Daily Tech Snippet: Tuesday December 16

• Big data companies are acting far more as services companies than they hope to be eventually: Data science, as a business, is still young. As the technology moves beyond the Internet incubators like Google and Facebook, it has to be applied company by company, in one industry after another. At this stage, there is a lot of hand craftsmanship rather than software automation. So the aspiring software companies find themselves training, advising and building pilot projects for their commercial customers. They are acting far more as services companies than they hope to be eventually. For now, the technical hand-holding and pump-priming is an essential step. The young companies are building the market of commercial users in retailing, finance, consumer products, health care and other industries to which they will then sell software. The cost of chasing the big data opportunity can be daunting. A glimpse into one company’s bet was revealed last month, when Hortonworks filed documents to prepare for selling shares to the public. Hortonworks is a leading distributor of the open-source Hadoop software, which is a database for handling so-called unstructured data from the web, sensors and smartphones, used in big data analytics. The company’s financial statements show rapid growth in revenue, more than doubling in the nine months that ended on Sept. 30, to $33.4 million. But its costs surged, resulting in a net loss of $86.7 million, well more than double its total revenue.

• SurveyMonkey raises $250M, valued at ~ $2B: SurveyMonkey, the Silicon Valley company that runs an online survey and questionnaire platform, announced today that it has raised $250 million in a new round of funding. The raise was first reported last night by the Wall Street Journal, and was officially confirmed by the company this morning. The new money will be used at least in part to fuel more M&A transactions, and to allow some existing investors and employees to cash out if they choose, SurveyMonkey said in a statement. This brings the total amount of venture capital invested into the 15-year-old company to more than $1.15 billion. The new round, which included participation from a group of institutional investors, reportedly values SurveyMonkey at some $2 billion, up significantly from the $1.35 billion valuation the company had just one year ago.

• Facebook video's success is scaring Google, causing Twitter to weigh autoplay: Since launching autoplay earlier this year, Facebook has been catching up to YouTube in views. In September, Facebook said it was showing 1 billion videos per day. The Twitter source, who has seen the latest numbers, said that figure has already grown to 3 billion. The insider added that the completion rate—where viewers watch the entirety of a video—is “mind-boggling,” suggesting that autoplay is a winning strategy and something Twitter ought to implement, even at the risk of upsetting some users. Meanwhile, “Google is freaking out,” said a media agency executive, as Facebook attempts to poach YouTube talent in order to improve the quality of its video offerings. YouTube has gone on the defensive with lucrative counteroffers in exchange for exclusivity. Twitter is divided over whether to allow videos to simply start playing when users scroll over them. It is a feature already adopted by Facebook, but one that scares Twitter purists who don’t want it to stray farther from its text-based roots, according to industry insiders with knowledge of the company’s video strategy. “It’s an argument that’s happening—a tug of war,” said one. 

• Amazon has dipped its toes into the greeting card business with its new mobile app, Surprise! (Yes, the exclamation mark is included.) The app allows users to personalize e-cards with photos, audio or video. The main draw? You can conveniently attach an Amazon gift card to your e-card via one simple app. The Facebook-powered app (yes, the social giant is behind this as well) is equipped with the ability to sync your Facebook account and phone calendar, making it virtually impossible to miss being present (get it?) for an important occasion. The app also helps you avoid the panicky brainstorm sessions you face when gift-stumped for your hard-to-buy-for loved ones. Surprise! is available for iOS and Android users.

• Uber surge prices during Sydney standoff, then backs off, also UberPop banned in France. On Monday, as the police surrounded a cafe in Sydney, Australia, where an armed individual was holding hostages, Uber began raising rates. The move, which the company calls surge pricing, is governed by an algorithm and occurs whenever demand spikes for rides in an area. The idea is that higher rates give drivers incentive to fill the demand. With the authorities cordoning off part of the city’s central business district, many who were stranded in the area were forced to pay roughly four times the normal rate, according to complaints on social media. In a relatively quick response, the company released a statement explaining what happened. “Surge pricing is algorithmic and responded automatically to the large increase in demand for Uber rides out of the C.B.D.,” it said, referring to the central business district. “As soon as we became aware of the situation, we capped it and made all rides free to people leaving Sydney’s C.B.D. Uber is paying for these rides. If riders got charged surge pricing earlier, we will refund it.”