Thursday, August 2, 2012

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FreeCreditReport's Ed Odjana And Facebook's Chris Kelly Back Movie Distribution Startup GoDigital Top
godigital logoPreferred Ventures, the digital media investment firm launched last year by FreeCreditReport.com founder Ed Odjana and former Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly, just announced that it has invested a "high six figure" seed round into GoDigital, a digital distribution service for independent films. GoDigital has a library of more than 1,000 independent, documentary, and foreign movies, which it makes available to viewers through deals with Lionsgate, iTunes, Netflix, Amazon, and others. Initially launched as a music distribution service, then switching to its current model in 2008, GoDigital has been bootstrapped until now. However, founder and CEO Logan Mulvey says the company reached a point where it needed more money to grow — hence the current funding.
 
YC-Backed VoiceGem Brings Communication Back To The Future With Asynchronous Voice Messages Top
Screen shot 2012-08-02 at 3.22.03 PMArda Kara and Alexander Blessing are from two pretty different places -- Turkey and Germany, respectively -- but as students pursuing master's degrees in computer science at Stanford, they both faced very similar problems when it came to communicating with their family and old friends. So they teamed up to build VoiceGem, a simple app for the web and the iPhone that lets you send and receive personal voice messages. VoiceGem, which is part of the current Summer 2012 class at Silicon Valley startup incubator Y Combinator, is launching in public beta today.
 
LocalBonus Raises $900,000 To Provide A Universal Loyalty Program For Anyone With A Credit Card Top
LocalBonus_HighResThere are all sorts of loyalty program out there, but let's be honest -- most of them are a pain in the ass to navigate. They require you to carry around a punch card, or you have to check in using some kind of mobile app, or use a specific rewards card. And each local merchant is tied to a different app or loyalty program, which means that users need to have various different apps or cards at the ready to capture rewards. New York City-based LocalBonus differentiates itself by offering up a "universal" loyalty program that doesn't require users to download an app, checkin to a location, or carry around a punchcard to get points. Instead, it ties LocalBonus loyalty points to purchases made with a user's debit or credit card. Once someone has registered a card with LocalBonus, then any transaction made at participating merchants will begin automatically accruing points. Those points can then be redeemed for cash at various increments.
 
Hacker Posts Hilarious, Offensive Messages From Seven MLB Teams' Facebook Pages Top
mlb-lol-1Facebook pages for the Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Miami Marlins, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, and Washington Nationals were hacked today, as someone updated the teams statuses to a variety of funny (or offensive--or both!) messages.
 
Apple's iPhone 5,2 Prototype Showing Up In Server Logs Top
image1A few short days after rumors began swirling that Apple would hold this year's fall event on Sept. 12, a reliable source just sent a screen grab of a next-gen iPhone popping up in his/her/its server logs. We weren't able to glean any other info from the one session the prototype iPhone was engaged in, but the naming convention falls in line with what others have previously reported. It remains unclear if the iPhone 5,2 will go into production - as opposed to the iPhone 5,1 - or whether it will remain an internal-only test unit.
 
LinkedIn's Jeff Weiner On Password Theft: With 174M Members, 'Health Of Our Network' Is Strong As Ever Top
jeff weinerLinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner today addressed the company's earlier incident of password theft, saying that it doesn't seem to have an effect on growth. The theft, as well as the flurry of negative publicity, may have caused some members to question the professional social network's ability to keep their data safe. However, during today's conference call on the company's second quarter earnings, Weiner said "the health of our network" remains "as strong as it was prior to the incident."
 
Activision Q2 Surprises The Street Again On $1.08B Revenue And $0.16 EPS, Raises Outlook Top
ActivisionActivision Blizzard announced its second quarter results today, beating estimates with net revenues at $1.08 billion, compared to $1.15 billion for the second quarter last year. Meanwhile, net revenue from digital channels came in at $343 million and represented 32 percent of the company's total revenues, up from a 27 percent-share last quarter. Earnings per share came in at $0.16, compared to $0.29 for Q2 2011. The consensus on Wall Street was that Activision would see 18.7 percent revenue growth and 20 percent earnings-per-share growth to $829.7 million and $0.12, respectively. For the first quarter (the period ending March 31st), the company's net revenues were $1.17 billion, with net revenues at $587 million and EPS at $0.33. So, all in all, Activision beat estimates, the fifth quarter in a row they've done so. And based on those better-than-expected results, the company is raising its calendar year net revenue and earnings per share outlook.
 
With Competition Looming, Zipcar's Q2 2012 Revenue And Earnings Disappoint Top
ZipcarZipcar is seeing increased competition in the car-sharing market, which is one reason that it might not be growing as quickly as it, or analysts, like. Zipcar reported second-quarter loss of $422,000 today, or $0.01 a share, compared to a net loss of $5.6 million, or $0.17 a share, in the prior year's second quarter. The earnings came on revenues of $70.8 million, which is up 15 percent from $61.6 million in the second quarter 2011. But Wall Street analysts expected the company to break even this quarter, with revenue rising 18.7 percent to $73.1 million. And Zipcar missed its own revenue forecast of between between $71 million and $74 million. Zipcar shares popped during the IPO, rising to nearly $30 a share. But ever since, they've been on a gradual decline, and closed out the day pre-earnings at 10:50. Zipcar saw its shares drop TK percent in after hours trading as a result.
 
The Protean Echo Reduces All Of Your Credit Cards To One Ubercard Top
Screen Shot 2012-08-02 at 12.43.13 PMReady to enter a cardless future but not quite sure about NFC? The Protean Echo might be for you. This clever project essentially captures your credit cards onto one multi-purpose card that can hold up to three cards at a time. It works like this: you scan your magnetic stripe cards into a smartphone app using a supplied dongle. You can then "upload" three cards to the Protean Echo and select them by tapping one of three touch-sensitive spots. The Echo's batteries last for 2 years and you can store as many cards as you want on your phone.
 
Online Flashmob Platform Mobber Suspended From Twitter API For Promoted Trends Copycat Top
MOBBER_HIGHER_RESMobber, a platform that rewards users for distributing promoted content through their social media accounts, has been suspended from using Twitter's API. Mobber, which launched in June, is intended for companies and musicians who "want to BLAST something into the social media world." A brand can start a "mob," set a capacity and recruit fans to join all through Mobber; by joining, a user commits a tweet or status about the brand. When the mob reaches its capacity, all of the tweets and status updates are released at once, causing a social "bomb."
 
LinkedIn Q2 Earnings Beat The Street: $228.2M In Sales; EPS of $0.03 Top
LinkedIn bigger logoLinkedIn has just released Q2 earnings, and the enterprise-focused social network continues to rise. It's posted revenues of $228.2 million and earnings per share of $0.03 (non-GAAP EPS: $0.16). This puts the company past earnings estimates from First Call of $216.3 million, and Yahoo Finance, which had estimated revenues of $216 million. It also beat First Call's EPS of $0.01, as well as LinkedIn's own guidance of revenues of $210-$215 million. However, GAAP net income was nearly halved to $2.8 million, versus net income of $4.5 million Q2 2011. (Non-GAAP net income for the second quarter was $18.1 million, compared to $10.8 million in the second quarter of 2011.) Q2 saw LinkedIn get hit with what might have been its worst publicity disaster in recent times, when some 6.5 million passwords were stolen. Although the company moved quick to create password changes, the breach would have put off users from relying too much on putting data into that social network, or using it for and paid services, but these results show that clearly it was not hit as hard as people might have thought.
 
ImageShack Launches Yfrog Social, An Ambitious New Full-Service Social Network Top
Screen shot 2012-08-02 at 1.08.44 PMImageShack founder Jack Levin has certainly experienced the short end of the stick when it comes to building a company that works with the API of a larger social network -- ImageShack's Yfrog photo sharing service was decimated when Twitter rolled out its own photo-sharing capabilities. You'd think that being burned in such a way might make Levin back away from the social networking space altogether. But it turns out, it really had the opposite effect: Now, he's going after the space in an even more directly-competitive way.
 
So Far So Good For Eloqua IPO – Shares Up 13% In First Day of Trading Top
eloquaThe marketing automation sector is one of the fastest growing in the burgeoning enterprise space. We see proof of this today with Eloqua's initial public offering (HPO). The stock opened at $12.02 per share on the NASDAQ for the SaaS provider of performance management technology. It was up more than 15% in trading, up from its $11.50 original stock price. The company sold eight million shares. It had a price range of $10-to-$12 per share.
 
Apple Lawyer Asks Judge For Legal Win In Wake Of Samsung's Questionable Info Leak Top
samleakSamsung and Apple's big patent trial took an intriguing turn earlier this week when members of Samsung's legal team decided to send information that was unusable in court to a handful of eager reporters. Of course, Apple wasn't about to take that lying down. Apple attorney William F. Lee recently filed a motion that asked for the Korean electronics giant to be sanctioned (again). This time though, instead of monetary damages or a procedural edge in court, Lee's newly requested sanction calls for the case to be dismissed and for Judge Lucy Koh to find in Apple's favor.
 
"In the Studio," thredUP's James Reinhart Reflects on his Company's Evolution Top
Screen shot 2012-08-02 at 11.32.26 AM 1"In the Studio" opens its doors this week to an entrepreneur who once founded a nonprofit charter management organization for schools in California, spent a summer in management consulting, and eventually stumbled upon a case study experiment in school that gave rise to founding his current startup. James Reinhart and I met a few years ago in school, and I remember him talking about his new business, inspired by an operations case on Netflix. Over the next few years, Reinhart and his co-founders founded a small company in Boston, raised angel funding, packed their bags for San Francisco, and went through a number of fascinating shifts in their business model and vertical focus before eventually stumbling into something potentially big. And, for a nice touch of symmetry, the company just announced the appointment of two former Netflix executives to the company's roster, one to lead operations and the other to the board.
 
Scott Weiss Replaces Marc Andreessen On The Board Of Dalton Caldwell's Mixed Media Labs Top
marc andreessenIn a bit of fallout from Dalton Caldwell's decision to refocus his company App.net on building a real-time social platform, as well his subsequent open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg criticizing the company's "bad-faith" acquisition practices, investor Marc Andreessen is leaving the startup's board. Andreessen will be replaced on the board of Mixed Media Labs (the company that Caldwell co-founded to launch photosharing service Picplz, and which now operates App.net) by Scott Weiss, another partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Andreessen is a Facebook board member, so the swap is supposed to avoid the conflicts of interest likely to arise as Caldwell builds his own alternative to social platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
 
MindSnacks Nabs $6.5M From Sequoia To Bring Fun Educational Games To Your Mobile Device Top
MindSnacksLogoMindSnacks, the DreamIt Ventures accelerator grad that has become known for its addictive educational games for iOS (that feature an ever-present slug), announced today that it has raised $6.5 million from Sequoia Capital. Back in 2010, Jesse Pickard, Jeff Evans and Andy Mroczkowski initially founded MindSnacks as a way to help their friends and fellow gamers turn their Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja addictions into something with a little bit more long-term value. Frustrated with the lack of options in language learning, they launched an educational app that used the addictive mechanics of mobile gaming to teach people those fundamental vocabulary, reading, writing and comprehension skills in their language of choice.
 
Report: Most U.S. Mobile Phone Owners Complain About Dropped Calls, SMS Spam & Slow Download Speeds Top
pew_logoJudging from the latest data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, U.S. cell phone users are at risk of turning into cranks. In this survey, the vast majority of cell owners complain about dropped calls (72%), unwanted sales and marketing calls (68%), text message spam (69%) and slow download speeds (77%). Smartphone owners, it's worth noting, reported more problems with dropped calls, unwanted text messages and slow download speeds than other cell owners.
 
Come Hear From Silicon Valley Legend Reid Hoffman At Disrupt SF This September Top
disrupt-sf12-eventWe are excited to announce that Reid Hoffman is the next special guest to join our incredible lineup for Disrupt SF. During his two decades in Silicon Valley, he has helped build seminal Silicon Valley companies of our time, including PayPal and LinkedIn, and invested in dozens of others including Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, Ning, Six Apart and Zynga. He now leads top venture firm Greylock Partners. Meanwhile, our Disrupt speaker roster is getting packed. We'll also be hosting new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Jessica Alba and Brian Lee, Vinod Khosla, super angel Ron Conway, Ben Horowitz, Marc Benioff, Kevin Rose, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, and many others. You can view the full list of speakers so far here. Stay tuned for more announcements.
 
Chick-Fil-A Is Actually Popular: How Social Media Distorts Your View of The World Top
ihwx.a18c16ed-9f29-4abc-961c-804ca0c52e20.250.250Despite an inescapable torrent of opposition from popular tech blogs, Twitter users, and city mayors against Chick-fil-A, the self-avowed anti-gay marriage restaurant enjoyed record-breaking sales yesterday. Had I just gazed the world through my Twitter feed, I would think Chick-fil-A was on the verge of bankruptcy...and also that Ron Paul was president, gay marriage was legal, and President Obama didn't have a decent chance of losing the election.
 

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