Zimbalam brings mass distibution to indie musiciansMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Zimbalam, which launched in Europe in 2009 to help artists get their music widely distributed without a lot of work, opened its doors to US stores this week, meaning any artist using Zimbalam can now sell their music in the United States. Zimbalam promises to distribute an artist’s music across multiple services, from Spotify and eMusic to behemoths like iTunes, Rhapsody and Amazon. The company is hooked into 35 different outlets, which lead to hundreds of other stores – a huge distribution network for musicians. [...] Read more |
Social Fans More Likely to BuyMonday, March 15, 2010Source: eMarketer | Category: Metrics Most brand followers report increased purchase intent Read more |
Android Rivals iPhone in Smartphone LoyaltyMonday, March 15, 2010Source: eMarketer | Category: Metrics BlackBerry users equally likely to switch to either platform Read more |
Evan Williams tries to do-over SXSW interview via TwitterMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Although Twitter co-founder and and cheif executive Evan Williams made a couple of interesting points during his keynote speech, the consensus was that it did not go well — as a number of Twitter users noted, it seemed like interviewer Umair Haque spent as much time talking about his own ideas as Williams did. I sat near the front of the packed keynote auditorium, and by halfway through I noticed that the seats around me were starting to empty. Following in the tradition of journalist Sarah Lacy’s similarly-criticized interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at SXSW in 2008, Williams responded to complaints by staging a second interview where he engaged more directly with the audience, in this case by saying he would answer “tougher questions” over Twitter. [...] Read more |
Facebook ousts Google as most popular U.S. siteMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Facebook is now the most popular site in the U.S., according to analytics firm Hitwise. In the week ending March 13, 2010, Facebook surpassed the previous most popular site, Google, in terms of overall traffic for the week. Facebook sat at 7.07 percent for all U.S. web traffic, whereas Google was at 7.03 percent. Looking at the graph above, it’s clear that Facebook has seen a steady rise in traffic since last year. Traffic to Facebook increased 185 percent compared to the same week last year, whereas visits to Google increased only 9 percent. [...] Read more |
Weedle bags $4M to help you find people with the skills you needMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Weedle, a social platform that lets users connect with people who need their skills or expertise, announced today that it has raised a $4 million round of funding to expand its platform in the U.S. and around the world. The recently-launched beta version combines the basic elements of social networking with advanced semantic web technology to create a network of individuals showcasing specific skill, expertise or talent. If you’re in need, for example, of a social media specialist, then through Weedle you can connect with people marketing that as their skill. [...] Read more |
Yahoo’s new crowdsourcing Predictalot app picks NCAA winnersMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Forget the brackets in the office NCAA Tournament pool. This year, Yahoo is offering an application drawing on the wisdom of crowds to make sense out of March Madness. Yahoo Labs last week launched Predictalot into beta, an application that takes predicting the winners and losers in the tournament “to entirely new extremes.” “You can invest virtual points on almost any prediction you can think of about the men’s college basketball tournament, like ‘Duke will advance further than Texas,’ or ‘Every final four team’s name will start with the letter U,” according to the Yahoo web site. [...] Read more |
Twitter CEO Evan Williams to entrepreneurs: Think big, look outside the ValleyMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Towards the end of his keynote interview at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Twitter co-founder and chief executive Evan Williams talked about the advice he gives to entrepreneurs. For one thing, he encourages them to find ideas that are really big and disruptive, not just potential moneymakers. The test, Williams said, is that your product or service should be the end of a sentence that begins, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if …?” And that sentence shouldn’t be, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if I had a million dollars?” Williams said he’s the kind of entrepreneur motivated by “creating things in the world that didn’t exist before,” but he acknowledged that there are others who are more motivated to make money. [...] Read more |
CFX Battery rebrands as Contour, busts out of stealth with next-gen batteriesMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Contour Energy Systems, formerly known as CFX Battery, emerged from stealth mode today with a lineup of rechargeable, energy dense batteries that could change the way we power portable electronics. The Azusa, Calif. company’s secret sauce is its chemistry. Relying on new fluorine-based cells — as opposed to the standard lead, lithium or cobalt — its products are said to store more energy for longer, and under more extreme conditions, than competing systems. It plans to sell and license its intellectual property to drive revenue — and it’s got a nice head start with 60 patented and patent-pending features. [...] Read more |
Twitter’s Evan Williams: Openness is a survival strategyMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology During his keynote interview at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Twitter chief executive Evan Williams talked about why Twitter has chosen to make itself open to search engines, third-party developers, and other services. “Openness is basically a survival strategy,” Williams said. When you start a company, many of your assumptions are going to be completely wrong, so you need to figure out what you’re wrong about as quickly as possible. Williams said he tells new employees they should assume there are more people outside the company than inside (an idea he admits he borrowed from Sun co-founder Bill Joy). [...] Read more |
EMC’s Crazy Plan to Create a Worldwide Data CloudMonday, March 15, 2010Source: GigaOM | Category: Media Pat Gelsinger is stirring things up EMC with a plan to virtualize and federate storage so data and compute can be linked together to keep constantly changing information up to date despite networks that are built for gigabytes rather than petabytes. Read more |
ThreatMetrix launches anti-fraud network for social media and e-commerce sitesMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology ThreatMetrix is announcing today that it has launched the ThreatMetrix Fraud Network, a service that protects e-commerce companies and social media firms from online fraud. The service uses a combination of technologies to protect against fraud. For instance, it can recognize devices — computers, laptops or phones — that are being used to log into a site. ThreatMetrix associates some 200 characteristics of the device with a user and then decides whether there is any fraud involved. Then it helps the customer decide whether to proceed with transactions related to payments, logins, or the creation of new accounts. [...] Read more |
Twitter launches “At Anywhere” platform, integrates tweets, profiles across the webMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Twitter CEO Ev Williams demonstrated a new platform that will spread the microblogging network’s profiles, tweets and possibly advertising across the web. It’s taking the hovercards it launched on the site earlier this year (picture right), which are little pop-ups that show extended information about a person and distributing them across websites that link to Twitter profiles. “At Anywhere reduces friction,” Williams said. “Some of the obvious things are you can tweet from the column itself. [...] Read more |
Microsoft shows off Netflix and Xbox gaming on Windows Phone 7 SeriesMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Today, at the MIX10 event in Las Vegas, Microsoft announced that its upcoming Windows Phone 7 Series platform will feature Netflix as one of its third-party launch applications — including Netflix’s popular Watch Instantly streaming video service. The announcement is a major coup for Microsoft, considering that Netflix’s Watch Instantly has yet to find its way onto the iPhone or Google’s Android platform. Engadget has some pictures and video from the event, which shows off the red-draped application. [...] Read more |
GeoSentric finds $11M more for location-based mobile networkingMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Riding the wave of location-based application announcements, GeoSentric, maker of GyPSii, a real-time geo-social networking platform for many different handsets, announced today that it landed $11 million in funding (PDF). The news was bundled in the release of the company’s Tweetsii application, which combines tweets and location based ”check-ins,” popularized by mobile applications like Foursquare. The Tweetsii application, now only available for the iPhone in the Apple App Store, comes at an opportune time. [...] Read more |
Skyhook demos SpotRank location maps at SXSWMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Skyhook Wireless provides Apple’s official location service for iPhones by comparing the phone’s available Wi-Fi network names to maps of known hotspots. It works particularly well in cities, where there are lots of networks on every block, making it easy to identify a unique location. For the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas, Skyhook is tracking and mapping location requests made in the real world by iPhone users. You can compare them to similar maps for Manhattan and Miami — a trio of spring break hotspots, pun intended. [...] Read more |
SXSW: As MOG Goes Mobile, the U.S. Waits (and Waits) for SpotifyMonday, March 15, 2010Source: GigaOM | Category: Media Music service MOG unveiled its new mobile applications today, promising premium subscribers the ability to stream any song, anytime, anywhere. Its launch also represents an erosion of opportunity for Spotify, the European service that has promised (and delayed) its U.S. launch for several months. Read more |
Google pays Web pioneer to bash AppleMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Tim Berners-Lee is generally considered the inventor of the World-Wide Web, the network of hyperlinked multimedia objects now called “the Internet” by most of its billion-plus users. His name tops the list of editors on the official specs for the Internet’s XML language, the basic building block for all Web pages. A native of the UK, he was knighted in 2003 for his work. So it was off-putting today to read Sir Tim’s blog post announcing his new job as an evangelist to software developers for Google’s Android platform. [...] Read more |
DEMO Spring 2010: spotlight on enterprise techMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology DEMO Spring 2010 is the premier launchpad event for innovative technology, and will take place March 21-23 at the JW Marriott in Palm Desert. With the event less than a week away, we’re unveiling information about the key themes and panelists featured in each of the seven DEMO Tech Segments. Each vertical launch segment will feature product demonstrations, pitches by early-stage entrepreneurs, as well as a panel discussion addressing specific funding challenges and investment opportunities. Matt Marshall, Editor in Chief of VentureBeat and Executive Producer of DEMO will lead the panel discussions with key members of the DEMO ecosystem including past demonstrators, VC’s, service providers and corporate business development/acquisitions professionals. [...] Read more |
Groupon founders launch $100M ‘Lightbank’ fund to seed Chicago startupsMonday, March 15, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Hoping to turn Chicago into the technology epicenter of the Midwest, the founders of bulk and discount buying site Groupon have launched a new fund called Lightbank to provide seed funding to startups locating in or near the city. Right now, the plan is to give out $10 million every year for the next decade. Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell, the entrepreneurs behind Groupon, plan to invest between $100,000 and $1 million in young companies, while also providing mentoring services, networking opportunities and other resources to help them grow. [...] Read more |
