Glam edits Oscars Twitter feed and makes money
Women’s publisher and advertising network Glam is seeking to make money by editing streams from Twitter, Friendfeed and Facebook’s status updates.
Take tonight’s Oscars event, for example. Glam has launched a widget on its home page that lets users tweet their thoughts about the Oscars. But Glam’s stream is different from a standard Twitter stream (#Oscars) because Glam edits it. Glam’s entertainment editors decide which users are allowed to tweet in the stream and culls … Continue Reading
Video: The credit crisis simply explained
While most people realize that the credit crisis has been the key factor in our country’s economic disaster, and we’re all familiar with some of the keywords like “sub-prime”, a lot of people out there probably don’t have a real understanding of what exactly it all means and how it came about. Those people should watch the following video made by Jonathan Jarvis, a student at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, … Continue Reading
Oasys Water raises $10M for new desalination technology
Companies have been trying for decades to increase the efficiency of desalination. Oasys Water thinks it has a solution. The Cambridge, Massachusetts based desalination start-up has announced closing a $10 million dollar Series A funding round. Among the major investors are Flagship Ventures, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. These firms, hailing from Massachusetts and Silicon Valley, all have investments in several areas, and growing cleantech portfolios.
Oasys, short for Osmotic Application Systems, is developing a proprietary … Continue Reading
Indian innovation thriving despite downturn and terrorism
MUMBAI, India – A grueling 20-hour flight from Silicon Valley, India’s megacity of Slumdog Millionaire fame seems far removed from the U.S. economic meltdown. Shoppers and diners fill stores and restaurants in the upscale Phoenix Mills shopping center and the trendy SoMo (South of Bombay) neighborhood.
Ritzy hotels are filled with business people and investors betting on the economic future of India. And nearly three months after the terrorists’ attack that led to 188 deaths … Continue Reading
Twitter-for-business service Yammer moves into lifestreaming for business
Yammer, the company that offers a Twitter-like micromessaging service for businesses, has released a wide-ranging set of new features today that make it even easier for coworkers to communicate. Perhaps most prominently, the company now lets you import, share and discuss RSS feeds from other web sites. This means you can track anything from news reports to competing companies’ blogs to others’ Twitter messages.
For those who aren’t familiar, Yammer works by letting you send … Continue Reading
Songbird, music player that wants to do everything, loses CEO
Songbird , the San Francisco company offering a free Web tool to discover, play and manage music across any device, is looking for a new CEO as it focuses on making money.
Robert Lord, who founded the company, was removed this last week, and replaced by Mark Jung, who was chairman and now takes over as interim chief executive.
The three-year-old company’s music player is still under development. Jung said the company has enormous potential, … Continue Reading
Primaeva Medical raises $6M for aging skin
Primaeva Medical, a company developing a radio-frequency device to treat aging skin, has raised $6 million in a third round of funding, according to VentureWire. The company said it has completed crucial tests and will probably raise a fourth round for sales and marketing at the end of the year.
Affinity Capital Management led the round, with participation from existing investors Delphi Ventures and Frazier Healthcare Ventures. The Pleasanton, Calif. company has raised more than … Continue Reading
Sources confirm Microsoft is buying 3DV Systems
A report surfaced last week that Microsoft was buying 3DV Systems, a company that makes motion-detection technology, for $35 million. My sources confirm that this is true.
Microsoft and 3DV declined to comment to me last week.
Motion-detection will be big for the future direction of Microsoft, as it reacts to the Nintendo Wii, which revolutionized the game console industry with its motion detection technology.
As I’ve mentioned, buying 3DV would be the opening gambit … Continue Reading
Reader poll: Are used games bad for the video game industry?
J. Paul Raines, chief operating officer of game retailer GameStop, didn’t take any questions after his speech on the benefits of selling used games at the Dice Summit on Friday morning. But David Perry, chief creative officer at Acclaim Games, was one of those itching to grill Raines. Perry offered this response to Raines’ speech:
The DICE speech was GameStop’s chance to step up, and respond to the Used Game Sale issue. Instead they presented … Continue Reading
FastDue raises $5M for free business tools
FastDue, which offers a range of online office tools and forms for small businesses and freelancers, has raised a $5 million a first round of financing.
The company’s services include invoicing, past due collection, expense reports, and legal and business form agreements. As the name implies, FastDue is focused on managing the relationships between businesses and customers, and specifically on payments, but it has a big vision — to provide any service that a business … Continue Reading
Twitter slowly turning back on the SMS spigot
Back in November of last year, Canadian Twitter users were outraged when the service had to end its support for inbound SMS (text messages) updates due to rising costs. Today brings good news for some of these users: SMS support is back if you happen to be a Bell Mobility subscriber.
Apparently, Twitter’s newly hired director of mobile business development, Kevin Thau, brokered the deal to get SMS support turned back on, and Bell had … Continue Reading
New Mac mini: Don't believe the picture? Here's the video
A photo surfaced yesterday claiming to be the backside of the new Mac mini. It matched much of the earlier rumored specs about the updated device, but plenty were skeptical of the pictures. Some even broke the image down using terms like “dispersion of artifacts,” showing why they thought it was fake. But the source of the picture is now apparently striking back with a video of the machine shown in all its 5 USB-port … Continue Reading
"Any college will do" and CampusExplorer raises $2.25M to help you find it
Now is a good time to be in the business of helping people find the school that’s right for them — and that’s within their budget. CampusExplorer is one of a crop of web companies trying to do so; it announced a second round of $2.25 million earlier this week, following up on a year of strong growth. I spoke with serial entrepreneur and company chief executive Jerry Slavonia recently to learn more about how … Continue Reading
DICE Summit: Nintendo shows cute applications for DSi game handheld
The Nintendo DSi is launching on April 5 in the U.S. and the Japanese company teased DICE Summit attendees today with a look at some applications for it.
The DSi is the third major upgrade to the handheld game player since its introduction in 2004. Selling for $169, this version will have two cameras, better sound, a wireless application download store and other improvements.
One of the applications in development is Moving Memo Pad, which … Continue Reading
Crime-fighting site Adam's Block to get a new start
Some four months ago, in the third week of October, Adam Jackson, 22, steadied his web cam near the window of his apartment, which loomed over a seedy corner of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. From its perch, the camera live-cast all the bizarre events you’d expect from the infamous neighborhood — fights, car jackings and robberies, to name a few. And the web site Adam’s Block was born. While a number of other similar sites … Continue Reading
Stealthy Soladigm snags $10.6M for green buildings
Soladigm, a fairly stealthy green building company based in Santa Rosa, Calif., just brought in $10.6 million, reports VentureWire. This sum breaks down into $4 million in debt and $6.6 million in convertible securities from Khosla Ventures and Sigma Partners.
Very little information is available about Soladigm. According to its web site, it brings together experts in glass, optical coatings and semiconductors to reduce energy consumption in buildings. It is also currently hiring.… Continue Reading
Virgance gets funding, deal to install solar for businesses
Virgance, a San Francisco startup with multiple business lines all focusing on social activism, has scored $750,000 in seed funding and is also unveiling a new deal that should help it install more solar panels on roofs around the Bay Area.
We’ve covered Virgance before, although it’s a difficult company to track given that it has several founder teams, each focused on different ideas. There’s Carrotmob, which just soft-launched today; it organizes groups of consumers … Continue Reading
Coghead shutters, sells assets to SAP
Coghead, a startup that let users create web applications without advanced coding knowledge, has finally sold its intellectual property to shareholder SAP AG after a month of hunting for a buyer. The deal officially closed last week, but no financial terms have been disclosed. According to software giant SAP, Coghead’s technology will be used internally and not marketed as a product of its own.
Redwood City, Calif.-based Coghead started looking to be acquired at the … Continue Reading
Marc Andreessen joins the VC ranks
Not everyone is has been scared off by weakening returns on venture capital: Marc Andreessen, best known for co-founding Netscape and serving as the chairman of social network builder Ning, is creating a new venture fund. He first announced that he’s “creating a fund” on the Charlie Rose Show yesterday, and he confirmed to peHUB that it’s going to be a venture capital fund.
Of course, Andreessen is already an active investor who has backed … Continue Reading
Forget Atlantis, someone use Google Earth to find the Seven Cities of Gold!
Somewhere off the coast of northern Africa, near the Canary Islands, there’s a perfect rectangle that lies underwater. It resides in a place long considered a possible location of the mythical lost civilization Atlantis. And it was found using Google Earth.
Wait, hold on a second. You mean to tell me that what scientists and crazies alike couldn’t find for thousands of years was discovered by a 38 year old man in England sitting at … Continue Reading
