Cardiac monitor maker iRhythm looks to insiders for $6.5M
iRhythm Technologies, maker of a recently-launched cardiac monitoring device, has raised an additional $6.5 million in a first round of funding from existing investors, bringing the two-year-old round’s total to $19 million. Based in San Francisco, the company will use the money to more widely market its product after getting the Food and Drug Administration’s stamp of approval earlier this year.
It should be enough to push iRhythm to break even, the company says. All … Continue Reading
The top 12 trends of the video game industry
It’s good to step back and get a good look at the various cross-currents in the games landscape. Over the last few weeks I’ve been surrounded by game developers at the Login online games conference in Seattle and the Quo Vadis game developers event in Berlin, both events where I was invited to speak, and have seen several trends emerging — some good, some bad. Here they are:
1. Game startup financings have slowed from … Continue Reading
Slacker raises $9.6M for player that customizes radio on the go
Slacker, popular internet radio provider and maker of a customizable radio-listening device, has brought in $9.6 million of what it hopes will be a $10.2 million third round of funding. Based in San Diego, Calif., the company now offers the same radio stations and capabilities in the form of applications for the Blackberry and iPhone.
To put it simply, the device — called the Slacker G2 — seems to be the physical manifestation of Pandora … Continue Reading
Wells Fargo update disrupts payday
Quick, blame Google! The attached screenshot shows Wells Fargo still “temporarily unavailable” at 2:45 pm Pacific time. A customer service rep told one of our sources that four million customers were affected.
For many online bank users, this outage on the 15th of the month is especially a problem. They had planned to pay bills today from their direct deposit paychecks. Wells Fargo has posted a phone number to call if you need to pay … Continue Reading
Xsigo raises funds for wireless data centers
Xsigo, maker of a device that virtualizes network connections in data centers, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from North Bridge Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, among others. The San Jose, Calif. company says its technology can drastically reduce the number of wires running through server farms.
Xsigo says the new money will be used to grow its sales and marketing organization. It already has 35 customers … Continue Reading
Google improves Blog Search, but not by much
Google Blog Search just got a few upgrades — it apparently wants to become more like algorithm-driven news aggregator Techmeme, before that site let in the humans. Specifically, Blog Search has added more items to its “clusters” of stories about a particular topic, as Jeremy Hylton, Google’s head of search quality in New York, details to Search Engine Land. Now it’s trying to feature “the freshest and most authoritative blog content” using “a lot of … Continue Reading
What's next: Free computers for small businesses?
Small and medium businesses (SMBs) -– companies of less than 50 employees -– are the holy grail of software. They compose 99.7% of all U.S. employers and generate 40-50% of GDP, but are notoriously resistant to technology: Only 39% think IT can help them compared to 80% of large businesses. 70% of SMBs don’t even have a website. Technology vastly enhances productivity but as analyst Steve Hilton writes, “SMBs are stuck in a productivity malaise … Continue Reading
Sorry, Twitter, Prop. 8 has not been overturned
Updated
This just in from Twitter — California’s Prop. 8, which amended the state constitution to ban gay marriage, has been overturned by the state Supreme Court. Since I’m a typical San Francisco liberal, you can probably guess how I reacted. To paraphrase some of the comments on Twitter: We won!
Except, oh wait, we didn’t. Everyone tweeting about gay marriage’s victory failed to look at the time stamp on the article being linked to, … Continue Reading
Wells Fargo outage said to affect 4 million customers
A Wells Fargo customer tipped us off this morning that his personal bank account at WellsFargo.com has been unreachable since Thursday night. Many Twitter users are making the same claim. Search #wellsfargo to see the history of complaints.
A Wells Fargo customer service representative told our source over the phone that the outage affected half of what the employee said were the bank’s 8 million online customers.
Service has just now been restored, around 11 … Continue Reading
Federated Media searching for a "new leader"
Federated Media, which sells ads for more than 100 blogs and websites (including VentureBeat), is looking for a new executive to run the company, founder and chief executive John Battelle said in a blog post today.
So is this a CEO search? Um, maybe. “The title will depend on the person,” Battelle says, but basically Federated is looking for someone who can manage the business while Battelle focuses on working with the major clients, and … Continue Reading
Sony's Free Realms game signs up a million users in 17 days
Sony Online Entertainment said today it has registered more than a million users in 17 days for its kid-focused Free Realms massively multiplayer online game.
The game uses the free-to-play business model pioneered in Asia, where players start playing for free and pay for virtual goods one at a time in micro-transactions.
John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment in San Diego, said the response to the game was overwhelming. Smedley, who gave the keynote … Continue Reading
Technorati's Attention Index shows influence of the New York Times, YouTube
Technorati’s Attention Index measures which mainstream media sites get the most links and thus wield the most influence.
In the second installment of the the monthly index, the New York Times notably is listed as twice as influential as any other publication. But YouTube is even several times more influential.
Technorati usually measures a blog’s influence based on links to blog posts. The more links a blog has, the higher it ranks on Technorati’s list … Continue Reading
Next new biz: Free computers for small businesses?
Small and medium businesses (SMBs) -– companies of less than 50 employees -– are the holy grail of software. They compose 99.7% of all U.S. employers and generate 40-50% of GDP, but are notoriously resistant to technology: Only 39% think IT can help them compared to 80% of large businesses. 70% of SMBs don’t even have a website. Technology vastly enhances productivity but as analyst Steve Hilton writes, “SMBs are stuck in a productivity malaise … Continue Reading
Roundup: Venture capital's alleged irrelevance, Zillow's continued success, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Study says venture capitalists less relevant for web startups — Santa Clara University Prof. Robert Hendershott has concluded that lower startup costs mean many entrepreneurs should go it alone, rather than raise funding from VCs.
Why isn’t Zillow dead? – Webware’s Rafe Needleman says he thought the real estate startup was in trouble, but an interview with chief executive Rich Barton convinced him otherwise.
Google Product Search for Android adds barcode … Continue Reading
When Google fails, the Internet fails
Here are eye-catching illustrations of why GoogleFail, this morning’s slowdown/outage of numerous Google services, was a Very Big Deal. Above, you can see how much data was transferred by 10 different internet service providers monitored by security company Arbor Networks. Below, you can see traffic to sites run by MerchantCircle, which manages the internet presence for 750,000 local businesses. Those dips, of course, correspond with the outage, and while we here at VentureBeat believe the … Continue Reading
Friendapalooza: Facebook Connect helping music fans navigate major music festivals
A common music fan scenario: You’re going to a huge festival where lots of your favorite bands are playing all at once. You want to see which of your friends are going, and to what acts — and if there’s a hot new group, you want your friends to share some actual music with you beforehand. Traditionally, you’d have to do a bunch of calling or emailing around to figure out who’s going where. But … Continue Reading
WhitePages iPhone app update makes finding businesses, people easier
Got an idea for an iPhone app? Good luck, it’s probably been implemented 37,000 times already.
Apps will more and more need to differentiate themselves by executing a familiar idea better, or radically differently. WhitePages’ updated WhitePages Mobile app looks a lot cleaner than the old one. But it’s also better at finding stuff.
Matt Marshall wrote about his problems with WhitePages’ background check service. But that doesn’t affect my reaction to these key new … Continue Reading
DEMO 2.0 Happy Hour tonight 5-7 pm @ Varnish in San Francisco
We’ve got nearly 200 confirmed attendees, yet all are still welcome to Varnish, 77 Natoma Street at 2nd in San Francisco, for a happy hour in advance of this year’s fall DEMO event. First 50 people in the door get a free drink. Everyone gets to learn about September’s DEMOfall show in advance.
Why the 2.0? Because VentureBeat editor in chief Matt Marshall is taking the reins from longtime producer Chris Shipley. The two will … Continue Reading
Video games slide down the recession slope as April sales fall 17 percent
Hurt by the recession and a tough comparison to a year ago, video game sales fell 17 percent in April compared to a year ago.
That means game sales have fallen for the second month in a row, with sales in March also falling 17 percent.
Overall U.S. game console hardware, software and accessories saw sales fall to $1.03 billion compared to $1.24 billion a year ago, market researcher NPD reported. Software fell even more, … Continue Reading
MobileBeat 2009: It's the application, stupid!
We’re delighted to announce the specific panel topics for MobileBeat 2009, the conference VentureBeat is holding on July 16.
We’ve been working on this since February, contacting industry experts about what they think are the industry’s key drivers. Our initial findings, which we announced a few days ago: The excitement around mobile applications — be it an iFart app, the Skype app or March Madness for the iPhone — is having a major impact on … Continue Reading
