all pre-launch pages into a single platform and encouraging cross-pollination”. Time will tell on the latter point, since it's not clear how much traffic Prefundia is pulling in to its own platform as yet. It's also going to need to keep ramping its traffic up to be able to keep generating the big bangs it promises as more projects land on its own pages. At which point, it may be time for a pre-pre-funding startup to step in. Or for all the crazy crowdfunding projects to realise they are drunk and go home.

Apple Reportedly Developing Large Curved Screen iPhones For Late 2014, Better Touchscreen Sensors

Apple is said to be working on two curved display iPhone models for the “second half of next year,” according to a source speaking to Bloomberg, with a likely release planned for the third quarter, as well as better touchscreen sensors that introduce fine pressure sensitivity for later devices to be introduced after that. These new iPhones for 2014 would come in 4.7 and 5.5-inch flavors, according to the report, meaning that Apple would be introducing not one, but two different models at the same time, in theory. We've seen reports of Apple working on different models of large-screen devices in the past, including one from the Wall Street Journal that suggests it's been working on different tests of devices with screen sizes between 4.8 and 6 inches. This is the first time we've really heard firm information about a possible release date for said devices, from a source as generally reliable as Bloomberg. A Japanese iOS rumor site claimed a September launch for a large-screen iPhone late in October, however, and two reliable analyst sources predict a 4.7-inch iPhone 6 bound for stores in late 2014. Apple also introduced precedent for doing two models of new iPhone at once this year with the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, so the idea that it could do so again in the future makes some sense. But two new larger-screened devices at once does seem like a stretch – though if Apple retained an iPhone 5c as its third, budget device and added two more to the mid-tier and high-end range, that might allow it to do so without adding crazy complexity to its product lineup. The sensor developments are potentially more interesting to those who find the current screen size of the iPhone adequate; true pressure sensitivity (currently, some crude extent of that is possible via the iPhone's accelerometer) would make drawing and handwriting applications on the iPhone and iPad much, much better. Apple could sell the devices as professional-level artistic devices if it introduces those kinds of features, in addition to just making things better for everyday users who want to jot notes and doodle, for example, or perform minor photo touch-ups. It's very early days to make any kind of judgement about the likely accuracy of these claims, but the source gives it some weight. Apple's iPhone joining the ranks of bigger-screened devices definitely makes sense as a next move for the lineup, but curved glass manufacturing also seems quite expensive at this point for Apple to be considering launching two new devices with that feature at once.

Social Video Startup Magisto Raises $13 Million From Qualcomm And Sandisk

Once upon a time, seemingly everyone was creating mobile apps to help users shoot, edit, and share videos with one another. Thanks to a desire to build or invest in the “Instagram for video,” a number of new social video apps popped up and got funding last year. One startup that was always a bit of an outlier in that race was Magisto, which had built an app that was designed to magically create interesting videos out of the videos that users had stored on their computers and phones. Now, after posting pretty incredible growth, the company has raised $13 million to take on the ambitious goal of unlocking all the world's photos and videos and making them sharable. The funding comes from two major strategic investors - Qualcomm Ventures and Sandisk. Existing investors Magma Venture Partner and Li Ka Shing's Horizons Ventures also participated in the round. Magisto has signed up more than 13 million users since being founded, pitching them on the idea of “video storytelling.” By using proprietary algorithms, the mobile and web app pieces together multiple video and photo assets and creates sharable videos and photo slideshows. They can then be shared on social networks, or with specific friends and family. While a large amount of video is being created and stored on smartphones, there's also a ton of photos and videos that has been shot but never makes it off a user's SD card. Magisto CEO and co-founder Oren Boiman hopes to make all that content available to be shared. “Not [even] 1% of this material has ever left its SD card,” he wrote by email. “If Magisto can mobilize a few percent of this huge data, internet will be entirely different and it will shift the focus onto what is what actually important to us, our life experiences, our shared memories, our stories.” And well, what better way to do that then by mashing them up into automagically awesome videos that you'll actually want to watch. When you consider that Qualcomm and Sandisk make a lot of the chips and storage products where those photos and videos are kept, well then I guess the investment makes sense.

Indiegogo's European Presence Grew 300% In The Last Year, 30% Of Funding Now Outside U.S.

Indiegogo co-founder and CEO Slava Rubin took the stage today at TechCrunch Disrupt Europe 2013, and he shared some interesting stats about the crowdfunding platform's progress to date, and he specifically addressed some of the company's international growth. Over the past year, Indiegogo has managed to expand its business 300 percent in Europe over the past year, and international funding now accounts for a full 30 percent of its platform activity. A lot of the hard work about that came around adding new languages, Rubin said, and then it was also challenging because of the various currencies that had to be incorporated into the platform. Most of the heavy lifting is around working out how to take and receive payments in different countries, Rubin said, and adding a number of new international capabilities in that regard has really helped speed up their growth. The international growth is actually a core part of Indiegogo's vision, for an open and democratized future of funding. “It's really simple, we want to democratize funding across the world, the only way to do that is to be open,” Rubin said. “To be open is hard [...] The only way to create an open platform is to be totally global, if you only focus on one vertical or one country, you're only creating liquidity in that space.” It's hard because you need to reach as many people as possible, you need to build a product that's both open to all submissions but also reliable and consistent, and because you have to defend against fraud, which is hugely complicated when you're trying to be open. Yet defend against fraud is exactly what Indiegogo has done. The crowdfunding company has faced numerous fraud attempts since 2008, but Rubin says that they've had “virtually zero” actually carried out successful. Its net of anti-fraud detection, which includes community monitoring, advanced fraud detection algorithms, and people to track down and follow-up with flagged incidents, is so far pretty bulletproof, Rubin says. As to what this means in terms of actually delivering funding to project creators, Rubin says that there's now “millions” being distributed to between 70 and 100 different countries per week. Indiegogo may have strong competition in the form of Kickstarter, but it's clearly focus on growing internationally quickly and covering as much ground as possible while Kickstarter moves a little more slowly on reaching new countries.

The Web Behind The Wall Explains China's Complicated Startup Industry

“The Web Behind The Wall” is an e-book published by TechNode (our partner for next month's TechCrunch Shanghai event) that wants to be “the #1 resource for foreign tech companies to understand China.” The book is a quick but highly informative read about China's startup ecosystem, which has proven unpenetrable for tech giants like Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Amazon. But any startup that wants to grow into a global company can't ignore China. The country currently has 591 million people online and 460 million mobile Internet users and that number is rapidly increasing every day. In the next two years, 200 million users are expected to go online, rapidly increasing China's current 44.1% Internet penetration rate. Companies like Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu have already enjoyed massive growth over the last decade and are poised for even more. “The Web Behind The Wall” looks at the Chinese startup ecosystem's laws and regulations, culture, market opportunities, barriers to innovation and funding opportunities. The book was co-authored by Kevin I. Chen, Jason Lim and Ben Jiang , who were introduced by TechNode founder Dr. Gang Lu, and includes contributions from The Founder Magazine, strategy and design firm Frog Design and blogs Tech In Asia and TechRice. Correcting Misconceptions Chen started writing the book as a memoir about his experience working for Shanda, a leading Chinese game developer, and within the Shanghai startup ecosystem. Then “The Web Behind The Wall” evolved into a primer that seeks to clear up misconceptions about China's tech industry. “Before coming here in early 2010, my understanding of China was limited in that China startups are depicted by Western media as mostly copycats,” says Chen, who earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from UCLA. “Fact is, China's startup scene is full of excitement and original ideas. Growth here is also phenomenal with around 10 million new users joining the Web every month.” Chinese companies were among the first to adopt and scale innovations like the freemium model for games and apps. Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel has referred to Chinese Internet giant Tencent as a “role model” for its ability to make revenue from in-app purchases. There are several daunting barriers to innovation in China, however, including weak intellectual property laws, high competition and government censorship. The latter not only includes the “Great Wall of China,” which blocks foreign sites like Facebook and Twitter, but also a domestic surveillance and filtering program called the Golden Shield. Coping with cultural differences when hiring and trying to retain employees is another potential headache. “The most unexpected thing for me is how many people are interested in startups and how few individuals possess the skills and mental toughness to do startups here,” says Chen. “Unlike Western education, which teaches leadership and risk-taking, Chinese education teaches discipline and obedience. There are big pros and cons as a result of this, but definitely more handholding is required here.” Chen says other things that foreign entrepreneurs tend to misunderstand are China's regulations and policies, which are often unfavorable to overseas companies, and how to scale up. Though the government has invested billions of renminbi in cloud computing since 2009, it has been a “fairly slow moving beast” because of several issues including an immature ecosystem that negatively affects data quality, reliability and speed; skepticism among entrepreneurs who don't trust cloud operators with their data; complex regulations; and the lack of developers who understand cloud architecture, all issues that Chen writes about in detail. Looking Toward The Future “The Web Behind The Wall” argues that people who want to truly grasp China's startup ecosystem must not only familiarize themselves with the tech communities in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, but also the provinces of Sichuan, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The city of Chengdu in Sichuan is known for its business process and software outsourcing. Zhejiang startups are closer to U.S. startups in terms of their focus on app development, while Jiangsu is “by reputation friendlier to enterprise development.” But it is still important for entrepreneurs–especially ones from overseas–to first build relationships in China's main tech hubs. “These [second-tier] cities are accessible by transport but soft barriers are higher in talent availability and language capabilities,” says Chen. “There are lots of under-utilized resources in Shanghai as most people don't know there are 600+ incubators and tech parks and 300 angel and venture funding organizations that welcome entrepreneurs.” Several essays in “The Web Behind The Wall” focus on cultural differences. For example, entrepreneurs of Chinese descent who grew up overseas (referred to as “sea turtles”) often overestimate their understanding of nuances in language or management practices. As more of China's population goes online for the first time, localization becomes increasingly important. This means that founders can no longer count on easy success by taking existing business models from other countries and cloning them in China. Despite the headaches and the emergence of promising new markets like Southeast Asia, “The Web Behind The Wall” argues that China's growth potential is still staggering enough for it to be worth the risk to foreign entrepreneurs. One of the most anticipated developments for the tech industry is next year's shift to 4G/TD-LTE by China Mobile, which is the largest carrier in the world with 740 million subscribers. “I think there will be a fundamental transition in how people communicate and entertain when this happens,” says Chen. “Keep in mind, China Mobile never offered 3G, so the delta in experience from EDGE to 4G/TD-LTE will be tremendous for all these subscribers. Click here for more information about ((http://webbehindthewall.com/))”The Web Behind The Wall.” The book is available for $2 online or as a Kindle download for $2.99.

NextDoor, The Facebook For Your Neighborhood, Lands $60M From John Doerr, Tiger Global And More To Go International

The “local space” has long held sway over the imagination of entrepreneurs, who have produced everything from travel apps to city guides, neighborhood news sites and event planners in pursuit of local dollars. But local is a tough nut to crack, with many high-profile companies stumbling along the way, including EveryBlock, Patch and YardSellr to name a few. Nextdoor is one of a handful of companies that has managed to thrive in the local market, and a growing list of investors are betting that the “Facebook for your neighborhood” could be the next big social network. With 22,500 neighborhoods (and one-in-seven in the U.S.) now using Nextdoor to create private websites where locals can ask questions, get to know one another and exchange advice and recommendations, Nextdoor is ready to go international. To do so, the startup has secured a whopping $60 million round in Series C financing from veteran investors, including John Doerr and Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and Lee Fixel of Tiger Global Management. The round, which brings the startup's funding to over $100 million, also includes Comcast Ventures, as well as Nextdoor's previous investors, Benchmark, Greylock Partners, and Shasta Ventures. Now two years from lauch, Nextdoor has seen its customer base increase by 400 percent over the last twelve months, CEO and founder Nirav Tolia tells us. With big names like eBay, Facebook, Google and craigslist all playing in the potentially winner-takes-all social networking space, Nextdoor has managed to find an audience by focusing on becoming a support group for your local neighborhood. “We believe that Nextdoor has the opportunity to be for our local life what Facebook is for our social life and what LinkedIn is for our professional life,” Tolia says. With its 400 percent growth over the last year to 22,500 neighborhoods, the startup is now growing at a similar rate to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn when they were at a similar point in their development. While the CEO declined to share particulars, he says that the startup's new round pegs it a fairly similar valuation to the social networking giants - not quite at $1 billion, but “healthy.” Since the launch of v2.0 in February, the local social network has been focused on increasing the opportunities for engagement by allowing users to view and post messages with closely bordering neighborhoods, for example. Initially, users could only post messages and share information about their own local hood on Nextdoor, but the startup is hoping that, by taking a few measured steps to expand its scope, it can help neighbors, say, find that missing cat that wandered from one neighborhood into the next. Being able to see those limited updates from nearby locations makes sense, and has added to Nextdoor's utility. The network is also providing value by becoming a communication network for local crime and safety monitoring - now one of Nextdoor's most popular use cases. In February, for example, crime and safety-related posts accounted for 20 percent of the network's messages, and this remains true today, the CEO says. As Alexia pointed out in her coverage of Nextdoor back in March, today Nextdoor has begun to act like a modern, web and mobile-friendly version of your local “Neighborhood Watch.” Over time, crime and safety channels have grown in importance within the community to the point that Tolia now considers Nextdoor's “Neighborhood Watch” functionality to be equivalent in value to what photos have been for Facebook over the years. “Crime and safety monitoring has become the irreplaceable part of the network,” Tolia explains. Based on the success of its Neighborhood Watch, the startup now has partnerships with over 100 cities and has integrated with local police and fire departments, who are now able to access special accounts to issue dispatches and alerts to residents through the network. With its new round of funding, the CEO says that the company plans to continue developing these kinds of initiatives, along with those that can add value for local governments and civic agencies. Allowing users to access its neighborhood social platform on mobile devices has also been integral to the startup's continuing growth over the last 12 months, boosted by the launch of its first native Android app in August. The Android launch followed three months after Nextdoor's iPhone app, which has been accounting for as much as 20 percent of the content published on its network, Tolia told us at the time. With a fresh $60 million in its coffers, and backed by investors (and board members) like Bill Gurley, David Sze and John Doerr, who are plenty familiar with the development of online social networks - with early investments in Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (and Instagram and Snapchat) between them - Nextdoor is ready to begin expanding in earnest. This means that the company will be looking to significantly ramp up hiring and add to its engineering over the next twelve months, as it moves to position itself as the “lifeline to your local neighborhoods” throughout the U.S. Of course, not only is it offering this kind of Rockwell-ian place for Americans to borrow a ladder, meet their neighbors, organize a block party, discover a local handyman or find a lost pet; thanks to its new capital, beginning in 2014, Nextdoor wants looking to become that lifeline in Berlin, Moscow and everywhere else, for that matter. Rather than focusing on monetization in the near-term, the Nextdoor CEO tells us, the company is instead laser-focused on growing its network abroad. Once it has gained a critical mass in both domestic and foreign markets, only then will it turn to worrying about turning on revenue streams, he continued. And, with $100 million raised over the last 18 months, Nextdoor is now (one of the few) lucky enough to be able do just that.