Tuesday, July 24, 2012

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SnappyTV Launches Self-Serve Platform, Lets Anyone Create Events And Share Real-time Video Clips Top
SnappyTVSocial video startup SnappyTV launched last year with a platform for making clips of live videos and then sharing them on social networks. Now it’s moving beyond custom implementations and launching a platform that will allow any video publisher to enable real-time clipping and social sharing of those videos on Facebook and Twitter. SnappyTV already works with some major TV networks and media companies, offering up tools to allow their viewers to quickly and easily share video moments with friends and followers on social networks. Using SnappyTV’s editing tools, TV networks, online video publishers, and sports leagues have published and pushed clips onto Facebook and Twitter virtually in real-time, making them instantly shareable. With its new self-service video clipping and sharing tools, small and medium-sized companies can easily integrate the SnappyTV platform with their video delivery systems. That includes working with major live-streaming providers, as well as YouTube and video content management systems like Brightcove and Ooyala. While SnappyTV has been working with major media companies on custom implementations, now basically anyone can deploy the same technology. That technology can be used by companies to share live video clips during live-streaming events, such as conferences or other programs. It was used during TechCrunch Disrupt, for instance, to share more than 350 clips on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. With the new product, SnappyTV has introduced three offerings, in addition to its custom enterprise services. There’s the $49 a month Express offering, which supports recording and editing of live events and social sharing. The Pro offering, which is prices at $499 a month, enables editing, scheduling and publishing to social networks, as well as importing to YouTube and content management systems like Brightcove and Ooyala. And its conferences and live events offering makes the came capabilities available to conference promoters on live streaming platforms. That costs $999 per event.
 
Kids Clothing Service thredUP Adds Netflix Execs As It Prepares To Scale Top
thredup logoOnline kids' clothing consignment shop thredUP says its recent transition from online swap meet to clothing resale service has been working. When the company was originally founded back in 2009, the goal was to offer a platform where parents could trade boxes of used kids' clothes directly with each other. But despite some steady but slow growth, thredUP made the shift into consignment this past March. Now parents send in clothes to the service, and receive credits to spend in the online shop. Since the change, thredUP reports 50% month-over-month growth, and says it's now on track to sell over 100,000 items during back-to-school shopping season. The company is also announcing the addition of a new executive, Chief Operations Officer John Voris, formerly VP of Operations Engineering at Netflix, and new board member Andy Rendich, former Chief Service and Operations Officer at Netflix.
 
Online Radio Service TuneIn Comes To Tesla's Model S, Now Available On 200 Platforms Top
TuneIn_logoTuneIn's online radio service that lets people listen to music, sports and news on their smartphones and on the web, just announced that it is now available on 200 different distribution platforms. The platforms include everything from smartphones, home entertainment systems, connected TV and - most recently - connected cars. Indeed, the 200th platform the company announced today is Tesla's new Model S premium sedan, which our own Colleen Taylor took for a spin last week.
 
Kickstarter: The RollPro III Is A Must-Have GoPro Camera Storage Case Top
238c04915653a5fea48a946aa8929d5f_largeI'm a GoPro fanboy. It's an amazing camera born from an even more amazing American company. But, as any GoPro owner quickly discovers, the camera demands all sorts of accouterments and add-ons. Mine are stored in a large camera bag with different parts haphazardly thrown into a different compartments. It's essentially a grab bag of GoPro parts. Clearly I'm not alone. Riseful's Kickstarter campaign for the RollPro III tackles this problem with an age-old design.
 
The Best Annual Tech Startup Events In Europe Top
medium_web_summit2Well, I guess I'm about to be shot down here. For a while I've been contemplating a post about all the annual events in Europe which are specifically relevant to tech startups. Now when I say that, I do not mean hacker meetups in bars, or monthly events in various European cities. I mean Annual conferences and events where you will find startups, tech entrepreneurs and investors either milling about at a big general event on innovation (like DLD) or pitching on stage at a conference like Le Web. You will notice there are no URLs yet. When I get time I will add them (you can always use Google). For now I just wanted to get this post out there for you to look at and kick the tyres on.
 
Prepping For 2013 IPO, Mobile Ad Player Jumptap Names Ex-Yahoo Exec COO; iAd/Admob Backer Joins Board Top
jumptap-logoIndependent mobile ad network Jumptap is filling out its team with two more key executives as it continues to prepare for an IPO in 2013 -- and look for more M&A activity as it gets there. The company has named Frank Weishaupt, a former VP of advertising marketplaces at Yahoo, to the newly-created role of COO. And joining the board is John Hadl -- a partner at U.S. Venture partners as well as a longtime mobile player who had been an advisor to Admob (bought by Google) and Quattro Wireless (bought by Apple), as well as Jumptap rival Millennial Media (now public). The appointments come in the same month that Jumptap announced $27.5 million in additional funding from Keating Capital, WPP, General Catalyst and others, bringing the total invested to $121.5 million.
 
AT&T's Q2 2012: Revenues Of $31.6B, Earnings Of $0.66/Share, 61% Of Wireless Subscribers On Smartphones Top
att-logo-smallAT&T has just released its Q2 2012 financial results -- the telecom giant reported quarterly revenues of $31.6 billion (that's up 0.3% year-over-year) and earnings of $0.66 per share (up a full 10% year-over-year). AT&T also reported operating income of $6.8 billion, a healthy jump from to the $6.1 billion it reported in the previous quarter. As solid as the numbers seem, AT&T couldn't completely beat analyst expectations. The company couldn't quite match forecasted revenues of $31.7 billion, but easily beat expected earnings of $0.63.
 
Y Combinator-Backed SmartAsset Helps With The Tough Financial Decisions, Starting With Homebuying Top
SmartAsset LogoSmartAsset, a startup incubated by Y Combinator, aims to help consumers make the major financial decisions in their lives. Right now, the site is focused on homebuying — founder and CEO Michael Carvin tells me the service originated in his own experience purchasing a home. When he was trying to figure out whether buying made sense, he found that online resources were pretty lacking, with lots of advice in the form of blog posts ("Content can be helpful, but me reading about your aunt buying a home or your cousin buying a home doesn't really help me," Carvin says) plus financial calculators with little depth and dubious accuracy. So instead, Carvin built his own financial model to figure out how the purchase would affect his finances over time, and he realized that as long as he stayed int he home for at least a few years, buying was good move.
 
The iPhone Accounted For 73% Of AT&T's Smartphone Activation Last Quarter Top
iphone-4The iPhone is dominating. And that's not unsubstantiated flamebait. AT&T just released it's quarterly financial statement, which reveals the wireless carrier activated 5.1M smarpthones in the last three months. Out of those 5.1M, the iPhone accounted for 3.7M activations, resulting in a dominating 73% market share within AT&T. AT&T also notes that 22% of its iPhone sales were new activations. Verizon revealed last week that it sold 2.7M iPhones during the second quarter, accounting for 45% of the company's smartphone sales (note: sales, rather than activations like with AT&T's numbers). This is down from 3.2M from the first quarter. The iPhone 4S might be ageing, but consumers are still buying it en mass
 
API Management Heats Up: Apigee Follows Mashery With Its Own $20 Million Round Top
apigee-logoWell, look at this - only yesterday, API management platform Mashery announced its close of an additional $10 million in Series D funding, and today competitor Apigee is announcing a $20 million round led by new investor Focus Ventures. Also participating in the round were existing investors Bay Partners, Northwest Venture Partners, SAP Ventures and Third Point Ventures. This API business? It's hot. Apigee has been busy this year, acquiring mobile cloud platform Usergrid in January, and just last week picking up the assets and personnel behind the operator-backed Wholesale Applications Community (WAC). It's also powering that new "print to Walgreens" feature popping up in mobile photo-sharing apps.
 
LifeKraze Launches iOS App And "Mission: Inspire" With Olympic Help Top
Screen Shot 2012-07-23 at 11.50.49 PMCommunity encouragement service LifeKraze has launched its iOS app and announced a campaign, dubbed "Mission: Inspire," with twelve Olympic athletes to inspire users. LifeKraze lets users post 160-character messages (with photos and links, if they want) about their day's accomplishments; they each have 300 points per day to award to other users. These points can then be redeemed for products and discounts from LifeKraze's partners, including The North Face, Men's Health and prAna, or they can convert them to cash donations to non-profits like DonorsChoose.org.
 
Wooga To Extend Its Mobile Games Footprint After Seeing Massive Growth Top
MW_DD_ComingSoonWooga, the Berlin-based social gaming startup, may well look quite different in a year's time. In recent years the company has climbed up the social games leader poll with a number of highly successful games on Facebook. But it's recent experiments in iOS have given it pause for thought. Does Wooga's future lie on smartphones and tablets? It's about to find out. The company has this week announced it will develop two new mobile titles, including its first on Google's Android platform. Now, Diamond Dash for Android and Monster World for iPhone and iPad - its farming game - will be crucial to Wooga's future direction. Both are expected to be released this Autumn. Monster World has garnered over 45 million players in the last two years.
 
Tintri Raises $25 Million For Storage Designed To Improve Virtual Machine Environments Top
tintri-logoTintri has raised a new $25 million round of funding for its storage appliances designed for virtual environments. The round was led by Menlo Ventures and joined by existing investors NEA and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Tintri has now raised more than $60 million since its launch in March of last year.
 
Benchmark, Greylock And Others Go In For $18.6M On Nextdoor, A Facebook For Local Communities Top
Screen shot 2012-07-24 at 2.39.09 AMLocalized social network Nextdoor is announcing $18.6 million dollar round today, led by Benchmark Capital and followed on DAG Ventures, Greylock Partners and Shasta Ventures. Investment bank Allen & Company, Pinnacle Ventures, Rich Barton, Anthony Noto and Dave Goldberg also participated in company's series A round. The Allen and Co participation is particularly unsurprising, seeing as though Nextdoor was one of the chosen presenters at this year's Sun Valley conference.
 
YC-Backed Chute Nabs $2.7M From Salesforce & More To Become The Twilio For Media Content Top
logo-largeChute knows you're tired of hearing about yet another photo-sharing or photo-syncing app. So, although it dwells in the photo sphere, thankfully Chute is taking a different approach. The recent Y Combinator grad set out to become the go-to service that app developers and content producers turn to for managing and enhancing photos in their app or on their website. You can think of Chute as a Twilio for photos, or if you're into cloud-inspired taxonomy, as an Images-as-a-Service startup. While photos are Chute's bread and butter, the startup has also begun to see demand for functionality that extends beyond the photo field. Not surprisingly, there are more than a few businesses and app developers looking for some help in capturing, managing, and displaying their media files. NBCNews.com, Taylormade and L.A. Live, for example, have already tapped Chute to do just that. So, to help expand its scope and begin scaling, the startup announced today that it has taken on $2.7 million in seed funding from a handful of top investors.
 
Kids' Social Network PixyKids Rebrands As Kazaana, Heads Into Beta Top
kazaanaPixyKids, a Silicon Valley-based startup building a social media platform for children ages 6 to 12 and their families, is launching into open beta today and rebranding under the new name "Kazaana." The company felt like the earlier label was "too girlie" and didn't clearly demonstrate that PixyKids was a family platform, and not just a kids' platform. (For what it's worth, I have to admit the first thing I thought of was Kazaa, the music download service which used to bundle some nasty spyware. Oops! But I'm sure today's kids have no idea. And maybe I'm just old.) The company is also announcing the addition of Shai Samet, a well-known children's privacy expert and founder of the "kidSAFE Seal Program," to its advisory board.
 
As Nokia Completes Scalado Buy, Another ex-Nokia Spinoff Emerges: Oulutalent Top
oulutalentsToday Nokia announced that its deal to buy imaging company Scalado has been finalized -- a sign of another piece of the puzzle falling into place for Nokia as it continues to restructure to reverse huge declines in handset sales. But that dark, Finnish cloud has a silver lining that we've been noticing: the emergence of a bunch of startups being formed by many among the 40,000 people that have been laid off. The other day we wrote about how some of the smaller players have been picking up funding from Nokia courtesy of its Bridge program. And now we've come across what might possibly be one of the more ambitious spin-offs yet. Oulutalent is a team of no less than 500 former-Nokia employees based in the town of Oulu. The skills on offer, and the ready-made team, is a testament to what Nokia has had to drop by the wayside, but also what is on the market for the many tech companies out there fighting the war for talent.
 
Mobile Analytics Company Keen Announces $750k Round A Top
keenio_logoKeen, a mobile analytics startup co-founded by former Google Analyics employee Kyle Wild, announced a $750,000 series A investment from 500 Startups, Data Collective, SK Ventures, Cloud Power Fund and several big name individual investors, including Dropbox investor Pejman Nozad, PayPal investor Jared Kopf and TechStars managing directors Nicole Glaros and Jason Seats. You can find a full list of investors on AngelList.
 
Viber Updates iPhone, Android Apps To Version 2.2: Group Messaging, Improved UI, Enhanced HD Calling Top
6Viber has just released version 2.2 of the app for both Android and iPhone, bringing some much-requested features to the platform for the very first time including group messaging and improved call quality. The UI has also been significantly improved, which should please Viber's growing user base. In May, we learned that Viber had surpassed 70 million registered users. Today they've topped 90 million users and have taken the number of text messages sent from 1 billion to 2 billion per month. But let's not get distracted — back to the update.
 
Is Speedy LTE Finally Coming To The UK? Ofcom Sets 4G Auction For Early 2013 Top
speedIt's been a very long time coming, but the UK regulator Ofcom has finally revealed plans for the auction of 4G spectrum, which means that by late next year the UK may, finally, start to see a commercial rollout of 4G services like LTE. Bidding in the auction, for spectrum in the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz bands, is likely to start in early 2013. It will be the largest-ever spectrum auction in the country, some 80 percent bigger than the 3G auction that saw billions of pounds spent by operators in 2000. And ultimately, the sale will mean at least 98 percent of the UK will have access to mobile broadband. The regulator has been performing a fine balancing act over the last couple of years on this issue -- with larger operators O2, Vodafone and T-Mobile/Orange (the Everything Everywhere JV), wanting to ensure they get sizeable shares of spectrum to serve their existing customer bases, doing battle with smaller operators worried about getting shut out of the process. In the past, that has spelled frustrating delays for all concerned. Today Ofcom hit back, saying "reports of delays are way off the mark." Its solution to the bunfight? It will give a crack at the spectrum to the three biggies, but would also reserve a tranche for a fourth party, a wholesaler like Hutchison 3G or someone else.
 

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