VentureBeat |
- The DeanBeat: Game Dojos accelerator will help foster even more game startups
- Apple takes back world’s top smartphone maker crown from Samsung
- GamesBeat weekly news roundup
- New York’s Zelkova Ventures tries an evergreen approach to funding startups
- NFC could be a game changer for Nintendo’s Wii U
- Tim Cook: reports suggesting that Apple doesn’t care about workers are offensive
- Kabam acquires game studio Fearless Studios led by ex-Star Wars game developers
- Samsung’s Galaxy S II leads it to record profit of $4.7B
- Facebook is on a new mission: to take down clickjackers
- The FBI wants to spider social media to prepare for the worst
- YouTube makes more changes to support content creators
- Twitter tap dances around tweet takedown requests
- Warner Bros. now adding restrictions to your Netflix DVD queue
- Spotify hits 3M paid subscribers, a good sign for streaming music
- Droid doesn’t: Motorola loses $80M in Q4, phone shipments down at 10.5M
- Social enterprise startup Igloo raises a cold $5M
- Roblox players built 5.4 million games in 2011
- Megaupload customers who lost their files banding together to sue FBI
- With record earnings, Apple has no excuse for continued labor abuses
- “Dreamy” mobile startup closes “hefty” $3.25M seed round
- New to-do list app Clear simplifies and color-codes organization
- How to gauge marketing: Stop measuring page views, start measuring qualified leads
- Want to feel like an Apple factory boss? New strategy game lets you run a sweatshop
- Join us at Vator Splash in San Francisco on February 2nd
- HelloWallet keeps track of your money, raises $12M
- Google+ gives teens some privacy, unless they don’t want it
- Zynga Bingo debuts on Facebook as part of casino suite
- Top reasons to launch or pitch your product at DEMO Spring 2012
- Yuri Milner and Google’s Matt Cutts back $2.8 M round in medical app, DrChrono
| The DeanBeat: Game Dojos accelerator will help foster even more game startups Posted: 27 Jan 2012 08:00 AM PST We’ve seen an explosion in game startups in the past few years. Zynga and Nexon have gone public, an indication that we could be nearing the end of a cycle. Their IPOs raise the question: When will there be enough game companies? Game Dojos, a brand new San Francisco-based accelerator for game startups, thinks we’re not there yet. The game market will be saturated, not when there are lots of game startups, but when many successful game startups come to dominate their particular parts of the market, as Zynga has done. Once dominant players are established, platforms can stagnate, momentum shifts, and the indie game makers move on. Accordingly, Game Dojos has created a three-month program where it mentors game-startup entrepreneurs, helping them with everything from connections to monetization to a small amount of funding. In doing so, it is following YetiZen, which set up its own game startup accelerator last year with multiple graduating classes. Joystick Labs has also been accelerating game startups in North Carolina. Cassandra Phillips (pictured far right), producer at Game Dojos and veteran of the startup-conference scene, says there’s no reason there can’t be multiple game accelerators since there are a variety of other non-game startup accelerators in Silicon Valley, all of them churning out Web, social, or mobile-focused companies. It says something about the sheer volume of game startups that there are now multiple entities focused on providing services to them. “Gaming doesn’t have a lot of the same opportunities to benefit from networks yet,” Phillips said. “There is a disconnect, particularly on distributing games, between the indie game companies and the major networks. Indies are great at making fun and creative games, but they hit the wall on distribution. The No. 1 goal is in building the network to get the games played and monetized faster.” Ann Burkett, (pictured in red in the middle), the chief executive of Game Dojos, is a veteran of game development. She is the chair of the Silicon Valley chapter of the International Game Developers Association (SV IGDA) along with board member Simon Amarasingham (pictured in white). They have been active in creating game jams, demo nights, and conferences such as the recent HTML5 Developers conference in September that drew 1,000 people. Burkett said she had been mulling over the idea for a couple of years, as her small game development company was involved with the YouWeb social game incubator headed by Peter Relan, and her co-founding partner is an architect working there. “We want to offer the best mentorship out there,” Burkett said. “We are thrilled with the quality of companies we see out there.” For sure, the accelerator is late to the startup wave, which really got going about five years ago on social with the creation of companies such as Zynga. With Zynga raising $1 billion in its IPO, however, a new stage is beginning. Zynga may use that money to acquire smaller companies, or to muscle them out of the market with massive marketing campaigns. Some of that has already happened, as the cost of acquiring a new user on Facebook has risen sharply and the funding amount that companies can raise is hitting a ceiling. But Burkett said the game industry is in a constant stage of change, with some waves ending while new ones begin. Mobile gaming, for instance, is taking off and producing a Cambrian explosion of new startups that want to create the next Angry Birds, the hit game created by Rovio. Game companies can now create one game that can be a hit on the web, Facebook, iOS, and Android, as well as other emerging platforms. “I say we are at the end of a cycle and the beginning of a new one,” Burkett said. “Once the smaller studios are cornered and the distribution channel succeeds in shutting them out, they will find and popularize a new channel. It’s very hard to contain creativity. The console industry shut itself off from small game studios. That led to the casual web, social games, and now mobile games. This is an industry that does not die and keeps cycling.” Indeed, the game industry doesn’t seem to have hit its upper limit. Tapjoy alone has used its $5 million Tapjoy Android Fund to give money to 130 game developers in the past seven months. Apple has said it has paid out $4 billion to app developers since the creation of the App Store. Matthäus Krzykowski, managing director at Xyologic, a mobile analysis firm, says that last month, 7,142 new app publishers successfully submitted apps to the Apple App Store, which now has apps from more than 130,000 app publishers. Many of those are games. Burkett said the company will welcome applicants who simply want to build great studios that make great games. In the past, startups have had to create game monetization, distribution, or development platforms to raise money. From the view of venture capitalists, the latter group have offered more opportunities to disrupt markets, and therefore they can command a bigger value than firms that focus only on making games. In return for helping its startups, Game Dojos could take a small percentage ownership in the startups. Or it could negotiate to take a revenue split or a fee, depending on the preference of the founders. Because it is a for-profit company, Game Dojos has to remain separate from the nonprofit SV IGDA. But the leadership is essentially the same. Using connections from the SV IGDA, Burkett and her crew are tapping their networks to provide speakers to advise and drill the first class of teams being accepted for the inaugural program. Current applications are due Feb. 15. The program will likely start in March and accept 10 to 15 teams in the class, with most of the focus on companies with three to five employees. It will offer lessons on game design, distribution, best practices for startups, moving quickly, learning what works and doesn’t, and monetization. The funding amounts will likely be small at first, Burkett, but could grow over time. More likely, the accelerator will create the connections for the startups to raise subsequent rounds of money from angels or venture capitalists. Among those serving as mentors are Jessica Kahn, an executive at Disney Mobile; Dennis Ryan, head of publishing at EA’s PopCap Games; Josh Elman, principal at Greylock Partners; Nicolas Beraudo, vice president of business development at Glu Mobile; Rick Thompson, co-founder of Funzio and Wild Needle; Cynthia Woll, game designer; Drew Curby, sales and marketing director at IGN; and a host of others. For now, Game Dojos has space in The Hatchery in the IGN building, but it is looking for more space. [pictured from left to right: Andrew Severns, staff; Simon Amarasingham, COO; Ann Burkett, CEO; Melody Schaeffer , producer; and Cassie Phillipps, producer; not pictured is Jim Boyle, CFO] Filed under: games, mobile, social        
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| Apple takes back world’s top smartphone maker crown from Samsung Posted: 27 Jan 2012 07:16 AM PST
That’s according to research firm Strategy Analytics, which points out that Apple shipped 37 million iPhones during the quarter versus Samsung’s 36.5 million. Samsung still remains king for all of 2011 though, with 97.4 million smartphones shipped compared to Apple’s 93 million. In October, the firm reported that Samsung had toppled Apple in smartphone sales for the first time ever. Now it appears that both companies will be seesawing for the top spot. Overall, global smartphone shipments grew 54 percent in the quarter to reach 155 million units, according to Strategy Analytics. But while Samsung and Apple duke it out, third-place Nokia is falling like a rock, dropping from 33 percent in smartphone market share last year to just 16 percent in the fourth quarter. Nokia is only now beginning to see the results of its Windows Phone experiment, but given the relative immaturity of that platform, the company likely won’t be able to hold on to the No. 3 position for much longer. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Posted: 27 Jan 2012 07:00 AM PST
We plan to draw attention to these stories with our weekly GamesBeat news roundup, which could also appear more frequently as needed. We’ve also run a lot of game stories on both VentureBeat and GamesBeat, particularly when there’s a broader business or technology angle. Here’s the headlines. You can click on them to see the full story. – Activision Blizzard to fix access to Modern Warfare 3 content drops from multiple Xbox Live profiles –Resident Evil Revelations: Secrets and Unlockables –Insomniac is done with Resistance –Roblox players built 5.4 million games in 2011 –Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 gets fixes, improvements, and Akimbo nerfs –Addmired launches social mobile iMob 2 game with cool chat features (exclusive) –Modern Warfare 3 DLC schedule revealed: 12 maps, 6 missions, 2 game modes –Augmented reality takes pop-up books to the next level (interview) –The Four Horsemen joining forces in Darksiders 3? –Darksiders II interview: "Death just goes Jack Bauer on everybody's ass" –ArenaNet confirms 2012 launch for Guild Wars 2, gives beta details Filed under: games        
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| New York’s Zelkova Ventures tries an evergreen approach to funding startups Posted: 27 Jan 2012 06:58 AM PST  Jay Levy at Zelkova's Manhattan officeInvesting in startups is a funny business. Sometimes venture capitalists find themselves with a company that is growing and profitable. But if there is no opportunity for an IPO or acquisition by a bigger competitor, there may not be an exit on the table that allows the VCs to get a return on the money they invested which satisfies the backers who support their fund. “It’s a broken system in some ways,” says Jay Levy, co-founder and partner at Zelkova Ventures, over a lunch at Five Napkin Burger in Hell’s Kitchen. “The problem is that most funds are structured so that you can’t reinvest gains from an exit. This can put VCs in a position where their incentives are misaligned across multiple funds. We think allowing returns to be put back to work is the healthiest system for us, our backers and the companies we invest in.” An evergreen fund, Levy believes, allows for success with smaller returns. Levy, with gelled black hair and thick silver watch, looks a little more Wall Street than most Silicon Alley venture capitalists. After college he went to work at Morgan Stanley, building software platforms for the banking giant. From there he spent time at the consulting firm MPI, which was eventually acquired by a financial services giant. VentureBeat asked if it was his background in finance that inclined Levy to try out a unique approach to venture investing. “Not at all, it has more to do with my early experiences as an entrepreneur,” Levy said. He formed a company, UConnections, while he was an undergraduate at Rutgers. “We were pushed by our investors to expand quickly and win the market. In doing this we moved from being profitable to burning considerable cash.” When the venture markets tumbled in 2001, UConnections couldn’t raise cash or scale back quickly enough. It was a powerful and formative lesson for Levy. As for being Wall Street, “When we first started in 2008, I was the only VC coming to meetups in jeans,” Levy joked. Over the last year Zelkova’s profile has grown as two of its portfolio companies, Fab and Klout, raised significant series C rounds that valued the startups in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Overall Zelkova is backing 35 companies across verticals like the consumer web, green tech, and software as a service. And as the infographic below shows, there has been substantial growth in its portfolio, doubling the employee count among Zelkova companies since this time last year. But can it become a bigger player without raising fresh capital? “We’ve had three exits in four years. The pool of capital we have to work with is growing. We think maybe this is a sustainable model,” Levy said. It certainly gives them a unique ability to focus. Most venture funds raise capital on a ten year cycle. By the third or fourth year investing, they already have to be out working on a fresh fundraise. Zelkova’s small pool of backers seems content to experiment, although their lack of interest in a cash return can’t last forever. “It’s an interesting approach, much closer to what angel investors do,” said one New York VC, when VentureBeat asked for an opinion of Zelkova’s model. “In some ways it definitely allows them to be more nimble. But just like all funds, it only works while things are going well. At some point you might still need to go out and raise again.” To track their growth over the last four years, Levy created this infographic charting everything from his firms investments, to their tweets, to what their portfolio companies think of themselves. “We asked all our companies to rank themselves from 1-10. We have a couple startups I might call a ten in there, but they didn’t think so highly of themselves,” Levy said. “There was one company that gave themselves a perfect ten, I don’t know quite what they were thinking.” Filed under: deals, VentureBeat        
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| NFC could be a game changer for Nintendo’s Wii U Posted: 27 Jan 2012 06:16 AM PST
In his third quarter financial briefing, Nintendo President Saturo Iwata revealed that the Wii U will include Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, which could be used to link games with real world items and support simple, instantaneous, micropayments. If implemented successfully, the ability for Wii U owners to instantly purchase in-game items or Wii U apps, without needing to share credit card details, could give the newly confirmed 'Nintendo Network' an edge over Xbox Live and the Playstation Network. NFC technology allows smartphones and other devices to communicate, simply by touching them together, or bringing them in close proximity. Unlike Bluetooth, NFC does not require devices to 'pair' before communicating, with connections being established in less than 100 milliseconds. Communication is also possible between an NFC device and an unpowered NFC chip, which can be embedded in a card, sticker, figure, or other real world object. Speaking of the inclusion of NFC functionality in the tablet-like Wii U controller, Iwata said the following: "As many of you know, NFC is the acronym for Near Field Communication, which is a set of standards to establish radio communication in close proximity. The NFC I'm referring to here is the noncontact NFC standard that is compatible with FeliCa and MIFARE, and is expected to be widely used around the world in the near future. By installing this functionality, it will become possible to create cards and figurines that can electronically read and write data via noncontact NFC and to expand the new play format in the video game world. Adoption of this functionality will enable various other possibilities such as using it as a means of making micropayments." NFC tech is widely used in Japan to pay for anything from a train ticket to a can of soda, with consumers simply ‘bumping’ their NFC enabled smartphone in order to make an instant transaction. Mastercard Paypass is now making inroads with this tech in the US, and it has been suggested that NFC will become a standard smartphone feature by 2015, creating a commerce opportunity of $800 billion. By enabling NFC transactions on its Wii U controller, Nintendo could open the door to impulse purchases of in-game content and Wii U apps from the comfort of the sofa, without even needing to access the TV. Many consumers are cautious about sharing their credit card information with Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, with both services having experienced security concerns in the past year. By implementing a secure and instantaneous payment system, Nintendo could overcome some of the difficulties associated with getting consumers to embrace digital distribution on consoles. From a gaming point of view, the inclusion of NFC is exciting, for the possibilities associated with linking real world items with video games. Activision Blizzard's Skylanders game has recently shown the potential of merging real life toys with a console, giving players the ability to change character by putting a new action figure on a peripheral, called the 'portal of power'. Players are encouraged to purchase new action figures to use in the game, which all have their own attributes and powers. Nintendo is a company that has always seen a strong connection between toys and games, as demonstrated by the phenomenally successful Pokemon series. Looking at the Skylanders model, it is not hard to envision a Wii U Pokemon title, where real life Pokemon cards include NFC tech, and bring Pokemon straight from the foil pack to a TV screen. The purchase of action figures or cards could be used to unlock characters, levels, or special abilities in any game, and the potential appeal of such items to gamers is undeniable. This concept could open up valuable new sales channels for Nintendo, as well as third-party developers. Nintendo has accepted that its previous online efforts could have been better. The Wii friend codes needed for online gaming were cumbersome, and the Wii Store was clunky and unwelcoming. With the implementation of NFC tech though, and the promise of a user-friendly Nintendo Network service, the company’s online future suddenly looks a lot brighter. Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
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| Tim Cook: reports suggesting that Apple doesn’t care about workers are offensive Posted: 27 Jan 2012 05:37 AM PST  Me and my haloOn the heels of a record quarterly profit, Apple was slammed in the press yesterday by a lengthy New York Times article highlighting the poor working conditions in the Chinese factories that make Apple products. Tim Cook, the company’s new chief executive, responded with an email to employees that was picked up by 9to5 Mac. Nowhere in the email does Cook explicitly acknowledge specific issues in his supply chain. Instead he takes offence at the idea that Apple isn’t working to address the ongoing problems: “As a company and as individuals, we are defined by our values. Unfortunately some people are questioning Apple's values today, and I'd like to address this with you directly. We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain. Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don't care is patently false and offensive to us. As you know better than anyone, accusations like these are contrary to our values. It's not who we are.” Cook’s position is that while troubling issues do exist, no is doing more than Apple to prevent them. “Every year we inspect more factories, raising the bar for our partners and going deeper into the supply chain,” Cook wrote. “We are attacking problems aggressively with the help of the world's foremost authorities on safety, the environment, and fair labor. It would be easy to look for problems in fewer places and report prettier results, but those would not be the actions of a leader.” The problem is that this doesn’t square with the reporting from the NY Times, which invovled direct quotes from many former Apple employees who had worked overseas. "We've known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they're still going on," a former Apple executive told the NYT. "Why? Because the system works for us. Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn't have another choice." While Apple has begun a campaign of audits, it has not made significant changes to its stable of manufacturing partners as a result. Its inspections have turned up serious violations at hundreds of plants, but only 15 suppliers have been terminated since 2007. Would asking for serious reforms cut into Apple’s record profits? Certainly. But if you believe former Apple employees, it would also force real, drastic change in these manufacturer’s labor practices. Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| Kabam acquires game studio Fearless Studios led by ex-Star Wars game developers Posted: 27 Jan 2012 12:01 AM PST
The deal gives Kabam more development firepower and it is generally part of a wave of acquisitions happening in the game industry as social game makers try to bulk up in order to stay competitive with market leader Zynga. Kabam has raised $125 million — a huge amount of money for a social game publisher — and now it has begun to spend it. The deal adds six employees to Kabam’s roster of 450 people. Fearless Studios is led by award-winning writer and game director Haden Blackman (pictured left) and technology leader Cedrick Collomb (pictured right). Blackman is the creator and senior executive producer of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and Collomb was formerly director of engineering at LucasArts. As such, they’re an example of traditional hardcore game developers who have made the leap to social games. "The Fearless Studios team brings a wealth of talent and experience in creating outstanding, highly successful AAA titles across a range of genres," said Kevin Chou, CEO of Kabam. "Their skills in game design, emerging technologies and proficiency in making the transition from 2D to 3D on consoles mesh perfectly with Kabam's strategy. We'll significantly strengthen our industry leadership as the online gaming market transitions to higher fidelity, 3D gameplay with our acquisition of Fearless Studios." Redwood City, Calif.-based Kabam makes hardcore games on Facebook. The company has about 2.4 million monthly active users on Facebook, down significantly from 12.9 million in August, according to AppData. By acquiring a promising studio, Kabam could help stage its comeback. Kabam has also invested heavily in games for other platforms. It has launched The Godfather: Five Families on Google+ and its own Kabam.com web site.The Godfather game is Kabam’s first branded title and it’s an example of the company’s ambitions to make high-quality games in the future. Blackman has a knack for creating compelling stories, memorable characters and accessible gameplay. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed had all of those characteristics and it was one of the best-selling Star Wars games of all time, winning an award from the Writers Guild of America for best video game writing. Collomb has developed the technological backbone of many of LucasArts’ biggest games and helped harmonize Lucas’s game and film technologies into one development pipeline. "There's no way we could pass up the chance to marry our vision for creating story-driven action games with Kabam's excellence in building great online franchises using their incredible infrastructure, distribution ability, and advanced analytics," said Blackman. "Joining the hardcore social gaming leader gives our team a once in a lifetime opportunity to forge a new paradigm for what players can experience in an online game." Kabam was founded in 2007 as Watercooler and funded by Betfair and Canaan Partners. It had around 20 employees for quite a while as it experimented on Facebook, making sports fan pages and sports games. It had a big hit with its first major role-playing game, Kingdoms of Camelot, which quickly pulled in millions of users. The game still has 1.5 million monthly active users 19 months after its launch. Kabam also acquired WonderHill, a San Francisco game company that developed Dragons of Atlantis, which has become Kabam's most successful game to date. The company has raised multiple rounds to date. Filed under: games, social, VentureBeat        
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| Samsung’s Galaxy S II leads it to record profit of $4.7B Posted: 26 Jan 2012 09:50 PM PST
That’s a decent jump over last year, when it reported earnings of 3 trillion won (about $2.6 billion) on 41.8 trillion won (about $36.5 billion) in revenue. Samsung performance was in line with its guidance from earlier in the month, and the company attributed much of its success to the popularity of its Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note Android devices. Revenue from its telecommunications business was 17.82 trillion won (about $15.8 billion), up a whopping 52 percent from this time last year. Given that it’s the top Android device maker, it’s not surprising to see Samsung’s huge numbers. Meanwhile, both Motorola and HTC announced losses in their latest earnings. Shipments of Samsung’s smartphones jumped 30 percent compared to the previous quarter (not surprising since this was a holiday quarter). Looking forward, Samsung expects the demand for entry-level smartphones and LTE will grow the smartphone market by more than 30 percent over the year, and the company expects tablet demand to grow as well. The company reported strong sales in its TV business and a 19 percent growth in display panels sales. Computers fared less well, thanks to slow sales and an oversupply of DRAM. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Facebook is on a new mission: to take down clickjackers Posted: 26 Jan 2012 07:17 PM PST Facebook has teamed up with the Washington state Attorney General to put real resources toward getting rid of spam on the social network — starting with a lawsuit. "Security is an arms race, and that's why Facebook is committed to constantly improving our consumer safeguards while pursuing and supporting civil and criminal consequences for bad actors," Facebook general counsel Ted Ullyot said in a statement. The two have filed lawsuits against affiliate network Adscend Media, which Facebook says is known to support “clickjacking” schemes, and other forms of tricking users into giving up personally identifiable information or money. Clickjacking schemes involve hiding code in a link, or under a picture in the browser that otherwise would be a normal click-through point. In Facebook’s case, this exists as enticing links to see a weird video, or find out what cool thing happened on your birthday. The code in the link, however, executes a download or may redirect a user to an undesirable website. Other scams include creating a fan page that lures users into accessing a web page and inputting personal information or signing up for a scam. This kind of spam is more in line with phishing scams. Another scam involves making the like button invisible in the browser. A scammer can then overlay the like button with a photo that calls for the user to click on it. Once clicked, the photo actually activates the like button, sending the liked page to that person’s newsfeed in an attempt to attract more people to the scam. Assistant Attorney General Paula Selis explained in the statement that money from Adscend Media “lined the pockets” of these scammers with up to $1.2 million a month. Facebook has sued and succeeded before. Two years ago, Facebook took “spam king” Stanford Wallace to court where a judge ruled he had to pay $711 million in reparations. Facebook also took Philip Porembski to court for spamming, resulting in a similar judgment of $360.5 million. Facebook image via Shutterstock Filed under: security, social        
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| The FBI wants to spider social media to prepare for the worst Posted: 26 Jan 2012 06:31 PM PST The Federal Bureau of Investigation is creating a tool that will crawl Facebook, Twitter and more to catch emergencies before they happen. According to a posting on the Federal Business Opportunities website, the FBI’s Strategic Information and Operations Center (SOIC) is feeling out the IT industry to see if anyone can create a “social media application.” The application should be able to spider through public content posted on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. It should also be intelligent enough to pick out certain key words and phrases that indicate a certain event is taking place. The point of the application is to give the government readiness when dealing with emergencies, terrorist situations and other situations needing immediate response. “The application must be infinitely flexible and have the ability to adapt quickly to changing threats to maintain the strategic and tactical advantage,” the Request for Information said, “The purpose of this effort is to meet the outlined objectives…for the enhancement [of] FBI SOIC’s overall situation awareness and improved strategic decision making.” The tool would be used in “reconnaisance and surveillance missions, National Special Security Events (NSS) planning, NSSE operations, SOIC operations, counter intelligence, terrorism, and more. Cybercrime is also in the FBI’s mind when creating this tool. With onslaught of cyber criminals working in large groups, not necessarily in one place, social media has been used as a place for planning attacks. For instance, the hacktivist group Anonymous used Twitter to spread the word about denial of service attacks being used to take down the Department of Justice website last week. While Facebook still remains a fairly private ground for content, firehoses like Twitter supply news the second it occurs. Indeed, we even tweet about important events before we even know they’re important. For example, one man even live blogged Osama bin Laden’s capture on Twitter without realizing what he was hearing. Catching and decoding these types of social media messages may act as essential insight for national security advisors. In order to identify the location of these events the pulled data should be compiled on a map. This map may show where conversations are taking place, or potentially places they are referring to. The FBI’s preferred maps for use in the app are Google Maps, Google 3D Maps, ESRI and Yahoo Maps. The map’s user interface should include different layers including a layer for where US domestic terror events may be happening, data about worldwide terror events, where US embassies, consulates and military installations are globally, weather conditions, and a video of traffic in the area. Think you’re up to the task? Check out the job listing here. FBI image via Shutterstock, hat tip NewScientist Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| YouTube makes more changes to support content creators Posted: 26 Jan 2012 06:25 PM PST
YouTube is following its controversial redesign of the home page with another channel-focused update, several video editing goodies, and some small concessions to member indignation Thursday. In furtherance of its new-found channel-centric vision, YouTube has refreshed its video “browse” page with a new look and design. Should you dive into the categories from the left-hand menu, you’ll now find channels that YouTube thinks you should subscribe to. In the “Howto & Style” section, for instance, YouTube is prominently promoting user MichellePhan, a popular video blogger who frequently posts instructional videos on how to apply makeup. While less drastic than the home page overhaul, the browse page alteration could have a sizable impact on the subscriber counts of featured YouTubers and brands. On the practical side, YouTube has vastly improved its video editor to make for a richer editing experience. The most noticeable change is the video editor’s prettified interface, but power users will appreciate the new timeline for seamlessly weaving together clips and audio, and the improved video clipping features. The video site has also responded to negative feedback from members about changes to its video manager — where members now go to mange their uploaded videos and access previously saved content — by backtracking a bit. The company has added back statistics for video likes and dislikes, and returned the ability to sort videos by popularity. If anything, the changes should signify YouTube’s ongoing commitment to an experience centered around its most-prized possession: content creators. [Image via korosirego/Flickr] Filed under: social, VentureBeat        
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| Twitter tap dances around tweet takedown requests Posted: 26 Jan 2012 04:51 PM PST
The information network has developed a system for withholding tweets from the streams of users in select countries, as opposed to deleting them altogether. Twitter will now partially remove some tweets at the behest of governmental authorities in countries where individuals are not permitted to speak freely on all subject matters, the company said Thursday. “Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world,” the company announced in a blog post. The technology and ideology are meant to help Twitter navigate the complex waters of global expansion, the company explained. “We will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression,” Twitter said, citing France and Germany as examples of countries that ban specific types of content (pro-Nazi content in this case). The weighty decision, however, in no way reflects a desire to broadly censor content at whim or a change in company policy, a Twitter spokesperson explained to VentureBeat. In fact, Twitter seems keen on keeping its most controversial tweets visible to as many people as possible. “What’s new today is that we now have the ability, when we have to withhold a Tweet in a specific country, to keep that Tweet visible for the rest of the world,” the spokesperson said. “The key is that this is reactive only. It’s on a case-by-case basis, in response to a valid request from an authorized entity. And just to be clear, this is not a change in philosophy and there are still countries to which we will not go.” Should you believe the company’s assertions (and we do), you can boil it all down to this: Twitter has craftily granted itself the ability to honor the requests it has to in order to remain operable in some countries and yet still simultaneously uphold its commitment to freedom of expression. Twitter has also made a promise to be more forthcoming with members about any tweets it decides to withhold from them. The company has decided to make public a page with a record of cease and desist orders, and will attempt to let a user know when his or her tweet is withheld. [Image via wharman/Flickr] Filed under: social, VentureBeat        
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| Warner Bros. now adding restrictions to your Netflix DVD queue Posted: 26 Jan 2012 04:15 PM PST
Earlier this month, Warner Brothers decided to delay all new DVD movie releases from becoming available through video rental services, like Blockbuster and Netflix. This means the rental services must wait 56 days after a new Warner Brothers DVD hits retail store shelves before it’s able to begin renting it out to customers. Of course, the video rental companies do have the option of buying the new DVD releases at full retail price, but this would raise over all operating costs for the rental service and ultimately dip into its profits. As if that wasn’t enough, Warner Brothers is now imposing additional stipulations for its DVD movie new releases. Starting Feb. 1, the company has decided to restrict Netflix users from adding any new DVD releases to their queue until 28 days after the DVD goes on sale in retail stores, according to an LA Times report. While Netflix is unable to offer new DVD movies for rent during the 56-day delay window, the company currently allows subscribers to add the titles to their rental queue. This is particularly useful for Netflix subscribers because the new DVDs automatically ship out once the 56-day delay period ends. We reached out to Warner Brothers to find out more information about the new queue restrictions, but the company decline to comment. Netflix responded to our inquiries by stating that the DVD queue functionality hasn’t changed, but didn’t mention what would happen next month. The delays and queue restrictions are part of an overall effort by Warner Brothers to boost its ailing DVD sales. The company thinks that by lengthening the time it takes for a movie to reach other platforms, it will increase demand for the DVD, and in turn make more money. Once a move reaches rental services and streaming video platforms, Warner Brothers stands to make far less revenue. Not allowing Netflix users to conveniently wait out the delayed availability of new DVDs fits within Warner Brothers new strategy. The company clearly wants consumers to feel the inconvenience and discomfort of not being able to watch these newly released movies immediately because it makes the option of buying the DVD much more attractive. However, I don’t think making Netflix subscribers wait a month before being allowed to add new movies to their queue will do much to improve sales of Warner Brothers’ DVDs. It’s far more likely that people will just forget about the movies, rather than drastically change their behavior and spend more money. Filed under: media, VentureBeat        
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| Spotify hits 3M paid subscribers, a good sign for streaming music Posted: 26 Jan 2012 03:51 PM PST The debate over whether streaming music is good for artists and labels rages on, but the debate over whether the concept is catching with consumers might be at least be decided. Popular streaming music service Spotify now has 3 million users worldwide, the company revealed today. Spotify is built on a “freemium” business model where users can listen to ad-supported music for free but after 6 months, the amount of free music drops to just 10 hours per month. Ideally, the service wants to convert all those users who enjoy the free music to paying subscribers, and it charges either $5 or $10 per month, depending on your level of access. The company last hit a milestone with 2.5 million subscribers in mid-November. The company told the Financial Times that its new 3 million paid subscribers represent “more than 20 percent of its active user base.” That’s up from 15 percent of active users, the figure the company reported last March, indicating a larger number of conversions. While Spotify’s 3 million subscribers sounds like a big number, it’s important to remember that the company offers its service in 13 countries. Streaming music competitor Rhapsody has been around for 10 years and it has 1 million paid users in the U.S. alone. Additional services like MOG and Rdio do not disclose their paid subscriber numbers. One feature that might have helped Spotify acquire more users is its new enhanced radio service with unlimited skips. Much like Pandora, the enhanced radio feature lets customers create stations based on tracks, artists and albums they like. And unlike free version of Pandora, users can skip as many tracks as they want. Are you a paying Spotify user? If so, do you feel like you are getting your money’s worth? Filed under: media, VentureBeat        
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| Droid doesn’t: Motorola loses $80M in Q4, phone shipments down at 10.5M Posted: 26 Jan 2012 03:18 PM PST Without any wildly successful Android devices this quarter, Motorola took a beating during the fourth quarter. Motorola reported a loss of $80 million on revenue of $3.4 billion, compared to earnings of $80 million last year. The company’s mobile device shipments were down as well at 10.5 million, a slight dip from 11.3 million a year ago. Motorola’s earnings show how difficult it is for Android phone makers to remain profitable in the face of massive competition from other Android manufacturers. HTC, formerly a smartphone titan, reported its first quarterly loss in two years last month (while Samsung, now the top Android device maker, is sitting pretty). It’s funny how quickly things can change in the mobile market these days. Two years ago, Motorola saw its first profit in three years thanks to the wildly successful Droid. But then Samsung’s Galaxy lineup toppled Motorola from the Android throne, and now Moto is waiting for Google to finish snapping it up. Most recently, Motorola relaunched its Razr brand with the Droid Razr. Motorola shipped 5.3 million smartphones during the quarter, and despite the drop in units, its mobile device revenue was up 5 percent from last year at $2.5 billion. The company shipped a shockingly low 200,000 tablets for the quarter (which goes to show that the Xyboard name was so terrible, consumers actively avoided it). For the full year 2011, Motorola reported $13.1 billion in revenue (up 14 percent from the prior year) and it shipped 42.4 million mobile devices (including 18.7 million smartphones). The company now has $3.6 billion in cash on hand, as of the end of the quarter. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Social enterprise startup Igloo raises a cold $5M Posted: 26 Jan 2012 02:58 PM PST
The crazy kids at Igloo Software have signed a $5 million dollar funding deal; it’s the company’s second institutional round, with money coming in from RBC Venture Partners (the “RBC” stands for Royal Bank of Canada) and the Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund (OETF). Igloo makes social intranets and extranets for businesses, so the company is elbow deep in some of the hottest verticals in technology, including mobile and cloud. The startup’s goal is “to radically transform communication and collaboration at work.” The company’s software lets companies set up internal “Workplace Communities” for team collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and goal-tracking. It also makes “Marketplace Communities” for businesses to handle external relationships with clients and vendors. During 2011, Igloo tells us that they achieved some good numbers — such as an 80 percent increase in software licensing revenue, a 60 percent increase in the number of enterprise customers, and 144 percent growth in monthly recurring revenue. “It’s been a breakout year for IGLOO, fuelled by the tremendous growth from three converging forces in the marketplace — social, mobile and cloud computing,” said Igloo CEO Dan Latendre in a release. “Businesses are seeking to accelerate their investment across each of these areas, and Igloo has become an onramp of sorts as one of the first steps in adopting this new modern IT infrastructure.” The startup hasn’t taken funding since a 2008 round when it received $4 million from repeat investor RBC Venture Partners and BlackBerry maker RIM. Igloo Software was founded in February 2008. Filed under: deals        
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| Roblox players built 5.4 million games in 2011 Posted: 26 Jan 2012 02:01 PM PST
Roblox claims its online community offers an environment for users to develop programming, scripting, and entrepreneurial skills while simultaneously playing games developed by others. In addition to building games, players learn to form and manage groups, earn virtual profits in the form of Robux, and advertise their creations to the community. "Roblox is about giving our players the tools and freedom to put their imaginations into action," said CEO David Baszucki. "It's amazing to see what these players can do, and all that they've accomplished in 2011. They have been building, sharing, and competing, using the skills they've picked up from Roblox, and their passion for learning really shows with these numbers. We've seen an increase in usage by teens, young adults and parents as we have released more complex building tools and materials. " Over 20 million accounts have been created on Roblox and over 250 million hours of game play have been logged as of December 2011, the company says. Unique visitors surpassed 7 million per month and the top 100 games on the site were played a total of 192 million times in 2011. Roblox says players, particularly 8-16 year old males, preferred games in the life-simulation, combat, and survival genres, with each game generating over 5 million cumulative gameplays. The company adds that data gathered from its online marketplace offers a window in to the entrepreneurial behavior of 8-16 year olds. More than 6.13 billion Robux — the equivalent to $6 million U.S. dollars — changed hands among users in 2011, representing a 152 percent increase in virtual currency exchanged since 2010. The highest-earning player grossed more than 8.9 million Robux in 2011, which is equal to $89,000. In other news, Clint Schmidt, vice president of marketing, has resigned from the company. Filed under: games        
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| Megaupload customers who lost their files banding together to sue FBI Posted: 26 Jan 2012 01:55 PM PST
Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and several other Megaupload employees were named in a 72-page indictment issued last week by the Department of Justice. The indictment against Megaupload alleges it is connected to a vast criminal enterprise that has caused more than $500 million in harm to copyright owners. If convicted, the company and its executives could serve many years in prison. Next up, Dotcom will face an extradition hearing on Feb. 22. But the immensely popular site for file-hosting didn’t just allow users to share copyrighted movie and music files — many customers of the site used it to store and send personal files, just like you can on many other file-sharing sites on the web. When the site was taken down, Megaupload fans complained bitterly that the government had taken away access to legal files used for work, as noted by TorrentFreak. In a response, the site Pirates of Catalonia, in collaboration with Pirate Parties International, is rallying former Megaupload users to sue the U.S. government. Pirates of Catalonia writes:
Users who have been affected by the Megaupload shutdown can sign the petition at Pirates of Catalonia’s Megaupload site. Filed under: media        
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| With record earnings, Apple has no excuse for continued labor abuses Posted: 26 Jan 2012 01:26 PM PST
It’s becoming increasingly clear that Apple — which is now sitting pretty with $97.7 billion in cash after record-breaking earnings of $46.33 billion in the first quarter — has become addicted to the rapid-fire manufacturing capabilities made possible by low-wage Chinese workers, no matter the human cost. The New York Times has begun documenting the current state of global manufacturing in its “iEconomy” series, which, not surprisingly, focuses on Apple as the latest manufacturing prodigy. Complaints about working conditions in Apple’s supplier factories aren’t new — Foxconn has been under the spotlight for years after a spat of worker suicides — but with Apple’s revenues on a seemingly non-stop tear, the fact that issues are still being reported is becoming increasingly troubling. "We've known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they're still going on," an anonymous Apple executive told the New York Times. "Why? Because the system works for us. Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn't have another choice."
"I would like to totally eliminate every case of underage employment," Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the time. "As we go deeper into the supply chain, we found that age verification system isn't sophisticated enough. This is something we feel very strongly about and we want to eliminate totally." Cook announced that Apple is joining the Fair Labor Association, a non-profit dedicated to improving working condition worldwide, and it would add transparency and independent oversight of Apple’s suppliers. Notably, Apple is the first technology company to be approved for membership in the FLA. Joining the FLA is definitely a significant step for Apple, though it is just one in many gestures the company has made regarding labor abuses over the past few years. As one anonymous executive told the New York Times (emphasis ours):
As Apple continues to reap the rewards of its Chinese manufacturing workforce, that last point echoes loudly. Thus far, Apple has been a company concerned with churning out as many iPhones and iPads as humanly possible. That’s not too different from every other company manufacturing products, though Apple certainly has worked its suppliers to the bone with its lean manufacturing processes and need for perfection. The New York Times mentions one fitting example, recounted by a former Apple executive.
"The speed and flexibility is breathtaking," the executive told the NYT. "There's no American plant that can match that." While Apple is seeing the brunt of manufacturing complaints right now, that’s likely only because the company’s processes are so advanced. Eventually, all electronics companies will have to take a closer look at how their products are built, especially as devices like smartphones and tablets get cheaper. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| “Dreamy” mobile startup closes “hefty” $3.25M seed round Posted: 26 Jan 2012 01:09 PM PST
The funding comes from Dave McClure’s 500 Startups and former TechCrunch editor Mike Arrington’s CrunchFund. Also participating were UK mobile funding firm m8 Capital, Kapor Capital, and Felicis Ventures. The iOS shop has been focusing their energies on two of the more fun and exciting disciplines available in the world as we know it: music and design. Evidently, that focus has paid off enough to attract the substantial attention of early-stage investors, too. 955 Dreams’ portfolio includes apps like the iPad interactive timelines The History of Jazz ($9.99) and On the Way to Woodstock ($4.99). Both feature scores of hours of narrative and video content. The startup also publishes Band of the Day (pictured), a daily mobile magazine full of photos and music for iPhones. Starting today, BOTD will also be available on the iPad. Both versions are free. "Our publishing platform has consistently produced high quality products that resonate with users all over the world, allowing us to achieve four App of the Weeks in one year,” said founder and CEO Kiran Bellubbi in a release. “There is an absolute and unrelenting focus on maintaining a high level of quality throughout the product and ensuring that the experience for the user is not compromised in any way.” Continuing the emphasis on design and user interface and experience, co-founder and CDO (we’re guessing that stands for “chief design officer,” although more juvenile guesses have been posited in the VentureBeat writers’ lounge) T.J. Zark said, "We were relentless in our design iterations for this publishing platform. We refined every speck of the experience, the UI, the backend, and the overall look of this product… This is the result of a thousand tiny iterative decisions.” Filed under: deals        
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| New to-do list app Clear simplifies and color-codes organization Posted: 26 Jan 2012 12:55 PM PST
There is no shortage of feature-filled to-do apps in the App Store. Apple even launched its own in October called Reminders, which lets you add location-based alerts to items. Many of the current apps are based on or inspired by Getting Things Done (GTD), a 10-year-old organizational book-turned-movement that lays-out a specific way of tracking and managing tasks. “It has become the Bible for productivity nerds, and the dominant religion in the world of to-do apps,” Clear-creator Phill Ryu said of GTD. “We just think it’s all bullshit. The system is so elaborate and feature-filled that it demands you start investing a lot of work just to make sense of it all. “GTD has turned into some perverse form of procrastination.” Ryu’s solution is a back-to-basics graphic and fun (yep, fun) to-do list app. Clear is a color-coded list inspired by that old standby, paper and pencil. Items are organized by urgency for a look reminiscent of the Department of Homeland Security’s old threat level advisory system. Pinch and expand to add a new task, pinch in to bounce back to the master list of lists. Swipe right to mark something as done. Swipe left to delete. That’s it in a nutshell. Make a list and move on. The app is the first project from Impending, a new design studio started by veteran app developers Ryu and David Lanham. Ryu and Lanham first met online Ryu was 16 and Lanham worked at Iconfactory. Most recently, they worked together at another app studio, Tap Tap Tap, which is responsible for big hits such as Camera+ and The Heist for iPhone, and has sold more than 10 million apps. But Ryu and Lanham wanted to start their own shop where they could pursue their unique design philosophy. “I think the important thing is to never take anything for granted and question everything — all the known interface design conventions, the clichés and rules of the genre.” said Ryu. “These are formulas, and to us formulas are just a fancy way of describing the rut you’re stuck in.” The product of this approach is Clear, a collaboration with Realmac Software and Milen Dzhumerov, but other “top secret” projects are already in the pipeline. The Clear app won’t be available in the App Store until mid-February, but the duo has a video of the app in action (watch it below). Impending plans to make Clear free to download and try, but you can pay to add pro features.
Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| How to gauge marketing: Stop measuring page views, start measuring qualified leads Posted: 26 Jan 2012 12:09 PM PST
Those metrics might look good on paper, but do they matter to the business? Is marketing measuring the right things? That’s a question aptly raised in the book and movie "Moneyball," which portrayed a baseball team that dramatically changed the way it evaluated players. About 10 years ago, the Oakland Athletics baseball team began measuring base percentage and slugging percentage instead of batting averages and home-runs, and the results for the team were overwhelmingly positive. Marketers also need to rethink metrics. Traditional metrics focus on lead volume instead of quality. This means that the sales force receives a large pile of names from marketing but then must painstakingly disqualify too many of them. Web-based analytics tools typically measure how much time a prospect spends at a company’s site, which pages they visited and which links they clicked. These metrics show some level of interest, but don’t show a clear picture of engagement. Companies used to measure marketing on branding and the number of impressions. But how do you truly measure branding? How do you know if anyone actually read the content in your campaign? These measures have today become irrelevant, because they do a poor job of connecting marketing activities to closed deals. Today, marketing must show its impact on sales results and revenues. The good news is, marketers have much more data available to them now compared with five years ago. The challenge is to integrate all of this data, which now lives within many different tools, from Google Analytics to e-mail, Excel spreadsheets, Web content management systems, social media sites, and business software. But a number of marketing automation tools exist to link together data from various sources and get a more comprehensive view of ROI and trend data across complex, multi-channel campaigns. The new metrics One goal for marketers is to look beyond the sheer volume of leads coming in from marketing campaigns and set a standard for marketing qualified leads (MQL). These leads typically meet certain criteria that indicate they'd be a good fit to become a customer. It's best for marketing and sales to work together to define what makes a lead a good fit. The checklist may include explicit factors like job title or company size, but could also include activity-based indicators like engaging with key materials or passing a certain stage of nurturing. Once defined, marketing should assign only MQLs to the sales team. Taking it a step further, another other core metric marketers should track is the percentage of MQLs that convert to opportunities, and then ultimately how many lead to closed deals. These numbers are the ultimate proof that marketing is delivering the right types of leads to sales, and a measure of how marketing impacts revenues across the board. Focusing on sales-aligned metrics is also critical to shaping marketing strategies. Without this insight, it's impossible to know which campaigns or specific strategies, such as video demos, have the most potential to attract qualified leads. Once marketers have a clear picture of their campaign performance, they can allocate resources accordingly and eliminate less profitable channels. Making the shift from the old metrics to the new metrics isn’t always easy. Marketers may worry that poor results will cost them their jobs. Yet not making the shift could make marketing irrelevant to company decision-makers before it can even prove its worth. Sales may also be taken aback. In the new world of MQLs, sales teams may wonder why they are receiving fewer leads from the marketing department. Instead of getting a fire-hose of names, now they’ll get smaller lists with more potential. A bit of education can help sales understand the new lead qualification strategy. With the right approach to marketing measurement and qualified leads on deck, the sales team is sure to improve its batting average, er, win rate. Winning strategies: 1. Make sure you're de-duplicating inbound leads so that your reports are as accurate as possible. Typically this is done through the use of systems with "smart forms" that de-duplicate leads upon conversion. There are also CRM-compatible apps that can help clean up your existing database. 2. You may have high-priority activities (requesting a test drive or filling out a Contact Me form, for example) that instantly elevate a lead to MQL status, even if they haven't met other qualifiers. 3. When it comes to tracking marketing-sourced opportunities, showcase success not only in terms of the number of opportunities you generated, but also the dollar value of those opportunities. Sharing that marketing sourced $250,000 in new revenue last month is powerful stuff! 4. Another way to show marketing value, especially over an extended period, is to report on your figures as a percentage. For example: 62 percent of all new business closed in 2011 came from marketing-sourced leads. 5. Ready for something more advanced? It's a bit trickier, but after you have a handle on measuring marketing-sourced leads, develop a strategy for measuring marketing-influenced leads. These are leads that didn't come from a marketing campaign but received marketing touches such as drip nurturing throughout the sales cycle that ultimately helped close the deal.
[Top photo credit: Ell Brown/Flickr] Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| Want to feel like an Apple factory boss? New strategy game lets you run a sweatshop Posted: 26 Jan 2012 11:56 AM PST Yesterday’s New York Times story documenting Apple’s labor practices in China put a significant spotlight on an important ongoing issue. But what if you could experience what it’s like to be on the factory floor? A new online strategy game called Sweatshop, developed by Littleloud, takes a seriously tounge-in-cheek approach to the issue by placing you on the floor of an offshore factory. You manage a floor of workers who tirelessly assemble hats, shirts, bags and shoes, all while juggling different elements that determine your profitability. As the game progresses, you are presented with moral dilemmas about how well you should treat your workers versus how much money you can make. Is it OK to hire children? Should you give the workers water coolers and toilets? Is it worth putting up the cash for safety officer or is it OK if a few of your workers end up dead or injured on the floor? While the game is cartoony and cute, it’s also smart and subversive. It tells you more about the treatment of offshore workers and child laborers. After you complete a level, the game tells you eye-popping facts provided by Labour Behind The Label, a nonprofit organization in the U.K. that advocates for worker’s rights. Some key screenshots can be viewed below: And you can watch a trailer for the game as well: Hat tip: Ecouterre Filed under: games        
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| Join us at Vator Splash in San Francisco on February 2nd Posted: 26 Jan 2012 11:25 AM PST
If you want to mingle with top venture capitalists and angels, who are funding the next wave of innovative powerhouses, join us for Splash SF at Cafe du Nord on the evening of February 2, 2012. Ten early-stage startups selected by their peers share the stage with rockstar CEOs who share their secrets to success with the crowd of 400 startup CEOs, investors, service providers and bloggers. Splash is an event that brings together blue-chip high-tech startup investors, who give you insights into how they think when it comes to investments. They’ll also talk about their investment philosophies in light of the new and abundant sources of early-stage capital. Get your 15% discount on tickets by using the promo code "VB15" here. The best deal is in the demo tables, which include three tickets to event and afterparty, plus signage and exposure at the event. As always, there will be an open wine bar, starting at 4 pm, courtesy Cannonball Winery, and an afterparty performance, starring Coverflow. The two keynote speakers onstage are Jeff Fluhr, founder and CEO of Spreecast, and co-founder of Stubhub, where he served as CEO, building the company from the ground up until the sale to eBay for $310 million, as well as Aaron Levie, founder and CEO of Box, which is currently valued at a reported half-a-billion dollars. The VC/investor list includes Michael Brown (head of Twitter Corp Dev), Craig Sherman (Meritech Capital), Saad Khan (CMEA), Charles Moldow (Foundation Capital), Mike Hirshland (Resolute VC), Jed Katz (Javelin Venture Partners), Sharon Wienbar (Scale Venture Partners), Raj Kapoor (Mayfield Fund), Howard Lindzon (prolific angel investor), Frank Artale (Ignition Partners), Josh Stein (DFJ), Darcy Frisch (Hearst Ventures), Shayna Modarresi (DLA Piper), and David Hornik will be back for another segment of “Late Night with David Hornik.” The online judges include Jules Walker (KPMG), Xander Mahoney (DFJ), Craig Stern (head of Corp Dev, Nextag), and Freeman Murray (prolific angel investor). And, of course, there is the afterparty band – Coverflow, with Raj Kapoor (Mayfiled), Tim Chang (Mayfield), Phil Kaplan (ADHD Labs), Prashant Fuloria (Facebook), Ethan Beard (Facebook), and the musician timekeeper – The Mule from Smule. Interested in attending? Get your 15% discount on tickets by using the promo code "VB15" here. Sponsored posts are content that has been produced by a company, which is either paying for the post or has a business relationship with VentureBeat, and they’re always clearly marked. The content of news stories produced by our editorial team is never influenced by advertisers or sponsors in any way. For more information, contact garrett@venturebeat.com. Filed under: Entrepreneur Corner, VentureBeat        
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| HelloWallet keeps track of your money, raises $12M Posted: 26 Jan 2012 11:21 AM PST HelloWallet, an online service that encourages you to spend your money more wisely, announced Thursday it has raised $12 million in its second round of funding. Investment research company Morningstar, Inc. and TD Fund led the round. “HelloWallet helps workers figure out how to spend money, focusing on savings and reducing spending. We give you financial advice to manage day to day expenses,” Matt Fellowes, HelloWallet chief executive and founder, told VentureBeat in an interview. HelloWallet offers the average American worker comprehensive financial advice on topics such as paying off debt, increasing savings, setting and sticking to a budget, and boosting overall wealth through savings and investments. The company uses behavioral psychology and statistics to give members recommendations on spending and saving practices. With this new round of funding, Morningstar and HelloWallet will team up to offer financial advice with company-issued 401Ks, so employees can make the most of their retirement efforts. Customers can manage their money through HelloWallet’s website, with its iPhone app, and through a text message system for feature phones. An Android application will be released in the next six weeks. The company prides itself on never selling your data to anyone and never pushing any banking products on you. All of your personal and financial data stored with HelloWallet is protected by “bank level” security measures. A HelloWallet subscription will cost your about nine dollars per month and for every five paid subscriptions, the company will donate one memberships to a family who cannot afford the monthly subscription cost. “Since we launched we’ve sold more than 350,00 subscriptions and we are now growing at a much faster rate. We’ll use the funding to build up our team,” said Fellowes. HelloWallet will use the $12 million dollar funding to grow its customer base and help more Americans build wealth. It also has plans to expand its free subscription donations. HelloWallet is based in Washinton D.C. and has 35 employees. So far the company has raised more than $20 million dollars of funding. Filed under: deals        
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| Google+ gives teens some privacy, unless they don’t want it Posted: 26 Jan 2012 11:08 AM PST It’s two in the afternoon, do you know where your kids are? Evidently, they’re on Google+ but don’t worry, Google has put in some privacy policies to police their raucous Internet partying. “We think the best strategy is to equip teens and parents with the right information to promote safe online behavior, rather than limiting functionality completely,” a Google spokesperson told VentureBeat in an e-mail. Bradley Horowitz, Google’s vice president of product for Google+, explained in a blog post Thursday that when we share information in real life it is special, selective, and builds relationships. Online networks, on the other hand, lead to teens “over-sharing with all of their so-called ‘friends.’” How do you protect a teen on a social network that is built to be open and non-reciprocal in sharing? YOU ALERT THEM THAT DANGER IS COMING. Google launched three new privacy measures Thursday touching on circles, notifications, and Hangouts. The safety measures, while not entirely passive, trend more toward “warnings” than actual actions within the product. Google did not want to inhibit teens from enjoying the social network, but rather let them make smart decisions for themselves.
Here’s privacy meausre #1: When a teen creates a post and wants to share it with people outside of their circles, Google asks them if they really want to publish publicly. That’s really it. Adults can make decisions on whether or not content is appropriate for the masses, but teens might “over-share,” as Horowitz points out. This is a nice buffer between the 13-year-old’s angst poetry and the real world, but it doesn’t do much to actually stop its distribution. As for Hangouts, Google+’s video chat function, Google tries to protect teens from stranger danger. If an adult that is not in one of the teen’s circles enters a Hangout teens are participating in, the teen is temporarily dropped from the video chat. A message pops up on the teen’s screen and says who entered the Hangout, that the person was not someone the teen knows and then … gives them the option to re-enter the Hangout. Google is also setting the default for notifications to only be people in that teen’s circles. That is to say, that notifications of photos, tags, and more can come from people the teen has recognized as a known person. Those outside the teen’s circles cannot comment on any of the teen’s posts either. But hey, what if they want to get the whole world’s opinion on their recent switch from blond to brunette? All you have to do, resourceful teenager, is head over to your settings and change them. S “Traditional services restrict teens from using desirable functionality, which gives them an incentive to misrepresent themselves,” said the spokesperson. “Our aim with Google+ is to create an environment that encourages teens to represent themselves on Google+ as they do in real life. For example, we set age-appropriate defaults but supply teens with educational materials and the capability to modify those settings based on their own choices.” In essence, Google has put up a lot of speed bumps its social network, but the teen can always fly right over them. Let’s be honest, we all know your kid is going to be valedictorian of Generic Prep School, but he’s not exactly worldly yet. Also, his biggest idol is that hipster on his Google+ Hangout that listens to Bright Eyes and smokes clove cigarettes. Besides, how many teens do you know who like to be told to wait? Filed under: social        
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| Zynga Bingo debuts on Facebook as part of casino suite Posted: 26 Jan 2012 10:00 AM PST Adding to its Zynga Casino suite, Zynga is announcing today it has launched Zynga Bingo in a closed beta test on Facebook. The game is the newest social game for Zynga, which is moving at a faster and faster pace to launch new games that help the company preserve its dominant position on the world’s biggest social network.
Both games will use different currencies. But players will be able to contact friends who are playing Zynga Poker. The game was designed by the same team in Austin, Texas, that created and runs Zynga Poker. Nicole Opas, senior producer of Zynga Bingo, said that Zynga’s twist on the classic board game is to add a social layer that makes the games more appropriate to play in small groups on Facebook. Like Poker, the Zynga Bingo game is synchronous, where players join a virtual room with friends or strangers and then play Bingo in real-time. “Our goal is to make it relevant to any player,” Opas said in an interview. “The idea is to make people feel like you’re playing a game at a Bingo hall with a bunch of other people.” Zynga announced the game back in October, when it also introduced the idea of Zynga Casino, which will be a collection of games where you can bet virtual money in competition with friends. The game was part of a broadside of new social and mobile games aimed at shoring up Zynga’s user numbers.
The features of the game distinguish it from the many other casual Bingo games on the web. Zynga’s game lets you see what rooms your friends are in. You can challenge them to a race to see who can get Bingo first. Players use Bingo language, such as putting a “daub” on a number one it has been called. Players compete simultaneously with as many as six cards at a time to get a better change of getting Bingo first. If you play with multiple cards, however, it will be more expensive.You can use virtual currency to buy Bingo Cash and unlock more rooms and collectibles. You can use “tickets” as energy. To play with multiple cards, you need more tickets. And you can either earn tickets or buy them.
Zynga will provide different themed rooms, such as Vegas Lights, Pirate’s Paradise, and FarmVille Bounty. There is a “hidden” room as well that can be unlocked over time. Each has a different art style and different kinds of challenges. There’s no real upper limit on the number of people who can play together in a room. The first three players to get Bingo score a prize, though losers can also get some random awards. You can win special prizes like a mystery crate. You can open the crate at the close of the game and you can share the contents with your friends. There are several Bingo games offered on Facebook, but none appear to be from a big game company. Filed under: games, social        
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| Top reasons to launch or pitch your product at DEMO Spring 2012 Posted: 26 Jan 2012 09:43 AM PST
It's time to launch your product. But where? Choosing the right platform to make your product's first public appearance is critical. DEMO's track record of successes, turnkey services and exposure for your company and product to a worldwide audience of VCs, investors, buyers and press, make DEMO your best option. Here are a few reasons why: DEMO Scholarship Program Guarantees 20 very early-stage company's spots at DEMO Fall for no charge and 10 partial scholarships for companies meeting funding requirements. For scholarship considering, applications must be received by February 17. DEMO Innovation Tour. DEMO is more influential because it has a long history of enlisting top VCs to help bring innovators to market, including companies like Accel Partners, RRE Ventures, Austin Ventures and many more. In fact, in February and March, entrepreneurs can apply to launch in front of VCs at Kleiner Perkins, Madrona Group, Atlas Ventures and others.. FREE launch for college groups. DEMO is more diverse, providing a unique College Alpha Program that gives student innovators a free chance to pitch for 90 seconds and promote their product idea to a worldwide audience of potential investors and business partners. Apply to Launch or Pitch Deadline: February 17, 2012. Opportunity to win DEMO People's Choice $1M Advertising Campaign: A robust advertising campaign, devoted to sharing your message and launch video with over 270 million IT buyers worldwide through the powerful brands under the IDG umbrella, including CIO Magazine, CSO Magazine, Computerworld, GamePro, Infoworld, MacWorld, Network World and PC World. A portfolio of turnkey, personalized services to prepare you for the best launch experience:
DEMO Global Launch Program: DEMO Brazil is the newest member of the DEMO family! Any DEMO Spring 2012 launch company can participate as a showcase sponsor, at no charge, at any international DEMO event in 2012. Why DEMO? Learn more and apply to launch by February 17! Filed under: DEMO, VentureBeat        
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| Yuri Milner and Google’s Matt Cutts back $2.8 M round in medical app, DrChrono Posted: 26 Jan 2012 09:41 AM PST  A digital doctor's officeThere is no cure for the headache induced by excessive paperwork every time you visit the doctor’s office. So its no surprise that as tablet computer come to replace clipboards and smartphones become ubiquitous among patients, the medical app DrChrono is gaining some traction. The service, which claims to have signed up 50,000 doctors and 400,000 patients, has raised a $2.8 million round of seed funding, reports the NY Times, from Russian billionaire Yuri Milner and Google’s anti-spam czar Matt Cutts. The app, which is free for physicians, helps both the doctor and patient to monitor prescriptions, remember the details of previous visits, and engage with one another in between trips to the office. Doctors can use it to take photo and video for comparison between visits. There is also a freehand drawing tool for things like marking up X-rays. The startup makes money offering premium services like integrated billing and storage for medical records. It even promises an end to the wild scrawl doctors have made famous on their prescription pads, with its own dictation software. The company began life in New York, but moved west for Y Combinator and has settled in the Valley ever since. Filed under: VentureBeat        
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In what will likely be a constant back and forth between Apple and Samsung, the iPhone maker has apparently reclaimed the title of the world’s largest smartphone vendor for the fourth quarter of 2011.
It’s good to be the Android king: Samsung today 
Giant media company Warner Brothers might be taking further steps to ensure that its updated distribution strategy for newly released DVD movies has the maximum effect — regardless of how petty the company may seem as a result.
Did you know that if you add “social” and “enterprise” and “mobile” and “cloud,” you get $5 million dollars? It’s crazy!
In a week when 
The company has made gestures that it would keep tabs on its suppliers. A few weeks ago, Apple for the first time ever 
Is there such a thing as being too organized? A new to-do app called 
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