 | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
Zoho, a company offering an array of more than 20 web-based office applications covering everything from email to documents to sales to invoices, just announced that it’s supporting Facebook Connect. That means users can sign into Zoho with their Facebook login, and tie their Facebook accounts to their accounts on Zoho.
As a company going up against more well-known competitors like Google Apps, Zoho has previously taken steps to open up to other account types, and therefore to lower the barrier to using its products — most notably, Zoho allows users to log in using Google or Yahoo accounts. [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
(Editor’s note: Richard Brekka is the president of Dolphin Equity Partners. He submitted this story to VentureBeat.)
It’s a rough time to be a start-up seeking funding. More and more entrepreneurs are looking for angel or VC capital, but the number of firms out there looking to invest is shrinking.
The numbers are startling. 90 percent of the VCs polled in a recent survey by the National Venture Capital Association predicted that the number of venture capital firms will decline, with 72 percent predicting the industry will shrink between one and 30 percent. [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
As more businesses look to equip their workforce with smartphones, a company called Visage Mobile offers tools to help manage the process, with a web dashboard showing phone inventory and usage across multiple carriers. The company just raised another $4.5 million to fund further product development and sales.
The round was led by Qualcomm Ventures, with participation from existing investors Worldview Technology Partners, ATA Ventures, Vesbridge Partners, and Emergence Capital Partners. Qualcomm, of course, is the investment arm of the wireless chip maker of the same name. [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
Online meeting host Dimdim has added a new feature that makes it easy for meeting attendees to share their screens with others. The feature works across Windows, Mac and Linux computers.
Dimdim is an upstart competitor to WebEx and GoToMeeting that competes on price. There’s a free version that supports up to 5 meeting participants. WebEx and GoToMeeting have free trial periods, but no free small-meeting services. And while both those brands’ lowest service levels cost $49 per month — 15 users max on GoToMeeting, 25 on WebEx — Dimdim supports up to 50 participants for $25 per month. [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
Online meeting host Dimdim has added a new feature that makes it easy for meeting attendees to share their screens with others. The new myScreen controller allows users to share their screen through Dimdim without needing to start a meeting, or open a browser window.
The feature works across Windows, Mac and Linux computers.
Dimdim is an upstart competitor to WebEx and GoToMeeting that competes on price. There’s a free version that supports up to 5 meeting participants. WebEx and GoToMeeting have free trial periods, but no free small-meeting services. [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
We caught up with Jenova Chen, creative director for Thatgamecompany, at the Dice Summit’s Interactive Achievement Awards red carpet last week. Chen’s company created Flower, the PlayStation Network downloadable game that launched a year ago. The game was unique in that it featured no violence; as the player, you become the wind in the dream of a flower in the middle of a decaying city.
The graphics in the game were spectacular, pushing the PlayStation 3 to its limit. The scenery could fit 200,000 blades of grass swaying in the wind, alongside the vivid colors of flowers. [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
Sprout, a San Francisco-based startup that has worked on Facebook apps for Disney before, has come up with a Web-ad version of their Alice in Wonderland app. The ad, which teases fans to upload photos of themselves, is interactive, and remembers if you’ve personalized it already.
The ads, running on IGN, Fandango, Movietickets, YouTube, and Addicting Games, can contain multiple pages and are designed like an app, all interaction takes place in the ad. “There is no need to leave the site,” Sprout VP of Marketing Michelle Wohl wrote in an email. [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
Mobile app store PocketGear is announcing today that it has acquired Handango, a big maker of smartphone apps. The combination will create the world’s largest cross-platform, open app store and content market with more than 140,000 paid and free titles.
The apps can be downloaded by consumers using phones with the Android, Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Linux, Java, and Palm mobile phone platforms. The PocketGear App Store will now support more than 2,000 mobile phones in 175 countries. [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
So we’re expected to believe that the high priests of the Apple App Store magically woke up one morning after two years and suddenly decided that ‘T-and-A’ apps weren’t okay?
That’s what Apple’s head of worldwide product marketing would like us to believe after an interview with The New York Times.
Phil Schiller said the company pulled sexual apps after complaints by women and parents. He tried to fudge the answer on why Wobble iBoobs couldn’t pass muster but Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit app did, saying: “The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format. [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
Central Desktop today unveiled version 2.0 of its set of online tools, including project management, document collaboration, and web meetings.
There are a lot of options out there for companies looking for online collaboration software, acknowledged chief executive Isaac Garcia. But while competing startups might claim to be comprehensive, most of them are focused on one area and tend to be weaker elsewhere — for example, he said, while Box.net includes project management and workflow features, it’s still primarily a document-sharing service. [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
Ashton Kutcher, Dolly Parton and Madonna are among the big names who have iPhone apps built on Mobile Roadie’s platform. Taylor Swift has an app in the works. Just in time for that, Mobile Roadie now supports the Android platform, too.
“Integration with YouTube, Brightcove, Flickr, Twitpic, Ustream, Topspin, Google News, RSS, Twitter, and Facebook ensures the App stays fresh and relevant,” CEO Michael Schneider wrote in a prepared statement. The idea is to bring these disparate sources together into a single point of interaction with a single brand name on all. [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
The iPad isn’t going to be the only new iPhoneOS Apple device for long. Computerworld reports that Apple put up a job posting last week for an “Engineering Manager (Platform Bring-Up)” position. The position’s sole purpose is to help bring Apple’s iPhoneOS — the stripped down operating system running on the iPhone and iPod Touch — to new platforms.
That Apple is looking to spread iPhoneOS’s reach isn’t too surprising. From most hands-on accounts, the operating system translates well to the larger iPad — a device which likely would have been over-burdened by a full installation of Mac OSX. [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
Pulmonx, maker of medical devices used to treat emphysema and other chronic respiratory diseases, has brought in $31.6 million in equity, options and warrants, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in Redwood City, Calif., the company is backed by De Novo Ventures, Latterell Venture Partners, Montreux Equity Partners and MedVentures Associates. It previously raised $20 million in May 2007.
Companies: De Novo Ventures, Latterell Venture Partners, Medventures Associates, Montreux Equity Partners, Pulmonx [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
Sonoa Systems, maker of security and compliance software for cloud computing environments, has brought in $14.1 million of a $15.5 million round of equity, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in Santa Clara, Calif., the company is backed by Bay Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Juniper Networks, SAP Ventures, and Third Point Ventures. It previously raised $10 million in October 2008, and $16 million in November 2006.
Companies: bay partners, Juniper Networks, Norwest Venture Partners, SAP Ventures, Sonoa Systems [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
Apple’s head of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller said the company’s new restrictions on sexual content in the app store arose after complaints by parents and women, according to The New York Times.
“It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see,” Mr. Schiller told The New York Times. He said that the company had been seeing an increasing number of apps with “objectionable content” in recent weeks. [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology
The European Union’s renewable energy targets, if achieved, will lead to widespread hunger, according to a new report published by ActionAid.org. With many farmers ceding their land to biofuel companies, food costs are on the rise, and millions more people in the developing world are going without, the nonprofit claims — all the while industrialized countries are pushing hard for cheaper, sustainable fuels.
In 2008, the E.U. set a quota for itself — that 20 percent of its fuels would come from renewable sources by 2020. [...]
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Mobile Marketer | Category: Mobile
The Midwest is going mobile for the Mobile University event April 28 at Chicago’s Spertus Museum.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/homepage-news/~4/HGX3yUfDoNI" height="1" width="1"/
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Mobile Marketer | Category: Mobile
Verizon FiOS TV customers do not have to reach for the remote anymore to control their television sets. All they need is their mobile phone.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/homepage-news/~4/K-4p6CoA7W8" height="1" width="1"/
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Mobile Marketer | Category: Mobile
See how Pittsburgh-area Pizza Huts used the mobile channel to engage consumers.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/homepage-news/~4/lRJIpxhJBwA" height="1" width="1"/
Read more | Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Source: Mobile Marketer | Category: Mobile
Today in Mobile Commerce Daily: EBay expands mobile commerce empire with new Android app; Mobile Web site response times not meeting user expectations.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/homepage-news/~4/_PgLWc47kZw" height="1" width="1"/
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