SocialTwist adds Omniture, GT Nexus executives to team, grows 60 percent in revenue

SocialTwist announced today it snagged former Omniture worldwide channel sales exec Mark Dillon (pictured left) and GT Nexus cofounder Vijay Sundaram for its own executive staff, in addition to a 60 percent increase in revenue.

SocialTwist provides incentives to a company’s current customers in exchange for referrals on their social networks. The company puts a lot of stock in what many of us already know — people consult their friends before making a purchase. Particularly … Continue Reading

Cisco acquires BNI Video for $99M

Network giant Cisco has acquired video optimization software company BNI Video for $99 million in cash, the company announced today.

BNI Video helps Internet service providers manage their video services, including entitlement, billing and quality control. As VentureBeat previously reported, BNI Video offered a good solution for older cable providers unable to keep up with the growing trend of TV moving online.

Cisco said it plans to integrate BNI Video’s technology with its Videoscape service, … Continue Reading

Windows Phone 7 to blossom in 2012 with cheaper hardware, LTE and NFC

2012 could be a quite a year for Windows Phone 7. Several new developments with Microsoft’s upstart mobile platform were revealed yesterday at the AsiaD conference that could help it become a much bigger player, including less expensive hardware options and the addition of LTE and NFC capabilities.

Several research firms, including Gartner and IDC, have predicted the Windows Phone 7 platform will be the No. 2 overall smartphone platform in the world by 2015. … Continue Reading

Google+ features are coming to more Google products, starting today with Reader

Today, Google is bringing Google+ social features into Google Reader.

The move gives us a glimpse into what the company has planned for its Plus-themed products and, in fact, the future of all Google web tools.

During a long visit to the Google campus this week, we learned that Google+ is more than a social network or a collection of communication tools; it’s Google’s plan to bring social information into everything you do on the … Continue Reading

Sony Online’s Free Realms picks up a whopping 20M users

Sony Online Entertainment’s Free Realms online game has pulled in 20 million registered users since its launch in the spring of 2009, the company said today.

That’s a pretty big milestone for a fantasy massively multiplayer online game. Sony Online Entertainment, the San Diego, Calif.-based division of Sony, has been able to do it because the title is free-to-play, meaning users can play for free and pay real money for virtual goods such as decorations … Continue Reading

iPhone 4S teardown reveals $196 cost and changes in key suppliers

The iPhone 4S looks the same as its predecessors on the outside. But on the inside, it’s a technological wonder that costs about $196 for Apple to make, according to a teardown analysis by IHS iSuppli.

The teardown reveals the key components and their costs, and it also reveals Apple’s key suppliers of major components.

The bill of materials (or cost of all components) is $188, not counting an $8 cost to manufacture the devices, … Continue Reading

Motorola’s rugged Admiral Android smartphone will retail for $99

Motorola’s Admiral, the phone maker’s latest Android smartphone, will start selling next week for $99 with a Sprint contract.

In the under-$100 price range, we’re accustomed to seeing flimsy, teeny-bopper touchscreens, but this bad boy seems geared toward the professional and enterprise market.

The specs include a 3.1-inch touchscreen, a 5MP camera, a 1.2GHz processor and a text-friendly QWERTY keyboard. The Admiral will ship with Android 2.3, a.k.a. Gingerbread.

Also, as the militaristic name might … Continue Reading

Otoy teams up with Autodesk to create cloud-rendering platform

Otoy has partnered with creativity tools maker Autodesk to create next-generation cloud rendering tools that will make film making, 3D designs, and video games easier, the company said today. Autodesk is also investing an undisclosed amount into Otoy.

The alliance makes sense because Otoy will allow game companies to create games that run on its cloud, or web-connected data centers. Game companies can also use Autodesk’s tools to create new kinds of titles that run … Continue Reading

Augmented reality for all: Total Immersion releases free AR platform, SkinVaders game

In a bid to make augmented reality more than just a buzzword, AR company Total Immersion will make its D’Fusion Studio software free for developers, it said today. The move should remove a significant barrier to entry towards creating augmented reality apps.

Augmented reality (AR) refers to a view of real-world environments that’s overlayed with digital information. As a proof of concept, the company is launching SkinVaders today, a free iOS game built with D’Fusion … Continue Reading

Google Music to support peer-to-peer file sharing

Google Music‘s upcoming online store will let you share songs with your friends, according to music industry sources, an unprecedented selling point for the fledgling service.

Peer-to-peer file sharing has been the bane of the music industry for the past decade. So how is Google getting away with making it into a feature?

One source said users who buy songs will be able to share those songs with friends, and those friends will be able … Continue Reading

CrowdStar takes a stab at a global gaming audience

Game maker CrowdStar is unveiling a new business strategy today to grow its game business into a multiplatform empire.

The new strategy, which the company is calling “Project Trident” is a three-pronged approach to take a hit franchise and leverage it across multiple platforms and multiple territories, Peter Relan, chief executive of Burlingame, Calif.-based CrowdStar, told VentureBeat. The three prongs are 1) creating mainstream female-oriented games for Facebook, 2) extending those games to smartphones and … Continue Reading

Forrst launches new jobs service for designers & devs

Popular web design and development community Forrst has just launched a new service for posting and finding jobs on the site.

The new job posting and job listings portions of the site allow employers and web pros find each another for full-time and freelance collaboration.

“I’ve hired three people (two full-time and one freelance) from Forrst myself,” said Forrst founder, Kyle Bragger, in an email exchange with VentureBeat earlier this week. “I believe in it … Continue Reading

Yahoo’s Jerry Yang says the company isn’t on the auction block … yet

Yahoo co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang says that while Yahoo’s board is famously exploring all its options, it’s not necessarily up for sale.

“The intent going in is not to put ourselves for sale. The intent is to look at all the options,” Yang said on stage at the AsiaD conference in Hong Kong.

This coy wording may come as a disappointment to the slew of would-be buyers already in line to snap up … Continue Reading

DCM invests in PapayaMobile, Appia, and more with Android-focused A-Fund

Investment firm DCM, which launched its $100 million A-Fund for Android startups back in April, today announced its first round of investments with seven promising startups.

The A-Fund is the first dedicated entirely to Android, and it competes directly with Kleiner Perkins’ $200 million iFund for iOS startups. DCM said it chose to focus on the Android platform primarily because of its massive growth. (Google said last week it has activated a total of 190 … Continue Reading

Okta beefs up cloud security with more powerful authentication features

Cloud security startup Okta has added integrated single sign-on and multifactor authentication to its cloud security offering, a move that will improve security and stability for organizations using cloud-based software.

“We’re the first company to offer this all-in-one package to give secure access to users in the cloud,” Okta CEO Todd McKinnon told VentureBeat.

Okta is of many companies in the emerging cloud software space, but it defines itself by solving the tricky problem of … Continue Reading

Groupon’s valuation takes a nosedive as the startup preps for IPO

After an avalanche of negative press and a general market downturn, Groupon is gearing up for its IPO at a valuation of less than $12 billion.

Previously, sources close to the deal said the valuation was between $15 to $20 billion.

The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that the $12 billion figure will be pitched to Groupon’s investors during its IPO roadshow.

Previously, we told you that the company’s roadshow, in which the company’s … Continue Reading

Visual.ly raises $2M to make your data pretty and interesting

Infographics startup Visual.ly has raised a new $2 million round of funding, the company announced today.

Visual.ly is building a service that will allow people to create beautiful, custom infographics using information from various databases and APIs. The service will be automated, which means users only need to specify the kind of information they want to visually display to produce an infographic. The company produced an example of what the service can do with its … Continue Reading

Facebook teams with U.S. government to help in jobs crisis

Facebook is partnering with the Department of Labor and other government agencies to help unemployed Americans get back to work, the company announced today in Washington, D.C.

The Social Jobs Partnership, as the initiative is properly called, will “help to close the gap between people and employers, said Facebook’s VP of global public policy Marnie Levine.

The partners in this initiative realize that people are already using social media to find jobs and that companies … Continue Reading

AT&T surpasses 100M subscribers, 1M iPhone 4S units activated

There’s lots of good news for AT&T today. The carrier is reporting strong earnings with major growth in its wireless business, as well as the fact that it has sold over 1 million iPhone 4S units as of last Tuesday.

Revenues totaled $31.5 billion for the third-quarter, down $103 million (.3 percent) from last year, but that slight dip was buoyed by plenty of growth: The company finally surpassed 100 million wireless subscribers, wireless churn … Continue Reading

The tech world won’t miss this 60 Minutes broadcast

60 Minutes tweeted today that Walter Isaacson, author of the biography of Steve Jobs, will appear on the show on Sunday night just before the book goes on sale on Monday.

The booking of Isaacson such a mainstream media show, which doesn’t often drill down on the subject of technology, shows just how deep an impact Jobs had on culture. The book is called iSteve: The Book of Jobs. Steve Croft will interview Isaacson, a … Continue Reading