VentureBeat

Gnip, a company that provides technology to help other web services quickly share information provided by users, has raised $3.5 million.

Here’s how Gnip works: When a user updates their information on a site like Digg or Twitter, it takes that information and updates it quickly on the user’s accounts at other sites, such as Plaxo’s personal information aggregator service, Pulse.

The San Francisco, Calif. and Boulder, Colo.-based company has already signed partners like Yahoo and Plaxo.

The investors in this round include previous investors Foundry Group, First Round Capital and SoftTech VC; they previously put in $1.1 million.

In developer-related news, Gnip recently decided to stop supporting the XMPP protocol, which allows for “real-time” or near-instant information sharing between two sites. It’s one of several protocols that Gnip has supported. From ReadWriteWeb:

[Gnip chief executive Eric Marcoullier] says there are simply no open source Jabber servers that are capable of the kind of robustness that a social media ping server requires. If a major vendor came to Gnip and said they wanted data streamed to them exclusively in XMPP, the company would continue the practice, but the long tail of tiny consumers that want their data that way is taking up too much resources. The company’s top priorities are data delivery and maximizing the number of publishers participating in their program.

Bleacher Report, a site for “fan-journalism” about professional sports, has raised $3.5 million in a second round of funding.

I’m not a huge sports guy, but I was pretty impressed by the site when it launched in February. At the time, co-founder Dave Nemetz argued Bleacher Report was very different from the existing discussion forums or promotional blogs for teams and players. The site’s design is quite polished, and the top articles, at least, live up to the “fan journalism” description. Bleacher Report uses an algorithm incorporating a writer’s ratings, an article’s timeliness and the hits generated to determine which pieces get featured prominently.

Looks like some professional sports sites were impressed, too — both Fox Sports and CBS Sports websites feature links to Bleacher Report stories. (The CBS deal was just announced today; as an example, you can see Bleacher Report headlines in a widget on the SportsLine NFL page.)

The site received more than 2 million unique visitors in October, about four times the audience at launch. The San Francisco company will probably have a harder time attracting ad dollars as the economy stumbles, but there’s an opportunity too, Nemetz said — as traditional news organizations cut back, there will be more room for fan journalism to step in and fill the gap.

The funding comes from Hillsven Capital, Gordon Crawford and SoftTech VC, with additional participation from College Humor founder Jakob Ludwick. Bleacher Report announced a first round in the “single-digit millions” earlier this year.

Fitbit, the maker of a small device that tracks how many calories you’ve burned, has raised $2 million in a first round of funding. The San Francisco company was a hit among judges when it launched at the TechCrunch50 conference, and it plans to start selling its devices in early 2009.

There are other portable weight loss devices out there — for example, Weight Watchers offers its own mobile application. What’s exciting about Fitbit, however, is the extent to which the company says it will automate the process. You just clip the device to your clothes, and it tracks things like how many calories you burned through exercise and how well you slept. (Unfortunately, things are a little less automated on the food side; it looks like you’ll need to manually enter the foods you’ve eaten into the Fitbit website.) Then you can view your health reports on the company’s site, and adjust your behavior accordingly.

The Fitbit Tracker will cost $99, and will be available for sale initially on the company’s website, says chief executive James Park. There are plans for a roll-out to retail stores later in the year. If the economic downturn continues, Fitbit may have picked the wrong time to launch a device that some might see as a luxury or a novelty, but Park says the company has kept the Fitbit Tracker relatively affordable.

The round was led by True Ventures, joined by Jeff Clavier’s SoftTech VC and a group of undisclosed angel investors.

Blekko, a stealth search company started by Topix co-founder Rich Skrenta, has raised $3 million in a second round of funding, according to TechCrunch.

Little is known about the company, and right now its website contains nothing more than a photo of, um, a puppet (see above). But apparently Netscape and Ning co-founder Marc Andreessen, SoftTech VC and Western Technology Investment all think Skrenta (famous for creating the first computer virus) has a good idea, as they’ve contributed the funding at a $23 million post-money valuation. Blekko previously raised a $2 million seed round.

To casual observers, Google seems to have the search market locked up, but that doesn’t stop startups from trying to take on the search giant (or to create a niche outside of Google’s shadow), and it doesn’t stop VCs from investing in them. The funding news comes just two days after Powerset launched its search tool (currently restricted to Wikipedia and Freebase). Powerset has raised $14.5 million, while another stealth search startup, Cuill, has raised a total of $33 million.