Wednesday, July 25, 2012

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GiveForward Raises $2 Million For Crowd-sourced Donation Service Top
givefGiveForward, a crowdfunding site for people to raise money for loved ones during difficult times, announced a $2 million Series A round led by Founder Collective and First Round Capital, with Naval Ravikant and Firestarter Fund participating. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Today’s announcement follows a previous $500,000 angel round in 2011 by New World Ventures, David Cohen, HowardLindzon, Tim Krauskopf and others. Unlike Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites, GiveForward is designed for users to raise money for a friend or family member in need. Updating.
 
Collaborative Learning Startup Skillshare Introduces New Tools For Sharing Notes And Asking Questions Top
SkillshareSkillshare is devoted to the idea that people should be able to teach each other things, and has created a marketplace whereby anyone can create or attend a class of their choosing. Like an Eventbrite for peer-to-peer learning. But until today, it lacked a lot of the collaborative learning tools that teachers and students need to facilitate that process. So it's rolling out The Classroom, a new place where teachers and students can exchange notes, ask questions, and share resources. The idea for the Classroom came about after Skillshare saw how its students and teachers were interacting with each ever since launching last year, according to founder and CEO Mike Karnjanaprakorn. While it launched purely as a ticketing system for classes, it saw users interacting with each other on social networks, emailing course materials and sharing links on Facebook. So it decided to bring all of those features onto its site, as a way to aggregate the discussion in a single place and also to increase engagement and the usefulness of its site.
 
Microsoft's BUILD Developer Conference Set For Oct. 30 In Redmond, Week After Windows 8 Launch Top
build_microsoft-2012-redmondMicrosoft hosts a number of events for developers, including TechEd, MIX and PDC. The other major event Microsoft has hosted since it announced that it was working on Windows 8 is BUILD. This year, the company just announced, BUILD will take place on its Redmond campus from October 30 to November 2. Just like PDC, BUILD doesn't run on a set annual schedule, but when the company feels it has something important to communicate to its developers. This year, the conference is obviously scheduled to coincide with the launch of Windows 8 on October 26 and the launch of Windows Phone 8, which should also fall around this time.
 
You've Got Facebook Fans, Now What? Booshaka Raises $1M To Ensure Your Posts Earn You Money Top
Booshaka Logo FeatureIt doesn't matter if you have one million Facebook fans if they never see your news feed posts. That's why SV Angel, Founders Fund Angel, and more have backed a $1 million Series A for news feed optimization service Booshaka, which is also launching a big product update today. The startup helps businesses identify their most active fans -- especially the 10% generating 90% of the engagement -- and incentivize them to leave even more wall posts, Likes, and comments. This feedback signals to Facebook's news feed sorting algorithm EdgeRank that a business is high-quality and that its posts should be shown to a higher percentage of its fans. More impressions -> more clicks and awareness -> higher return on investment for businesses on their social media spend. This is social SEO, and it's worth paying Booshaka for.
 
Keen On… Jeremiah Owyang: Why The Internet Is No Longer A Conversation [TCTV] Top
Screen Shot 2012-07-24 at 11.33.27 AMOnce upon a time, we were told that markets are "conversations". But that's all changed. At least if you listen to Jeremiah Owyang, a much respected "Internet Analyst" at the Altimeter Group. As Owyang explained to me when he came into our San Francisco studio, today's Internet is now in what he calls its third "optimization" phase in which the online conversation has been replaced by hyper-targeted ads from companies like Google and Facebook. Indeed, Owyang told me, the big online battle today is between Facebook and Google over how our data will be controlled and leveraged.
 
Maily For iPad Is Your Kids' First Email Application Top
maily1Maily is a new iPad app launching today that aims to be your kids' first email application. Because, you know, kids these days and their busy schedules. Ha! In all seriousness, Maily is a communications tool that lets kids easily share messages and drawings with family and friends through a simplified interface that even a small child as young as three can manage, at least according to early tests.
 
LG's Q2 2012 Earnings: $138M In Net Profits, Up 46% YOY, Phone Sales Still Lagging Top
LG headquartersLG has been turning a corner of late, getting its mobile division out of a six-quarter-long rut. Today's Q2 report outlines a 46 percent increase in net profits year-over-year at $138 million, though phone sales continue to be an obstacle. Overall revenues went up from last quarter, but are still down from a year ago. The handset division in particular had an operating loss of $49.5 million, which has a lot to do with the decline in feature phone sales. Smartphone sales, on the other hand, rose to 44 percent of all units sold, which is up from Q1's 36 percent.
 
24.9M Tablets Sold In Q2, With Apple's Share Of That Now Over 68%, Says Strategy Analytics Top
new-ipad-black-640x480-jpeg-1One of the strong points in Apple's quarterly earnings report yesterday was sales of the iPad. Globally, they were up 52% by revenue and 84% by unit sales, respectively to $9 billion and 17 million. In some new figures out today, Strategy Analytics notes that this translates to an increase in overall tablet market share for the company: Apple now controls 68.3% of the market, compared to 62% in Q2 a year ago, in an overall tablet market that saw shipments of 24.9 million units. So much for analyst predictions: here's one (of several) that had forecast a decline in Apple's market share. So why the reversal? It looks like the competition that many had been expecting to give Apple a run for its money has failed to materialize. But while Apple's market share is the best it's been in years, Strategy Analytics also cautions that overall the market has also witnessed its slowest growth rate since the first iPad launched in Q2 2010, a result of a slowdown in the global economy, it says.
 
Task Management Startup Exec Now Lets Users Give Back By Donating Someone Else's Time To Charity Top
Exec LogoTask management startup Exec launched with a pretty simple premise -- let users rent someone else's spare time for a small fee of $25 an hour. That has enabled San Francisco-based users to outsource any number of tasks through its easy-to-use mobile interface, from having Ikea furniture put together to delivering various office supplies to cleaning someone's apartment to dropping off dry cleaning. But now Exec is trying to use its system for good, by enabling users to outsource volunteer work to one of three local charities. Instead of just sending money to various charities, the startup is proposing a novel way for its users to give back, by letting them pay for its Execs to stand in and volunteer their time. In other words, for those who want to volunteer but might not be able to find the time, Exec has got your back. They need only pick a charity, determine how much time they'd like to "volunteer," and an Exec will stand in for them. They'll do whatever needs to be done -- whether it be updating donor records, to helping to plan fundraising events, or mentoring kids.
 
TeamGantt Is A Streamlined, Online Project Management Tool Top
TeamGantt_LogoFans of Microsoft Project, rejoice! There's now a way to recreate the fun and pleasure of creating Gantt charts in your browser, bringing that age-old managerial trick of "making another chart" to the Internet. It's called TeamGantt and if you're a project manager, it behooves you to make a Gantt chart about checking it out in the near future, setting milestones that include "launch browser," "type teamgantt.com into browser," and "nod sagely." Then add "go golfing" and you're set. In all seriousness, though, TeamGantt is project management for the post Office set. Built by Nathan Gilmore (29) and John Correlli (22), the system is entirely web-based and hand-coded.
 
Y Combinator-Backed Sponsorfied Launches Tech That Matches Brands With Events Seeking Swag Top
Screen shot 2012-07-25 at 8.13.46 AMToday, Y Combinator Summer 2012 startup Sponsorfied launches its tool that connects and manages the relationship between brands and the events or influencers they want to sponsor. See, we're all trained to ignore ads, but get your product in our hands or enhance a real life experience for us and we won't forget you. Top brands like Red Bull, Task Rabbit, and popchips are the first clients in the Sponsorfied private beta now that it's out of stealth. By sorting out the mess of sponsorship management and installing feedback loops, Sponsorfied could make sure the next event you attend has a lot more free clothes, liquor, and food. You know, more fun.
 
Despite Android Nearly Doubling Activations, iOS Still Leads The Enterprise Top
fig2-activationsThis morning, enterprise solutions provider Good Technology released the results of its latest activation report which offers a snapshot of mobile device trends in the enterprise. The company found that, despite the fact that Android smartphone usage in the enterprise nearly doubled quarter-over-quarter, iOS continues to be dominant platform there, currently led by the iPhone 4S. The results further back up a report arriving earlier this week from mobile platform development company Appcelerator. It released data from a large survey of its developer community, finding that iOS has been surging ahead of Android, at least in terms of developer interest (53% said Apple was better positioned to win the enterprise, compared with 38% for Android).
 
Ticketfly Gets Ready To Rock Sporting Events, International, IPO With New $22M Series C Top
Ticketfly LogoTicketfly is not content playing second fiddle to Ticketmaster, so it just raised a $22 million Series C with each investor chosen for a strength they bring to the stage: Northgate - sports, SAP Ventures (the round's leader) - international, Cross Creek - IPO, and Mohr Davidow - connections in Silicon Valley. The round brings Ticketfly up to $37 million in funding to disrupt event ticketing. CEO and co-founder Andrew Dreskin has lofty aspirations and tells me "A changing of the guard is at foot, the fundamentals of the ticketing space are experiencing great change." But considering Ticketmaster has signed long contracts with clients, and is just half of the LiveNation juggernaut that owns venues and and artist management deals, Ticketfly will need to play its heart out to win the crowd.
 
The Droid X360 Is The Standard-Bearer For Counterfeit Chinese Products Top
7633900340_bc098ba75cFollow me here. The Droid X360 has the mind of Android, a body of a Vita, and branding of Verizon's Android phones and Microsoft's gaming system. Plus, the thing ships with 9 different emulators, allowing the owner to play games from Nintendo 64, Sony PlayStation, Game Boy Advance, Game boy Color, NES/FC, SNES, SEGA Mega Drive and SEGA Game Gear. The only way it could infringe on more trademarks would be if there was a Mercedes-Benz logo on the backside.
 
Stealth-Mode DC Lobby Group Internet Association (Google, Amazon, FB, eBay) Names CEO Top
Capitol Hill - Washington, DC | Flickr - Photo Sharing!A sign, if you needed one, of how big tech companies have become, how central they would like to be in the world of policymaking -- and how they may be getting nervous about heavier regulation down the line: a new lobbying group is being formed called The Internet Association, with charter members reportedly including Google, Amazon, eBay and Facebook. The group, due to launch formally in September, has made very little noise up to now, but today it announced the appointment of a president and CEO -- Washington insider Michael Beckerman -- to lead it in a more public effort. The news comes in the same week that it was revealed that Google's budget for lobbying went up by 90 percent in the last quarter to nearly $4 million (on par with large telcos like Verizon), while Facebook's went up by 200 percent to $960,000, according to Reuters.
 
SnapKnot Relaunches With A Pinterest-Style Layout To Connect Brides With Photographers Top
snapknot-logo-big-300x60The wedding space is blowing up here in tech, and for one very obvious reason. Almost everything about planning a wedding is pretty ancient. People build out complicated spreadsheets for their guest list, they are forced to search high and low for ways to spread around photos and invite-type information, and searching for vendors is about as accurate as doing a Google search for wedding photographers. But the technology is catching up to the process, especially on that last point about photographers, as SnapKnot. has undergone a major update to make sure brides have the very best images of their big day to look back on. SnapKnot has always made it easy for brides to search for photographers by location and budget. But what about the pictures themselves?
 
Google SEC Filing Details Why It Paid $12.4 Billion For Motorola Top
motorola_mobilityIn an SEC filing, Google spelled out why it paid $12.4 billion for hardware maker Motorola Mobility, in a deal that closed in May. $5.5 billion of the total price was for intellectual property, specifically "patents and developed technology." Another $2.9 billion was attributed to cash acquired, $2.6 billion was for "goodwill," $730 million for customer relationships and $670 million was for "other net assets acquired." And in case you're wondering, Google says that goodwill is "primarily attributed to the synergies expected to arise after the acquisition." Yep, they said synergies.
 
Andreessen Horowitz Keeps Eating The Software World With $11.2 Million Investment In JavaScript Framework Company Meteor Top
MeteorMeteor, the company behind an application development framework of the same name, today announced $11.2 series A funding from Andreessen Horowitz, with Matrix Partners also contributing. The investment follows Andreeseen Horowitz' record breaking $100 million investment in Github. The Meteor framework is free and open source and can be used for creating rich, Google Docs style applications in the browser. The developer preview launched last April. The company plans to monetize the product by selling enterprise support and services.
 
Google Gets Scientific, Adds A Voice-Enabled 34-Button Calculator To Desktop And Mobile Search Top
awesomeOh Google. Sometimes you're so awesome. Google search has long featured a built-in calculator function but a recent update added a fully functional 34-button scientific calculator. Previously, when a user entered, say, 2+2, Google would simply display the sum above the search result. Now, when that equation is entered into the search bar, the answer pops up along with the new calculator. Best of all, this works in mobile browsers and voice search, too.
 
Social TV Analytics Startup Bluefin Labs Hires Former Razorfish Chief JP Maheu As Its New CEO Top
bluefin labs logoOver the past year and a half, social TV analytics company Bluefin Labs has gone from being a stealth startup to becoming an invaluable provider of research for TV networks, brands, and agencies who want to delve into the social conversations that are happening around TV shows. Now, as it prepares to take its next steps forward, the company has hired veteran agency executive JP Maheu as its new CEO. Bluefin Labs provides detailed analytics around social messages that TV viewers send while watching television. It scours Twitter and other social networks in realtime to determine audience sentiment and affinity data around various TV shows. It can tell networks which shows viewers are most engaged with, what shows share affinity graphs, and the like. It can also provide pretty granular data around brand advertising, showing brands and agencies how viewers are responding to their adverts during different shows.
 

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