Lady Gaga’s Backplane Pivots To Let You Build And Monetize Your Own Social Network
Why should Facebook or Ning earn the money if you bring the audience? Backplane wants to put that cash in your pocket. That’s why it’s pivoting from building social networks for big brands and celebrities into an open platform where anyone can coordinate people, charge subscriptions and even sell ads. The goal is to put the power back in the hands of organizers, from sports teams… Read More-
Venture Capital Keeps Austin Startups Flush
Austin investors may not be keeping the city weird, but they’re sure keeping its startup scene humming. Like the rest of the country, venture capitalists in the Capital City are riding a wave of exits to big new numbers in startups financed and capital committed over the past few quarters. With the TechCrunch Meetup circus in town, there’s no better time to take a look at how… Read More -
Pyne Offers A Simple Way To Poll Everyone (Or Just Your Friends)
“Oh jeez, another Q&A app.” That was my kneejerk reaction when I heard about a new startup called Pyne, which has created what it says is an app that allows users to “poll the world.” But then co-founder Tony Peccatiello gave me a demo, and I have to admit that it was appealingly quick, simple, and fun. Read More -
CarHero Brings The Oil Change And Car Wash To You
Cars need to have their oil changed every 3,000 miles or so. Fact. But it’s a hassle. CarHero wants to make it less of a hassle by performing the routine service wherever the car is parked at home or the office. The company just launched in the Dallas area with the hope of scaling nationwide. Read More -
Dropbox For Business Acquires MobileSpan To Make Bring-Your-Own-Device More Secure
Dropbox has just acquired MobileSpan, a startup that helps enterprise employees access corporate firewalled content securely. MobileSpan will shut down at the end of 2014, and active development will cease immediately. Dropbox has spent the last year-and-a-half concentrating on making its Dropbox For Business product secure enough for big enterprises. MobileSpan’s knowledge of the… Read More -
Opera Is Buying Mobile Video Ad Network AdColony, Sources Say
Opera Software is making another acquisition to build out its mobile advertising business: It has either purchased or is close to purchasing mobile video advertising startup AdColony, according to sources with knowledge of the companies. We’ve contacted both companies asking for comment. Opera spokespeople in the U.S. and Europe have told us that the company will not comment on… Read More -
Roost Takes On Twitter, RSS With A Platform For Web-Based Push Notifications
A new Y Combinator-backed startup called Roost wants to succeed where RSS readers perhaps failed with the introduction of a new service that lets consumers subscribe to websites using browser-based push notifications. However, unlike a browser plug-in system such as PageMonitor, for example, Roost is based on an upcoming standard for web push, which is built into Safari and is coming soon… Read More -
Weotta Launches A Search Engine To Help You Find What To Do Tonight
Startup Weotta has focused for the last few years on helping users find cool activities that they’re interested in. Today it’s unveiling a search engine-style interface that mirrors how you think and ask about those kinds of activities. So if you’re wondering, “Where should I go for date night?” or “Where can I take my kids this weekend?” you can… Read More -
Can Montebourg Seduce French Startups Again?
Buying what Arnaud Montebourg just said is a tough sell for French startups. France’s minister of the economy, industrial renewal, and the digital economy delivered an optimistic speech in front of entrepreneurs, startup employees and influential people of the French tech ecosystem. In fact, it’s a total change from his previous positions. But can we believe him? At Criteo’s… Read More -
Eventblimp For iPhone Aggregates Nearby Events From Facebook, Eventbrite, Meetup And More
A handy iPhone application called Eventblimp is launching today on the iTunes App Store to help you better discover all the different types of local events and activities happening around you. To do so, the app is aggregating from a number of popular event finders and social services, including Facebook, Eventbrite, SeatGeek, Bandsintown, Eventful, and Meetup in order to serve as something of… Read More
-
Viber Hits 100 Million Concurrent Users
Viber, the VoIP and messaging app recently acquired by Rakuten for $900 million, has today announced that it has crossed 100 million concurrent active users. Thus far, Viber has only ever released metrics around registered users, but as we all know, there’s a big difference between registered users and active monthly or daily users. As of now, Viber has 350 million unique registered… Read More -
About.me Raises $11M To Rival Facebook For Simple Online Identity
About.me, the second-time around startup that lets you create a simple page about yourself online that others can use to find out a bit more about you, is today announcing another round funding, its second since getting spun out of TC’s owner AOL after AOL originally acquired the startup in 2010. The company has raised $11 million, money that it plans to invest in adding more features… Read More -
Spydy Contacts Is An Android-Flavored Launchpad For All Your Communication, Copy That?
I have 17 contacts named John in my phone’s Address Book. Some I talk to every day. Some I can’t remember who the hell they are. Enter Spydy Contacts, an app built by 18-year-old Ryan McKinney to help keep the people on your phone organized. The app is currently available for Android, and integrates with your social media and address book to offer more informative contact profiles. Read More -
Thalmic Shows Off The Final Design For The Myo Gesture Control Armband
Waterloo-based startup Thalmic is getting close to shipping its final consumer version of the Myo gesture control armband, which slips onto the forearm and can detect electrical impulses sent through your arm’s muscle tissue to translate those signals to various types of computerized input via Bluetooth. The final shipping design is much sleeker than the developer alpha Myo device… Read More -
Socialbakers Acquires EdgeRank Checker To Bolster Its Facebook Analytics Offering
Hot on the heels of its $26 million Series C funding, Prague-based social media analytics company Socialbakers has made an acquisition designed to bolster its Facebook offering. It’s picked up Chicago, U.S.-based EdgeRank Checker, a provider of social analytics for Facebook’s News Feed. Read More -
Augmented Reality Augmentation: Blippar Has Bought Layar
Some consolidation – or augmentation, if you will — in the world of augmented reality. Blippar — an image recognition platform used in digital advertising — has acquired Layar, an augmented reality platform used across different applications (from advertising to education) that uses cameras on devices like smartphones to inject virtual elements into real-world images… Read More -
With $800,000 In Seed Funding, Pie Wants To Take A Slice Of The Enterprise Collaboration Market
Pie is the latest contender to launch in the enterprise collaboration space. It competes with services like Slack, which recently raised an impressive $42.75 million, as well as a host of other companies such as Convo, Hipchat, Hall, and CoTap. Co-founder Pieter Walraven says Pie “takes the noise out of work chat” by allowing users to make mini-chatrooms for every… Read More -
TextMaster Raises Further €1M To Crowdsource Translation, Copywriting And Proofreading
TextMaster, the crowdsourced platform for content translation, copywriting, and proofreading, has raised €1 million in a second round of funding. Money it has pegged for further International expansion, specifically Germany and Asia. Read More -
AppCam Lets Android App Developers Capture Videos Of User Activity For A/B Testing
Freshly launched, AppCam is an SDK that allows Android developers to capture videos of user activity in their apps. The startup says AppCam is the first such service developed especially for Android, though several similar products already exist for iOS, including Appsee, LookBack, and Watchsend. Read More -
Now Backed By Sir Richard Branson, TransferWise Raises $25M For Cheaper Money Transfers
London-based TransferWise has closed a new round of funding. It’s raised a further $25 million, adding Sir Richard Branson as a backer, along with existing investors, including Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, IA Ventures, Index Ventures, TAG (Robin Klein and Saul Klein), and Kima Ventures. Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment-- or suggestions, particularly of topics and places you'd like to see covered