Over the last few years, media companies and brands have turned to Mass Relevance’s social curating platform for plenty of projects, and now the startup said it’s hit a big milestone.

Today, Mass Relevance announced that it’s pushed 25 billion pieces of “social content” (tweets, Vines, status updates, Instagram photos, and such) through its platform from the more than 250 big media companies that are its clients. That’s a lot of social content when you consider that Mass Relevance’s tech is focused on reviewing everything  before it goes out and doing it in a way that’s, well … pretty. And if you haven’t heard of Mass Relevance, that’s because the company stays largely behind the scenes.

Mass Relevance is worth keeping an eye on because it’s helping Twitter and Facebook use their social interaction data in unique ways that are appealing to media companies and big brands during live or notable events. For example, it’s in the CBS’s best interest to curate and increase social interactions during the Super Bowl because it can then justify the higher advertising rate prices to advertisers that want to run a commercial during the big game.

The platform itself allows highly visible media companies to manage the flow of social information they’re consistently getting hit with. It takes social data streams from various social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Vine, Instagram, YouTube, and others) and weaves them into a single console for clients. From there you can set word/hashtag filters, audience demographic filters (age range, gender, geography), media or social network filters, and so on — basically fine-tuning all that social data for a specific purpose. The platform can also help its clients display that “social content” intelligently through mobile apps, live TV broadcasts, websites, projector screens at conferences, stadium displays, and other visualizations that run alongside media events.

Source: Mass Relevance

Mass Relevance CTO Eric Falcao presenting to President Obama during his recent trip to Austin, Texas.

You’ve probably experienced Mass Relevance’s tech in action without realizing it, too. It’s already working with all four major broadcast TV stations (Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC) as well as the most socially engaged prime time television shows (X Factor, Glee, American Idol, and The Voice). Previously, the company curating tweeted questions from audience members watching panels at SXSWi back in March, helped launch the first Twitter Town Hall for President Barack Obama, managed Twitter data during the 2012 Olympic Games, integrated Facebook data for CNN’s coverage of the 2012 election, and also worked with some of last year’s biggest media events (2012 Grammys, MTV music video awards, Super Bowl XLVI, the BET awards, NBA Finals).

Mass Relevance isn’t the only startup offering media companies (and brands) a way to streamline interactions from across multiple social networks. One example is indirect competitor Echo, which has seen success of its own platform of social curation tools with clients like pro wrestling company WWE. Yet, Mass Relevance does seem to be emerging as a leader when it comes to building tools for large events. While it didn’t disclose financial figures, the company said its revenue quadrupled in 2012 (compared to the previous year), and estimates doubling revenue again by the end of 2013.

Founded in 2010, the Austin-based startup has previously raised $5.5 million in total funding to date. Mass Relevance has 90 employees, but plans to double its R&D team in the next year as well as open an international office in London, U.K. this month.

Photos via Mass Relevance

The latest city that incubator program TechStars will expand into is bustling tech city Austin, Texas, the organization announced today.

TechStars is an incubator program that selects only a handful of startups in each city it operates in, which receive $118,000 in seed funding ($18,000 plus optional $100,000 convertible note), support from plenty of mentors at successful startups, opportunity to pitch investors, and lots of perks that an up-and-coming company would need to make a big impact. Hundreds apply for a spot in the program, but it only selects 10 in each location. The program itself runs three months and is only conducted once per year.

Austin seems like a shoo-in for the program, as its already a booming tech city with tons of vibrant startups and a good base of offices from large tech companies like Intel, Dell, Samsung, Applied Materials, IBM, National Instruments, and plenty of others. A handful of the company’s successful startups — Mass Relevance and Stormpulse, both of which count the White House as a client of its services — even got praise from President Barack Obama on his recent trip to Austin last week. There’s also the week-long (or two weeks, if you count music) SXSW event every March.

So, what exactly took so long for TechStars to get here?

“We know that Austin is one of the top startup communities in the country. But timing is everything,” TechStars cofounder David Cohen told VentureBeat via email. “We don’t do anything unless we can do it with very high quality, and we haven’t been ready until now. It’s not so easy to just launch new locations and do it with extreme quality.”

Jason Seats will manage TechStars Austin. He previously founded Slicehost and was VP of software development at RackSpace. He’s also managed TechStars Cloud in San Antonio for two years, which means he has a very good background when it comes to running the Austin branch.

Applications for the Austin program open today. As for what TechStars is looking for, Cohen said:

“In terms of company selection, we’ll be opportunistic in Austin, like we are anywhere else. We are not focusing on any particular vertical area for that program – it’s just like our others in New York, London, Boston, Chicago, Boulder, and Seattle in that sense. As you know, we generally see about a 1 percent acceptance rate, so we’re looking for disruptive companies which leverage the power of the Internet, most importantly founded by amazing entrepreneurs. Team, team, team, market, progress, idea – in that order.”

The new Austin branch will also see support from the city’s most notable venture firms and investors, including Austin Ventures, Silverton, Live Oak, Brett Hurt, Sam Decker, Jeff Dachis, Josh Baer, Rony Kahan, Bill Boebel, and others.

Austin downtown skyline photo via Dylan Tweney/VentureBeat

Paul Pellman is the CEO of Adometry, Inc.

In recent weeks there has been substantial debate about fraud in the advertising industry. Of course, these conversations aren’t new. Click fraud lawsuits have been a near constant for almost a decade.

In 2009, the Wall Street Journal wrote an in-depth report about hidden ads, prompting the formation of an industry group, StopAdFraud.org, which for a time attempted to create a blacklist of offenders in order to curtail the number of publishers enabling click fraud or low-quality impressions. More recently, there have been widely-reported organized click fraud rings – mostly originating from China and Russia in the form of “Botnets” – that involve tens of thousands of IP addresses visiting hundreds of domains and clicking millions of digital ads. Among our clients, which include large and small advertisers, agencies and ad networks, approximately 16 percent of monthly clicks are invalid – roughly half the industry average aided by sophisticated blocking lists that have been assembled to weed out known offenders over several years. While a 100 percent block rate is impossible, this number is still much too high.

All of this fraudulent activity comes at the (literal and figurative) expense of advertisers and agencies. To quote a former editor of a well-regarded tech blog who wrote frequently about this topic, “as long as advertisers pay for clicks, there will be click fraud.” Unfortunately, this mantra has only expanded to encompass the full swath of digital advertising including page-view impressions, views of online video and the like.

A persistent problem

There are many types of fraud and each has a slightly different impact on advertisers depending on the revenue models being used. Some of the most nefarious activity is caused by Botnets described above — these are sophisticated programs designed specifically for click fraud that leverage a network of computers (with or without the users’ consent) to visit websites or click display ads in an effort to generate unnaturally high traffic for commercial gain. Click fraud practices also continue to be present within Ad Networks themselves. We often see programmatic or scripted activity designed to appear to be human behavior. Beyond simple “invalid click” behavior through human or technological means, we see ad injectors, “stacking” ads one behind another, 1×1 pixels, fraudulent browser plugins, and cookie stuffing.

The arms race conundrum

Companies like ours work closely with advertisers, ad networks and agencies to help protect brands and combat all aspects of ad fraud, including maintaining growing lists of bad actors and providing data to clients to ensure they don’t pay for invalid clicks or inflated traffic. These ‘sell side’ solutions are important as they represent the front lines of the fight against ad fraud and protect the underlying economics of the online advertising business. Unfortunately, these technologies can’t prevent scammers from attempting to game the system entirely, and as long as there are incentives to do so there will be offenders that attempt to steal a slice of the multi-billion dollar advertising industry. In other words, we’ll continue to get better at detecting and preventing their tactics, and they’ll continue to develop new ways to circumvent the system.

It’s time for an ad fraud ‘pivot’

If you’ve ever seen the 80’s film War Games you remember the famous scene at the end of the movie during which the war games simulator has a sentient moment when it realizes “the only winning move is not to play.” Similarly, up to this point many online advertisers have decided to deal with fraud by simply ignoring it, leaving it up to ad networks and a small group of fraud-fighting vendors to deal with the problem. Long-term this approach is not only doomed to fail, but it also ignores the important role advertisers and agencies must play if the industry is ever going to disrupt the growing universe of scam-y, click fraud offenders in a meaningful way.

Unlike sell-side platforms and ad networks, advertisers hold a critical card in the fight against fraud – money. By virtue of controlling how ad budgets are spent and allocated, big advertisers and their agencies ultimately have the power to starve out scammers. In this model, instead of solely relying on ad networks catching a higher percentage of fraudulent activity, advertisers change the game by developing new measures that only reward good behavior. In other words, they stop looking only at ineffective KPIs like CPMs and start developing systems that weed out all but those supplying high-quality traffic and impression that accrue to revenue.

In the marketing attribution space, one approach we’re seeing many companies employ successfully is a gradual move away from simple metrics to new, modern techniques that calculate conversion credits on a granular level. There are many reasons for this, but one motivating factor that is often cited is a desire to understand not just what happened as a result of any given marketing campaign but how and why it happened. Using attribution algorithms, advertisers can identify which channels and media are performing well or poorly, then redistribute budgets or optimize spending around what’s performing best. Using the same data, marketers can give targeted feedback to demand-side platforms (DSPs) and real-time bidding partners to improve results and buy higher-quality placements. Ultimately, they may decide to stop allocating budget to specific ad networks if the inventory fails to deliver. Another benefit of cross-channel attribution is that pure-play vendors are like Switzerland – a beacon of neutrality. By having no stake in the outcome, independent attribution vendors can focus on providing unbiased analysis and let you worry about what to do with that information.

Final word

Depending on who you ask, you’re likely to get different answers as to how serious a problem fraud is in the digital advertising industry. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but when it comes to fraud one thing that is certain is the status quo is no longer working. Advertisers would be wise to heed the famous words of Jack Welch, “control your own destiny or someone else will.”

Boxing photo via Shutterstock

Paul Pellman is the CEO of Adometry, Inc., a marketing analytics provider that generates insights about the performance of marketing campaigns through combining and interpreting advertising data from online and offline channels.

Google and the City of Austin just sent out a slew of invitations to an event next week, but they declined to provide details on what will be announced.

While city officials are staying quiet, multiple sources tell VentureBeat that the announcement could involve expanding Google’s gigabit broadband Internet service Google Fiber to Austin. Alternately, the city could announce plans for a new Austin-based Google campus, or even some partnership to involve the city with a new Google service. Whatever the announcement, it’s safe to say that it’ll be of interest to a broad section of the local community.

Here’s the invitation itself:

On Tuesday, April 9, at 11 a.m., the City of Austin and Google will make a very important announcement that will have a positive impact on Austinites and the future of the city. We anticipate more than 100 community leaders and elected officials to be in attendance to celebrate this announcement. The event invitation is attached for your convenience. Although we cannot share the details of the announcement with you in advance, we know readers will want to learn more, so we encourage you to join us on Tuesday.

Google Fiber offers download and upload speeds that are 100 times faster than the average consumer broadband Internet connection, and at a much cheaper price. The service launched in the Kansas City area back in July, which instantly prompted competing services from Time Warner Cable to boost their own offerings. Currently, Google Fiber is only being offered in Kansas City, Kan. and nearby Olathe, Kan., as well as Kansas City, Mo., but Google chairman Eric Schmidt has previously stated that this is not a side project for the company — implying that Google Fiber could launch elsewhere in the future.

The presence of Google Fiber within Kansas City has sparked an increase in new tech startups in the area, as VentureBeat’s Sean Ludwig previously pointed out. Austin already has a robust startup culture and is home to several large tech company campuses, including Dell, National Instruments, Intel, Apple (call center), Samsung, and others. That said, Austin is very much a tech-focused city, so the availability of Google Fiber would only add to that.

Photo by Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

With slick new version of its gesture-based mobile email app now available, productivity startup Taskbox announced that it’s raised a $600,000 seed round of funding today.

Taskbox is focused on bringing a better, more efficient way to sort through your email while on a mobile device. It differs from competitors like Mailbox because it always wants to help you turn email messages into a prioritized task list without harvesting your personal data. It’s currently only available on the iPhone for Gmail and Google Apps users, but the startup does have plans to expand in the near future.

The additional capital will be used to hire additional employees for engineering and design. Taskbox tells me it’s already hired two new employees to help reach its goal of becoming your “one-stop shop” for staying more productive throughout the day, more akin to an Evernote instead of just being a solid smartphone email client.

The new seed round was led by Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN) with participation from other notable angel investors, including McAfee’s CTO Michael Fey and James Foster.

Founded in 2012, the Austin, Texas-based startup has raised a total of $850,000 in funding to date. Taskbox is seeking to raise a series A round of funding in the later half of 2013.

Money image via Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

You know what sucks worse than email? Waiting in line to use an app that’s supposed to make using email easier. That’s exactly what you’ll have to do if you download the hotly discussed mobile email iPhone app Mailbox.

Fortunately, rival Taskbox can do pretty much everything Mailbox does, but without the ridiculously long waiting period.

Like Mailbox, Taskbox is an iOS email client app that operates under the assumption that it’s much easier to plow through your messages using figure gestures on your smartphone. For example, flicking your fingers right lets you archive or delete worthless messages, while swiping the opposite direction gives you the option to mark a message important.

“Clearing through your messages is really only half the battle people face when dealing with email overload. The real challenge is what to do once you’re finished,” Taskbox CEO and founder Andrew Eye told VentureBeat in an interview recently. “All your assignments and tasks usually originate from the inbox, so we really felt it was necessary to do something that addressed those problems, and not just improve your mobile email experience.”

I first encountered Taskbox back in October 2012 shortly after its initial launch and was pretty much sold on the experience. However, the startup is planning to launch a new version with a cleaner, more simplified UI, which I’ve had a chance to check out.

When you mark a message as important in Taskbox, you actually move it into a separate “Taskbox” folder and have the option of rating it by importance on a scale of 1 to 5. You can also mark messages as “complete” or “delegate” (both of which also have their own sub-folders), send short canned responses, and schedule deadlines.

Right now, the app only supports Gmail and Google Apps accounts, but more email services are planned for the future, as are native apps for Android, Windows Phone 8, and BlackBerry 10. The app runs into some issues with threaded conversations that all appear as separate messages, but if you’re constantly sorting your email through Taskbox, they shouldn’t cause you much of a problem.

The iPhone app will also set you back $3, whereas Mailbox is free; still, there are some advantages to paying for the app. Eye points to Mailbox’s bout of downtime last week as one reason to opt for a paid service.

“Downtime in email is unacceptable,” he said. Unlike Mailbox, he explained, Taskbox isn’t running all your data through its own servers, which means there’s no downtime and fewer security risks.

“Taskbox is a pure email client with no server technology necessary. That means no storing or mining of your personal information on proprietary servers… [and] no additional company/technology between you and your mission critical email,” Eye said.

Founded in 2012, the Austin, Tex.-based startup has six employees and is seeking a Series A round of funding.

We are working with UK Trade & Investment to showcase the United Kingdom's thriving start-up and investment scene through a series of posts and video interviews at SXSW. Check out all of the coverage here. As always, VentureBeat is adamant about maintaining editorial objectivity.

In its push to grow beyond its San Francisco roots, ride-sharing service SideCar has reportedly purchased Austin, Texas-based competitor Heyride, according to an AllThingsD report published today.

The acquisition probably has something to do with the SXSW conference that’s held in Austin every year in early March. And as a new resident of this fair city, I can attest to its horrible traffic congestion during the morning and evening rush, which will undoubtedly be worse with an enormous event happening. That said, ride sharing services will likely see plenty of use during SXSW.

Much like SideCar, Heyride is an iPhone app that searches your immediate area for people who are available to transport you around town for a fee. That fee is determined prior to someone picking you up, and the transaction is done entirely over your smartphone, which eliminates awkward situations that involve breaking large bills or being surprised that the driver doesn’t have a credit card machine. You’re able to track your ride using the smartphone’s GPS and rate drivers once you’ve been dropped off.

Buying Heyride is a smart move for SideCar. Not only will it gain Heyride’s local user base, but it’ll also put the spotlight on SideCar and potentially take attention away from rival ride sharing service Lyft.

We’ve reached out to SideCar for more details about the acquisition as well as its plans for SXSW. And as always, we’ll update this post with any new information.

Founded in 2012, the San Francisco-based SideCar raised a $10 million round of funding back in October from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Google Ventures. Since launching last year, the startup has facilitated over 50,000 rides and grown a community of hundreds of drivers and thousands of passengers.

We are working with UK Trade & Investment to showcase the United Kingdom's thriving start-up and investment scene through a series of posts and video interviews at SXSW. Check out all of the coverage here. As always, VentureBeat is adamant about maintaining editorial objectivity.

The 2013 South By Southwest Interactive event is likely to bring hundreds of smart, plucky startups to Austin, Tex. next month, but co-working space/accelerator program Capital Factory wants at least one to stick around.

Capital Factory is inviting startups to enter into its “relocate to Austin” competition for a shot at getting a relocation package worth up to $50,000.

“We aren’t doing this because we think its hard to get people to move to Austin,” Capital Factory Director Joshua Baer told VentureBeat, adding that its relatively easy to attract entrepreneurs to the area based on the number of startups that have popped up over the years. “We’re just trying to capitalize on that, and on SXSW being here.”

Baer said the types of companies that are likely to stand apart in the competition will be those with “a clear path to revenue,” and those that are similar to the types of companies Capital Factory admits into its accelerator program, which attempts to cultivate profitable companies with $1 million in funding or less.

And as a testament to the sense of community in Austin, several local startups are donating resources to help make the relocation package happen, including six months of free hosting from Rackspace, three-months free rent in a three-bedroom house via HomeAway, free groceries via Greenling, six months of free storage unit space via SpareFoot, some moving expenses via uShip, six months free office space at Capital Factory and more.

“I’m sure between now and the actual event, the package is going to get even better,” Baer said.

The top five companies based outside of Austin will present at an event March 8 at SXSW. The winning startup will also automatically be enrolled into Capital Factory’s accelerator program. Applications to enter the relocation competition are currently open via AngelList and run through Feb. 24.

Image via Capital Factory

Adometry is startup that generates analytics to get a better return on advertising, and it’s raised a $8 million round of funding, the company announced today.

Adometry tracks multiple sets of data across different ad channels (TV, web display ads, email, print, and so on) and provides analytics to show exactly where you’re actually getting the most effect. Clients can then adjust their advertising budgets accordingly to avoid paying for advertising that isn’t working — and spend more on ads that are.

The startup said it plans to use the new capital to advance its product roadmap, hire more people, and expand into new markets.

The new round was led by Shasta Ventures with participation from Austin Ventures and Sierra Ventures. Under terms of the deal, Shasta Ventures Managing Director Jason Pressman will join Adometry’s board of directors.

“Using big data to optimize and influence advertising spend is the future of marketing, and many of the world’s largest brands already rely on Adometry’s robust platform and expertise,” Pressman said in a statement.

Adometry’s clients include Microsoft, Kroger, IPG, Hyundai, Kia Motors, AT&T, and others.

Founded in 2005, the Austin, Texas-based startup has raised a total of $8.45 million in funding to date.

Image via Adometry

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The problem with most digital display advertising is that it’s rarely as compelling as the content it runs besides on a webpage.

OneSpot, a new advertising startup that launches today, thinks it can fix that problem by converting news articles, reviews, and blog posts into display ads.

The service essentially takes a link from an outside source, and refits it to the specifications of an ad. Founder Matt Cohen walked me through the process, which appeared to be very similar to what you’d find when sharing a post on social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google Plus. Each add contains the post’s artwork and headline, although if you have concerns over the chosen photo, there is an option to swap out something different.

So for example, if I wrote something particularly favorable about a service or product that a company liked and wanted to share, it can now go a step further than just posting my article on their Facebook page or tweeting it out over Twitter. Now, those companies can re-purpose my content as an ad, which will drive traffic to my post and spread the word to potential customers. Of course, there is something a bit unsavory about non-commercial content getting used as an advertisement, but its nothing new. This just happens to make the process simpler.

“We’re not doing anything that isn’t already being done on Facebook and Twitter,” OneSpot founder Matt Cohen told me in an interview Friday. He added that any publisher that does have a problem with their content being used can request that it be taken down. Honestly, I don’t know many publishers that will complain about getting new traffic though.

The real power of OneSpot lies in its ability to plug its advertising into various platforms like Google Adwords, Facebook, and others. Clients set a budget for their ads based on a particular set of parameters (gender, location, age range, etc.), and the OneSpot service will assess the best ad platform for the money. It also tracks all of ads and offers reports to its ad clients.

The Austin-based startup has about 20 clients at launch, and has raised a new $1.5 million round of funding from RSL Venture Partners, 500 Startups, Ralph Mack, Mike Maples, Sr., Josh Baer, and others.

Austin, Tex.-based startup SocialGood.TV recently announced its intentions to purchase Current TV, the struggling cable channel led by former Vice President Al Gore and founder Joel Hyatt.

Current launched in 2005 as an Internet user-curated progressive news channel. Originally, the network tried to integrate functionality of community news sharing site Digg with traditional television programming. In late 2009, Current scaled back its online presence to focus on just programing. Over the last year the network, rebranded itself as a left-leaning news channel with prime time political shows hosted by Keith Olberman (no longer will the company), former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, and The View co-host Joy Behar.

Last month, Hyatt confirmed to the NY Post that the network was formally taking steps to put the cable channel up for sale, should the right offer come along. The decision, Hyatt said, came after the network was approached about an acquisition deal on three separate occasions this year. And now it looks like SocialGood.TV could be the first to make a formal offer.

SocialGood.tv is an online video startup focused on driving engagement to worthy causes through its content. The startup’s intent really reminds me of the early days of programming on Current, which was dominated by shows like infoMania, user-curated news show Current Tonight, and its documentary-style journalism series Vangaurd. But SocialGood.tv has been operating in stealth-mode for the last eight months, and only recently decided to pop up on the public radar after hearing news of Current’s potential sale.

“When we heard Current was up for sale, we obviously shifted gears,” SocialGood.tv founder Stephen Vogelpohl told me in a phone interview. “The Current network really lines up with what we’re doing at SocialGood, (and) this is such a good opportunity that we couldn’t pass it up.”

Vogelpohl said the deal may involve relocating the San Francisco-based cable network to Austin, Tex., which is something that would likely benefit Austin’s growing technology and startup scene as well as other parts of the community. Also, the network’s programming would shy away from political commentary in favor of unbiased coverage of important issues.

Since the startup doesn’t have enough capital to purchase Current on its own, Vogelpohl reached out to a number of potential investors with experience closing deals of this size and are familiar with the media industry. And while many of the details are still being determined, Vogelpohl told me he’s spoken to around five different investors that account for about 80 percent of the funds needed to make an offer on the cable network. Investors would also be creating a brand new company that would push Current forward, rather than using the SocialGood.tv brand, he said.

Even if SocialGood.tv and its crop of investors are able to raise sufficient funds to make a formal offer on Current, they may not be the only potential buyer. While nothing has been officially expressed, Comcast/NBCUniversal or Disney/ABC News might have an interest in buying the ailing network.

It’s hard to say how much Current’s owners will ask for the network, which doesn’t have stellar ratings  Current is available in 60 million U.S. homes, and brought in an estimated $16.9 million in ad revenue in 2011, according to the NY Post.

Photo via MSNBC