Hearst’s new gadget: More useless than the Kindle
Hearst, the media conglomerate that publishes glossy magazines like Cosmopolitan and Esquire, as well as the struggling San Francisco Chronicle, has announced a bold plan to save the print media’s broken business and content models by importing them wholesale into a device similar to Amazon’s Kindle.
Fortune reports, “Insiders familiar with the Hearst device say it has been designed with the needs of publishers in mind… The larger screen better approximates the reading experience of print… Continue Reading
Jingle Networks keys up $7.5M for directory assistance
Jingle Networks, the company that operates national telephone directory assistance (1-800-FREE-411), landed $7.5 million in a fourth round of funding, according to VentureWire. The Menlo Park, Calif. firm will add this sum to the $75 million in capital it previously raised from Goldman Sachs, Hearst, IDG Ventures, Liberty Associated Partners and Comcast Interactive Capital. First Round Capital joined for the recent round.
Jingle Networks operates through voice-recognition software that breaks down callers’ queries. It brings in… Continue Reading
Hearst buys Kaboodle, a social shopping site
Hearst Corp., the large media organization that owns the San Francisco Chronicle and sundry magazines, said it will acquire Kaboodle, a site that lets people bookmark items they find while surfing the Web, and then recommend and share them with other people.
The price was undisclosed. The start-up focuses on shopping. If someone takes time to research what “sandals” to buy for summer, they can bookmark their results and tag is sandals. Others can then find… Continue Reading