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Posted: 04 Oct 2011 09:06 AM PDT
 Social network Myspace clarified its future strategy of focusing on music at an advertising event Monday.Myspace’s new owner, Specific Media, said it wants Myspace to become the number one online community music destination — the Hulu of Music, according to a report from All Things D. Specific Media’s strategy relies on Myspace’s prior licensing agreements with the four largest music labels in the world as well as over 20,000 independent music labels. Myspace will also compete against a variety of companies, like Vevo, MTV, Spotify, Rdio, MOG, Rhapsody, Grooveshark and more. Basically this means Myspace doesn’t just want to become a service that plays music files but wants to be a service that plays and discovers music, provides customized radio channels, reports on music news and lets you share all of this with your friends. It’s a mighty ambitious goal for a website that’s drastically losing traffic each month. Also, I’m not sure that Myspace’s music label deals put it ahead of other music services. Turntable.fm and Spotify, which are both relatively new competitors, have similar agreements and far more potential to succeed at this point. As for what the new site will look like, Specific Media released a sole screen shot below that was ripped from a slide show the company produced to get marketers interested in Myspace. We’ve grabbed a few of the relevant slides out and embedded them below. Also, it’s worth noting that the right sidebar is the music playlist, which is likely a key component of the revamped Myspace.    Filed under: media, social, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 04 Oct 2011 08:52 AM PDT
 Samsung may scrap long-made plans to launch the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Australia after Apple rejected an offer to settle the dispute between the two companies.Apple and Samsung have been fighting in courts around the world since April, when Apple sued Samsung in the U.S. for “slavishly” copying the designs of the iPhone and iPad. The battle made its way all the way to Australia at the beginning of August when Apple won a ruling to block sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 on patent infringement grounds. Samsung agreed to stop advertising and launching the tablet until the lawsuit was settled. Apple has rejected every offer to settle, including one made last week, which keeps the Galaxy Tab 10.1 off shelves. Samsung’s stance is that if the Galaxy Tab can’t be sold this holiday season, then there is effectively no reason to launch the product at all. Technology evolves at such a pace that trying to launch the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in 2012 would be pointless. The Tab 10.1 was launched in mid-June in the U.S. and its main competition, the iPad 2, was launched in January 2011. In terms of future competition, the iPad 3 is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2012 with better hardware, including a higher-resolution screen, and Samsung is most likely building a better version of the Tab to launch in 2012 to compete with the iPad 3. On top of Apple, Samsung also has to contend with the new $199 Amazon Kindle Fire tablet, which will provide a strong low-cost alternative for media tablets. Do you think Samsung’s tablet ambitions in Australia are over? Do you think Apple is playing fair? Filed under: mobile         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 04 Oct 2011 08:33 AM PDT
 We’re a few hours away from Apple’s next iPhone unveiling, but one thing we can be pretty sure of at this point is that it won’t support new 4G LTE and WiMax networks.People “familiar with the company’s plans” say that Apple won’t be adopting the new cellular technologies, the Wall Street Journal reports. Plenty of rumors and analysis over the past year made it clear that LTE is too immature for Apple to implement in the iPhone 5 and that the company likely wouldn’t even attempt WiMax, since those networks are beginning to show their age. I’ve argued since May that you shouldn’t bet on an LTE iPhone coming this year. The latest Wall Street Journal report doesn’t rule out the potential for the iPhone 5 to support HSPA+ networks, which are marketed as 4G by AT&T and T-Mobile since they perform much faster than standard 3G networks. But if the iPhone 5 does support HSPA+, users on CDMA networks like Verizon and Sprint will miss out on the faster speeds, since HSPA+ is based on 3G GSM technology, which is only supported by AT&T and T-Mobile in the US. Filed under: mobile         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 04 Oct 2011 08:32 AM PDT
 John Battelle’s Federated Media has just acquired Lijit, a Boulder, Colo.-based startup.Lijit focuses on creating tools for online publishers. The company offers advertising services, audience analytics and reader engagement tools, in particular. This focus makes it a perfect fit for Federated Media, which itself was launched with the goal of giving independent online publishers a business model. The acquisition will bring the number of Federated Media’s publisher relationships to 77,000 online publishers and around 15,000 expert communities. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but both the Lijit team and its investors are thrilled with the sale. "This transaction is a great outcome for Lijit, its employees and shareholders,” said Seth Levine, managing director at Foundry Group, a serial investor in Lijit, in a release. “While the details of the transaction itself weren’t released, this acquisition ranks among the most significant outcomes for the region in the past 10 years.” Lijit CEO Todd Vernon said the startup has received a lot of support locally since the acquisition was announced. “Boulder is super collegiate with regards to startups and the community wants to see everyone have their 15 minutes,” he said to VentureBeat in an email. “I have been inundated with positive feedback about the deal.” As for the terms of the deal itself, Vernon told us, “No one is cashing out. In fact, I only wanted to the do the deal if it was stock because I'm so excited about where the combined company is going.” The Lijit team will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Federated Media. It will keep its Boulder offices and will hire between 30 and 40 new employees in the area. After the hiring is finished, Lijit will be one of the largest businesses in downtown Boulder, Vernon said. Federated was founded in 2005 by journalist John Battelle. Last year, the company went on something of an acquisition spree, snapping up startups like TextDigger, BigTent and FoodBuzz during the second half of the year. Lijit started in 2006 in Vernon’s basement. It has taken a total of $28.3 million in funding in five institutional rounds. Filed under: deals         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 04 Oct 2011 08:00 AM PDT
 Though am by no means a web designer or developer, I often wish I could build a website on my own. That’s why I was intrigued by the new website development tool IM Creator, which lets you quickly design a webpage without having to know any code. The tool is free to use, though it requires registration once you start designing a site and want to save it. Upon launch, you have a choice of website templates based on categories, such as restaurant, photographer, hotel or bio. You can also skip the templates and start from scratch, which is what I did. While I started testing IM Creator just for this article, I ended up designing and developing a website for an idea I’ve had for a while now — a place where you can complain about your ultimate pet peeve. The whole process took me about an hour and I was very impressed with the simplicity and flexibility of the experience. (The ads were my own addition.) IM Creator is a WYSIWYG editor, meaning what you see is what you get. Designing with IM Creator feels a bit like using Photoshop. You start with a blank white canvas and have a myriad of elements such as widgets, text, video, slideshows, basic HTML boxes and more. Each element can be re-sized and positioned anywhere on the canvas. The big difference from Photoshop, besides that application’s more advanced editing tools, is that once you’re done designing in IM Creator, you just hit publish and then you have a live website. There are some nice extra touches as well, such as being able to easily add search engine optimization (SEO) tags and Google Analytics. Before you fire your web designer or developer, IM Creator has some restrictions you should keep in mind. You are limited to the design elements provided, and while there is an HTML box, you have to know HTML to understand what goes in there. Also, any graphics still have to be created and uploaded, so a designer would be needed to make your site visually appealing. This tool may actually be most useful and desirable to designers who lack any front-end web development skills. IM Creator is one of the easiest and more flexible website creators I’ve used to date. The only issue I see is with the company’s business model. To publish your site to a unique URL, you have to subscribe to a monthly hosting option provided by IM Creator. While comparable to other hosting options in price, not having a choice might be enough to make potential customers jump ship. The Israel-based company, founded in 2011, claims to have 2,000 paying customers as well as just becoming profitable. IM Creator has raised $300k from friends and family. Filed under: dev, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 04 Oct 2011 07:53 AM PDT
 Hoping to distract, however slightly, from today’s new iPhone announcement, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has pledged yet again to launch the company’s first Windows Phone devices this quarter, Reuters reports.Unfortunately, that tells us little about Nokia’s ability to actually ship the phones to consumers before the holiday season. “Our belief is that there is a clear opportunity for an alternative ecosystem,” Elop said while speaking to a crowd at a technology fair. Nokia has previously said that it will launch its flagship Windows Phones in Europe this year, but Elop’s comments serve as a reminder that the company is still on track. The Finnish phone maker is expected to announce the phones at its Nokia World conference in London late October. In June, we caught our first glimpse at Nokia’s prototype Windows Phone device, codenamed “Sea Ray”. Nokia also showed off some early mockups of its Windows Phone models (see above) earlier this year. I've argued in the past that Microsoft will doggedly fight to reclaim its mobile relevance, and it could very well achieve that with Nokia being the premiere Windows Phone 7 device maker. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 04 Oct 2011 07:18 AM PDT
 Today, the tech and consumer worlds will stand still for an hour or so as Apple unveils its latest products for the mobile fans. Today will be likely the first time that newly minted chief executive Tim Cook will take the stage as the main speaker since he took the top job from Steve Jobs.The presentation will show the world what it’s like when Cook runs the show, or at least most of it. The odds are pretty good that Jobs will not show up today. We’ll be at Apple’s digs today for the event starting at 10 am Pacific time. There are all sorts of rumors about what will happen today. Sprint is reportedly betting billions of dollars on an exclusive for the iPhone 5. Facebook may launch its iPad app. Apple will likely have its iOS 5 software ready to go with new features such as a voice-powered Assistant. Whatever happens, we’ll be watching closely and covering the news as it happens. With luck, we’ll have plenty of pictures and video to show you the goods in all of their glorious detail. It so happens that Apple has decided not to livestream the event, so dispatches from bloggers in the auditorium will be the main way that the news gets out. It will be something of a media circus, as publications like Engadget are already broadcasting live from Cupertino, Calif. We’ll try to type as fast as humanly possible, and the rest of the VentureBeat team will pick up on the news and explain it as thoroughly as possible as well. What will happen? Check out VentureBeat for the blow-by-blow coverage of the event at Apple’s headquarters. Filed under: mobile         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 04 Oct 2011 07:10 AM PDT
 Not to be outdone by Google, AOL on Monday announced it will launch 15 new original web video series produced by or starring celebrities including Jennifer Lopez and Heidi Klum. We also found out Monday that Google has put up $100 million for original programming on YouTube, with the search giant in talks with the likes of Tony Hawk, Warner Bros. and the production company behind The Office. Both Google and AOL likely see original video series as a major opportunity to reach a new generation of web video consumers who have embraced Netflix and Hulu and cut the cord on cable TV. New original programming on AOL will come from big companies like Michael Eisner’s Vuguru and Warner Bros. One could-be-big show on the list is AIM High, an action series starring Twilight‘s Jackson Rathbone about a high schooler who is also a secret government agent. Another is Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions and Believe Entertainment Group’s Tiger Beat Entertainment, which is based on the teen idol magazine and aims for the same audience with news and lifestyle features. “We are pleased to announce a slate of programming that shows our innovative approach to video,” said Ran Harnevo, Senior VP of AOL Video, in a statement. “It provides one of the best platforms on the Web to connect advertisers with premium content at scale. We’ve built a video ecosystem supported by our data and insights into what excites viewers, combined with a deep understanding of what they share and discuss online.” AOL has been in trouble with its stock price as of late, but the company has had positive traction when it comes to its media properties, especially the Huffington Post. It likely hopes a slate of original video will give it another opportunity to attract strong pageviews and big advertising dollars. A full listing of AOL’s new video series can be read below: Women Filed under: media         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 04 Oct 2011 06:45 AM PDT
 Microsoft has quietly confirmed that it will no longer be producing its Zune HD MP3 player, and that Windows Phone devices will be the future of its media strategy.The news was revealed by a support article on Microsoft’s Zune help pages, WinRumors reports. While far from an official announcement, it follows Microsoft’s removal of Zune HD references from its website earlier this week (which has since been restored). It’s clear that the Zune hardware is as good as dead to Microsoft. The MP3 player’s official death has been expected for most of the year. In March, a report claimed that Microsoft wouldn’t be producing new Zune hardware. Lo and behold, there we no new Zunes announced this year. That makes sense, of course. The Zune was never a big seller for Microsoft, and right now it needs to focus all of its energy on making Windows Phone a success. Eventually, we may see an iPod Touch-like Windows Phone device that could serve as a future Zune. Microsoft started off slow with the ugly first-generation Zune, but with its sleeker second-generation Zune , I thought it had delivered a worthy iPod alternative. And no matter how you look at it, the Zune HD is a gorgeous little media player — one that perhaps came too late to make a difference for Microsoft. As I wrote in March, Zune's software legacy will continue to live on. The Zune HD's flashy interface served as the basis for Windows Phone 7′s gorgeous "Metro" user interface, and Zune's impact has also made its way to Microsoft's Xbox 360. It's also worth mentioning that Microsoft's Zune software is among the best media players on Windows, especially compared to iTunes. The Zune desktop software will still continue to serve as the way Windows Phone 7 owners synchronize their devices. Filed under: media, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 04 Oct 2011 06:00 AM PDT
 Social game publisher RockYou has teamed up with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment to jointly promote each other’s zoo-related entertainment.Under the deal, RockYou will integrate the world of Zookeeper, the hit comedy from Sony Pictures, into RockYou’s social game Zoo World 2. Fans of the film, which starred Kevin James, will be able to play with characters from the film, including Griffin the Zookeeper. The deal is an example of the increasingly common ties between social games and movies. While console game movie tie-ins are becoming more rare, social game deals are more popular because social games reach a wider mass market that is similar to movie audiences and because the tie-in deals don’t cost much to implement and can be done quickly. “We have become a category that is of great value to Hollywood,” said Julie Shumaker, head of RockYou Media, said in an interview. “Social gamers are huge consumers of DVDs and theatrical films. That is why you’re seeing more of these deals.” According to a survey by market analyst Interpret (commissioned by RockYou), social gamers watch an average of four movies in theaters and 11 movies outside of theaters over a three-month period. About 52 percent of gamers say that when a new movies comes out, they want to be the first to see it. RockYou also had a deal related to Zookeeper with its original Zookeeper game. And Zynga has cut deals with studios on games that feature promotions related to the films Rango, King Fu Panda 2, and Indiana Jones. Shumaker, a former Electronic Arts ad executive who joined RockYou last spring, said that gamers like rewards related to characters from films. This deal isn’t a particularly stunning one. Zookeeper is about to launch on Blu-ray and DVD disks on Oct. 11. Those who buy Zookeeper can earn 12,500 ZooBucks (worth about $10) to spend on the Zoo World 2 game. In Zoo World 2, users create and manage their own zoo, breeding and nurturing baby animals. The original Zoo World was one of RockYou’s biggest hits. Zoo World 2 now has more than 8 million users. The original Zoo World has been installed more than 50 million times and has more than 7 million Facebook Likes. In addition to creating social games, RockYou has an ad platform that reaches more than 96 million users on Facebook. The Sony Pictures promotion will run for four to six weeks. Filed under: games, social         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 04 Oct 2011 05:00 AM PDT
 Taking advantage of globalization, GlobalEnglish is doubling down on its business of teaching English to employees of small businesses and multinational corporations.Today, the company is announcing a major overhaul that gives its customers new ways to collaborate as they learn and communicate in ways that get past the frustrations of language barriers. The aim is to help business people communicate more effectively as they travel to talk with visitors, partners, or distributed team members. In a world of mergers and reorganizations, communicating effectively on a global basis is more and more important. The new GlobalEnglish Suite will let users tap a bunch of tools to learn English better. One of the new tools is the Global English LinGo Pro Mobile Business Language app, which offers enterprise users easy access to definitions, correction pronunciation, and translation. The app can take industry and topical vocabulary as well as company-specific jargon and acronyms and then translate them from English to 34 languages. The app is aimed at non-native English speakers who have to travel frequently and use English in their business dealings. The app is available on iPhone and Android devices as well as on mobile browsers. The idea is to apply business-oriented English to real work, such as presentations or negotiations. The app is an add-on to the already-existing GlobalEnglish LinGo app, which provides the dictionary and pronunciation functions. The app uses both recording and sound playback to help users grasp pronunciation. The app works with another new software product, GlobalEnglish Bloom, which allows users to collaborate across language barriers. A component of the GlobalEnglish suite, Bloom is designed for teams that have to overcome language barriers and cultural gaps in order to conduct business. It users embedded experts, popular social tools, and peer-to-peer advice to improve worker productivity. With Bloom, employees can upload a document and get immediate feedback on how to improve it so that it can be more easily understood by people speaking other languages. Users can create their own wikis on how to pronounce certain company-specific jargon. GlobalEnglish is also launching GlobalEnglish Edge, an upgrade to an existing corporate learning service that will now include advanced speech recognition and remediation technology. The Edge tool gives easier access to content and more intuitive navigation for employees and those teaching them. It has easier pronunciation practice activities, better performance feedback on writing and speaking, and less administrative work. Subscribers to the service can practice common business language, grammar and writing so they can do tasks such as negotiating, hosting meetings, or doing presentations. The speech technology lets users listen to any written text with the proper pronunciation. Mahesh Ram, the recently appointed chief executive of GlobalEnglish, said that the gap in English fluency can be quite costly for companies, since it results in lost proposals, flubbed sales meeting, communications mishaps and productivity hits. For tech companies, it means that not every employee of the firm will be able to participate in discussions about innovation. The company says its product scales up from 100 employees to millions. The International Monetary Fund estimates that 70 percent of world growth over the next few years will come from emerging markets such as China or India. Brisbane, Calif.-based Globall English was founded in 1997 and it launched one of the first online language learning platforms in 2000. In recent years, its growth accelerated. In 2009, revenues were $35 million to $40 million, and the compound annual growth rate for the past four years was 28 percent. The company has been profitable since 2006. The company servers more than 350 of the Global 2000 companies, including BNP Paribas, Capgemini, Cisco, Deloitte, Hiltion, and John Deere. GlobalEnglish has 210 employees. Rivals include English First, Berlitz, Rosetta Stone, Wall Street Institute and Really English. GlobalEnglish has raised $65 million from Reece Duca, IGSB, Mayfield, SPO Partners and Mitsubishi. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 04 Oct 2011 04:00 AM PDT
 Mindshare Technologies has raised $20 million for its business of tracking customers with online and phone surveys.Salt Lake City, Utah-based Mindshare will use the money to expand product development for its online surveys. The company issues surveys, collects the responses, analyzes them and provides reports in real-time for company management. The growth shows that customer feedback is more valuable than ever. Private equity firm Sorenson Capital led the investment, while the PrivateBank and Trust Company contributed an additional credit facility. Mindshare said it has grown recurring revenues for more than 100 consecutive months. The company says it has a retention rate for its customers of 93 percent. Mindshare completes more than 175,000 surveys each day in 106 countries, 28 languages, and 25 industries. Companies use the surveys to improve operations, foster consumer satisfaction, build customer loyalty, and retain employees. Respondents can use voice and text to supplement their responses to surveys. The company was founded in 2002. John Sperry, chief executive, and Kurt Williams, chief technology officer, were working at a mystery shopping company and asked themselves, “Why don’t we automate all of this manual work?” Revenue grew 33 percent in 2010 and the company is on pace to grow 40 percent to $19 million in revenues in 2011. Customers include Arby’s Hertz, Tony Roma’s, Comcast and Marriott. Mindshare has been profitable for six years. Richard Hanks is chairman and president of Mindshare. Fraser Bullock, managing director at Sorenson Capital, and Ron Mike, c0-founder of Sorenson Capital, will join Mindshare’s board. Mindshare has 80 employees and competes with Empathica and TellUsAboutUs. Filed under: deals, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 04 Oct 2011 12:40 AM PDT
 Continuing its acquisition spree, Japan’s DeNA agreed to buy Chilean mobile social game firm Atakama Labs. The companies didn’t disclose the prize, but we heard a couple of months ago that the deal was valued at around $6 million during negotiations. We don’t know what the actual price turned out to be.The deal shows that the mobile game sector continues to be a hot one as social and smartphone games take over from traditional feature phone gaming. Atakama Labs was founded by Esteban Sosnik and Tiburcio de la Carcova, two Argentines who crossed the Andes and settled in Santiago, Chile, in search of more political and economic stability. Under DeNA, Atakama will provide support for subsidiary Ngmoco, which is creating the Mobage mobile social network. Recent articles have noted that Chile has an attractive climate for startups, and this deal will likely fuel that perception. DeNA became a billion-dollar company based on its success with mobile social games in Japan. It now has more than 400 employees and is trying to become a worldwide smartphone and tablet gaming powerhouse. Filed under: deals, games, mobile         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:52 PM PDT
 WhoSay, a platform that helps celebrities manage their web presence, has added venture capital firm Greylock Partners to its list of investors, the company announced Monday.WhoSay basically makes interacting with fans via social networks and mainstream media easier for celebrities. The company currently has hundreds of active celebrity clients — including actor Tom Hanks and rocker Steven Tyler — that have over 700 million highly engaged fans, according to the company. Terms of the investment from Greylock were not disclosed. However, WhoSay CEO and co-founder Steve Ellis told VentureBeat the amount was large enough that his company would have access to Greylock’s advisement. Having invested in companies such as Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn and Pandora, Greylock will be able to navigate WhoSay’s future social and mobile strategies, Ellis said. The New York City-based company has previously raised $6 million in funding from Amazon Investments, High Peaks Ventures and others. The new investment from Greylock is part of the company’s second round (Series B). Filed under: deals, media, social         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:01 PM PDT
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 Editor’s note: Some story spoilers. After more than five years in gestation, id Software’s Rage video game hits the stores tonight. Lucky for fans of first-person shooter games, it is one of the best games I’ve played in a while. The title is a breakout achievement for id Software, which has focused on making first-person shooters with high-intensity graphics. While id has won kudos for its technology, it hasn’t always gotten the highest marks for story and depth of game play.But Rage is not only a technologically advanced shooter; it’s also a game with deeper role-playing, adventure and racing elements. And it has a story that will hold your attention, even though it starts out fairly slow. In that sense, Rage is a creative mash-up, blending just enough things together to come off as an original game, rather than a copycat. The game bears the mark of a seasoned video game development studio that is finally hitting its stride in a category that has seen increasing competition over the years. When you look at the polished details in this game, you can tell it comes from two decades of experience. That’s every important, considering competition this fall from Gears of War 3, Resistance 3, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3 and others. A world of variety and mash-ups Rage takes place in a near-future post-apocalyptic world where survivors brave ruins and wastelands after a meteor hits the Earth. The sci-fi game is a cross of some recent role-playing games such as Fallout 3 and Borderlands, but it is a far better shooting game than either of those, mostly because the graphics are better and the enemies are smarter. Despite the setting in the future, the Southwestern accents and Wild West environment make it feel a lot more like a Western than a sci-fi story. That’s a far cry from corridor-based shooting games like Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein. I used to enjoy those games immensely when I was younger. But, like other id fans, I want something more from a game now. I’m glad that id recognized that and put so much effort into Rage. It’s hard to believe that this intricate and immersive world came from the game studio that brought us Doom, which was all about shooting. In some sense, Rage is a classic id Software game, thanks to its searing violence. Rage is a mature-rated title that you don’t want to share with your youngsters. There are plenty of “f bombs,” severed body parts, and bloody endings. But the game stops short of the kind of horror-style of games such as Electronic Arts’ Dead Space. The blending of the different story, genre and game play elements is what makes Rage so interesting to play. You’re not stuck doing the exact same thing over and over in the game. First and foremost, it is a fun first-person shooting game. There doesn’t seem to be much of a story at the start. But if you stick with the game, the story starts to gel and you find out who you are in the game. You spend a lot of time exploring the Wastelands, collecting, engaging in car combat, and meeting the human settlers. Just collecting and building gadgets is an entertaining way to pass the time in the game.  In this desert world, you have to scavenge for everything. Much like in Borderlands, you have to make your way across the Wastelands desert, hopping from one human settlement to another and fighting mutants the whole way.You have to be a pack-rat scavenger, since you have to collect parts to assemble cars, lock grinders, and bombs. As you tangle with the locals, you pick up some cool weapons like the “wingstick,” a boomerang-like device with razor blades that can sever an enemy’s head when you throw it. The wingstick can be deadly accurate and turn your enemies into sliced watermelons.The story gets more and more interesting as you run into more memorable characters, some of whom who seem like they’re from the Mad Max series of Road Warrior movies. Clans have taken over lawless territories, while a power known as The Authority tries to assert control over everything. In response, a resistance force has emerged. It turns out that, as the asteroid made its way toward Earth, the government created an elitist program, putting some people into a cryogenic sleep deep underground. You emerge decades later, sort of like the astronauts returned to Earth, only to discover that the apes had taken over, like in the film Planet of the Apes. None of this is evident at the beginning of the game, so you play for a considerable amount of time in a state of befuddlement. That adds a bit of mystery to the question of who you are and what you are doing here. As you interact with characters, you find out more about yourself, since they treat you as somebody who is different from the very beginning. As you interact with the characters, you find that the future runs on a barter system. If you need something from someone, they will give to you only if you can trade. Almost always, they are looking out for themselves. So you have to run around doing jobs for them in order to get what you need.  The obese Jabba the Hut-style character JK Stiles runs a carnival-like gladiator’s arena, where you have kill a bunch of mutants in arena combat in order to earn money and an alliance with Stiles. The Stiles episodes are comic, even though you can get in some horrific firefights with the mutants. You have to deal with him because you need him to sponsor you in a high-reward race.The characters you meet will send you off into different settlements of the world. Just about anybody can set you up with a mission. If you walk up to a character, chances are they will ask you to help you find a missing friend or relative somewhere in the desert.
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Filed under: games         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 07:12 PM PDT
 Mooter Media, a digital media shop based in Australia, has just sealed a whopping $15 million funding deal.The money will be used to create, in development partnership with Hot Shot Media, a social photography platform that Hot Shot CEO Chris Jermyn says will “define and commercialize social photography.” Social photography has been one of the most addictive — and most difficult to monetize — crazes of the smartphone era. When mobile phones are equipped with surprisingly adequate picture-taking hardware and apps for editing and sharing photographs abound, capitalizing on social photography seems like a ripe opportunity for many entrepreneurs. Mooter and Hot Shot’s plan involves an application called ImageSocial. The app will be launched initially on web, mobile, iOS and Android platforms later this year. ImageSocial will used data attached to photos, including tags and geo-data, as well as data about the photographers themselves, such as location and occupation, to make connections between users around the web. On the ImageSocial website, users will be able to vote on images and play photo-centric social games. One of the things both companies are most excited about, however, is ImageSocial’s role as the launch platform for what they hope will be the world’s largest online social event, something Jermyn describes as “a reality TV-style search for the defining moments of our generation, and offering the largest prize pool ever offered online in conjunction with iconic global brands and celebrities.” This contest is scheduled to launch at the beginning of 2012 The platform will “harness the power of social media to allow interactive competition on a massive, global scale,” said Jermyn, “but those who were once just viewers can now become direct participants to create, to compete and to win on their own accord. This will be user-generated content living large and on a scale that neither social gaming nor popular culture have yet seen.” Mooter Media is a publicly traded company with headquarters in Sydney, Australia; the company also has offices in San Francisco and Singapore. In addition to its partnership with Hot Shot Media, Mooter also works on several other social photography ventures, including location-focused photo sharing site Woophy. Image courtesy of katieharbath. Filed under: deals         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 06:30 PM PDT
 In the past several months, more and more venture-backed companies have shied away from tumultuous U.S. market activity and have sought entry into in European and Asian exchanges instead.According to new data from Dow Jones’ VentureSource, exactly half of the companies that completed an IPO in the third quarter did so in Asian and European markets. "Countries with the best rule of law, the best bankruptcy protection, the freest trade, the freest markets, and the best credit ratings are the countries that rule the day,” Draper Fisher Jurvetson partner Tim Draper told VentureBeat during the recent Q3 stock market slide. “The U.S. just dropped a notch." At the time, some of us thought Draper’s pronouncements slightly melodramatically bleak, but it now seems that quite a few CFOs saw the situation in the same light. In Q3 2011, five out of ten IPOs for venture-backed U.S. companies took place outside the United States. This statistic represents a huge drop in the number of U.S. market entries from the first half of 2011, when all 25 venture companies that went public listed on the U.S. market. "I am frustrated that America is in the process of falling behind Asia," Google chairman Eric Schmidt said shortly after the U.S. credit downgrade. "I was recently in Asia and the Asian view of America is that we are the past." The number of companies with U.S. IPOs was down 77 percent from the second quarter 2011 and 64 percent year over year according to the Exit Poll report by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Overall, IPO activity has slowed in the third quarter, with venture-backed companies citing market volatility as a concern. Most of the quarter’s exits happened early on, before the U.S. market in particular became unstable in early August. Six companies made their initial public offerings in July; however, just four companies had IPOs throughout both August and September. In addition to foreign exits, the market volatility also led to a record number of IPO delays beginning in mid-August. The closing of the IPO window followed agency Standard & Poor's downgrading of the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA and the subsequent stock market slide. As a result, around 83% of scheduled IPOs during the first week of unfavorable market activity — between 9 and 13 events, depending on which sources you consult — were delayed or postponed, some indefinitely. “Federal policymakers must address this market uncertainty if they want to fulfill the stated goal of increasing long term employment as it is these emerging growth companies that hold the key to future job creation in the United States,” said NVCA president Mark Heesen in a release. For the companies that did continue with IPOs, less money was raised in those events. Ten companies raised $505 million through public offerings in the third quarter, one more IPO than the same period last year when nine offerings raised $559 million, or around $62 million per company as compared to around $50 million per company this year. Currently, 61 U.S. venture-backed companies are in IPO registration. Twenty-seven of those companies filed during the third quarter. "Exiting a venture-backed company in today's market requires patience," said Jessica Canning, a VentureSource global research director. "Cash-rich corporations will continue to spend cautiously until the global markets stabilize enough to provide assurance that their cash on hand is an unnecessary security blanket. Meanwhile, IPO candidates continue to file with hopes that the markets will stabilize or that they can find an exit overseas." Of the U.S. IPOs in Q3, four of the five were from companies in the technology sector. Thompson Reuters said this makes tech the most active sector in terms of IPOs; IT had fourteen IPOs of the 21 IPO exits in Q2, also. Filed under: deals         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 05:12 PM PDT
 Roku announced today it will be selling its Roku 2 XS and XD video streaming set-top devices at major retail chain Target.The Roku 2 XS will sell for $100 and the XD for $80. Both are online prices. "We think it's great that our customers can now find us at Target," said Roku vice president of marketing Charles Seiber in an e-mail. "Target is the preferred shopping destination for many and like Roku, they strive to deliver exceptional value to their customers." Streaming seems to be the instant access choice for many people who ask, “Why would I order this video or game when I can find it on the Internet?” Netflix, the company Roku spun out of three years ago, recently split its physical DVD rental business off into its own brand, Qwickster, and decided to focus on its streaming business. Roku, which sells Roku devices from its website and on Amazon.com, is expanding further into the real world with this Target partnership — or as the guys at Roku called it in the announcing blog post today, Tar-zhay. Currently, Rokus can also be purchased at Best Buy, Fry's and Wal-Mart. In July, the company launched its gaming device with the flagship gaming title Angry Birds. Soon thereafter, it raised an $8 million round of funding. Roku also recently signed a deal with Disney. We have called Roku for comment and will update upon hearing back. Filed under: media         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 05:01 PM PDT
 Think twice before buying that daily deals voucher; a little research might yield a much lower price than that “bargain” through an online service like Groupon.According to a new report, Groupon’s supposedly discounted offers — especially for local services such as maid service, home repair or house painting — can be just as expensive as hiring a local laborer yourself. Thumbtack is an online marketplace for local services, a sort of well-designed and narrowed-down version of Craigslist that lets normal folks get bids from and hire contractors. In a case study, Thumbtack found that the prices offered by Groupon in particular often don’t reflect a true discount. For example, Groupon recently offered a voucher for housecleaning service in Phoenix at a supposedly discounted rate of $24.50. Groupon claimed that the normal hourly rate for the service was $75; however, Thumbtack says (and local Craigslist ads seem to confirm) that the average hourly rate for housecleaning in Phoenix is closer to $23.50. In this case and in several others, which we’ll detail below, Groupon’s “discounts” are actually more expensive than hiring a contractor through normal channels. So what’s the value proposition for consumers? “Buying a deal in your inbox is easier than shopping around,” said Thumbtack co-founder Sander Daniels. “We think that people buy daily deals for local services because they’re not aware of other ways to easily find a good deal.” Already, we know that daily deals are sometimes not so great for small or medium-sized local businesses. Yelp cut back its daily deals program due in large part to the fact that “daily deals are uneconomic for [many businesses in popular verticals], which does raise questions around the sustainability of “50% off” daily deals for these types of businesses,” according to CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. And a recent Rice University study showed that around a third of merchants said their forays into daily dealing had been unprofitable. In fact, the only way a 50-percent-off deal voucher would be profitable for a business is if the business was able to acquire new customers. But based on Thumbtack’s data, the only way buying a deal voucher would be profitable for a customer is if the customer was already a regular purchaser of the good or service in question or was planning to make the purchase anyhow. In other words, it is highly likely that in many voucher purchase situations, no one wins. Let’s take a closer look at some of Thumbtack’s data, which comes from the site’s database of 200,000 local businesses and hourly rates from 80,000 professionals in markets all around the country. The Phoenix housecleaning deal (a $24.50-per-hour Groupon voucher for a service that might normally cost $23.50 per hour) is just one example Thumbtack found of daily un-deals. Thumbtack also found a voucher for $79 for two hours of handyman services in Seattle. The discount was said to be 64 percent, with the regular price of service being around $220. However, of the 57 handymen advertising their services on Thumbtack, the same amount of work would have added up to about $84. The rates we found for the same service in the same area were even cheaper, inexpensive enough to make Groupon’s “deal” seem laughable. This scenario repeats itself regularly in Thumbtack’s research. Two hours of maid service for $45 in Chicago; the actual cost of normal Chicago maid service is $20 per hour, or $40 for two hours. Two hours of handyman services for $75 in Houston; the average local rate is $27.50 per hour or $55 for two hours. Around 11 percent of daily deal offers are for local services — things like wedding planning, handyman services, photography or housecleaning that are generally performed by a local contractor. But with “deals” like these, who needs rip-offs? “We think the daily deal fad won’t survive very long in our neck of the woods because consumers are finding that lots of deals for house cleaners, painters and the like aren’t really deals at all,” said Daniels. Also, Daniels noted that when consumers are really in a buying frame of mind for local services, they’re more likely to use Craiglist, Google or Yelp to find a contractor than to wait for a Groupon email to show up in their inbox. Image courtesy of quazie. Filed under: VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 04:46 PM PDT
 Google has placed more than $100 million aside for original YouTube programming, including a major deal with retired skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, according to the Wall Street Journal.Google wants to advance the reach of YouTube by adding original programming to its already popular mix of user-generated and professionally made videos. Google is reportedly one of the highest bidders for streaming service Hulu, indicating Google’s interest in offering programming. But if that doesn’t work out, Google could use YouTube as a place for that sort of original content and sell advertising against it. Thus far, the biggest names Google has brought to the table include Tony Hawk and media companies like Warner Bros. and News Corp.-owned ShineReveille, which helped produce Ugly Betty and The Office. Smaller-but-still-notable companies in talks with YouTube for original content include the production company behind hits like The Price is Right and The X Factor and the company that produced VH1′s Mob Wives. Google will create new online programming “channels” full of professional content. The company hopes that it will be able to sell enough advertising against the programming to make back the $100 million in cash advances. It’s possible the new YouTube programming could fit into Google’s future plans for Google+. Google could offer up these channels with Google+ users in mind as a chance for people to simultaneously watch and comment on first-run airings of shows. Offering that sort of future-looking feature set could potentially help Google steer users away from streaming leaders like Netflix and Hulu. Are you interested in original YouTube programming? Filed under: media         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 03:30 PM PDT
 Streaming video service Hulu today has added a new Ad Swap feature, which gives its users a new level of control over the commercials that play during the course of a TV show or movie.The new advertising feature is intended to improve the ad experience for people watching the commercials as well as brands by improving ad targeting. For example, I could choose to view a Samsung mobile phone commercial instead of the one about a female shaving kit. Basically, when a commercial begins playing, users can click on a new Hulu Ad Swap button in the top left corner of the video player. Clicking the button brings up three different choices of ads that are customized using whatever data Hulu has collected about each individual user. The downside is that if you choose a different ad, you essentially have to watch it from the beginning — thus making the commercial break longer. However, it’s a small price to pay to avoid having an annoying Old Navy commercial’s jingle (inspired by ’80s pop star Tiffany) stuck in your head for days. The advertiser whose ad initially began to play is not charged for that impression, according to Hulu, which calls this a win-win scenario since advertisers aren’t wasting money on impression that have no impact. Hulu is also being reasonable about the number of users who will actually use this new feature. “Going forward, we are not expecting all Hulu users to swap ads every time they are offered the option to swap,” wrote Hulu Director of Research & Sales Strategy Bryon Schafer in a blog post. “The power behind Hulu Ad Swap is that a user has maximum control over their ad experience, and can swap their ad if they choose to do so. In fact, we expect response rates of around three percent.” The option to choose which commercials play is yet another feature in Hulu’s advertising arsenal, which helped bring in more than 600 major advertisers and a projected $500 million in revenue by the end of 2011. Filed under: media, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 02:34 PM PDT
 While the iPhone 5 (or 4S, or whatever the hell it’ll be called) will dominate Apple’s press event tomorrow, there’s plenty more to get excited about as well.Whether it’s new Apple CEO Tim Cook’s debut leading his first major product event, or the announcement of more iOS 5 details for existing iPhone owners, tomorrow’s event certainly won’t be a bore even if you’re not amped for a new iPhone. Below are some tidbits we’re interested in seeing: The future of the iPod: Will the iPod Classic be killed off?There’s no question that the iPod Classic’s days are numbered — the hard-drive based MP3 player looks increasingly ancient as the iPhone and sleek iPod touch continue to evolve. Now, according to a rumor on the Unofficial Apple Weblog, Apple is thinking of killing off the Classic and the ultra-cheap Shuffle tomorrow.The iPod Classic has held a storage and price advantage for some time, since it costs just $250 for 160 gigabytes of space, compared to the $399, 64GB iPod touch. But it’s also becoming increasingly clear that consumers prefer sleek and thin music players over chunkier hard-drive based devices. Flash memory is faster, draws less power and is more suited to being jostled around since it has no moving parts. While I’m sad to see it go, it makes sense for Apple to put down the iPod Classic before it starts to resemble an iPod Ancient. More iOS 5 details: iPhone model compatibility, voice-powered Assistant?Apple’s iOS 4 update last year didn’t play too well with older iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS models, so I’m hoping Apple does a better job with iOS 5. I’m sure iPhone 4 and 3GS users would appreciate iOS 5′s better messaging alert system, for example. There’s also quite a bit of talk that iOS 5 will feature voice-powered virtual assistant capabilities, simply dubbed Assistant. Using technology from Siri, a company it acquired last year, Assistant has the potential to fundamentally shift the way we use our iPhones (and just wait until it hits Mac desktops).Facebook iPad app: because it has been too freaking longA Facebook app on the iPad seems like a no-brainer, so the fact that we’ve yet to see one is inexcusable. Worse yet is that we know the app exists — it was discovered in July hidden inside of the Facebook iPhone app — Facebook just refused to release it for some reason. It got to the point where the engineer who developed the app left Facebook for Google, figuring that Facebook would never release its iPad app.Now, it appears that Facebook was holding back its iPad app to debut at tomorrow’s event. I’m just hoping that the wait was worth it. Tim Cook’s big product announcement debutNew Apple CEO Tim Cook is a proven businessman, but we’ve yet to see him lead a major presentation for a new Apple product. It certainly doesn’t help that Steve Jobs is a master presenter, who somehow made even a small product seem like the most important thing in the world. VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi has argued that Tim Cook has some big shoes to fill – tomorrow is the day we’ll find out if he’s truly up to the task.Filed under: mobile         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 01:38 PM PDT
 Microsoft’s Free email service Hotmail is unveiling a number of changes to its inbox, helping you fight the war against what it calls “Greymail.” The changes start today with a new Hotmail Android app, and will continue into the month of October.The U.S.’s perception of Hotmail is different than the rest of the world’s, according to Dick Craddock, Hotmail’s partner group program manager. The company is attempting to revamp not only its inbox, but also the way people think about Hotmail worldwide. Currently, Hotmail is the number one email provider across the globe, and number three behind Yahoo and Google’s Gmail respectively in the U.S. “We have hit the point where the problem is perception and word and not the core features of the product,” said Chris Jones, corporate vice president of Windows Live at Hotmail’s press event. VentureBeat was at the event to get a preview of the new features Hotmail is introducing. These features concentrate on the battle against “graymail,” which Hotmail defines as all email you may want to look at eventually, but that often clutters your inbox. It can include newsletters, deals offers, social media updates and more. These are some of Hotmail’s new tools: “Instant Actions” appear when the mouse hovers over a particular message. You can choose to delete, move and mark as unread, flag and more dependent on your preferences. You can customize what appears when you hover and choose specific actions for each folder. Flagging will now pop a flagged message to the top of your inbox and keep it there until you unflag it. Sweeping, however, is the most powerful of these features. With sweeping, you can tell Hotmail to delete or move any email based on set parameters, such as email older than three days (which will come in handy for those deals emails that expire after a few days) or from specific senders. The sweeping engine also recognizes specialized emails such as newsletters or social media announcements and moves them to a folder without you having to set a rule for each of the companies that send you a newsletter. On the surface, these features seem fairly expected. Jones admitted that since 2006, the company saw users “growing out” of the Hotmail services, throwing the mail provider in a game of catch-up. In the last five years the company tackled storage issues, employed Smartscreen’s spam filter, and launched mobile apps. Ease of mobile access has increasingly become an consideration for people choosing an email provider as cell phones become a main tool for checking mail. Craddock claims people will receive 1000 more emails next year than they do this year and to tackle that, Hotmail plans to be in it for the long haul. The company wants to give ease-of-use and a sense of power back to its 350 million worldwide users. With those numbers, Jones doesn’t think Hotmail or another other email is going anywhere. “There are people who say email is dead and I say, ‘not in my life.’” Filed under: VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 01:01 PM PDT
 Adobe doubled-down on tablets today with the announcement of six Touch mobile applications for the iPad and Android tablets, including the long-awaited Photoshop Touch app, at the Adobe Max developer’s conference in Los Angeles.The Adobe Touch Apps bring elements of the company’s high-end Creative Suite software to touch-enabled tablets for general consumers at just $9.99 each. They also serve as a way for Adobe to promote its new Creative Cloud service, which lets you store, collaborate and share your creative efforts from Adobe’s mobile apps and other software. There’s little surprising about Photoshop Touch: It’s a tablet image editor with support for layers and plenty of effects. It also packs in a feature exclusive to tablets, the Scribble Selection Tool, which lets you easily extract objects by scribbling on the screen with your fingers. The other apps serve specific purposes: Adobe Collage makes it easy to wrangle together images and text to create gorgeous collages. Ideas is a vector-based drawing app, Kuler helps you create color themes for your projects, and Proto lets you jot down wireframes for websites and mobile apps. You can show off all of your work to friends and clients with the Debut app. All of the new Touch apps will be available on Android tablets in November, and Adobe expects to announce iOS availability early next year (the Ideas app has already been released for the iPad). The company says the $9.99 pricing will be introductory, so don’t be surprised if that price jumps after the apps’ initial release. Filed under: media, mobile, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 12:59 PM PDT
 Payroll and HR services provider ADP on Monday launched a new cloud-based suite called Vantage HCM that will provide an incredible amount of resources to HR professionals and the employees they service. “Vantage will help HR departments with over 95 percent of their needs,” Don Weinstein, senior VP of product management at ADP, told VentureBeat. ADP is best known for processing the payroll checks of 1 out of 6 American workers, but it is also one of the oldest cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers in the country. However, it is taking a huge leap with the Vantage software suite by broadening its scope and putting almost all of the tools HR managers need in a single place. ADP spent 18 months and $600 million developing Vantage HCM and describes it as “the industry's first complete employee lifecycle solution.” It combines five major HR areas: human resource management, benefits administration, payroll services, time, and labor and talent management. By having all of these tools in a single cloud-based dashboard, HR pros can save time and track employee information easier and better than before. “We have the greatest and deepest footprint in human capital management,” Weinstein said. “Historically we designed for HR departments, but this time around we’re developing for employees and managers in mind.” Previously, ADP offered payroll and HR-specific services in different kinds of packaging. The Vantage HCM suite unifies all the services and allows them to better interact to provide more up-to-date information and interactivity. However, Weinstein noted that Vantage currently does not integrate tools like behavioral assessments or reward programs that HR professionals often use. Another important element to Vantage is its wide-ranging mobile accessibility. The service works through ADP-built apps and mobile browsers for smartphones and tablets, on top of running on PCs. ADP has native apps for iOS and can be used through mobile-optimized sites on Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 devices. Weinstein said 30,000 ADP clients are already using mobile-based ADP services. ADP currently serves 570,000 clients across the globe and has more than 200,000 clients using its cloud-based services. Some of ADP’s biggest customers include Alcoa, Sodexo and Swiss Re.  We'll be exploring the most disruptive cloud trends at our inaugural CloudBeat event on Nov 30-Dec 1 at the Sofitel Hotel in Redwood Shores. We’ll be unveiling some of the most revolutionary cases of cloud adoption by the enterprise. It’s invite only. To apply to come, click on this link.Filed under: cloud         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 12:59 PM PDT
 Adobe today announced its Adobe Creative Cloud service, a new way to share creations as well as access the company’s applications and creative services. The service will launch in early 2012 and be available for a monthly subscription fee.Creative Cloud members will be able to sync, collaborate, get feedback and share work they create with Adobe software, including its six new mobile Touch Apps, the various Adobe Creative Suite applications, and its HTML web design tool Muse (currently in beta). A subscription will come with 20GB of remote storage. In addition to sharing features, Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions will give users access to the full Creative Suite — including heavy hitters such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier Pro, and InDesign — and any software updates as part of the monthly fee. The software itself will be installed on your computer or mobile device, not hosted in the cloud. These applications will still be available to buy as standalone products. The final element of the Creative Cloud is access to services such as Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite, Adobe Business Catalyst and the new web-based font tools that the company acquired with today’s purchase of Typekit. These three services will be included at launch, but the company plans to add more over time. “The move to the Creative Cloud is a major component in the transformation of Adobe,” said Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch in one of today’s many press releases from the company. The announcement, made today at Adobe Max, the company’s annual developer’s conference, didn’t include details on how much the service would cost. A beta version of Adobe Creative Cloud will roll out in November for mobile app users, though it will be limited to the sharing features. Adobe promises to release more details on the service in early November. Image via Adobe Filed under: cloud         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 12:40 PM PDT
 The largest provider of digital coupons, Coupons.com has nabbed $30 million of funding from Greylock Partners, the company announced today.Unlike group daily deal services like Groupon, Coupons.com is focused on being a digital extension of the coupons that typically appear in print publications. The decline of print publications has allowed the 13-year-old company to continue its strategy of pushing vendors to put coupons online instead of distributing them through newspapers. “As the coupon book in the newspaper gets thinner, it’s because it’s slowly moving to Coupons.com,” said Coupons Inc. CEO Steven Boal in an interview with VentureBeat. The new investment will give Coupons.com access to Greylock’s resources, and the venture capital firm will also act as an important adviser, according to the company. Previously, Coupons.com closed a $200 million round of funding to help continue its strategy of transforming the couponing industry from primarily print to digital, mobile and social platforms. The funding and guidance from Greylock will also go toward helping the company’s international expansion effort and point-of-sale integration. Greylock has allocated up to $30 million in total capital for the investment and has invested approximately half of that to date. Founded in 1998, the Mountain View, California-based Coupons.com has received $247 million total in funding to date. Coupons.com's valuation is estimated at $1 billion, according to the company. Filed under: deals, media, social, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 12:09 PM PDT
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse
Such a bold move could be worth it if the iPhone finds success on Sprint’s network and attracts more subscribers, as it has on Verizon and AT&T. But if Sprint can’t sell all of the iPhones it has agreed to purchase, the deal could spell disaster for the No. 3 U.S. carrier. “This is a bet-the-company kind of thing,” a person familiar with the news told the WSJ. Even if Sprint manages to find buyers for all of its iPhones, it will still have to subsidize every unit by $500 to offer them at the low prices consumers expect. It will take a while for Sprint to recover that cost, the WSJ says, despite the expensive subscription plans that iPhone users adopt. Apple is holding an event tomorrow to unveil its new iPhone, and it has been expected for some time that Sprint will finally get the smartphone for its network. But a deal of this magnitude comes as a surprise, and it solidifies the fact that carriers need the iPhone more than Apple needs the carriers. Sprint had some 52 million subscribers at the end of the second quarter this year. In comparison, Verizon has around 106 million subscribers and AT&T has around 99 million. As a crazy addendum to this news, the mobile site Boy Genius Report says that the $20 billion deal might have landed Sprint an exclusive with the iPhone 5. A source tells BGR that Sprint will be the only carrier to get the iPhone 5 tomorrow, while both Verizon and AT&T will get slightly souped-up iPhone 4S models. In that scenario, both AT&T and Verizon will get LTE iPhone 5 models early next year. Sound crazy? I’m right there with you. Filed under: mobile         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 11:26 AM PDT
 On-demand music service Rhapsody has acquired rival music service Napster from Best Buy, it announced today.The move will give Rhapsody, one of the oldest streaming music services, more subscribers and help it contend with new aggressive players in the same space such as Spotify, MOG and Rdio. Napster subscribers and other assets will be transferred over to Rhapsody later this year after the deal closes. Napster is best known as the peer-to-peer program that started the rise of digital music piracy, but it has been a paid music service in some form since 2003. Best Buy bought Napster for $121 million in September 2008 and turned it into a surprisingly decent on-demand service with a catalog of more than 14 million songs. Best Buy will receive a minority stake in Rhapsody. Rhapsody currently has more than 800,000 subscribers paying at least $10 per month for access to a catalog of over 12 million songs. We don’t know how many subscribers Napster has, but this it will give Rhapsody more heft and better negotiating power when it talks with music labels. In the face of challengers like Spotify, MOG and Rdio, Rhapsody has evolved by adding better social media integration and strong mobile applications for iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7. The biggest area where Rhapsody loses points compared to its peers is sound quality by only offering 128 kbps streams. Are you a fan of Rhapsody or Napster? What do you think about this move? Filed under: media         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 11:20 AM PDT
 This post is sponsored by Business Insider.Business Insider is giving away five free tickets for marketers in the VentureBeat community for its Social Media Analytics conference, the place to learn how to measure your social-media impact and generate ROI. From Facebook to Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, and more, the social web spans all age groups and demographics. That means smart marketers have integrated these tools into their strategies. But even the savviest are left with educated guesswork when it comes to impact: there is no industry standard for measuring social media’s ROI. Business Insider created Social Media Analytics to explore these questions. The conference takes place in the afternoon of November 1, 2011, at the Helen Mills Theater in New York. Speakers include Christopher Frank of American Express, Chris Copeland of Group M, Michael Lazerow of Buddy Media, David Kidder of Clickable, and more. Do you work at a brand? Do you have to know about analytics to do your job? Then you should be at this conference. To win one of the five free tickets, email events@businessinsider.com and tell them in 50 words or fewer why you need to be there. Filed under: social         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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