Fatdoor, online social network for neighborhoods, snags fat stack of cash
Fatdoor, a social networking site for suburban neighborhoods and small communities, has raised $5.5 million from Norwest Venture Partners and KeyNote Ventures.
Networking and community sites focused on local markets have not yet produced a major success, (and there have been a few failures) but investors continue to pour money in.
Fatdoor, which we covered here, takes a controversial approach: It mixes phonebook data with maps from Microsoft Virtual Earth to pre-populate its site with basic profiles… Continue Reading
Fatdoor turns neighborhoods into online social networks
Ever wanted to get to know your neighbors before interacting with them in real life? If so, fatdoor, which launches its public beta tomorrow, might be for you.
Fatdoor takes phone book data from companies like infoUSA and mashes it up with Microsoft Virtual Earth, mapping people to their own homes and creating pre-populated visualizations of entire neighborhoods. (see screenshot below). It combines standard social networking functionality and a wiki thats lets you (or your neighbors… Continue Reading
The dirt on Amazon, Steve Jobs, Topix, Fatdoor, MySpace, VC tax and more
Here’s the latest action:
Amazon’s odd and scary patent — First, Amazon rolled out a product called Mechancial Turk (image left), where people do tasks for you that a machine couldn’t perform. Strange name, we thought, but nicely couched in history, and the people still ruled. But the latest Amazon patent puts the machine in charge, breaking down tasks, and commanding the human to do them. According to the patent, just awarded, “the humans perform the subtasks… Continue Reading