VentureBeat

SplashCast, a company that creates video widgets for musicians and others to promote themselves, has raised $4 million in a first round of venture funding.

Chief executive Michael Berkley describes SplashCast’s widget as a “programmable television set” for social networks, to which clients can stream multiple channels of content (see screenshot below). The Portland, Ore.-based company has some major media players on its client list, including Sony/BMG, Universal Music and MTV. It stands out from other widget makers because of the interaction it allows with users — not only can fans submit their own videos to be broadcast on the widget’s “fan channel,” they can also chat with other fans viewing the widget across different sites. (Read our thoughts on how widgets are affecting the music industry here.)

SplashCast raised the round in two stages, with the initial $2 million coming in 2007. Berkley says he plans to use the money to expand SplashCast’s eight-person staff. This is a crucial time for growth, Berkley says, because there’s a “land grab” going on in the online advertising world, as companies scramble to find new, better ways to engage potential customers, especially those between 13- and 29-years-old. (We’ve reported on big media companies, like CBS, trying to make money from the widget ad world.)

Even more than the amount of the investment, Berkley says he’s excited about lead investor and new board member Mark Bayliss, whose experience includes serving as chief financial officer for Fairfax Holdings, one of the largest media companies in Australia. Over the next six months, SplashCast will try to take advantage of Bayliss’ connections and establish alliances with large advertising companies, Berkley says.

Here’s earlier coverage of SplashCast.

Emergent Growth Fund also participated in the round.

We recently covered widget-maker Gydget, when it switched over to the widget business from its previous incarnation as events site Attendio.

At the time, we mentioned that the company was seeking a fresh infusion of capital from its investors. It has now received the round, from investor SunBridge Partners, although it isn’t disclosing how much.

Gydget is a good example of a company that seems to have found a viable business plan in the course of an unsuccessful first try. Attendio never gained much traction, but the company tells us that its Gydget widgets are in active use.

Some new celebrities using the widgets include Henry Rollins, Paul Oakenfold and Unkle, as well as the whole artist catalog of Curb Records. Two larger labels, EMI and Universal Records, are also preparing to roll out the widgets, according to the company.

Gydget’s main competition is probably SplashCast, which has Columbia Records on board (see our previous coverage). However, the true risk for widget companies is always the Next Big Thing.

Most deals with record companies are non-exclusive, meaning artists can drop out at any time in favor of using a new, slicker technology.

updated
After being a portal for events for less than half a year, Attendio has abandoned the the events industry, saying that market is too small. It has decided instead to become a widget-making company, jumping from one crowded industry to another.

It’s just the latest indication that the Web 2.0 market is bubbly, and raises questions about why VCs keep investing in the sector. The San Francisco company raised (see coverage) less than $1 million in funding from Sunbridge Partners earlier this year.

Renamed Gydget, the company’s widgets will link out to online articles, pictures, videos, and mobile-connected services. Users include several dozen celebrities and sports teams, like Beyonce and the Bengals.

Gerardo Capiel, the company’s CEO and founder, looks to be leaping from the frying pan to the fire. Even when Attendio launched, the events market was crowded: Other sites include Eventful, Zvents, Going and Yahoo Events (which acquired Upcoming).

Similarly, the widget-making boom has already arrived. Dapper, Widgetbox and Splashcast all offer some variation on the build-your-own widget theme. Capiel says Gydget’s offering is superior, as its widgets are capable of offering any type of content, while other companies focus on a niche like video or news.

Gydget’s advantage may be in simply having seen what works. Most traffic to Attendio already came from existing Gydgets like the game schedule widget used by the Oakland Raiders football team. By closing down Attendio and focusing only on widgets, the site may be able to capture a more significant audience.

However, it’s difficult to assess whether there’s a widget opportunity. Capiel declined to share traffic numbers. Widgets are fast becoming a commodity, offered widely around the internet. Pageviews also may not be as important a metric for the new business, as much of its revenue may come through affiliate sales of tickets for bands and teams.

Attendio first emerged during DEMO earlier this year. The company is in the process of raising another round.

Here’s the (updated) latest action:

Marc Andreessen getting taste of what it’s like to be a blogger – The Netscape co-founder launched a blog last week. The NYT ran a story about one of his earliest posts. Then he did a good piece about how to hire. And now all the attention has him racing out more posts, including a three part series on The truth about venture capitalists, all very good reads (here, here and here). I recommend reading the last of these, to understand why the debate about the bubble will continue. Marc, welcome to the blogger treadmill.

Video-sharing site Revver’s CEO Steven Starr steps down — This is the second shakeup in six months. No more details given about the change, other than the obvious context: Lots of competition. The company has been losing executives. (CNET)

Xing to buy Plaxo? – Unlikely. A rumor at Techcrunch says Xing, the German version of professional networking site LinkedIn is buying Plaxo, the contact updating service. However, we’ve been told that this isn’t happening. There could be big announcement over next week or so from Xing, though.

Eye-Fi raises $5.5M for camera Wifi — We have the story on VentureBeat NewsWire (for our hard-core readers, here’s another reminder to check that left-hand column).

Apple in talks with major Hollywood studios to get more new films for rental service — The WSJ has details: Will be launched in the fall, and cost $2.99 for 30-day rental of movies. Details are still speculative, though, on who will be participating.

Yigg.de, a remarkable rip-off of Digg.com, gets funding — This is German clone, in both name and presentation. The amount raised is undisclosed but comes from angel investor Roland Metzger and Baytech Venture Capital, the German company says on its blog. It reports 1.4 million unique users a monthly.

SplashCast, the multimedia Flash player, raises angel funding from poker celebrity Phil Hellmuth — Its funding is now about $2 million, according to NewTeeVee

Chris Yeh takes CEO job at Ustream — The company is a competitor to Justin.TV, which is the permanent webcam of a guy named Justin. Ustream wants to let anyone do that. We’ve mentioned them before in our story about Justin.TV’s move to try to do the same. (See Yeh’s blog)

Google worst on privacy? – If you read this report by Privacy International, you should also read the response by search expert Danny Sullivan, who tears it to shreds. Obviously, Google has its own issues with the report, quite emotionally so.

What happens when you piss off attorneys? – Well, you get sued. We reported how Avvo, a site that rates lawyers, had launched, and that some lawyers were upset. Now, one of them is close to suing.

Internet radio station companies fight back — The U.S. Copyright Royalty Board ruled to increase royalty rates earlier this year, starting July 15. RealNetworks, Yahoo, Pandora and Live365 say they’ll be paying more than $1 billion per year.

Gamemaker of popular Desktop TD leaves to run company full-time — He’s joined with another guy, Kottke reports. They’re blogging here.

Private equity riches, will you be picking up the tab? — Blackstone Group, the high-profile buyout firm that plans soon to go public, filed more papers with the SEC that show it could be valued as high as $33.62 billion. Also, the filing shows Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman pulled down $398.3 million in 2006 which, according to Dan Primack, would place him only behind Steve Jobs on the Forbes list of highest-paid public company CEOs. So, as Blackstone issues shares to the public at the top of the private equity bubble, will you be the public investor to buy shares?

Yourminis, which are the widgets offered by Goowy Media, are now more easily compatible with desktop — Previously, you had to download Apollo from Adobe and a widget manager from Yourminis to use that company’s widgets on your desktop. Now, they’re compatible with Micrsoft’s Vista sidebar, without that step. Yourminis’s widgets can easily go anywhere, from blogs to social network pages to personalized homepages like iGoogle Pageflakes, Netvibes and now your Vista desktop. The interface for adding widgets, however, is a bit confusing, and could be simplified by reducing the number of necessary clicks. Goowy CEO Alex Bard assures us that improvements, including support for OSX, are in the works. More here.

Latest tech roundup:

Digg removes listing of top diggers — The news ranking company has removed its list of the people who have contributed most do top Digg stories, to stop gaming of the site, or at least the perception of gaming. For starters, it removes the temptation for eager marketers to bribe top diggers for favors. Thus ends a hallmark of Digg. Ranking on the list was one motivation for Digg’s passionate users. (See founder Kevin Rose’s note.)

Rumors of Zune-enabled phone coming from Microsoft later this year — Details here. This makes sense, given weak reception of Microsoft’s new digital music player, the Zune. May as well change it quickly, add the phone, and stay up with Apple and its iPhone. Meanwhile, the Microsoft executive responsible for making the Zune, Bryan Lee, has resigned.

MySpace taking its time to enter China, lots of time — EBay and Yahoo stumbled when they entered China, facing local management and execution problems. Myspace is being careful. But now it has been months. Its downfall may be that it never gets there.

SplashCast, one more video player — We’ve written about the proliferation of video players, including the coming KyteTV. Splashcast does much of what KyteTV does, but doesn’t have Kyte’s mobile capabilities. Splashcast launched at DEMO. It lets you distribute video, blog posts, or other files over the player, from sites like your MySpace profile. More info here. It has raised $1.3 million in venture backing. More details from the Merc’s Dean Takahashi, and his summary of DEMO. Another mention: Ink2, which allows you to send personalized greeting cards for $3 by selecting artwork, and a stamp online, and then typing in the address of the recipient.

Twofish, latest MMO company — Twofish (no link), you’ll recall, is the stealth company we mentioned a few days ago. It is an MMO, or Massively Multiplayer Online Game, which is the rage these days, where thousands of players can play at the same time. Venture capitalists are interested in these as social networks. We’ve seen a number of new companies focused on this area, from Rupture, to D2C, Areae and Red 5. Founder Lee Crawford isn’t talking, but he’s a former VP at Shockwave, and was most recently Director of Engineering at Yahoo Games. The firm just raised $2.5 million from Venrock Associates.

What’s up at MontaVista? — Last week, we learned that MontaVista’s executive staff, along with a good number of director-level people, were fired or left the company in the last couple of weeks. The whole marketing division was cut, we were told by a source. We find this odd, given MontaVista just raised $21 million in funding in December. We contacted the company and, while we’ve reached someone last week, they still haven’t been able to comment. We’re now scheduled to talk with the CEO next week, so stay tuned. It may have something to do with MontaVista’s challenging open source model, though we’re not certain.