Here are Zynga’s minority investors: Google, Peter Thiel, Softbank and others

Social game maker Zynga has outed its minority investors, which stand to make some serious cash off the company’s upcoming $1 billion initial public offering, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Among the list of minority investors are search giant Google and Japan’s Softbank — two companies that invested more than $100 million each but were omitted in its first filing. Softbank invested around $150 million into the company to … Continue Reading

Internet claims another victim: Borders closes remaining retail stores

Borders, the second-largest chain of book stores, announced that it will close its 399 remaining retail locations after failing to sell to another company, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The closed chain could cause sales of traditional paperback and hardcover to decline even quicker than they have to date. While many consumers have turned from brick-and-mortar locations to digital storefronts like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, spurring the decline of independent booksellers as well as … Continue Reading

Apple iOS vs. Android consumer battle heats up (and BlackBerry gets crushed)

The Apple iOS vs. Android operating systems debate is the hottest since chocolate vs. vanilla. Unfortunately for Research in Motion (RIM), the fight has made Blackberry the new strawberry in that two-way battle.

Independent research firm ChangeWave released a consumer survey Monday showing that iOS dominates consumer demand, followed by Android, with BlackBerry a distant third. The data corroborates a separate study recently released by comScore, which showed that Apple and Android have passed BlackBerry … Continue Reading

Cisco to axe 6,500 employees in massive restructuring

Networking giant Cisco Systems plans to lay off 6,500 employees as part of a massive restructuring plan, the company announced Monday.

The layoffs, which are one of the largest single layoffs this year and appear to be the largest single cut Cisco has ever made, amount to about 9 percent of Cisco’s total work force and 15 percent of executives at the vice president level and above. About 2,100 of those employees elected to participate … Continue Reading

Is Amazon going to challenge Zynga in social games?

Amazon.com‘s recent hire of a veteran games designer suggests the massive retailer may be about to get into the business of publishing games itself.

The designer, Jonathan Tweet, is presumably working on a social game for Amazon.

Amazon.com hasn’t announced the game, and Tweet has said little about it, except for an entry on his own LinkedIn profile, where he’s now listed as a “game designer/producer at Amazon.com.” Tweet (and yes, that’s his real name) … Continue Reading

Aegis Media takes $11M minority stake in media marketing firm TigerSpike

Marketing and communications company Aegis Media acquired an $11 million (U.S.) minority stake in TigerSpike, its second acquisition this month.

TigerSpike provides personal media technology branding on smart phones, tablets, Kindle e-readers, and more. The company provides marketing expertise along with success tracking metrics, analysis and in house mobile development. Clients include The Economist, Pepsi, the United Kingdom’s The Daily Telegraph, AutoTrader and the currently scandalized News Corp. TigerSpike also allows clients to dispatch their … Continue Reading

CNN offers 24/7 streaming to iPad, but just for cable and satellite customers

CNN on Monday announced it has upgraded its mobile iOS apps and website to support 24/7 live streaming video from its CNN and HLN networks.

The catch? Viewers only get access to live streams if they already pay for CNN through certain cable or satellite providers.

The list of providers, which covers about 50 million people, includes AT&T, Comcast, Cox Dish Network, Suddenlink, and Verizon. Weirdly enough, Time Warner Cable is not on the list … Continue Reading

Paymentwall’s in-game payment options gain a good following

Paymentwall said today that more than 1,000 developers have adopted its alternative payment methods for virtual goods in social games, including special ads known as offers.

By creating new payment options for gamers around the world, Paymentwall can help expand the overall game business.

“We are filling a void left by the other companies that have moved on to other strategies,” chief executive Honor Gunday said in an interview. “We are trying to become the … Continue Reading

Reddit’s former information cowboy joins Netflix

News aggregator Reddit’s first systems engineer and employee number one Jeremy Edberg has joined video rental and streaming company Netflix.

He is joining the company as the “lead cloud reliability” engineer — a prod at the company’s recent history of infrequent downtimes — he announced on his Twitter account. Edberg also indicated that the “cloud reliability” team was hiring.

Edberg recently left Reddit after working at the site for 4 years to pursue personal projects, … Continue Reading

Percolate aims to filter the flood of social media information

As social networks multiply, merely staying on top of all the updates is turning into a full-time job. Now a startup, Percolate, aims to distill your personal information flood into a more concentrated brew.

New York-based Percolate aggregates your Google Reader and Twitter feeds, highlighting the links that are most likely to be relevant to you. Its interface makes it easy to add short comments or tags to articles as they appear. In addition, Percolate … Continue Reading

$350 contract-free iPhone 3GS coming soon, report says

Looking for an off-contract iPhone but don’t want to pay an astounding amount for it? You may be in luck, as Apple is reportedly planning to release a $350 contract-free iPhone 3GS that can be extremely attractive to pre-paid customers, according to a BGR report.

Apple did not immediately respond to questions we had about the report.

The $350 contract-free iPhone 3GS will be released in late August, which would coincide with the release of … Continue Reading

Introducing DevBeat, VentureBeat’s new developer-focused channel

The Intel AppUp developer program is the official launch sponsor of DevBeat.

There’s a new category sitting atop VentureBeat: DevBeat is our new developer channel, which will be focused on breaking news surrounding programming languages, APIs, and the like. It will also serve as our go-to spot for insightful commentary aimed to assist developers.

Given the increasing amount of mobile and cloud development we’ve been covering, the addition of a channel solely devoted to developers … Continue Reading

TomTom and Coulomb Technologies offer a new Rx for electric vehicle road range anxiety

Sometimes it’s hard enough to find a gas station that has diesel. Imagine driving an electric vehicle (EV) in a new area and not knowing where to find the nearest charging station. Range anxiety is an issue for many EV owners, but today they are getting a bit of relief.

Electric vehicle charging solutions company Coulomb Technologies is announcing its partnership with TomTom to make its ChargePoint Network available to drivers on the road.

ChargePoint … Continue Reading

Volt cruises into North Carolina and South Carolina

General Motors today announced that it is ramping up sales of its plug-in hybrid electric car, the Chevy Volt, in two new states: North Carolina and South Carolina.

Like other new electric cars, the Volt is only available in a few states. Before today’s announcement, it was available in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Connecticut, California, Michigan and Texas, a representative of the company said. The Leaf initially rolled out in California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona … Continue Reading

Reality check: LinkedIn gets a downgrade from analyst

An analyst with investment bank JP Morgan, which helped underwrite business social network LinkedIn’s initial public offering, downgraded the stock today and set a price target of $85.

Doug Anmuth of JP Morgan said the company’s fundamentals were sound, but it was a little worrisome that it already had a then-valuation of nearly $12 billion. That’s close to Netflix’s $15 billion valuation, a movie rental company that generates $2.4 billion in quarterly revenue — compared … Continue Reading

Amazon finally introduces Kindle textbook rentals

Amazon on Monday announced that it would now offer students the option to rent digital textbooks, advertising that customers can save up to 80% off textbook list prices.

Buying textbooks in college has been a costly endeavor for many years, and just looking over new and used prices on textbooks in business, math, science, or history can be frightening. A CBS report last year listed the 12 most expensive college textbooks, with a jaw-dropping top … Continue Reading

Locai slims down to focus on check-in conversations

For Locai, which makes an iPhone app that lets you have conversations around check-in locations, less is more.

The Dallas, Texas-based company is launching the second version of its free iPhone app today, which strips out confusing features from its first iteration and focuses on making it easy for you to start conversations with other people checked-in to locations.

On the chopping block from the first Locai app are Klout-like gamification features that allowed you … Continue Reading

Happy Cloud joins crowded games-on-demand market

The latest entrant in the crowded games-on-demand market is Happy Cloud, a startup that lets you stream games to your computer so you can play them in minutes rather than hours.

Happy Cloud serves downloadable games to users but makes them seem like streamed games because it allows gamers to start playing within a few minutes of starting a download. It sends the packets you need to begin a game first, then finishes the download … Continue Reading