The latest from TechCrunch
- hi5 Acquires Social Gaming Company Big Six
- The Startup Visa: Create Jobs, Get A Green Card
- Mashery Plugs Its APIs Into $5.5 Million In New Funding From Cisco, Others
- Hot And Bothered: Walmart Shutting Down Vudu's Adult Section
| hi5 Acquires Social Gaming Company Big Six | Top |
| hi5 , one of the world’s most popular social networks, has been actively remodeling its site to cater to the gaming industry. Last fall, the social network launched a totally revamped site that places a much stronger emphasis on games and virtual currency, along with a new avatar system. Today, the company is furthering this strategy with the acquisition of social gaming developer Big Six. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. See the full release below. Hi5 says the deal will boost the social networks efforts in developing in commerce platforms and payment processing offerings. Right now, gaming is a central part of hi5’s strategy for growth so it makes sens for the social network to acquire innovative technologies and talent. The games section of hi5’s site accounts for around 1/3 of the site 's traffic, and direct user payments through the game already account for 15% of hi5's revenue. Apart from the currency and payments technology, Big Six’s social gaming platform will also become part of hi5. With the massive success of Zynga and Playfish, it makes sense that hi5 would try to create a social network that centers around gaming itself. hi5 has over 60 million members, which is a far cry from Facebook’s 400 million members. hi5, the largest social entertainment site focused on gaming, today announced the acquisition of social gaming company Big Six. The Austin-based company was founded by gaming veterans Kevin Gliner, Monty Kerr and Chad Hansing, all of whom will join the hi5 management team, as announced separately today. The deal enhances hi5's growing leadership in commerce for virtual goods and games. Building on hi5's current commerce platform, which includes a global virtual currency called hi5 Coins, support for over 60 payment methods worldwide, and new advertising-based transactional capabilities – the Big Six acquisition brings significant new technology and software platforms in the areas of payment processing, fraud detection and conversion optimization. In addition to its proprietary commerce platform, Big Six also designed a social gaming platform which will become part of the core hi5 site. "The Big Six team and technology are a perfect complement to what we have already developed at hi5,” said Bill Gossman, CEO of hi5. "Over the last two years, we have made a substantial investment in building out the industry's most robust commerce infrastructure for virtual goods and gaming and this acquisition will considerably augment both our commerce platform and domain expertise." "We are excited to be joining a company that shares our philosophy and vision for how social gaming will evolve," said Kevin Gliner, co-founder and CEO, Big Six. "This deal is a perfect match because it enables us to accelerate our go-to-market plans by leveraging hi5's huge global audience." CrunchBase Information hi5 Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| The Startup Visa: Create Jobs, Get A Green Card | Top |
| A bill introduced today in the Senate by Democrat John Kerry and Republican Richard Lugar proposes a new type of visa for immigrants who create startups and jobs in the U.S. A similar proposal is part of an immigration reform bill in the House. The Startup Visa has been controversial and will no doubt draw fire from anti-immigrant forces and xenophobes. But if we are going to be giving away visas, giving them to people who will help build the U.S. economy and create jobs is hard to argue against. The Startup Visa Act of 2010 would create a two year visa for immigrant entrepreneurs who are able to raise a minimum of $250,000, with $100,000 coming from a qualified U.S. angel or venture investor. After two years, if the immigrant entrepreneur is able to create five or more jobs (not including their children or spouse), attract an additional $1 million in investment, or produce $1 million in revenues, he or she will become a legal resident. The bill would carve out a new “EB-6″ class of visas from the existing “EB-5″ class of visas which has a higher threshold for becoming a legal resident. So it’s not really that radical. The EB-5 requires immigrants to invest at least $1 million in the U.S. and employ ten people. The Startup Visa sends the right message to prospective immigrants: create jobs, get a green card. A group of 160 venture capitalists and angel investors support the bill, including Paul Graham, Brad Feld, Fred Wilson, Dave McClure, Ron Conway, Mike Maples, Reid Hoffman, Chris Sacca, Jeff Clavier, Bijan Sabet, Josh Kopelman, and Chris Dixon. If you agree that the Startup Visa is a good idea, you can find ways to support it here and here . | |
| Mashery Plugs Its APIs Into $5.5 Million In New Funding From Cisco, Others | Top |
| These days, APIs are a must for just about every web service. It’s no longer enough to simply be a web site, everyone wants to be a platform, and APIs are the hooks that enable that by way of data. Since 2006, Mashery has existed as a company to both enable APIs for companies and manage them. And today that vision is being rewarded again with a $5.5 million Series C round of funding. The round, led by Cisco , is also being participated in by existing investors, Formative Ventures , First Round Capital , and 406 Ventures . Cisco, which is a key player in networking, video, mobile, and cloud services is a good investor for Mashery to pick up as the web continues to evolve to new devices and move towards the cloud. The Cisco investment should also help open new businesses to the idea of using Mashery’s services. “ It’s been interesting to see the market for API services develop. While there are still plenty of people who can’t even spell ‘API’, we’re seeing some amazing brands not just testing the waters of innovation for the sake of innovation, but actually driving significant revenue and business growth through their API ,” Mashery CEO Oren Michels tells us. He continues, “ More and more companies are seeing the power of putting their services – whether they be e-commerce, media, data, or anything else – where their customers want to interact with them rather than expecting their customers to do everything at the company’s website. Opening an API is the fastest, easiest and cheapest way to interact with users on third party platforms and mobile devices, and to enable new services that they couldn’t offer themselves. I’m really excited to see how this will grow in the next few years .” With the new money, Mashery will expand its product as well as hire more people in sales and marketing to further cement itself in certain verticals. Currently, Mashery has over 40,000 developers connected to its network which includes clients such as Best Buy, Netflix, Reuters, the New York Times, and Trulia. Mashery had raised $8.2 million over its previous rounds, so the new money brings that total up to $13.7 million. In the space, Mashery competes with 3scale . CrunchBase Information Mashery Cisco Systems Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Hot And Bothered: Walmart Shutting Down Vudu's Adult Section | Top |
| When it was announced that retailer Walmart would buy streaming movie startup Vudu a couple days ago, a number of sites wondered what it would mean for Vudu’s adult content. Here’s what it means: bye bye. An email is currently being sent out by Vudu letting its After Dark (the adult portion of its service run with adult publication AVN ) partners that the section will be discontinued in the “coming days.” Find the full email at the bottom of this post. Vudu has the distinction of being the only major streaming service with an adult section which includes hundreds of titles (including many in HD) from the leading porn studios. This section also allowed for “discreet billing” so movie titles wouldn’t appear on statements. Walmart, on the other hand, couldn’t be any more the opposite with regard to its adult content policy. As in, there is none allowed in its stores. Famously, in some cases it will also only agree to carry edited versions of explicit music albums. This move comes at a time when Apple is also removing what it considers to be explicit material from the App Store (though none of it was technically porn). Though there are now hints it may launch a new explicit area of the store at a later time. Below, find the email going out to Vudu partners. As you can see, it’s asking partners to voluntary terminate the agreement amicably, even though the existing terms aren’t up yet. We’ve reached out to Vudu and Walmart about the shutdown, but they have yet to get back to us. We’ll update when they do. Dear VUDU After Dark Partner, As you may have recently heard, VUDU was acquired by Wal-Mart. In conjunction with this acquisition we will be discontinuing the "After Dark" adult service over the coming days. Upon completion of the shutdown process, we will settle all accounts with you and ensure that you are paid the full amount you are owed under our existing agreement. Attached to this agreement, please find a voluntary termination notice to our existing distribution agreement. As there has been no breach of contract by either party, there are no grounds to terminate the agreement under its existing terms. However, given the discontinuation of After Dark, we believe it makes sense for both sides to voluntary terminate the agreement. The alternative is to allow the agreement to expire under the existing terms, but we believe this is cleaner for all parties. We ask that you complete, sign and return this termination notice at your earliest convenience. Please let me know if you have any questions. Update : A Walmart spokesperson further confirms the news: “I can confirm that we no longer offer that content and that customers who previously purchased movies with adult content will receive a full refund.” CrunchBase Information Walmart Vudu Information provided by CrunchBase | |
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