Wednesday, June 30, 2010

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NeighborGoods Extends The Sharing Of Actual Things To The National Level Top
Back in October, we covered a new sharing service called NeighborGoods . When you see the term “sharing” associated with a startup, your eyes may glaze over at this point — but NeighborGoods is a bit different because it’s all about actually sharing stuff. Like, in the real world. Sadly, the site was previously only open to users in Southern California. But today brings its nationwide roll-out. As a refresher on the idea behind it, say you have something sort of expensive you bought but don’t use all that often. For example, a vacuum cleaner. Most of the time it just sits there, unused. But what if you could let someone else around you borrow it, or even rent it for a day? That’s what NeighborGoods facilitates. The key to all of this is local. Obviously, most people aren’t going to be comfortable shipping their stuff across the country just to lend it to someone (and that’s sort of a logistical nightmare). But if you live near someone who has something you want or vice versa, this system works. That’s why it’s key to have the service available across the entire U.S., rather than just in Southern California. So how does NeighborGoods make money? Well, the obvious idea would be to put fees on top of what users who rent things out charge — but they’re not doing that. Instead, they’ve baked a small fee ($4.99) into the verification process. This optional process ensures that someone lives where they say they do, so people can feel better about lending to and borrowing from them. There’s also an option for members to chip in if they like the service. NeighborGoods is still a bootstrapped startup. Check out a bit more in the video below. CrunchBase Information NeighborGoods Information provided by CrunchBase
 
WhaleShark Media Unveiled As Big Coupon/Deals Rollup Play Top
We first heard of WhaleShark Media in March when MySpace VP Mobile John Faith jumped ship to join the secretive new startup . Now we have all the details. The company is led by former BankRate COO Cotter Cuningham , and has raised over $30 million in funding from Austin Ventures and a number of undisclosed angels. Their strategy is to roll up the top deals and coupons sites on the Internet. It’s not the sexiest business in the world, but it sure is profitable, apparently. They’ve acquired four sites already – deals2buy , coupon7 , couponshare and my personal favorite, cheapstingybargains.com . The company isn’t saying the terms, other than both cash and stock is involved. more deals are closing soon, they say. The go forward brand for the company will likely be deals.com , a domain name they’ve acquired from Demand Media . The new site is still in development and Demand Media content remains on the site for now. These types of rollups are becoming a specialty of Austin Ventures. They founded the hugely successful HomeAway rollup . And more recently they backed former MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe’s social gaming rollup MindJolt . Both Tom Ball and Phil Siegel . The company is already “oh yes” very profitable, they say, and have revenues of $10 million – $20 million. CrunchBase Information WhaleShark Media Austin Ventures Information provided by CrunchBase
 
As Part Of Its Kindle Everywhere Strategy, Amazon Prepares An HTML5 Web Previewer Top
Jeff Bezos wants Kindle books to become ubiquitous and the standard in digital reading. “Buy once, read everywhere,” is his motto . He already has the various flavors of the Kindle e-reader, as well as an iPhone app, an even better iPad app , a Blackberry app, a new Android app , and desktop readers for the Mac and PC. But what about the plain old Web? Amazon is inching in that direction with a soon-to-be-released “Kindle Previewer for HTML5.” When you buy a Kindle device or download the software, you can sample a free chapter for any book in the Kindle store. With the new previewer, those free samples will be available on the Web as well, with the option to buy the Kindle edition. It sounds like it will be similar to the “Look Inside the Book” option on Amazon’s Website, except this will be for Kindle editions and be in HTML5. What is not clear, however, is why Amazon is only making the previews available in HTML5 and not the entire book. One argument could be that it is not ideal to read an entire book on a desktop or laptop computer. But, in that case, why offer Kindle software for Macs and PCs with full book downloads? On the iPad and other tablet devices, the HTML5 preview will be available right on the browser, creating another way to promote Kindle editions when people are just surfing the Web. The HTML5 previews will also be linkable, as opposed to the sample downloads locked inside each app. But ultimately, there is no reason why Amazon shouldn’t offer full HTML5 versions of the entire Kindle library. Once it does that, it really won’t matter what device you are on as long as it has a browser. CrunchBase Information Amazon Kindle 2 Information provided by CrunchBase
 
GroupSpaces Secures $1.3 million, Brings On High Profile Valley Investors Top
Not unlike Mark Zuckerberg a few years ago, a couple of British Oxford university students realised there had to be a better way to network online - but they took a rather different approach. After studying how their college's clubs and societies worked - and running a few themselves - David Langer and Andy Young came up with GroupSpaces in 2007. Three years later they've expanded beyond university campuses to hit 500,000 group memberships and are now set to go international with the injection of $1.3m investment. The round comes from Index Ventures and leading angel investors including Dave McClure, Chris Sacca, Simon Levene, Meagan Marks, Ariel Poler and Quincy Smith of CODE Advisors. This is the first investment announced from the new Index Seed Fund and as such Index partner, Mike Volpi, will take a board seat. Existing investors Stephen Bullock and Simon and Michael Blakey of Avonmore Developments also participated in the round. That line-up attests to the interest this startup is creating - it's extremely rare for this many high-profile Silicon Valley angel investors to invest in a UK startup. The cash will be used to expand their engineering and marketing teams in both the UK and US.
 
Droid X Ad: Hold The Phone Any Way You Like Top
The iPhone 4 hasn’t even been out a week yet. But that apparently isn’t stopping rivals from pivoting ad campaigns to play to its weaknesses as quickly as possible. Today, Motorola ran a full page ad in the New York TImes to show off its new Droid X device which is launching this Summer on Verizon’s network. Check out the full ad below touting its features, but be sure to read the copy below. Here’s the key part: And most importantly, it comes with a double antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like… Hmm, I wonder what that’s directed towards … View this document on Scribd [via Sarah Perez ] CrunchBase Information Droid iPhone 4 Information provided by CrunchBase
 

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