The latest from TechCrunch
- Viralheat Grabs $4.25 Million For Affordable Social Media Tracking And Intelligence
- OpenCandy's Pokki Brings Web Apps To The Desktop, With Style
- Opera Hits 200 Million Users; Debuts A New Featherweight Look And More In Version 11.5
- Anonymous Declares War On The City Of Orlando
| Viralheat Grabs $4.25 Million For Affordable Social Media Tracking And Intelligence | Top |
| Viralheat , the social media measurement tool that allows content producers to monitor consumer-generated content on the Web in realtime, announced today that it has closed a $4.25 million series A round of funding. The round was led by the venture firm Mayfield Fund and adds to the $75K of seed capital Viralheat raised back in December 2009. The startup plans to use this new infusion of capital to expand its engineering team, create new products and services for consumer analytics and engagement, and accelerate customer acquisition and revenue growth. As it is, Viralheat faces plenty of competition in the social media analytics and tracking space from Radian6, Visible Measures, Omgili, ScoutLabs, and Omniture to name a few, but the top factor that distinguishes Viralheat from other startups is its affordability. For $10 per month, users can track 10 profiles on the site, and for $40, you can track 50 profiles. Viralheat has been quietly adding integrations and tools to deepen its feature set and provide customers with a more robust suite of trackable trends, sentiment, influencer data, analytics and intelligence. But, as Viralheat CEO Raj Kadam said recently, the future of this space relies not just on a company being able to track present influencers (though offering 360-degree views of the top evangelists, content producers, etc. is certainly important), but being able to predict what is going to happen next, like what products are about to explode and what consumers are about to buy, for example. To push into this emergent space, Viralheat recently launched its “Human Intent” product into private beta, which giving businesses the ability to identify customers online that are on the verge of a purchasing decision — in realtime. As part of this Viralheat integrates with Salesforce, using OAuth 2.0 to exports your leads into your sale organization’s pipeline, as well as ease of export and simple employee training. Viralheat also boasts coverage of Twitter, Google Buzz, Facebook Fan pages, YouTube, Hulu, Vimeo, blogs, and more, in addition to enterprise grade features like dynamic alerting, geo-location to restrict your profiles by location, and an API to embed social media intelligence into applications. Since its launch in 2009, Viralheat has grown to over 1,300 customers from 61 countries worldwide. You can read our initial coverage of the startup here . CrunchBase Information Viralheat Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| OpenCandy's Pokki Brings Web Apps To The Desktop, With Style | Top |
| “The future is the web.” So goes the mantra that seems to be echoing throughout Google, Facebook, and plenty of smaller tech companies that view the web as the solution to sidestep the fragmentation created by native app platforms. And they’re almost certainly right. But the web still has a long way to go — it’s quite rare to come across web applications that feel anything like their desktop counterparts. Now San Diego-based startup OpenCandy thinks it has a solution: a new product called Pokki that bridges the gap between the browser and native applications. In other words, they’re offering web apps that are a lot more convenient than web apps. First, some logistical news: up until now OpenCandy’s only product has been a native application installer for Windows that upsells users on high quality apps (it’s a little controversial — you can find our past coverage right here ). In light of today’s new product launch, OpenCandy is changing the name of the company to SweetLabs (the installer is still called OpenCandy). So what exactly is Pokki? It’s a framework built on Chromium that allows developers to build basic applications using standard web technologies, but with a few key additions. First, these applications support nice notification tags in the menu bar (similar to iOS’s badge system). They’re also handy by design — click one, and it will pop up in a small window that you can use to access your Facebook wall, Gmail inbox, or whatever other application you’ve installed. Click outside of the Pokki, and it disappears. It’s very lightweight. Pokki is initially offering a set of eight applications to users, including apps for Gmail, Facebook, Groupon, eBay, the WSJ, Living Social, and Twitter. That’s a solid start, but today’s launch is primarily about introducing developers to the Pokki SDK, which isavailable beginning today, and will let developers turn whatever website they like (provided it has an API) into a Pokki. Note that most of the Pokkis launching today were built in-house by SweetLabs. To use Pokki, users have to install the basic framework first, but this will come bundled with all Pokki apps — the company expects users will download a Pokki from one of their favorite sites, and then continue to add more using the integrated Pokki app browser. The apps are launching with support for Windows today, with Mac and Linux support coming down the line. Pokki is far from the first project that’s looking to bridge the gap between web and native applications. You may have heard of Fluid , which does something similar for the Mac. And, to some extent, this is also competing with Google’s Chrome Web Store, which is also in the business of distributing web apps. But Pokki’s focus on these quick, nimble applications (at least to start with) may give it a leg up. I could definitely see myself using a Pokki app to check in on the daily Groupon deal or Facebook News Feed update without having to fire up a new browser tab. And I’m not the only one: Pokki has tested the apps with “a large social games company” with very encouraging results. This sort of thing seems tailor-made for giving CityVille addicts a way to quickly check in on their towns without having to actually visit Facebook. CrunchBase Information OpenCandy Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Opera Hits 200 Million Users; Debuts A New Featherweight Look And More In Version 11.5 | Top |
| When you’re in fifth place in the browser races, there’s room to be a little goofy. That’s why it can be a pleasure to read the releases coming from Opera Software , the quirky Oslo-based company responsible for the eponymous Opera browser — the underdog currently enjoying a 2.4 percent share of the browser market behind IE, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. Which is clearly why Opera is proud to announce that eye-catching (even if slightly irrelevant) statistics like the 1.2 million “stormtroopers, droids, and janitors” that can fit into an operational Death Star or the 11 million followers Lady Gaga has on Twitter, now have to take a backseat to Opera’s own numbers, as the browser officially acknowledged that it has accumulated over 200 million users across its platforms — a number that will now be tracked on Opera’s homepage . (Along with other humorous stats.) Not only that, but Opera is announcing today that it is releasing a new version of its browser, 11.50 to be exact. It’s been six months since Opera 11 hit the streets, and, as the Norwegian company says in its latest press release, “Our mothers are so proud of us. We worked long and hard to bring you the best Opera browser yet. We even took pictures to prove it “. But what is it, exactly, that makes Opera mothers so proud? In part, this pride is due to Opera offering a new, streamlined “featherweight” UI, which updates the browser’s visual appearance to look much like the new versions its competitors have been pumping out of late . This new featherweight design sees Opera shedding buttons and expanding its display space, among other things. According to Jan Standal, VP of Desktop Products, this was because users were reporting that Opera was slower than other browsers, but now with this lightweight iteration, Standal hopes that becomes a thing of the past. Thanks to an overhaul of its core code and software graphics engine, Opera is now touting a 10 to 15 percent upgrade in speed on SVG rendering. What’s more, Opera 11.50 touts updates to the browser’s unique shortcut, called “Speed Dial”. Speed Dial, for those unfamiliar, is designed to make it easier to access your favorite and most-visited sites. Instead of thumbnails and links to these top sites, users can now embed and incorporate extensions into Speed Dial shortcuts to get weather at a glance, for example, just by opening a tab. (A seemingly suped-up version of what it’s like opening a new tab in Chrome.) Users now have unlimited dials and the extension automaitcally adjusts its layout to fit the browser display screen, but users have the benefit of layout adjusting and a configuration menu with an updated zoom slider. And, interestingly, Read It Later, Webdoc, The Hype Machine, and StockTwits are among the companies and apsp whose extensions Opera is touting as part of its newest release. For more, check out the video below. Other updates featured in the 10.50 release are new password synchronization, in which users can use Opera Link to synchronize your website passwords with other Opera browsers. As Opera says, “it’s perfect for checking Facebook quickly when you’re supposed to be working”. Opera’s release also claims that its team has “fixed thousands of bugs and upgraded to our newest core rendering engine”, including tweaks to software graphics engine, like faster CSS and SVG rendering. And for developers intrigued by all this new HTML5 watchamacallit, Opera’s new version “adds Session History and Navigation, the W3C File API, classlist and the element” to its HTML5 support. So, I guess that’s why Opera’s mothers are proud. Clearly, there are some much-needed updates to the underdog browser herein, but the question remains: Will you be proud of the new Opera? Let us know. CrunchBase Information Opera Software Opera Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Anonymous Declares War On The City Of Orlando | Top |
| The hacktivist group Anonymous may be setting its sights on the city of Orlando, Florida next, if an anonymous press release which has landed in our inbox is to be believed (see bellow). The group is threatening to take down a different city-related website every day, starting with Orlando Florida Guide , which doesn’t even appear to be owned by the city of Orlando (it is registered to an organization called Utopia, administered by a man named Steven Ridenour). So any random website extolling the virtues of Orlando could be targeted. The DDOS attacks are justified in the press release as retaliation for the repeated arrests of members of a non-profit group called Food Not Bombs , which feeds homeless people in a park without a permit. The leader of the group, Keith McHenry, was also recently arrested . “This is a declaration of war,” writes Anonymous in its press release describing “Operation Orlando.” It warns the entire city that “Anonymous will now begin a massive campaign against you and your city web assets. Everyday we will launch a new DDoS attack on a different Target.” Its first target will be Orlando Florida Guide, which it threatens to take down between 10 AM and 6 PM tomorrow. No reason is given as to what the site or its owner did to incur the wrath of Anonymous, other than its local boosterism. It’s not even the City of Orlando ‘s official website. Follow @OpOrlando2011 @OpOrlando2011 Commander X We have a Target, there will be an assault and take down at 10:00 AM ET tomorrow. Media should watch for a Press Release tonight. #OpOrlando about 7 hours ago via web Reply Retweet Favorite Anonymous Press Release – Operation Orlando June 27, 2011 The City of Orlando has ignored our warnings, and our generous offer of a cease fire. On Wednesday last you not only arrested two more people for feeding but you arrested the worldwide President of Food Not Bombs Keith Mchenry. This is a declaration of war. Henceforth there will be no more cease fires, no more attempts to get you to resolve this issue with human decency. We will now treat you like the human rights abusers that you are. Anonymous will now begin a massive campaign against you and your city web assets. Everyday we will launch a new DDoS attack on a different Target. We will continue to E-Mail millions of people in 50 countries with the Boycott Orlando campiagn [sic] message. In our experience a government that acts this way is also corrupt. We therefore call on any government or police employee who has evidence of any kind of wrongdoing to consider disclosing it to http://www.LocalLeaks.tk an organization that specializes in dealing with local disclosures. We have said what we have to say. The media has many press releases and communiques from us. From now on we will DO not talk. Journalists should follow the Twitter for that days targeted take down or other un-planned assaults. Tomorrow morning at exactly 10:00 AM ET Anonymous will remove from the world wide web www.orlandofloridaguide.com and it shall remain down until 6:00 PM ET. We will also E-Mail Bomb and Black Fax the owners of this site, identified as one Utopia, Inc. We Are Anonymous – We Are Everywhere – We Are Legion – We Never Forget – We Never Forgive FREE Keith McHenry EXPECT US — Anonymous | |
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