Chomp raises $2M for iPhone app recommendations — launches new site and features at Chomp.comThursday, March 11, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology iPhone application recommendation site Chomp has raised another $2 million in funding, after showing strong growth since its launch eight weeks ago. Thus far the site has gathered 300,000 users, who have left 1.5 million reviews. The company has also acquired the domain Chomp.com and relaunched its website with new features — including vanity web addresses for users, and the ability for developers to link to their application’s review page. Chomp’s iPhone application allows you to review apps with a simple “like” or “dislike” option (via heart and broken heart icons) and an optional 60-character review. [...] Read more |
Chomp raises $2M for iPhone app recommendations; launches new site at Chomp.comThursday, March 11, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology iPhone application recommendation site Chomp has raised another $2 million in funding, after showing strong growth since its launch eight weeks ago. Thus far the site has gathered 300,000 users, who have left 1.5 million reviews. The company has also acquired the domain Chomp.com and relaunched its website with new features — including vanity web addresses for users, and the ability for developers to link to their application’s review page. Chomp’s iPhone application allows you to review apps with a simple “like” or “dislike” option (via heart and broken heart icons) and an optional 60-character review. [...] Read more |
Need sales leads? Think like an editor.Thursday, March 11, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology (Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Scott Olson is president of MindLink Marketing. He contributed this column to VentureBeat.) I had an interesting conversation the other day with a colleague about the challenges he was having with his company’s leads pipeline. He had the contacts, but the opportunities weren’t growing fast enough. I’ve actually seen this many times. The assumption is that once an initial outreach has been done to new contacts, the conversion has to happen fast. If it doesn’t, they’re considered a dead lead and the general thinking is that spending too much time on them is wasted effort. [...] Read more |
Image Metrics raises $8M via stock deal to create realistic human face animations for gamesThursday, March 11, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Image Metrics, a company that makes it easy for game developers to create realistic human faces, has raised $8 million in a reverse merger financing. The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company will use the money to expand its software and services businesses such as Faceware, which is a suite of facial animation tools to create believable human faces for game characters. The company raised the money by completing an exchange offer with shell company International Cellular Accessories, an over-the-counter stock which is acquiring Image Metrics and then will allow Image Metrics to operate as a public company. [...] Read more |
LivingSocial raises $25M for group buying, Facebook appsThursday, March 11, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Hardly a week goes by where we don’t receive a company pitch from a hopeful startup trying to crash the group deals scene. And for good reason, since venture capital firms seem happy to throw cash at well-executed takes on the business model. LivingSocial is the latest to score a large amount of funding. It raised $25 million in a round led by U.S. Venture Partners, with Grotech Ventures and Steve Case’s Revolution, LLC. That’s fresh on top of a $5 million round announced only two months ago and all of Living Social’s existing investors made sure they got in on this round too. [...] Read more |
Sony pulls out the stops for God of War III launch partyThursday, March 11, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Just after Sony debuted its new motion controller tonight, the Japanese company threw a big God of War III launch party. The game has been in the works for more than three years and it finally debuts on March 16. I made it to the party, which was bathed in neon light and featured a cool band. In the game, you play Kratos, the fallen god of war who is out to get revenge for being killed and then reborn and then tricked into killing his wife and child. Kratos is after Zeus, and he pursues him into the Greek underworld. [...] Read more |
Sony pulls out the stops for God of War III launch party (video)Thursday, March 11, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Just after Sony debuted its new motion controller tonight, the Japanese company threw a big God of War III launch party. The game has been in the works for more than three years and it finally debuts on March 16. After a day full of GamesBeat@GDC panels, I made it to the party, which was bathed in neon light and featured a cool band. In the game, you play Kratos, the fallen god of war who is out to get revenge for being killed and then reborn and then tricked into killing his wife and child. Kratos is after Zeus, and he pursues him into the Greek underworld. [...] Read more |
InstantAction makes big downloadable games instantly available to play onlineThursday, March 11, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Instant gratification seems to be the big trend in games. First Otoy, then OnLive, and now another game startup, InstantAction, are all talking about how to deliver high-end games almost instantly to players. But InstantAction’s announcement today is far different, and perhaps more down to earth, than the other companies that are trying to offer games on demand. Today, the company is announcing that LucasArts will use InstantAction’s technology to distribute its classic game remake, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. [...] Read more |
Lucid Imagination lands $10M more for enterprise search solutionsThursday, March 11, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Lucid Imagination, a company that provides support, training and consulting for open source search technologies Lucene and Solr, today announced it has secured a second round of funding for $10 million. The company offers various software and solutions to organizations across a wide range of sectors, including e-commerce, Web 2.0, media, telecommunications, government and research looking to gain the full benefits from the free open source search platforms. Which, based on the company’s website, seems to be in high demand. [...] Read more |
Why Digg Digs CassandraThursday, March 11, 2010Source: GigaOM | Category: Media Digg, the San Francisco-based social media company, is dropping MySQL and instead betting its future on Cassandra, an open-source data store. It’s just the latest sign of the growing popularity of the software, which was developed (and open sourced) by Facebook to search through its inbox. Read more |
ABI Research debuts Mobile Marketing Strategies research serviceThursday, March 11, 2010Source: Mobile Marketer | Category: Mobile Because mobile is growing exponentially and advertisers can no longer afford to ignore this medium, ABI Research practice director Neil Strother introduced “Mobile Marketing Strategies.”img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/homepage-news/~4/PpjWt5Ez78A" height="1" width="1"/ Read more |
Rentals.com announces cross-channel mobile strategyThursday, March 11, 2010Source: Mobile Marketer | Category: Mobile Rentals.com simultaneously debuted its iPhone and Android applications with the goal of furthering its cross-channel distribution strategy.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/homepage-news/~4/CkY3H7L5sTQ" height="1" width="1"/ Read more |
Alaska Airlines expands mobile strategy to retain customer loyaltyThursday, March 11, 2010Source: Mobile Marketer | Category: Mobile Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air are debuting three mobile applications in an effort to retain customer loyalty and give travel-warrior customers the tools they want most.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/homepage-news/~4/XgJMoezxMNg" height="1" width="1"/ Read more |
Ric O’Barry's SMS shoutout at the Oscars more than doubles opt-insThursday, March 11, 2010Source: Mobile Marketer | Category: Mobile At Sunday’s Oscars, Ric O’Barry held up a sign with the mobile call-to-action text DOLPHIN to 44144 during “The Cove” acceptance speech for Best Documentary.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/homepage-news/~4/0VChp0s0VbM" height="1" width="1"/ Read more |
Target debuts first nationwide mobile bar code coupon program - Mobile Commerce DailyThursday, March 11, 2010Source: Mobile Marketer | Category: Mobile Mobile Commerce Daily today - Target debuts first nationwide mobile bar code coupon program; Pathways to Housing goes mobile to raise funds for the homeless.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/homepage-news/~4/2d-1lHB3cvY" height="1" width="1"/ Read more |
Apple iPad: game-changer or just another screen?Thursday, March 11, 2010Source: Mobile Marketer | Category: Mobile In the wake of a television campaign during the Oscars, buzz is building in anticipation of the Apple iPad’s impending release on April 3. But will it live up to the hype?img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/homepage-news/~4/Qpb74si6gcA" height="1" width="1"/ Read more |
Legal River launches lawyer-to-lawyer referral serviceWednesday, March 10, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Online legal tool platform Legal River launched Attorney River today to connect attorneys to other attorneys. Attorneys can use the service to post requests for other attorneys. Once a lawyer posts a request, for example for outsourcing work or looking for a specialist in a different state, Attorney River alerts all lawyers with matching profiles and allows them to respond through the service. Attorneys can register and post issues to the site for free, but to respond to a post, attorneys must buy points, with one point required per response and each point costing $10. [...] Read more |
Big Media or Big SEO Spammers?Wednesday, March 10, 2010Source: GigaOM | Category: Media Faced with declining revenues and increasingly dismal prospects, some mainstream media outlets are adopting questionable tactics, specifically dead-end web pages stuffed with outbound links and pay-per-click ads. A liberally funded LA startup is only too quick to help them. The story starts with San Francisco-based sex [...] Read more |
Print’s Place in Multichannel RetailingWednesday, March 10, 2010Source: eMarketer | Category: Metrics Glossy pages and aspirational copy draw high-value customers Read more |
Increasing Game Time OnlineWednesday, March 10, 2010Source: eMarketer | Category: Metrics User numbers stagnate despite new platforms for play Read more |
