South Korea’s Nurien raises $10 million for fashion-oriented virtual world
Nurien Software has been making a splash with its demos of virtual characters dressed as fashion models striding down runways in virtual fashion shows. This strategy has helped the company raise $10 million in a second institutional round of funding.
The funding suggests that investors… Continue Reading
Weblin lets you teleport your avatar from Second Life to the web
What happens in virtual worlds, stays in virtual worlds. That’s the way it’s been when you create an avatar, or virtual character, in places such as Linden Labs’ Second Life.
But now Weblin, a Hamburg, Germany-based startup, has figured out a way for you to… Continue Reading
Roundup: YouTube HD links, Del Biaggio charges, Korean game support, and more
YouTube gets links to high-definition videos – It already offered HD videos, you just had to use a simple hack to access them. In other YouTube news, the company is offering a new service for adding sound to videos you upload.
Valley investor Del Biaggio… Continue Reading
IBM and Linden Lab to create enterprise-safe virtual worlds
Plenty of people are skeptical that enterprises will embrace virtual worlds as a venue for doing serious business. IBM, on the other hand, is a total believer that 3-D worlds such as Second Life augur the future of online commerce.
IBM is announcing a partnership… Continue Reading
Roundup: Kyte gets more, Microsoft’s ad deal, NetSuite’s golden IPO, more
Here’s the latest (updated) action:
1) Kyte.tv raises $15 million
2) Electric Sheep Company lays off 22
3) FCC receives 700MHz auction applications
4) Microsoft signs $500M ad deal
5) GPS devices fly off the shelves
6) Netsuite sets high price for planned IPO
7)… Continue Reading
Second Life getting stiff — gambling, various sexual acts banned, new corporate rules…
So much for Second Life, the virtual world, being a place you can escape real-life constraints.
Second Life, the San Francisco company owned by Linden Lab, has banned “broadly offensive” sexual and other acts between avatars. It has also banned gambling.
Now, IBM is posting… Continue Reading
Roundup: Virtual sex bed suit, Geni, Gay.com, Netvibes, Helio and more
Here’s the latest (ahem) action:
Second Life avatar sues another avatar, over virtual sex bed — We should have predicted this. Second Life entrepreneur Kevin Alderman has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Second Life resident Volkov Catteneo. This is apparently the first time an… Continue Reading
IBM sees big future in 3D, but probably not in Second Life
IBM, one of the nation’s largest companies, sees a big future in 3D worlds — but it probably won’t be with Second Life.
IBM has been eager to try out 3D marketing, for reasons we’ll get to. Like other companies, it created a virtual Business… Continue Reading
Roundup: IM mania, VCs in red, Facebook classifieds road-kill, and much more
Here’s the latest action:
Feed Crier gets bought — Feed Crier, the service that lets you subscribe to blogs or other content within your instant messenger (IM), has just been bought by IMified. That company, meanwhile, says it plans to do more on mobile front…. Continue Reading
Roundup: Yu’s wild ride, StumbleUpon, dot-bomb travails and more
Here’s the latest action:
The fast rise of Gideon Yu — Gideon Yu has reportedly become a junior partner at Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s most respected venture capital firms. What a ride he’s had: He was a Yahoo treasurer until September of last… Continue Reading
Roundup: Netvibes2Go, Ooma, Wesabe, Second Life voice, Google traffic, more
Here’s the latest action:
Netvibes offers Netvibes2go — Netvibes, the company that has gotten buzz with its cool personalized home page service, is offering a mobile version called Netvibes2Go. It lets you access all your info — contained in useful modules, including email, calendar, to-do… Continue Reading
Roundup: Doppelganger targets SecondLife, Draper bankrolls sex toys & more
The latest in Silicon Valley:
Doppelganger raise $5M more for virtual world focused on teens — Doppelganger is the San Francisco start-up taking aim at the teen, or MTV audience (see our earlier coverage). It launched last year with a virtual club featuring the band… Continue Reading
Google’s virtual world, the blog filter rush & more
(Updated) Round-up in Silicon Valley:
Google working on a Google Earth version of Second Life? — So says venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg, a partner at Benchmark capital, the firm that invested in Second Life, citing a rumor from the “PhD grapevine.” [Update: Google spokesman Daniel… Continue Reading
Moritz’s favorites, Google in SF, nano fears, Flock, Pandora & more
Roundup of Silicon Valley news:
Google’s Larry and Sergey were more interested in technology than Yahoo founders — There’s a revealing 2000 interview with venture capitalist Michael Moritz posted by PodVentureZone, comparing Google’s co-founders and Yahoo’s. He was an investor and on the board of… Continue Reading
Roundup: Cisco sues, Avvenu, Weatherbill, Techdirt, Blue Origin & more
Here’s the latest wrap-up of Silicon Valley tech news:
Cisco sues Apple over iPhone name — Who cares? If Apple loses, it will come up with a different name. Like, ApplePhone, or iPodPhone. Details of suit.
Yahoo signs deal with Akimbo to deliver video to… Continue Reading
Jobster’s jobs, IBM cools on Second Life, Shotspotter works & more video
Here’s a round-up of the latest tech stuff:
Jobster may cut a significant portion of its 145-person workforce? — Reports of major pending layoffs at Jobster are ironic, not merely because the company helps employers find employees. But because the company appears to doing the… Continue Reading
Susan Wu, the first virtual venture capitalist, blogs
Susan Wu is an associate at Charles River Ventures, and becomes the latest in the rare group of female venture capitalists writing a blog (you can count them on one hand).
The blog is called Reality, a play on the theme of her interest, which… Continue Reading
Roundup: Second Life, Snap, Zoo, Good’s $500M, exec shuffling & more
Updated
The latest round-up from tech-land:
Second Life hype continues — Sun holds a conference in the virtual world, and pisses off a journalist, who has a point. Why make it so tough for people to get to your message? But that hasn’t deterred others… Continue Reading
Second Life’s “Wild West” — the land of start-ups and no cops, yet
The buzz around the growth of virtual world site, Second Life, is drawing more scrutiny from real-world regulators who fear they’re losing grip with the growing economy.
The site appears to have hit a sort of critical mass — and the attention is fueling even… Continue Reading
Khosla responds to conflicts-of-interest charge on oil tax
Vinod Khosla, the successful Silicon Valley venture capitalist who is leading the effort to raise a tax on oil extracted in the California, has responded to the oil industry’s charges that he has conflicts.
In an interview the WSJ (sub req), Khosla says his investments… Continue Reading