CEOWORLD News

EE Times Europe Launches New Website

amarndra bhushan — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:11:16 +0000

EE Times Europe team unveiled its new website: http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/. Presenting a cleaner look, improved navigation, and a host of added features, the new site provides visitors with a more user-friendly experience.

The new site is structured so as to give readers access to all news and features through dynamic top menus. You can easily narrow down your reading to a single type of news, depending on whether your interest lies in business, market, technology, new products, feature articles or interviews. A newly built search engine will help you retrieve any article that is no longer on the front page.

Under the learning centers menu, you will access all the submitted whitepapers directly in the field of interest to you, including Analog, Automotive, Embedded, Microwave, Power, and Test & Measurement. We encourage the submission of white papers (free of charge) that may benefit other visitors.

EE Times Europe provides the creators of technology in Europe with News, Analysis, Product and Design Information in a wide range of media formats. EE Times Europe is a next generation, integrated media product that includes a bi-weekly print publication, a digital version with enhanced features, a unique web site and a daily newsletter keeping subscribers abreast of new developments in real time. EE Times Europe incorporates a large product section in its Electronics Express pages.

EETimes Europe has a European readership of over 70,000 across more than 40 European countries provides a mix of industry news, analysis, technology news, and three monthly sector-specific special sections blending contributed technical articles with product news.

MySpace founders Chris DeWolfe, Colin Digiaro, and Aber Whitcomb to acquire MindJolt with Austin Ventures partnership

amarndra bhushan — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:30 +0000

MySpace Founders Chris DeWolfe, Colin Digiaro, and Aber Whitcomb today announced a partnership with Austin Ventures, to acquire MindJolt, one of the fastest growing online social gaming platforms. With more than 20 million monthly active unique users on Facebook, MindJolt.com and other social sites, the company aggregates 1,300 of the best casual games on the Web from developers worldwide.

Building on MindJolt’s expansive online footprint, the new team will extend the platform by focusing on three major initiatives including: (1) increased monetization through major brand partnerships and virtual good offerings, (2) expanding MindJolt’s global presence to all relevant websites and smart phone platforms, and (3) working closer with game developers to create tools for single player and multiplayer social games.

“MindJolt has quickly become an ‘onramp’ to the Internet for the world’s independent game developers,” said Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MindJolt and former CEO of MySpace. “We’re building out the company to become the next generation platform for game developers. Our goal is to make it even easier for developers to get their games noticed and make more money from their work. At the same time we will deliver the most social and viral gaming experiences to our millions of users everywhere.”

With over 20 million monthly active users across the Web, MindJolt provides game developers of any size a way to monetize their games, access to massive distribution on the world’s most popular social platforms, and creates viral game play by injecting unique social layers into the casual and social game experience. More than 1,000 game developers use the company’s application to reach audiences across the world’s most popular social platforms. The sheer number of game players on MindJolt levels the playing field for indie game developers by giving them access to an engaged, highly social audience.

“We’ve always backed great management teams and great companies,” said Chris Pacitti, General Partner of Austin Ventures. “A partnership with the MySpace founders is a rare opportunity and MindJolt is a company with the right scale, momentum, and market position to succeed. We’re thrilled to be a partner on this deal.”

Based in San Francisco, MindJolt’s executive team includes Chief Executive Officer Chris DeWolfe (co-founder and former CEO of MySpace), Chief Operating Officer Colin Digiaro (MySpace’s former head of Monetization and co-founder of SlingShot Labs), Chief Technology Officer Aber Whitcomb (MySpace’s former Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of MySpace), SVP of Business & Corporate Development Josh Yguado (Former VP of Business Development at Fox Networks Group), and Richard Fields, the founder of MindJolt and head of product strategy.

“Independent game developers have always been the lifeblood of MindJolt. We’ve done a great job of connecting with the independent casual game community and we’re looking to expand our efforts to social game developers as well,” said Richard Fields, Founder of MindJolt. “The new MindJolt team is united on its vision to empower game developers of every size to build their businesses. We now have the resources to extend our product vision and build what they’re asking us for.”

General Motors Co. vice chairman, Bob Lutz set to retire

amarndra bhushan — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:37:57 +0000

General Motors Co.’s (GM, news: 0.75 0.00 0.00%, cap: N/A, 1yr target: 0.00) vice chairman, Bob Lutz, will retire on May 1. Lutz, 78, a long time industry veteran, is credited for designing some of Detroit’s most compelling vehicles and most recently championed GM’s all-electric Volt vehicle. “I can depart with equanimity, because the concept I have been pushing these nine years is ‘Only a focus of absolute product superiority will enable the company to reach its other goals,’ ” Mr. Lutz said in an email. “This has now been integrated into the very fabric of the company, and is the direction set by Ed Whitacre.”

GM confirmed today that Lutz will retire on May 1. That leaves almost two full months for a reversal, however, and it wouldn’t be the first time Lutz jumped the gun on a major announcement, so we’ll keep you abreast of the latest as Lutz feels his way toward some long-overdue time off.

Lutz has been working recently on the forthcoming electric-gas, Chvrolet Volt. At $40,000 it will cost almost double the price of pure electric cars like the Nissan Leaf and hybrid models already on the market. For that reason I doubt if it will be the savior of GM.

Roughly a year ago, Lutz, 78, announced plans to leave at the end of 2009. But those plans were shelved as GM emerged from bankruptcy in July and he was given a new assignment as vice chairman of marketing.

Then in December, GM Chairman Ed Whitacre, having just assumed the role of CEO, announced that Lutz would be taking an adviser role to him. Lutz had also been a senior executive at Chrysler Corp, Ford Motor Co (F, news: 13.40 +0.06 +0.45%, cap: 45.135B, 1yr target: 12.19) and BMW.

Greece Prime Minister George A. Papandreou on Twitter

amarndra bhushan — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:55:51 +0000

Greece Prime Minister George A. Papandreou has a Twitter @PrimeministerGR account. Along with his Twitter account, the Prime Minister also has links to accounts on Flickr, Facebook and YouTube. The account is not verified yet, but there should be no doubt about the authenticity as it is mentioned on http://www.primeminister.gr website.

For the unfamiliar, Twitter is a free ‘micro-blogging’ service which allows users to exchange short updates (up to 140 characters long), termed ‘Tweets’ in a way similar to SMS.

Unlike SMS, these updates are generally public (although private messages are possible). They are delivered via the internet to either the Twitter website or a separate client to a user’s PC or mobile device. Any Twitter user simply clicks a ‘follow’ button to receive another user’s public messages in their Twitter feed (becoming a ‘follower’).

Greece Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Mr. George A. Papandreou (Γεώργιος Παπανδρέου), born on 16 June 1952, holds an M.Sc. in Sociology and Development from LSE, and is a fellow at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs. Papandreou has been leader of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) party since February 2004.

Please follow him on Twitter @PrimeministerGR

Music streaming service Mog Gets Another $10 Million

amarndra bhushan — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:11:53 +0000

MOG, A music streaming service with backing from both Universal Music Group and Sony Music, has raised $9.5 million in a new round of venture funding. Mog.com had already raised a total $12.5 million from Menlo Ventures, Simon Equity, Universal Music Group and Sony Music in the last four years, including $5 million in August.

The round was led by Menlo Ventures, which was joined by new investor Balderton Capital. Dharmash Mistry, partner at Balderton Capital, has been appointed to MOG’s board. The funds will support the development of mobile applications, building partnerships with consumer electronics companies, and expanding MOG’s presence globally starting with the United Kingdom in the second quarter of 2010.

In addition, MOG announced that the MOG All Access free trial will be extended from one hour to three days. “Since we launched MOG All Access in December, we’ve seen an incredible 17 percent user conversion from the free trial which proves how much people like the service,” said David Hyman, founder and CEO of MOG. “We know MOG All Access is the best way to discover and enjoy music so we’re making it easier for people to experience the service first-hand.”

MOG All Access will launch in the United Kingdom by the end of the second quarter of this year with a comprehensive catalog of music of approximately 7 million songs from all of the major music labels, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI Music, as well as hundreds of independent labels including Beggars Group, INgrooves, IODA, The Orchard, and many more from around the world.

“MOG All Access is the best listening experience possible because we deliver the best on-demand experience, the best radio and the best tools to discover new music,” Hyman continued. “The response to MOG All Access among U.S. music fans has been fantastic and we’re excited to begin rolling out the service internationally starting with the U.K.”

MOG All Access’ monthly subscription gives users unlimited music listening and playlist creation from any browser. There are no restrictions on what subscribers can hear or when they can hear it. In addition to the music service, MOG is home to more than 1,000 music blogs covering everything from pop to jazz to blues to country and comprising the largest music ad network on the web. MOG provides a single destination for people to discover and enjoy millions of songs and to immerse themselves in music content including news, reviews, playlists and lyrics.

The spiritual head, Tibetan Buddhist community Dalai Lama Officially Joins Twitter

amarndra bhushan — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:51:05 +0000

The spiritual head of the Tibetan Buddhist community his Holiness The Dalai Lama (@DalaiLama), one of the world’s most influential people, has joined the social networking line to keep in touch with his followers.

Twitter founder Evan Williams tweeted yesterday: “Met the Dalai Lama today in LA. Pitched him on using Twitter. He laughed.”

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959, nine years after China sent communist forces to occupy the Himalayan region, and has since led a self-declared government-in-exile in India. Around 140,000 Tibetans now live in exile, over 100,000 of them in different parts of India. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, also has a official website. He is His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, the 74-year-old spiritual leader of Tibet and the head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, based in Dharamsala, India.

Greece Prime Minister George A. Papandreou on Twitter

Zynga worth over $3bn- Farmville now has 80 million Facebook users

amarndra bhushan — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:38:19 +0000

Zynga’s Facebook game Farmville application popularity is really booming at the moment, with the stats showing that it has reached the 80 million user milestone (31 million daily active users). Farmville developers Zynga have also just opened their first studio outside of the US. Their new HQ in Bangalore, India will centre on game and development infrastructure.

Fan site FarmVille Freak reports that one player sent an email with the following information: “Zynga has announced that as of March 31, 2010, FarmVille will no longer be available in its Beta version. The game will be available for a subscription fee of $5.99 per month and will include additional levels above 70…”. It’s also rumored that Zynga needs to raise more money in order to go public sometime this year.

Zynga, the publisher of Facebook games such as Farmville, Mafia Wars and Texas HoldEm Poker, has not yet filed for an IPO, so its worth is yet unknown. However, research company NeXt Up! analysts have used expected compound annual growth to calculate the company’s worth between $2.8 and $3.3bn.

Zynga’s user base increased from 30 million people in April 2009 to 228 million in January 2010.

With a significant presence on social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo, as well as iPhone apps, Zynga primarily makes money through in-game advertising and marketing offers, though the report stated that 40 per cent of Zynga’s revenue comes from the sale of virtual goods, says Channel News.

Google Buys Mobile Email Utility reMail, Gabor Cselle joins Gmail team.

amarndra bhushan — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:20:10 +0000

Google (GOOG, news: 563.18 -16.36 -2.82%, cap: 179.1B, 1yr target: 671.81) has acquired reMail, a company that provides advanced email search capabilities for the iPhone platform. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. First thing Google did after the takeover was to cut Remail’s ties with Apple’s App Store, reMail founder Gabor Cselle @gabor, who founded email start-up reMail in 2008, and was YCombinator funded in 2009, posted today on his personal blog. Cselle is the former VP of Engineering for Xobni and also a former engineer for none other than Google.

“Google and reMail have decided to discontinue reMail’s Apple’s (AAPL, news: 223.84 -2.76 -1.22%, cap: 203.0B, 1yr target: 255.49) iPhone application, and we have removed it from the iTunes App Store,” he said.

“Gmail is where my obsession with email started as an engineering intern back in 2004, and I’m thrilled to be coming back to a place with so many familiar faces. reMail’s goal was reimagine mobile email, and I’m proud we have built a product that so many users find useful. Still, I feel like we’ve only seen the beginning of what’s possible. Google is the best place in the world to improve the status quo on how people communicate and share information. If you have what it takes to make these changes happen, I encourage you to reach out and come join me…” he added.

Gabor Cselle was a former Gmail intern and was YCombinator funded.
Cselle will now become a product manager on Gmail.
Existing reMail users will continue to enjoy the service and will still get support from Cselle until the end of March.
reMail received funding from YCombinator and former Googlers (and FriendFeed Co-Founders) Paul Buchheit and Sanjeev Singh.
The company will use reMail’s technology to better index email from its Gmail product on the popular smartphone device.

Video ad management platform YuMe raises $25 Million

amarndra bhushan — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:19:25 +0000

YuMe, a video advertising technology company, has raised $25 million, in additional capital in a round led by Menlo Ventures. Past YuMe backers included Accel Partners, Khosla Ventures, BV Capital and DAG Ventures , also participated in the funding.

Menlo Ventures is a venture capital firm specializing in investments in early stage and emerging growth companies. The firm prefers to invest in companies engaged in the communications, Internet infrastructure, software, semiconductor, data storage, and computer hardware sectors.

It seeks to invest in companies based within the United States. The firm invests in all stages of a portfolio company, typically with initial investments between $5 million and $10 million at the start up stage and investments between $10 million and $25 million at late stages. It does not invest in life sciences and health care, e-commerce, consumer goods, retail, and foreign entities. Menlo Ventures was founded in 1976 and is based in Menlo Park, California

YuMe is a video advertising technology company that makes it easy for publishers to make money from their video content and for advertisers to reach audiences in a powerful way.

Jayant Kadambi and Ayyappan Sankaran founded YuMe in 2004 after recognizing that the nascent broadband video sector was going to need a strong ad model and technology platform to generate revenue. Realizing that video is fundamentally different than banners and text, in 2007 YuMe launched an advertising technology solution that could properly monetize, distribute, traffic and report against video.

With 500+ publishers, more than 1 billion video streams and 70 million unique viewers per month, YuMe gives publishers and advertisers unprecedented reach, brand safety, contextual relevance, controlled syndication, and consistent delivery across all digital media platforms—Web, downloads, mobile, and IPTV.

LinkoTec Gets $1.5 Million For Dazzboard software competitor to iTunes

amarndra bhushan — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:43:07 +0000

LinkoTec Inc. has raised $1.5 million to help boost growth of its Dazzboard software and expand globally. LinkoTec offers Dazzboard, software that helps users transfer multimedia content such as photos, videos and music between their mobile devices and their computers as well as share them on social networks. The investment round was led by HTT Sixgen and was followed by additional funding from another Finnish VC, Veraventure.

Nokia Ventures head Timo Teimonen and Mats Therman, a partner at HTT Sixgen, are joining Tero Salonen, the CEO and co-founder of LinkoTec on the board of the company.

DazzBoard is a fully functioning media player ala iTunes but works only online and doesn’t have some of the constraints iTunes has. The company, based in Helsinki, Finland, and Sunnyvale.

Dazzboard, the ultimate social media webtop, provides users with drag-and-drop connections to all of their media on a wide variety of platforms: portable devices, PCs, cloud storage and social media networks. Dazzboard currently supports Windows XP, Vista and 7, Internet Explorer version 6 (XP only), 7 and 8, as well as Firefox 3.X.

Gawker Media Buys CityFile, Nick Denton fires Gabriel Snyder, Remy Stern new editor-in-chief

amarndra bhushan — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:20:15 +0000

Gawker Media is making its first-ever acquisition, buying NYC-focused blog CityFile, the city guide. The purchase price for the company was not disclosed. Nick Denton fired his editor-in-chief Gabriel Snyder and installed the founder of Cityfile, Remy Stern, in the job, on February 22. Remy Stern launched Cityfile in 2008, after spending two years at Radar’s second incarnation under Mort Zuckerman and Jeffrey Epstein.

And here’s the full internal memo announcing the deal

—-

For the first few years of Gawker Media, the business press had one abiding preoccupation: when are you going to sell out? Today we’re giving the M&A gossips something else to talk about. The company is making its first acquisition: Cityfile, the New York news site founded by Remy Stern. The price is not being disclosed.

Cityfile will be the New York and media industry channel on Gawker, alongside Valleywag and Defamer, our tech and entertainment sub-sites. Cityfile’s 2,000-plus profiles of New York notables will be the centerpiece of our new topic and people pages. And Remy Stern, a former writer on several Gawker sites and editor at the now-legendary Radar magazine, will take over as editor-in-chief of Gawker. He starts on February 22nd.

We had hoped to persuade Gabriel Snyder to stay in a management role. But he’s moving on. With help from an awesomely strong team of writers and the new Gawker.tv operation, Gabriel doubled Gawker’s audience during his tenure (http://bit.ly/c6BXk8.) To anyone out there looking to build up an online property: pick him up quickly.

Does this mean Gawker is going on an acquisition spree?

Well, it’s a question of scale. Each of the Gawker titles does already have more than 1m US visitors a month — making them usually the largest or second largest blog title in their category. Nevertheless the threshold of advertising success does continue to rise and we’re increasingly competing online with TV and newspaper groups.

Moreover, we’ve long actively managed our portfolio of properties, selling Consumerist to Consumers Union last year, for instance — or closing down unsuccessful properties. To achieve critical mass in entertainment and tech, we have indeed looked at a few opportunities in the last few months. If online media is consolidating, we’d rather be a consolidator than consolidatee. And revenue growth of 22% in 2009 provides the resources. (Deal ideas? Contact Gaby Darbyshire.)

Don’t get too excited, however. The successful launches of Jezebel and io9 confirmed our belief that it’s usually more effective to build than buy. Lifted by the iPad launch and the late-night TV wars, our nine sites — all launched inhouse — drew a US audience of more than 14m in January. Our best investment continues to be the recruitment of great writers and producers on our own sites — and the pursuit of hot stories

From: Gabriel Snyder
Date: February 15, 2010 3:47:23 PM EST
Subject: Farewell

For reasons which I’m not too clear on, but I’m sure Nick Denton will explain momentarily, I am being replaced as editor-in-chief of Gawker.

Honesty is Gawker’s only virtue, so it seems inappropriate to engage in the usual corporate euphemisms of “wanting to explore new new opportunities” or “take a larger role in the company” or “spend more time with my family” (though eighteen-hour days and seven-day work weeks do take their toll on personal relationships), so I’ll put this as plainly as we’d report any other masthead ouster: I am being canned.

Building this website into what it is today — a big operation with 11 writers, a regular source of national news and a challenger to the mainstream media organizations that it once mocked — has been the best job of my career. Transitioning from print to online meant adopting an entirley new biorhythm. Transitioning from writer to editor has meant learning to bask in the reflected glory of the talented staff who contribute every day. I love Gawker and adore the crew that makes it happen.

You deserve all the credit; my role has been to push you to be yourselves: Alex Pareene’s incisive political commentary, John Cook’s dogged reporting and clear-headed analysis, Brian Moylan’s ability to enunciate conversation-starting ideas, Richard Lawson’s ability to produce dazzling copy at superhuman speeds, Ryan Tate’s cliche-free coverage of Silicon Valley, Hamilton Nolan’s workhorse ethic and humor, Doree Shafrir’s gimlet-eyed appraisals of the culture and society around her. Waking up each morning to the work of Adrian Chen, Maureen O’Connor and Ravi Somaiya is a pleasure. Watching Foster Kamer dance on the stage each weekend is a joy. You, without a doubt, make up the strongest staff Gawker’s ever had, and make the site the best it’s ever been.

Eighteen months ago, when I first sat down with Nick to discuss taking over the Gawker helm from him, I saw a huge opportunity to build a site from its roots as an intimate discussion among Manhattan’s power elite and build it into a national news brand (an aspiration that seems to come up every time there’s a masthead shakeup around here). Attaining those goals have been the biggest accomplishment of my career. As I saw it, Facebook, Twitter and smaller blogs had slowly encroached on the role Gawker once served. Among the most difficult, though most rewarding to the site, efforts was to take the site from a bankers’ hours schedule to publishing 24 hours around the clock, weekends included. I believed the site could be grown beyond its traditional audience by focusing on news from the nation’s four cultural capitals (New York, D.C., L.A. and San Francisco) — which became even more clear when I was given the task of integrating former standalone sites Defamer and Valleywag into the flagship. Oh, and then there have been the stories. It’s become common to see national newspapers and broadcasts cite Gawker on vast array of stories: the U.S. Kabul embassy security dudes behaving badly, the Hipster Grifter saga, leading the entire media for a weekend on the Balloon Boy fiasco, those pictures of Katie Couric dancing, pillorying Harold Ford through simple questions, Annie Leibovitz’s financial meltdown, the Late Night Wars, Facebook privacy, Anna Wintour … more than I can count. I was determined to compete with the biggest news sites on the internet. And today, I am glad to say it does.

But the history of Gawker Media careers shows that they tend to burn bright and fast. So it shouldn’t have come as a much of a surprise when our mercurial owner told me he’s hatched other plans for Gawker. He offered me a new, temporary position as an assistant managing editor of Gawker Media as a holding job, which I have declined. I can’t see how I’d be in a position to succeed at the role going into it with one foot literally out the door. I’ll be editing the site until Friday. After that, please stay in touch (gs@gabrielsnyder.com). And needless to say, as of now I am on the market and will be beating the media bushes for my next opportunity.

I will miss you all.

Best,
Gabriel

Google Buys Mobile Email Utility reMail, Gabor Cselle joins Gmail team.

Rambler Media plans to bid for AOL’s ICQ instant-messaging service

amarndra bhushan — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:48:32 +0000

Rambler Media, the internet media and services group which operates Rambler.ru, on-line newspaper ‘Lenta.ru’,plans to bid for AOL’s (AOL, news: 25.23 -0.23 -0.90%, cap: 2.688B, 1yr target: 26.50) ICQ instant-messaging service . Other properties owned by Rambler Media include the leading online Russian language news publisher ‘Lenta.ru’ (www.lenta.ru), product comparison website ‘Price.ru’ (www.price.ru), internet catalogue and navigation system ‘Top 100′ and contextual advertising company ‘Begun’.

Rambler Media works with AOL since the summer of 2005, under which Rambler has the exclusive right to sell ads for the Russian-speaking audience of ICQ.

Yandex, Russia’s largest search engine, South African media giant Naspers, and Russian investment group Digital Sky Technologies (Mail.ru, “Odnoklassniki.ru” etc.), are also interested in acquiring ICQ.

ICQ is an online media company providing communication tools, content and services to an online community of millions of users worldwide. ICQ was established in 1996 under the name Mirabilis, is now wholly owned by AOL LLC. (AOL, news: 25.23 -0.23 -0.90%, cap: 2.688B, 1yr target: 26.50). ICQ took the internet by storm.

ICQ, the pioneer of Instant Messaging (IM), is today a Cross-Platform Communication Center (CPCC) and an inseparable part of the daily lives of millions of users worldwide. The company’s robust instant messaging software, enhanced communication features and services are available in 16 languages free of charge at www.icq.com. ICQ’s young and enthusiastic users form a loyal online community that enjoys the full range of communication tools and a variety of premium services and content.

Palbridge, Inc Launches Ubidesk; Brings Collaboration Software for Project Managers to Small Businesses, Academies, and Teams

amarndra bhushan — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:55:02 +0000

Palbridge, Inc’s Ubidesk, a web-based collaborative workspace software for project teams, released the program to the public. The Ubidesk project exited beta after its first public beta release in August 2009. The program allows team members to collaborate on documents, manage tasks, and coordinate schedules – all for a monthly subscription price.

Kwanghyun Paek, co-founder and CEO of Palbridge, Inc says, “Having our R&D team overseas, we wanted a better collaboration tool than email. There were some alternatives, such as Google Apps, wikis, and project management software, but none of them delivered a comprehensive working environment with the most essential elements of online collaboration – document collaboration, task management, and file sharing. The Ubidesk project was started to build a new online collaboration workspace to address the problem.”

Academics, small and mid-sized business owners, and others can streamline their light project management needs through keeping all project-related documents in one place. “After twenty months of hard work, we are very excited to see the public release of Ubidesk. We have been using Ubidesk as our collaboration tool during its own development. Ubidesk is fast, secure, and easy-to-use. We believe that many businesses, teams, and individuals who need online collaboration will benefit from Ubidesk as much as we did,” said Kwanghyun.

Features of Ubidesk include:

1. Document Collaboration – Users collaborate through an online rich-text editor. Editor documents contributors and tracks revision history
2. Task Management – Includes task creation and assignment as well as progress tracking and the ability to link to pages and files
3. Projects – Track three kinds of projects – public, protected, and hidden and assign leaders to each created project
4. Calendar – Two calendars viewable side-by side with import/export functionality
5. Sidebar – Allows users to view other pages or create notes while editing a document
6. Files – Direct editing, file preview, and file revision tracking
7. Notifications – Email notification of team members regarding tasks, pages, and other events as well as a desktop feature that tracks recent activities and recent pages

Ubidesk is free for up to five users with three projects, limited features, and 100MB of storage. Monthly subscription plans start at $24/month for up to 15 users with 30 projects and three GB of storage and run up to $120/month for unlimited users, full functionality, and projects with 20 GB of storage. More information about Ubidesk is online at http://www.ubidesk.com.

About Palbridge, Inc.

Palbridge, Inc headquarters are in Sunnyvale, CA while its R&D team is located in South Korea. Kwanghyun Paek and Jokyun Jeong, co-founder and CTO, established Palbridge, Inc in March 2008. Kwanghyun served as a technical officer in charge of the IT team at Korea Air Force University, South Korea. Jokyun was the founding member of two successful web portals, Netian and Dreamwiz. Both made it into the top five web portals in South Korea. Jokyun won the entrepreneurship competition held by the Ministry of Information and Communication of Korea in 2007. Kwanghyun and Jokyun founded Palbridge, Inc. began work on Ubidesk in May, 2008.

Zynga Acquires creators of social games on Facebook Serious Business Inc.

amarndra bhushan — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:51:50 +0000

Zynga, a network of gaming applications built off of classic games like Poker, Battleship, and Attack, announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Serious Business Inc, creators of social games on Facebook. The deal will enhance Zynga’s mission to build world-class games that connect people to one another.

Serious Business will bring many of the innovations they have developed, to games played by Zynga’s 60 million daily active users. As part of the agreement, employees of Serious Business will join Zynga at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“We’re very excited to gain an experienced team that is committed to building social games,” said Vish Makhijani, chief operating officer at Zynga. “We are impressed with Serious Business’ entrepreneurial attitude, speed, and innovation in developing social games and welcome them to our team.”

Based on Robin Wauters research, Serious Business raised $4 million in venture capital from Lightspeed Venture Partners back in April 2008. Its apps for Facebook include the enormously popular and revenue-generating Friends For Sale and Rock Legends.

Local interactive advertising firm WebVisible Secures $20 Million

amarndra bhushan — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:33:45 +0000

Webvisible, the leading provider of local online marketing products and services, has received a big $20 million third round of funding, according to an SEC filing. Webvisible supports local resellers with sales training, product positioning and merchandising to increase reseller’s product line, revenue, and consumer loyalty. Its last round was $12 million led by Sutter Hill Ventures and $5 million by Redpoint Ventures.

The company has helped more than 100,000 SMB customers from over 3,000 industries in 11 countries to create innovative and accountable Internet advertising campaigns. The company manages the entire online presence management lifecycle, from take-off to landing. Best of all, its award-winning, proprietary Geneva software platform does all the work. Currently managing more than 600 million keywords, it oversees online advertising campaigns that are cost-effective, targeted and measurable.

WebVisible’s local advertising products and services, sold by the local ad sales professionals of Yellow Pages, newspapers and online marketers, bring visibility to millions of local business Web sites that would otherwise be lost in a vast Internet landscape. The WebVisible service suite includes local search, locally targeted banner advertising, eCRM, and click-to-call services. In addition, the WebVisible service provides a Web-based proprietary order entry and campaign reporting application, affording easy self-management of order input, processing and reporting.

Chinese web portal Goojje not to change logo despite Google threat

amarndra bhushan — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:09:47 +0000

Chinese web portal Goojje has said it “will not change” its logo despite US search giant Google’s threat to sue it over copyright infringement. Goojje’s logo resembles the logo of Google Inc and also bears a paw print sign like that of Baidu Inc. A Google spokeswoman said the company has officially asked Goojje to stop copying its trademark-protected logo.

The search engine’s name is a play on words: “jje” sounds like the Chinese word “older sister”, while “gle” is pronounced like the Chinese word for “older brother.” “The website is our team’s achievement,” Huang Jiongxuan, the website’s founder, told China Daily over the phone. “It’s impossible that we would close it down.”

The website is designed as a search engine, but experts said it produces search results by simply combining those of Google Inc (GOOG, news: 563.18 -16.36 -2.82%, cap: 179.1B, 1yr target: 671.81) and Baidu Inc (BIDU, news: 576.84 +26.60 +4.83%, cap: 20.047B, 1yr target: 519.10), which means Goojje does not have its own search technology. Huang, 24, and seven other team members, launched the website Jan 14, a day after Google announced the company would quit the Chinese market.

Associated Press (AP) stories back on Google News

amarndra bhushan — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:35:47 +0000

The Associated Press (AP) have returned to Google (GOOG, news: 563.18 -16.36 -2.82%, cap: 179.1B, 1yr target: 671.81) News, Wall Street Journal noticed that AP stories have been filtering back onto the site. It is unclear whether Google’s decision to start hosting new AP articles, which began appearing a little over an hour ago, reflects a change in the status of talks. The AP didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Google spokesman issued the following statement: “We have a licensing agreement with the Associated Press that permits us to host its content on Google properties such as Google News. The licensing agreement is the subject of ongoing discussion so we won’t be commenting further at this time.”

Online Celebrity Community iFollo Secures $1 Million Robert S. Trump Investment

amarndra bhushan — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:07:43 +0000

Celebrity sightings and encounters site iFollo.com as raised $1M in an investment round. The firm said the investment came from Robert S. Trump, who is also an investor in ZeniMax Media. iFollo, is an interactive, online, fan-based community that enables people to share personal celebrity experiences, photos and video. Ratings and user-generated content ensure that iFollo remains grounded in its roots of real people telling the story. Responsible celebrities embrace iFollo’s unique content with less gossip, fewer scandals and less hype. iFollo is headquartered in Park City, Utah.

Robert S. Trump, president of Trump Management, Inc., a privately-owned firm engaged in residential and commercial real estate ownership, management and investments, has an extensive personal investment history with successful start-up companies.

Among his most well-known ventures is ZeniMax Media Inc. , a unique media organization that develops and publishes award-winning video games for PCs, Sony’s Play Station, Play Station 2 and Microsoft’s Xbox, and has games in development for Xbox 360, Play Station Portable, Nintendo DS, and other next-generation consoles. Trump is an original investor as well as a member of the board of ZeniMax Media Inc.

Russian Quintura search engine CEO Yakov Sadchikov says Google is breaching its patent

amarndra bhushan — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:50:00 +0000

Russian Quintura search CEO Yakov Sadchikov says Google (GOOG, news: 563.18 -16.36 -2.82%, cap: 179.1B, 1yr target: 671.81) and other search engines are breaching its Visual Search Patent. Quintura search is available since June 2006 . The search is based on the new See and Find technology. Quintura is similar to an advanced search feature on content web sites. However, Quintura gives you the tools for efficiently searching the entire web.

The Quintura cloud or visual map shows the context of your query, those words and word combinations that are most closely connected with your search query. Visualization of your query context is just a tiny portion of the value of mapping, its major purpose being management of search queries. With Quintura, you can go wherever you want and hit your target page. By adding the words from the visual map to your query and excluding those you do not need, you can plunge as deep as you need.

Robert Andrews writes that, Quintura CEO Yakov Sadchikov told paidContent Google and others may be infringing his patent, saying he has contacted them and would be seeking further action.

“The strategy is to make all those search engines and tools that utilize a graphical user interface that is covered by our patent license it,” Sadchikov said. “We have identified several companies and services that could have infringed the patent. We plan to approach them at the same time with same request.

“Since the patent was issued on December 1, we can claim any damages from that date. For now, it’s been only two months. Our service went live a few years ago and, since then, quite a few large companies copycatted it.”

AOL goes social with Facebook and AIM instant messaging client partnership

amarndra bhushan — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:21:33 +0000

Facebook and AOL Inc. (AOL, news: 25.23 -0.23 -0.90%, cap: 2.688B, 1yr target: 26.50) announced a partnership that will allow AIM instant messaging client users to add friends and chat with their Facebook friends. The allows AIM users to send and receive instant messages to their Facebook friends, who also become part of AIM’s “Buddy” lists. AIM has about 17 million users — a fraction of the more than 400 million on Facebook.

There’s already a beta version available for Windows, Mac, and even a AIM Express, which is an in-browser Flash-based version of AIM. You can click here to try the AIM with Facebook Chat beta.

AIM is the first major instant messaging service to integrate with Facebook’s new interface. “In today’s online environment, you can’t be competitive without being open and allowing partners, developers and consumers to leverage your technology,” said Ethan Beard, Facebook’s director of platform marketing.

The company also announced that users of AOL Mail will now be able to view and send status updates on sites like Facebook, Digg, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter from within their inboxes if they add a plug-in; AOL also says that users of AIM will be able to chat with friends who are IMing within Facebook