YouTube Programming Investors Back YouTube Tools Startup Epoxy

Ad gripes aside, lots of people are still betting on YouTube. Here’s the latest: Epoxy, a startup developing tools for video makers and distributors, which has raised $2 million.

I can’t tell you much more about the company than that, since it hasn’t opened for business yet. And CEO Juan Bruce is being purposefully vague about what he’s up to, other than that he hopes to sell to big YouTube programmers as well as Hollywood content owners and advertisers. And he’s not going to run an ad network or ad server.

Bruce has an interesting background. He has previously worked as a designer at IDEO, and most recently headed up digital for Team Downey, Robert Downey Jr.’s production/digital company; one of Downey’s bets includes YouTube network, Maker Studios. Here’s the rest of Bruce’s company.

Prior to Epoxy’s funding announcement, I had heard that the company was working on a feature/product aimed specifically at YouTube distributors trying to navigate Facebook. That’s a particular pain point for YouTubers, since Facebook is a huge distribution outlet but not one that plays nicely with Google/YouTube. Bruce does allow that the relationship between the two companies is “problematic,” so I’m assuming that what I heard has some truth to it.

Meantime, the most interesting thing about Epoxy is the people backing it.

It’s usually not helpful to spend too much time on an investor list, but in this case it tells a story, since it represents a lot of people who are already betting on YouTube/video: Mark Suster’s GRP Partners, a big Maker Studios investor, is leading the round. Other backers include Allen DeBevoise, who runs Maker rival Machinima; Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, which just backed StyleHaul, the Machinima for fashion; and Shari Redstone’s Advancit Capital.

FirstMark Capital Hires Bloomberg Ventures' Matt Turck

Matt Turck, one of the founders of Bloomberg Ventures, is joining FirstMark Capital as a managing director. Prior to working at Bloomberg, Turck cofounded startup TripleHop and eventually sold the company to Oracle.

White House to provide Senate with drone memos ahead of Brennan vote

Dianne Feinstein says agreement with Obama administration should clear way for John Brennan confirmation as CIA director

The White House is providing members of the Senate Intelligence Committee with access to all of the top-secret legal opinions that justify the use of lethal drone strikes against terror suspects as the Obama administration seeks to clear the way for Tuesday's expected confirmation of John Brennan to run the CIA, the committee's chairwoman said.

Brennan's installation at the spy agency has been held up as both Democrats and Republicans pressed the administration to allow a review of the classified documents prepared by the Justice Department. The senators have argued they can't perform adequate oversight without reviewing the contents of the opinions.

"I am pleased the administration has made this information available," senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, said in a statement. "It is important for the committee to do its work and will pave the way for the confirmation of John Brennan to be CIA director."

A vote on his confirmation was expected Tuesday afternoon.

Even with the agreement on access to the memos, Senate Republicans have been threatening to oppose Brennan's confirmation unless the White House supplies them with classified information, including emails among top national security officials, detailing the administration's actions immediately following the 11 September 2012, attack on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed.

Brennan so far has escaped the harsh treatment that former senator Chuck Hagel, the president's choice to lead the Defense Department, received from Senate Republicans, even though Brennan is one of Obama's most important national security aides and the White House official who oversees the drone program.

Brennan also served as a senior CIA official during President George W Bush's administration, when waterboarding and other forms of "enhanced interrogation" and detention practices were adopted. Brennan has publicly denounced the use of these tactics, but the cloud has not gone completely away.

Brennan's stance on waterboarding and torture is inconsistent, senator John McCain, a Republican, has said. Although Brennan has decried these methods, he also has said they saved lives, according to McCain.

"All we want is the answers," McCain said Monday. "I'm not threatening anything. I just think we deserve the answers."

Senate Republicans put Hagel through a bruising confirmation process. They labeled their former Republican colleague as a political turncoat for attacking the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq, and they cast him as hostile toward Israel, soft on Iran and unqualified for the job.

Hagel still was confirmed in the end.

Criticism of Brennan has been less intense. He has won praise from several lawmakers as the best qualified candidate to lead the CIA. Brennan, 57, is a veteran of more than three decades of intelligence work.

Drone strikes are employed only as a "last resort", Brennan told the committee. But he also said he had no qualms about going after US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011. A drone strike in Yemen killed al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both US citizens. A drone strike two weeks later killed al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, a US native.

Brennan spent 25 years at the CIA before moving in 2003 from his job as deputy executive director of the agency to run the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. He later worked as interim director of the center's successor organisation, the National Counterterrorism Center.

When Bush's second term began in 2005, Brennan left government to work for a company that provides counter-terror analysis to federal agencies. After Obama took office in 2009, he returned to the federal payroll as the president's top counter-terrorism adviser in the White House.

If confirmed by the full Senate, Brennan would replace Michael Morell, the CIA's deputy director who has been acting director since David Petraeus resigned in November after acknowledging an affair with his biographer.

Martha Stewart testifies in New York court over homewares brand dispute

Stewart defending her company in fight involving two well-known American department stores, JC Penney and Macy's

Martha Stewart, the doyenne of American domestic life who once ended up in jail after lying about a stock trade, was back in court on Tuesday in a high profile case that is as much about her public image as it is a seemingly arcane contract dispute.

Stewart is defending her firm in a complex fight involving two of America's biggest and most famous department stores - Macy's and its rival JC Penney.

The case revolves around the issue of whether Penney's 2011 deal with Stewart violates a pre-existing deal to sell many of Stewart's goods through Macy's. Macy's says they have exclusive rights to the products that are branded with Stewart's well-known name.

Meanwhile Stewart's company insists that it is allowed to pursue other deals and the Macy's agreement covers only specific goods and brands.

But, as with all things Stewart, the trial has become as much about the drama of her reputation and personality as much as the more obscure parts of American contract law. Some court testimony has portrayed Stewart as abandoning Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren - a close personal friend - so she could enrich her troubled company.

During testimony last week, Lundgren described how he hung up the phone on Stewart after she told him about the Penney deal. Such allegations only reinforce Stewart's reputation as a ruthless businesswoman which often is at odds with the buying public perception of her as their favourite home-maker whose goods sell in their millions across the nation.

Lundgren hasn't spoken to her since putting the phone down on her and in court last week even appeared choked up at times. "I was completely shocked and blown away," he testified. "It was so far from anything I could imagine." Stewart was asked about the phone call and said in court that she was shocked at Lundgren's reaction. "I was quite taken aback by his response. When he hung up on me I was kind of flabbergasted," she said.

But, displaying her now infamously imperious temperament, Stewart engaged in various testy exchanges with Macy's lawyer Ted Grossman. Grossman asked her at the start if she was comfortable in the witness box, to which she replied with a withering: "As comfortable as could be."

Dressed in a beige outfit and cream blouse, Stewart also showed a perhaps unfortunate knack for not quite realizing how ordinary Americans live in a country still recovering tepidly from the Great Recession. When asked by Grossman if it was likely that a customer might buy one set of equipment, like a Stewart-branded casserole dish or set of knives and forks, in one store and then walk into a different store and buy them again, Stewart replied: "They might have two houses! They might have two kitchens!"

The two repeatedly sparred over how Stewart interpreted her firm's obligations to Macy's and whether or not they clashed over a desire to do a major deal with Penney. Grossman pressed her on her commitment to Macy's and a timeline of when she started talking to Penney and working on designs for them. "We thought, and I hope rightly so, we were absolutely allowed to do such a thing," Stewart said.

Macy's has sued the media and merchandising company Stewart founded alleging she breached their contract when she signed a deal with Penney to open shops at most of its stores this spring. Macy's, which has sold Martha Stewart products including towels and pots since 2007, is trying to block Penney from selling those products.

The case is a high-risk effort for almost everyone involved. For Stewart any legal disaster could easily hurt her brand and her image which has survived the earlier travails over allegations of insider trading that saw her go to jail.

The latest legal trouble also comes at a time when her business is struggling to fatten merchandising revenue as it tries to offset declines in its broadcast and publishing divisions. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia is in its fifth straight year of losses. In 2012, the firm posted revenue of $197.6m, down nearly 11% from the previous year. Losses jumped to $56m from $15.5m the year before and its share price is down more than 90% from $36 in February 2005 - when Stewart was about to emerge from jail.

Penney has its own troubles too. The giant retailer is in the middle of a turnaround plan that is struggling in the face of big losses and sales declines for four straight quarters. The deal with Stewart, which included a roll-out of mini-shops inside its stores, had been planning to use the Martha Stewart brand as a core part of its revival.

Finally, Macy's is keen to protect an area of its own business that has been a success. Sales for the Martha Stewart brand at Macy's rose 8% last year, double the sales increase for the entire company. In a possible personal olive branch to Macy's Stewart told the court that she was a huge fan of the store. "I love Macy's," she said. "I have shopped at Macy's since I was a young child." But at the same time she heaped praise on Penney chief executive Ron Johnson. "He is a visionary," she said. "He had the foresight to re-imagine the American department store."

Shopikon: Track Down Your Nearest Indie Shop

There was a time when you'd shop for things in person as opposed to online. Convenient. Which then made shopping in person pretty boring because, well, it's all the same crap everywhere you go. Then the same thing happened to the Internet save for a few "indie" sellers on Etsy and some hipsters on Kickstarter.

But what if you wanted to see those cool little artisanal products in person, you ask? You'd think we were SOL but there's a site called Shopikon that helps you "discover independent" shopping establishments in a handful of cities around the world, like New York, Berlin and Paris. They even have some apps to help while you're on the move, too, including one for San Francisco, which launched this week.

And so, before your next trip, you might want to download one of the many Shopikon apps to help your plot out your shopping excursions. Or not. Go to the Gap or Hollister for all I care. [Shopikon]

RC Mic Tanks Rearrange Studio Setups With Tactical Precision

To better their ability to perfect a mix, sound engineers sit at a giant board outside of a recording studio where it's whisper quiet. And to avoid having to keep running in and out of a studio to perfect their mic placement, someone's slapped a microphone on a remote controlled RC toy tank that promises to make a sound engineer's job a heck of a lot easier.

Besides a menacing all-black paint job and the addition of a standard microphone mount, the Tank Tone is pretty much just a standard RC toy tank. Its creators even left the functional BB-firing turret intact, letting producers harass their talent from a safe distance. The tank's rechargeable battery provides for up to an hour of runtime, and up to three of them can be controlled in a studio at any given time.

You'd probably want to avoid operating and repositioning the tanks during a recording session because the plastic drivetrain and electric motor aren't quite whisper quiet. But apparently the $129 tank can't actually be heard during an overzealous drum solo, or other particularly loud performances. [Tone Tank via Gizmag]

What Could Apple Buy With Its $137 Billion? About 18 Homes Each for Every Yahoo to Not Work At, and More!

Last week, the fight between Apple and pugnacious hedge fund investor David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital went all flat when he withdrew a lawsuit after the company yanked a proxy proposal that would have allowed shareholders to vote on eliminating preferred stock from the company charter.

But the real issue at the core of the fight — the massive mountain of $137 billion in a cash hoard that Apple holds and that Einhorn wants it to distribute in some fashion to shareholders — still remains.

It’s not clear what Apple will do now, especially since a lot of it is overseas. But execs have indicated that they are evaluating what to do to best serve nervous investors, who have bidded the stock down 40 percent since the fall. While it’s not clear what that will be, it’s also pretty likely Apple will do something.

Until the company decides, though, I have some good ideas for CEO Tim Cook to consider:

* Apple could purchase 1,567,506 Tesla Model S Performance vehicles with 85 kWh battery and a carbon fiber spoiler at $87,400 each, which would effectively allow CEO Elon Musk to buy the New York Times (a bargain at $1.42 billion!) and use it as his own personal blog.

* It could buy 17.9 houses for each Yahoo employee located near its Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ, so they could be super-close to work, per CEO Marissa Mayer’s wishes. That breaks down to 206,015 overall homes for 11,500 workers, at a median sales price of $665,000 for the area.

* Apple could acquire a big chunk of the Internet all at once, including Groupon ($3.36 billion), Yahoo ($25.95 billion), Facebook ($61.7 billion), Twitter ($10 billion), LinkedIn ($18.32 billion), Yelp ($1.47 billion), AOL ($2.81 billion), Pandora ($2.09 billion), Zynga ($2.69 billion), OpenTable ($1.32 billion) and, finally, Pinterest ($2.5 billion). Phew.

* It could pay Andrew Mason’s $378.36 severance after getting jacked as CEO of Groupon 364,013,179 times over.

* Apple could pay for 97,857 parties for Yammer’s David Sacks’s 40th birthday (at $1.4 million each). Snoop Dogg included.

* It could foot the bill for the budget cuts to save the U.S. government $85 billion this year, so Americans could stop having to say “sequester.”

* Apple could buy $329 16 gigabyte Wi-Fi iPad minis for 416,413,374 people — everyone in the U.S. (315,429,318), plus France and Spain.

* Or it could just give the 7,069,909,686 people on the planet $19.38 each, and call it a day.

* Apple could use $1 bills to carpet an area of 560 square miles, which would more than cover Silicon Valley.

* Finally — and I think this would be a nice gesture to make up for calling his efforts a “silly sideshow” — Apple could give Einhorn 15.56 times the value of his $8.8 billion fund.

Or, of course, not.