Tuesday, December 1, 2009

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Animoto Sends Some Holiday Cheer With Festive Custom Videos Top
Animoto, the startup that allows you to take your images, video and your music and mash them together to create cool videos, is launching a holiday themed platform that lets you send fun and personal online greeting cards this year and provides nifty themed templates for users to work from. Animoto launched a similar initiative last year, but this year comes with more festive and innovative themes and options to bring cards to life, including pop-up cards, a Starry Night montage and a Pandora’s Gift Box that will erupts into a shower of lights, colors, and wrapping. To create an Animoto holiday greeting, users simply upload their images and video clips, add optional text, and pick a soundtrack, upon which Animoto returns a unique, energetic and emotional video montage. The startup’s proprietary technology allows users to easily implement production techniques for video slideshows that are used in television and film, taking into account the images and every nuance of the song. Once created, videos are produced in widescreen format and can be emailed, embedded on any website, shared via social network and mobile device, or downloaded in DVD-quality formats for display on computers, televisions, and even large projection screens. The 30-second holiday cards are are free to create and share, while full-length videos cost $3. And you can purchase an annual subscription to create an unlimited number of full-length videos are $30. We’re big fans of Animoto, and we’re not the only ones. Launched in 2007, the startup just raised $4.4 million in Series B funding and is cash-flow positive. With over 750,000 users, Animoto is venturing into mobile, launching an iPhone app and just released a new video product that’s already a hit. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
UK Broadcaster Turns Angel, Backs GymFu And School Report Card Top
It’s interesting that Channel 4, a UK public sector broadcaster has set up an investment fund to back startups. It’s even more interesting that the 4iP fund will tomorrow announce seven new investments totaling $830,000 as part of its mission to kick-start new investment in public service-oriented digital media. This is a bit like PBS investing in startups which can a) contribute to the public good and b) create an exit which pays back the investment far more than a traditional investment. TechCrunch Europe has acquired details of two of the investments. The first is GymFu , an iPhone app maker which creates apps like PushupFu designed to encourage people to get fit which we reviewed here . The other is to-be-launched The School Report Card, a new web service that should help parents make better informed decisions about which school to send their children. Here’s what else we’ve learnt. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Need Help Selecting a Payment Processor? Look No Further Than Payments-R-Us Top
More and more startups are finally focusing on real business models, ones that are based on actually selling a product or service. For money, you know. The irony is that many get pretty far down the development path before realizing that adding billing infrastructure to their offering may not be as simple as integrating with PayPal’s API. Choosing the right processor, and many times, processors , from a confusing multi-layered vendor ecosystem can be tricky. Poor decision-making when it comes to issues such as terms of pricing, business fit, or processing capability, can each be a deep gash in any startup’s jugular. Payments-R-Us is trying to alleviate the confusion by providing a vendor-to-merchant wizard that makes it a snap to choose the right payment processor. The wizard is supplemented with some in-depth content aimed at educating merchants to better grasp the ins and outs of the terms and options offered by vendors so they can better negotiate agreements. The Payments-R-Us wizard covers four major verticals: traditional US, international, digital goods and high risk. There are currently 15 processing vendors listed, with about a dozen more in the pipeline. CEO Michael Shatz stressed that most are considered ‘Tier 1′ processors, defined by the fact that they are listed in the top 50 of the annual Nilson Report on top processors. The wizard is pretty thorough and will walk a merchant through a selection process that includes such options as multi-currency support, affiliate marketing, digital content, eCommerce hosting, alternative payments, as well as adult and gaming. Payments-R-Us’ business model is a fairly simple one: affiliation. They get a commission for every merchant they refer to a vendor. Does the fact that Payments-R-Us earn a commission impact its objectivity? I don’t believe so. My main reasoning for this is that one of the founders and investors in the company is Yuval Tal , Founder & CEO of Payoneer , which we’ve previously written about ( here & here ). By all accounts, Tal is considered a stand-up entrepreneur in the Israeli startup community. Payments-R-Us won’t be a billion dollar business. It serves a real need and has a clear hook for a business model which I imagine could run revenue up to six-figures per month. Its only challenge will be to situate itself as a key destination for merchants when making their processing vendor selection. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Facebook Investor DST Expands Mail.ru With Astrum Online Merger Top
Digital Sky Technologies (aka DST), the Russian Internet holding company that holds stakes in several major Russian-language social networking and communication players and notably also recently invested in Facebook , is melting two of its largest portfolio companies together into one online powerhouse. Astrum Online Entertainment , itself formed by DST after merging five online game companies that were active mainly in Russia and Eastern Europe (Astrum Nival, Nikita.Online, IT Territory, TimeZero and DJ Games) back in 2007, will effectively become 100% owned by Mail.ru , the leading Internet portal in the Russian speaking world and equally majority-owned by DST. The transaction is structured as an acquisition of Astrum Online shares by Mail.ru, paid for by a combination of the latter’s shares and an undisclosed amount in cash. The combined entity, DST claims, is capable of reaching some 300 million Russian located around the globe (the aggregate audience of both companies is said to be somewhere around 50 million users today). It will fly under the Mail.ru flag, which is arguably the most familiar brand name of the pair. Curiously, the press release bares no mention of Naspers/ MIH Group , although the South-African conglomerate owns 43% of Mail.ru and was recently granted anti-trust permission to buy between 38% and 100% of Astrum Online from DST. We’re digging for more information. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Fring Brings Free Video Calling To The iPhone, Nokia Smartphones Top
Apple has long been rumored to integrate video conferencing capabilities in the iPhone, and most expected Skype to incorporate such a feature in its free application for iPhone and iPod Touch devices sooner or later, but Israel’s fring is first to actually do it . Big caveat for starters: the camera on the iPhone 3GS is located on the back, which is handy for recording videos of people and locations in front of you but of course makes it impossible for you to point the camera at your own face while still being able to see the screen (unlike Nokia N Series phones for instance). Thus, the latest version of fring’s iPhone app may well integrate video calling, but it’s only for incoming streams – which the startup acknowledges in the press release . Its application for selected Nokia Symbian S60 devices, however, should have two-way video calling. The tool is designed to work for video calls between both fring and Skype contacts, but the new feature most definitely failed to deliver in my own personal experience at first. After trying to set up video calls both with a friend on Skype and someone from the company over fring, I found that calls were dropped automatically after only half a second. Two calls and multiple chat sessions with fring’s engineering team later, we found that – while my settings are hardly exotic – the configuration of my WiFi access point prevented me from handling incoming video calls using the fring application. The company swiftly solved the problem of the blocked connection, and after rebooting my access point I successfully accepted an incoming video call from a fring engineer who was using his Nokia N97 camera and phone. It – finally – worked like a charm. Do you have an iPhone, iPod Touch and are you near a WiFi access point, or do you have one of the supported Nokia devices , which also works over 3G? Give it a whirl and let us know if it works for you. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 

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