Tuesday, February 23, 2010

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Like.com Expands Digital Fashion Empire With Virtual Styling Tool Couturious Top
Like.com has been steadily expanding its mini digital fashion empire. There is Like.com itself, a visual shopping engine; Covet.com ; a recently launched visual shopping personalization application; and Weardrobe , which is a social platform for users to shop street style compilations (Like.com acquired Weardrobe last December). Today, the company is expanding its mini-empire with the launch of visual styling tool Couturious. Couturious’ focus is on 3D photo-realistic styling. You pick a photo of a model (you can choose from a variety of races and body types) and then style the model accordingly with clothes from over 100 different brands. Like.com’s computer vision technology allows your to dress a fairly realistic model and actually style them. So you can tuck pants into boots, adjust the folding of a scarf or have the model wear the shirt with top few buttons open. And you can purchase any of the items that are styled and share your styles to Facebook and Twitter. The idea is for users to not figure out what to wear but how to wear it. Along with the ability to style a model from scratch, users can also see pre-set styles from stylists. At launch, Couturious has partnered with 20 of the top fashion bloggers in the industry to feature their own styles. Couturious is also partnering with 6 designers at launch (Tory Burch, Tibi, Charlotte Ronson, Yigal Azrouel, Cynthia Rowley, and Alice+Olivia) who are making items they debuted at last week’s fashion week in New York City available for users to style immediately, even though these items aren’t even in stores yet. Like.com’s CEO and founder Munjal Shah says Couturious fits the strategy of revolutionizing the online soft goods shopping experience. Weardrobe helps you to be visually inspired with streetstyle looks; Covet helps you to visually personalize your shopping (using celebrity photos), Like.com helps you to visually shop for soft goods and now Couturious will help you to visually style the items you have. Couturious makes money when people click on the links to buy the outfits, similar to the model on Like.com’s other sites. Couturious will also white label the technology to retailers and designer sites for a processing fee. Couturious will face competition from fellow styling site Polyvore. Like.com, which launched in 2006, is growing steadily both in revenue and networks. The startup raised $32 million in funding during the implosion of the financial industry, with a valuation just north of $100 million. And while we can’t reveal what’s to come, there is definitely more innovation in store for Like.com. CrunchBase Information Like.com Weardrobe Covet Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Hollywood Stock Exchange Is Becoming A Real Money Exchange In April. Seriously. Top
I’m a bit of a movie fanatic. As such, back in the day one of my favorite websites was Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX). On it, you bought and sold both movies (moviestocks) and movie stars (starbonds) based on how you thought they would do with upcoming releases. Of course, all of this was done with virtual cash (H bucks), making it a fun game. But in April, the game turns real. As in, real money. On April 20, HSX will become a real-money commodity exchange, according to The Hollywood Reporter. As such, they’ve had to file with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission for approval, which they did in November, and are now in the final phase of approval, apparently. Yes, this is actually happening. And yes, this will essentially make HSX a real-world betting site. As THR notes: Once launched, a new HSX site will list current and imminent movie releases with their projected four-week domestic grosses and allow exchange users to take long or short positions on the films. And: Investors wishing to participate in the exchange will buy “contracts” priced at one one-millionth of a film’s projected boxoffice, with films to be listed on the exchange from the time productions are announced in the industry trade papers. Trading will begin six months before a movie’s anticipated wide release. And while the target audience is film fanatics, they’re also targeting Hollywood industry types, though warns that anyone doing any kind of insider trading is subject to prosecution just as with any other market. Cantor Exchange, which is working with HSX on this transition to real money has more details and is kicking things off with a practice exchange until the real one is approved: Everyone starts with 10,000 "virtual dollars" in a Cantor Exchange practice account, and at the end of the practice period Cantor Exchange will convert each 1,000 virtual dollars of profit you earn into $10 cash and deposit it into your real-money trading account (maximum $100 per trader). So if you earn 10,000 virtual dollars in profit while practicing on Cantor Exchange, you get $100! There is no cost to participate in this program. This should be interesting, to say the least. This is certainly one way for a website to make money. CrunchBase Information Hollywood Stock Exchange Information provided by CrunchBase
 
A Funeral Is Being Held For IE6 On March 4. Browser To Be Buried Without The Body. Top
Slowly, but surely, Internet Explorer 6, long the bane of many a web developer, is dying. And you’re invited to its funeral. A Denver, CO-based design company, Aten Design Group , has built a site to mark the occasion. At IE6funeral.com you can RSVP as to whether you will be able to attend the funeral service or not. It’s at the company’s headquarters in Denver, but those who aren’t able to attend in person are being asked to send flowers. For those who can attend, “Funeral attire is encouraged.” From the site: Internet Explorer Six, resident of the interwebs for over 8 years, died the morning of March 1, 2010 in Mountain View, California, as a result of  a workplace injury sustained at the headquarters of Google, Inc . Internet Explorer Six, known to friends and family as “IE6,” is survived by son Internet Explorer Seven, and grand-daughter Internet Explorer Eight. Sadly, this funeral will not actually be the last we heard of IE6. While Google Docs may be ending support on March 1, YouTube won’t kill it off until March 13 . And then of course there are tens or hundreds of thousands of sites out there that not only support IE6, but in some cases are built specifically for it. It’s going to be a hard sucker to kill. But at least a funeral will provide some closure until we find the body. CrunchBase Information Windows Internet Explorer Google Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Printed Coupons Are From New Jersey, Online Coupons Are From New York Top
RetailMeNot.com, "a top consumer destination for coupons, discounts and promotional codes for merchandise, groceries, travel and services", shared some interesting statistics about consumer coupon use for the first month of 2010. New Jersey loves printing off coupons for use in brick-and-mortar stores, while New York prefers online coupon codes. Almost 15 million people visited RetailMeNot.com in January and saved over eight million dollars with online and printed coupons.
 
DocStoc Debuts Marketplace For Professional Documents Top
For web publishing startups like Scribd and DocStoc, premium content is the viable business model to monetize their platforms. For example. Scribd has signed a number of deals with publishers to sell online books to users on the site. Today, DocStoc is officially opening up its premium content channel, called the DocStore, addressing a lightly different sector, with a focus on selling professional documents to businesses and individuals. DocStoc’s CEO and founder Jason Nazar says the one of the platform’s fastest growing user base segments are small business owners looking for free and paid documents for entrepreneurs, startups and professionals. Documents range from legal documents to real estate contracts to analysis to forms for business models. The DocStore also features documents in a variety of formats, including Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files. The marketplace has been open to select partners since last summer (including TechCrunch ), but today will mark its public debut. On the seller side, the DocStore allows document sellers, such as LegalZoom, Career Press, and BK Publishers, to keep 100 percent of their sales for the first 60 days of a document’s lifetime on DocStoc. After that, DocStoc takes 50 percent of the sale price. DocStoc powers all of the payments (which can be made through credit cards) on the site and returns payments to sellers via check or PayPal. Sellers can sell their documents separately, or bundle them together as packages. For example, a business plan package could include an Excel spreadsheet, a PowerPoint presentation and a Word document. And sellers can monitor their sales, documents through a customized dashboard with reports, conversion rates and analytics. Nazar says that DocStoc vets all sellers and documents to ensure that each document is legitimate. DocStoc will also be adding the ability for anyone to embed widgets with the for sale documents in blogs to collect affiliate fees, similar to the Amazon model. Affiliate revenue will be deducted from DocStoc’s 50 percent share of the ale, not the Seller’s sale. Lazar says that DocStoc is working to maximize conversion rates for sales, even offering a 1-800 customer service hotline for any potential buyers who have questions about documents for sale. And sellers can choose to turn of ads on pages where they are selling documents. Additionally, Nazar says DocStoc will be adding more of its own self-curated content to to the platform, which will be available to users who have a paid subscription to the site. Users will soon have immediate access to over 1000 documents, which range from what to do when you get a DUI to marital settlement agreements. With 3 million registered users, DocStoc is now profitable. Nazar says that the company is seeing 20 million uniques per month and is growing rapidly as a business focused site. It makes sens for DocStoc to cater to the professional community and its marketplace seems like a good bet, especially with the affiliate ecosystem. CrunchBase Information Docstoc Information provided by CrunchBase
 

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