The Beatles came to streaming services, Foursquare raised a round that cut its valuation by a huge chunk and fantasy sports services got kicked out of Illinois. Here are the headlines that powered Re/code this week:
Re/wind: A Very Beatles Christmas, Bad Times for Fantasy Sports and Foursquare
Foursquare is raising money at less than half its peak valuation.
MGM
- Foursquare, the location check-in service that was wildly popular a few years ago, has had a tough go of it lately as it struggles to find a business model. The company is in the process of raising a new round at a $250 million valuation, less than half of what it was worth two years ago.
- DraftKings and FanDuel have been kicked out by Nevada, New York and now, Illinois. The state’s attorney general says the fantasy sports services qualify as unlicensed gambling, which means they are illegal.
- Facebook’s Free Basics, an Internet-lite service offered by the company in India, was shut down as regulators evaluated whether it violates principles of net neutrality — criticism that Facebook’s Internet.org initiative has long struggled with. Also, Facebook accidentally asking U.S. users to help “save” Free Basics probably didn’t help things.
- The Beatles arrived on the iTunes store in 2010. Now, they’re finally on streaming services, a nifty Christmas present from the music industry. What streaming app do you need to tap your inner Beatlemaniac? Here’s a list.
- Jack Dorsey sleeps very little, works quite a bit and likes to exercise and have dinner with friends. He also likes Eastern philosophy and to talk grandiloquently about Twitter’s purpose. Here are the highlights from his Product Hunt Q&A that reveals this precious info.
- In an interview with Peter Kafka on the “Re/code Decode” podcast, Twitter co-founder and Medium boss Ev Williams explains why he thinks publishing on the Web is headed the way of the dodo. Also, he explains what Medium is, and what he wants it to be. In another episode, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman tells Kara Swisher how Google “has lost its mind.”
- The week before last, the University of California announced that it was launching a growth equity venture fund. Why is the UC getting in the VC business? Money, money and money.
- Former Microsoft exec Ray Ozzie has sold his voice-based collaboration startup Talko to Microsoft in a pretty obvious “acqhire,” though he says he’s not going back to Microsoft.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
