Mereja

Category: Internet

  • Google Buys Picnik, Developing Its Strength in Photo Editing and Storage

    Picnik
    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    Well, this is no big surprise. Seattle-based Picnik was on everybody’s list as a local tech company with great potential to be acquired. The photo-editing startup announced today it has been bought by Google. Terms of the deal weren’t given, but this is big news for a startup community that hasn’t seen a major tech exit in some time. One question is how many other suitors were trying to acquire Picnik.

    A blog on the company’s site says, “What does this mean for Picnik? It means we can think BIG. Google processes petabytes of data every day, and with their worldwide infrastructure and world-class team, it is truly the best home we could have found. Under the Google roof we’ll reach more people than ever before, impacting more lives and making more photos more awesome.”

    Last month, we reported that Picnik had surpassed the 1-billion-photos-edited mark and was ahead of Flickr’s growth curve before the latter merged with Yahoo Photos. It will be interesting to see how Picnik’s subsequent growth compares to Flickr now that it will be integrated with Google. An interesting point here is that the integration between Picnik and Flickr, which was crucial to Picnik’s growth, is certainly threatened by the Google acquisition—since Flickr is the archrival of Google’s Picasa photo service.

    Picnik CEO Jonathan Sposato has previous connections to Google. The Mountain View, CA, search giant bought Sposato’s previous startup, Phatbits, in 2005 (the software became Google Gadgets). Sposato stayed on and worked from Google’s offices in Kirkland, WA, for just under a year before leaving to join Picnik, which had been started by Sposato’s friends Mike Harrington and Darrin Massena in late 2005. It’s clear that Google keeps a close eye on its alums’ companies.

    One thing that makes Picnik stand out is that it was bootstrapped and never took outside funding—venture capital or otherwise. The company has been cash-flow positive since November 2008. Last spring, Sposato told me, “What is the point of having your own startup if you have to work for The Man again?” (It’ll be interesting to hear his thoughts on joining Google once again.)

    And something else Sposato told me last year has added significance now. “Our mission statement is to make ‘Picnik’ an Internet verb,” Sposato said. “Think of it as the Google of photos.”

    The company will be moving, but not very far from its Belltown office. Picnik says its team, which currently numbers 20 employees, will continue working on Picnik from Google’s Seattle offices (presumably in Fremont, just a few miles away), and that “nothing is changing right away.”

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  • Remainders – The Things We Didn’t Post: Wishful Thinking Edition [Remainders]

    In today’s Remainders: wishful thinking. Nikon fans hope they’ve stumbled on a viral campaign for new cameras; magazine companies hope their slick new ads will keep you buying magazines; Google CEO Eric Schmidt gets pranked in 1986, and more.

    Follow the Signs
    Camera geeks are getting excited over some mysterious cards that have been showing up in their mailboxes. First I’ll explain what’s on the cards and then I’ll explain what people are surmising, just because it’ll be funnier that way. The first card was all black, with the number “8” on one side inside a burst of yellow, with the words “I am” on the back. The next day, a similar card with the number “7” was mailed out, with the words “I am fun” on the back. Now for the theories: yellow and black being Nikon’s colors, people are thinking that this might be some sort of cloak and dagger lead up to the unveiling of Nikon’s first micro four thirds camera, or perhaps NIkon’s rumored EVIL line of gear. The could be reading into the cards a little too much, but when you extend the daily countdown it ends on March 8, the same day a Nikon press event is scheduled in the UK. At least this rumor has a definite expiration date. [Engadget]

    Lifting Spirits
    There’s only one thing that’s better than a cat elevator, and that’s a cat elevator that is entirely operated by the cat itself. Though you have to wonder if this type of cat-tech retards the development of their natural abilities to leap from crazy heights and not be injured. Because if anything that’s a super power we need to be cultivating, not discouraging. [Neatorama]

    DoubtsCast
    We’d love for a Mitsumi’s new TV-enhancing miracle chip to be real, but we find it very hard to believe that any chip is improving LCD black levels as well as is shown in this photograph. The company claims they hope to commercialize the chip this year, but I wouldn’t hold your breath—or hold on to your crappy LCD TV—waiting for it. [CrunchGear]

    Punk’d
    What was Eric Schmidt up to back in 1986, before he became the overlord of the internet-age empire we know today as Google? Getting pranked by his employees, of course. For April Fools Day ’86, his Sun Microsystems underlings put a Volkswagen Beetle in his office, to which the bespectacled Schmidt probably responded by slapping his knee and snorting out a “Gee golly!” In any event, the video is a nice trip back to the mid-80s, a time before pranks were invariably cruel and back when the economy was so good that extra cars were always just kicking waiting to be disassembled and reassembled in someone’s office. Ah, sweet nostalgia. [TechCrunch]

    Light On Ideas
    I love LEDs and I love cool furniture design, but this LED table sort of makes my blood boil. It costs $24,000. It shows just about zero imagination when it comes to implementing the lights. It has to be plugged in at all times. A waste of money, a waste of energy, a waste of LEDs! Did I mention it costs $24,000? Forget that noise, just make your own. [UberGizmo]

    Pew Pew
    A recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project revealed that more Americans get their news from the internet than from print media. No surprise there—if anything it’s surprising it didn’t happen sooner—and the internet is still behind national and local TV when it comes to how Americans stay up to date, so don’t get too worried about the internet subsuming everything in it’s path. Not yet anyway. Still, this is one step closer to the future we envision in which Gizmodo is the nation’s primary source for all news, gadget and otherwise. (One surprising bit from the study: 21% of internet news-gatherers get their information from a single site. So, seriously, get ready for the Gizmodo News Network.) [Ars Technica]

    Print Rules
    Five huge print publishers—Time and Conde Nast among them—have banded together on a $90 million crusade to remind us why magazines rock so much and why we should shell out $3, $4, $5, $6 a month to buy them. “We surf the Internet. We swim in magazines,” reads one of the campaign’s ads that’s going to run in ESPN The Magazine. Sure, whatever, we might be swimming in magazines, but the magazines themselves are drowning. Drowning so bad that they don’t know which way is up and it seems like a good idea to throw tens of millions of dollars into a lame ad campaign. Drowning so bad that they think it’s a good idea to try to put their customers’ internet consumption and magazine consumption at odds when they could be working on models that combined the two and made everyone happy. Drowning so bad that they’re trying to convince people that growing 11% over the last 12 years since Google came on the scene is some kind of great accomplishment. Just make sure the New Yorker looks really good on the iPad and we’ll forget this campaign ever happened, OK? [WSJ]

    Screen Shots Fired
    Some fat-fingered Dell employee accidentally made a typo when entering a new Ubuntu netbook into the system, resulting in this price of $100,278. That’s not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is this particular type of fuck-up—the accidental astronomical price—and if we will find anything quite so amusing. I’ve heard some people say that the Aristocrats is the funniest joke ever told, but surely the accidental astronomical price is better. Knock knock. Who’s there? A hundred thousand dollar. A hundred thousand dollar what? A hundred thousand dollar netbook from Dell. Oh that’s good! OK, maybe that’s going too far—I like a good goofy pricing error now and again—but the internet is treasure trove of typos. Maybe it’s time for us to branch out. [CrunchGear]






  • Poole, Gerrity Join MOD Squad

    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    Seattle-based MOD Systems announced that former Microsoft vice president and social technologist Will Poole and former Coinstar and Naverus CEO Dan Gerrity have joined the company’s board of directors. Poole is co-chairman of Redwood City, CA-based NComputing, while Gerrity is vice president of business development at Bellevue, WA-based Intellectual Ventures. MOD board member Kyleen Cane has stepped down after 18 months. MOD Systems is a digital entertainment company that aims to bring movies, TV shows, music, and games to consumers through kiosks in retail stores.

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  • Enrollment Begins at Founder Institute After Inaugural Class Completes Training

    Founder Institute
    Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

    School’s out for the Founder Institute’s inaugural class in San Diego, which started with 22 students in November and last week graduated 13 entrepreneurs who are moving forward to develop 12 startup companies, according to Jeanine Jacobson, a San Diego organizer.

    After starting the four-month mentoring program for startup founders in San Francisco a year ago, founder Adeo Ressi (of TheFunded.com) expanded to San Diego-Orange County, Seattle, and other cities known as hotbeds of technology. The Founder Institute program is now in nine cities and has even acquired an international flavor; the deadline for spring applications ended yesterday for programs in Paris, Singapore, Denver, and Los Angeles.

    The outcome in San Diego was sufficiently encouraging for the startup incubator and training program to announce it is now accepting applications for a second class, which is scheduled to begin April 6. The Institute has recruited 26 mentors who have started their own companies, with the San Diego curriculum focused generally on high tech, including Internet, IT, cleantech, and hardware. Jacobson tells me she even received an application Friday from a recent F/A-18 Hornet pilot, who is an entrepreneurial-minded graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.

    The Institute will continue to holds its classes in the evening to make it easier for students to keep their day job. The cost of enrollment has been increased to $800 from $600, although students also must give up a small stake in any company they launch (see below). And they must pay a $4,500 course fee if they get external funding during the program.

    Jacobson tells me the entrepreneurs who graduated last Tuesday “are now working on their business. Some are looking for empty office space, and some are still building products.” The San Diego graduates include:

    —CloudCanvas, a Web-based image-editing program developed in HTML 5 that was previewed in the TechCrunch 50 Demo Pit.

    —Live On Campus, a website that provides online news for …Next Page »

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  • News Has “Become a Social Experience”: Pew

    Do you catch up on the news in multiple ways during a typical day — on a mobile phone, on the web, via a newspaper — and get that news from more than one place (major news portal, TV broadcast channel)? And do you like to share that news through social networks and comment on it? Then you are today’s archetypal news consumer, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life and the Project for Excellence in Journalism. The study shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans — more than 90 percent — use multiple platforms to get their daily news, that the days of loyalty to a specific news outlet or brand are gone and that news has “become a social experience.”

    The study (which is based on a national telephone survey of 2,259 adults ages 18 and older), also found that the Internet has taken over from newspapers as the most popular source of news. Overall, the Internet came third, behind local and national television. The report paints a picture of a news consumer who is platform-agnostic and moves easily between online and offline sources. “Americans have become news grazers both on and offline,” Amy Mitchell, deputy director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, was quoted as saying. Among the study’s findings:

    • Six in ten of those surveyed (59 percent) get news from a combination of online and offline sources on a typical day.

    • Six in ten American adults (61 percent) get news online on a typical day, and 71 percent of Americans get news online at least occasionally.

    • 33 percent of cell phone owners now access news on the devices.

    • The majority of online news consumers (57 percent) routinely rely on just two to five web sites for their news, and only 35 percent have a favorite.

    • Portal web sites like Google News, AOL and Topix are the most commonly used online news sources, visited by over half of online news users (56 percent) on a typical day.

    Another key finding of the report is that news has become a social experience for many consumers, who not only share the news they find with their friends through social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, but are also increasingly using such tools to find their news in the first place. And once they find it, they want to talk about it and become involved in it. A statement released along with the study says:

    The rise of social media like social networking sites and blogs has helped the news become a social experience for consumers; people use their social networks and social networking technology to filter, assess, and react to news. They also use traditional email and other tools to swap stories and comment on them.

    Kristen Purcell, associate director for research at the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, said that “we see new segments of avid news consumers built around those who have set up news alerts and those who are eager to be part of the news-creation and news-commentary environment.” Overall, the study found that consumers’ relationship to the news is “becoming portable, personalized, and participatory.” In particular it found that:

    • 28 percent of Internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.

    • 37 percent of Internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.

    • Among those who get news online, 75 percent get it forwarded through email or posts on social networking sites and 52 percent share links to news with others via those means.

    While the Pew Report doesn’t contain any earth-shattering news about what the state of online media looks like right now, it confirms what anyone who has been paying attention to the industry — or even to the behavior of their friends and relatives — instinctively knows: news consumption has become mobile, cross-platform and social. If you are a media outlet but aren’t taking advantage of all of these features, and rethinking how they affect your business, then you’e missing the boat.

    Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

    Are Sponsored Apps the Key for Traditional Media in Mobile?

    Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Flickr user Zarko Drincic

  • Napera Networks Evolves, Moves Into Purely Cloud-Based IT Security

    Napera Networks
    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    Startups almost never end up doing what they started out doing. The key is, can they adjust to the market and find enough paying customers before they run out of money? Here’s an interesting case study in the making: Napera Networks.

    The computer-network security startup, based in Mercer Island, WA—are there any other startups there?—is announcing a new product direction and strategy today. Napera is rolling out network management software that is based entirely in the Internet “cloud,” and will be sold to small-to-medium-sized businesses through a software-as-a-service model. The software, called PC Security Informer, helps IT administrators efficiently manage the security of employees’ computers—dealing proactively with things like anti-virus updates, spyware removal, and firewall breaches.

    It sounds pretty straightforward, but the key opportunity is that most smaller companies (with a couple hundred employees or fewer) don’t want to spend a lot of money on complex security systems from Microsoft, Cisco, or Computer Associates (CA), for example. Napera says it offers an easier and cheaper solution to the basic problem of businesses’ machines being insecure.

    “We’ve wrapped it in a very Web 2.0-like wrapper,” says Todd Hooper, the CEO and co-founder of Napera. “If you can use Facebook, you can use our apps.”

    Hooper, an expert in network security, co-founded Napera in late 2006. Before that, he had co-founded Momentum Pty, an Internet security consultancy in Australia, and audio software firm Trillium Lane Labs, and had been vice president of business development at Seattle-based WatchGuard Technologies.

    What’s interesting is not necessarily whether Napera’s technology is really better than that of its competitors, but that the company has found a way to evolve from a …Next Page »

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  • Tinley Park overhauling Web site

    Tinley Park is logging on and entering the 21st century.

    The village is overhauling its Web site, adding modern conveniences we’ve all come to expect and preparing for the future of its municipal cable TV channel.

    “We’re trying to get into the 21st century,” Trustee David Seaman said.

    It’s a process that’s lagged because of a lack of money and a lack of priorities.

    “When I arrived as clerk, I found some things which needed updating,” said Village Clerk Pat Rea, who was appointed to the post last year after the former clerk died. “We were simply not up to speed.”

    Plus, there’s the issue of money.

    “It’s a financial thing,” Mayor Ed Zabrocki said. “We’re taking it one phase at a time.”

    The time has come.

    The modernization is set to begin in 2010, and it all begins with credit cards.

    Plastic hasn’t been an payment option before in the village.

    But now the village is preparing to start accepting credit cards as a form of payment for village licenses, fees and permits.

    That convenience will expand online, and residents soon will be able to pay their water bills, the fees for their vehicle stickers and other fees all with the click of a button.

    “The way you do in the rest of the world,” Seaman said with a chuckle.

    There’s also a plan to overhaul the village’s Web site.

    Village marketing director Donna Framke has asked a village board committee for $29,000 to redesign and reorganize the site, which has sat unchanged for nearly a decade.

    “There’s so much information on it, and it’s not well-organized,” she said.

    Officials know now is the time to catch up because people increasingly rely on and flock to the Internet.

    “It’s a window to our community,” he said.

    Meanwhile, officials are looking to digitize other village services – everything from reporting nuisances such as potholes to posting more detailed information about village projects and amenities.

    The village-run Channel 4 TV station – which the mayor described as “vintage” – also is slated for an upgrade.

    The system is updated manually by village employees using technology from the 1980s.

    Framke has asked trustees to allocate $26,000 for the installation of a fiber optic line and to update the equipment that controls the station.

    It’s a step to prepare for enhanced programming to air and reach a majority of residents in Tinley Park, Framke said.

    Funding for the upgrades will be discussed by officials during budget negotiations next month.

    Trustees this month already approved allowing credit cards as a form of payment.

    Read the original article from SouthTown Star.

    Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services


  • City’s Korean population revels in skater’s win

    CHICAGO (STMW)  — Before last week, Tae Ki Choi never paid much attention to figure skating.

    But on Thursday night, the 29-year-old Skokie man took in every spin, triple lutz and double axel executed flawlessly by fellow South Korean Kim Yu-Na to bring home the Asian nation’s first figure-skating gold medal in Olympic history.

    “Most Americans don’t know about Korea. They know about brands like Samsung, but then they’re not sure if it’s Korean,” Choi said. “But they know she is from Korea. She is a trademark for Korea.”

    The honor has united Koreans across the globe, he said.

    When Kim accepted her medal for her record-breaking performance, Choi, a student at Illinois Institute of Technology, got a call from his parents in Korea in celebration.

    “It’s awesome,” said Choi, who works at Nak Won Korean Bakery, 3746 W. Lawrence.

    North Park University student Soojin Lee, 22, who immigrated to Chicago only a few months ago, called Kim Yu-Na’s historic triumph “amazing.”

    “She was under a lot of pressure. It was so emotional,” said the intern at the Chicago Korean American Chamber of Commerce.

    “I was so moved. I was so proud of her. She’s my hero. I love her, ” said Lee.

    Suok Kim, 52, who works with Choi, said Kim Yu-Na exceeded expectations.

    “They expected her to do well, but when she ended up doing really well, it felt really great,” he said.

    Others Korean Americans said they were nearly moved to tears watching “Queen” Yu-Na — a 19-year-old phenom who enjoys a frenzied rock-star status in her country. Some, pleasantly shocked with the victory, immediately jumped on the Internet to verify Kim’s high score and glimpse the wild elation that pulsated thousands of miles away.

    “I knew she was going to win the gold,” Kathy Kim, 42, of Hanover Park, said Friday as she served customers at the Big Pho restaurant, 3737 W. Lawrence.

    “I’m really proud of her and really proud . . . because I’m Korean,” she said.

    Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.

    Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services


  • Websites Offer After Death Services For Your Online Life

    If you don’t want all your various online accounts left unattended when you permanently go off the grid, you can now hire several different services to clean up any loose ends–closing accounts, sharing passwords with survivors, transferring gaming accounts, and so on. Wired says they cost anywhere from $10 a year to $300 for a lifetime account, although after reading about this you may find it’s cheaper and more efficient to just add the necessary info to your will.

    “Scott Brown on Managing Your Digital Remains” [Wired]

  • Under the Radar in January: A Baker’s Dozen of New England Startup Financings Worth $1M or Less

    Erin Kutz wrote:

    Earlier this month, we wrote about some of the mammoth venture deals that helped add up to $355 million worth of investments in Massachusetts startups in January. But don’t think we’ve forgotten about the little guys.

    These are what we call our under-the-radar deals, typically worth between $100,000 and $1 million (though the January list contains a deal smaller than that). Those numbers, tracked by New York-based private company intelligence platform CB Insights, are in now, and we think they have a lot to tell us about what’s going on in the innovation scene.

    We look at both equity and debt forms of financing on this list, and see their smaller dollar values as valuable indicators of the New England startup landscape. The reports often tell us which new companies are about to emerge out of stealth mode or spin out a new product, and frequently these end up being companies we highlight in bigger stories later on down the line.

    There were 13 of these financings in the month of January, with eight in equity, four in debt-based funding, and one that represents a security to be acquired through the exercise of option or warrants, according to the SEC filing. Software and cleantech companies showed up prominently on the list.

    December saw a higher number of under-the-radar financings (21), but January had some bigger-sized deals than the month before it. There were three million-dollar financings on January’s list, with $1 million in debt to security software company eIQnetworks, $1 million in equity to DNA mapping company U.S. Genomics, and another $1 million in equity to Green Earth Technologies, developers of biodegradable patent-pending motor oil, as well as other home and lawn products.

    As usual, Massachusetts took the biggest share of these deals, at 10. Connecticut pulled in two such deals, and New Hampshire had …Next Page »

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  • Spring movies sneak peek

    At this time of year, the bulk of the news coming out of Hollywood has to do with the Academy Awards – who is expected to win them, what food will be served, what goodie bags the stars will go home with, etc. But, lest we forget, films are still coming down the pipeline fast and furious. Let’s take a look at some of the flicks that will keep us occupied through spring. Movies are compiled by the Associated Press. Some films open in limited release. Release dates, provided by Internet Movie Database, are subject to change.

    – Danielle Hatch/Journal Star

    IRON MAN 2 (May 7): At the end of his first blockbuster about the guy in the gadget-laden metal suit, Robert Downey Jr.’s billionaire genius Tony Stark proclaims to the world, “I am Iron Man.”

    So much for secret identities.

    In the sequel, “we see what the ramifications of that announcement from the first film were,” said Jon Favreau, director of the “Iron Man” films. “He already had his hands full just being Tony Stark, but now he’s Iron Man, as well. What are the effects of that level of fame and expectation?”

    This time, Tony faces bad guy Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), who has his own arsenal of high-tech weapons.

    Favreau likes having a hero and villain played by actors who have bounced back from tough personal times, Downey with substance abuse, Rourke with self-destructive anger issues.

    “What attracted me to both of them must have had something, on some level, to do with how difficult their journeys had been,” Favreau said. “It somehow shines through the performances that they give. It’s hard to find somebody young that carries that experience in their face and their eyes.”

    ALICE IN WONDERLAND (March 5): Johnny Depp is the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton’s take on the Lewis Carroll adventures of a girl who goes through the looking glass.

    THE BOUNTY HUNTER (March 19): Jennifer Aniston is a bail-jumping reporter pursued by her bounty-hunter ex-hubby (Gerard Butler).

    CLASH OF THE TITANS (April 2): Ancient Greek hero Perseus (Sam Worthington) takes on Hades, lord of the underworld. With Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes.

    DATE NIGHT (April 9): A weekly night out turns into a wild ride for a suburban couple (Steve Carell and Tina Fey) whose romance has become routine.

    DEATH AT A FUNERAL (April 16): Crazy things happen at a family patriarch’s funeral. With Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Danny Glover.

    FURRY VENGEANCE (April 2): Animals fight back against the housing developer (Brendan Fraser) whose project in the Oregon wilderness threatens their habitat.

    GREEN ZONE (March 12): Matt Damon goes searching for weapons of mass destruction in a thriller set in Iraq as the war there heats up in 2003.

    HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (March 26): The world of the Vikings gets a makeover in this animated story of a misfit teen and his dragon.

    I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS (April 30): A con man (Jim Carrey) finds his soul mate (Ewan McGregor) while doing prison time.

    KICK-ASS (April 16): A youth with no superpowers decides to don a costume to fight crime as a superhero. With Nicolas Cage.

    KILLERS (June 4): An ex-assassin (Ashton Kutcher) and his wife (Katherine Heigl) go on the run after he’s targeted for a hit in this action comedy.

    LETTERS TO JULIET (May 7): An old letter to the doomed heroine of “Romeo and Juliet” sparks romance for two women (Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave).

    THE LOSERS (April 23): A Special Forces team seeks revenge after its members are betrayed and presumed dead on a mission. With Zoe Saldana, Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

    MACGRUBER (April 23): The “Saturday Night Live” bit about a hapless special-ops man (Will Forte) gets big-screen treatment. With Val Kilmer, Ryan Phillippe, Kristen Wiig.

    MARMADUKE (June 4): Owen Wilson provides the voice of the Great Dane in a family comedy based on the canine comic strip.

    A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (April 30): Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley) is back to terrorize people in their dreams in an update of the 1980s slasher franchise.

    REMEMBER ME (March 12): A newfound romance between two youths (“Twilight” star Robert Pattinson and “Lost” co-star Emilie de Ravin) is threatened as they both try to cope with family tragedies. With Pierce Brosnan.

    REPO MEN (March 19): In a future where mechanical organs are repossessed for lack of payment, a former repo man (Jude Law) becomes the prey of his old partner (Forest Whitaker).

    SEASON OF THE WITCH (March): A medieval knight (Nicolas Cage) is assigned to escort a peasant girl the church suspects of bringing on the Black Plague by witchcraft.

    SEX AND THE CITY 2 (May 28): Sarah Jessica Parker and her Manhattan mates return for more fashionable urban romantic angst.

    TYLER PERRY’S WHY DID I GET MARRIED TOO? (April 2): Filmmaker Perry co-stars with Janet Jackson, Malik Yoba and other cast mates for this relationship sequel.

     

     

    Read the original article from Journal Star.

    Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services


  • PhotoRocket Hires Michael Cockrill; Founder Scott Lipsky Shares More Details

    PhotoRocket
    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    Seattle stealth startup PhotoRocket has some intriguing news today. The company, which says it is planning on “changing the landscape of the photo sharing space,” has hired former Atlas Accelerator managing partner Michael Cockrill to lead the delivery of its products and services. PhotoRocket has also officially opened a new round of financing, which it expects to close on March 31.

    That’s from PhotoRocket founder Scott Lipsky, the former aQuantive and GalleryPlayer founder (and early Amazon.com employee). Lipsky tells me the PhotoRocket service—whatever it is—will be launching sometime this summer. The company is hiring and currently has about four open positions, mostly in engineering.

    Cockrill is a distinguished member of what we’ve been calling the “Qpass mafia”—former employees of the Seattle mobile and digital commerce company. Between Atlas Accelerator and Qpass, where he spent nine years leading products, solutions architecture, and technical strategy, Cockrill co-founded Mixxer, a 60-person mobile social networking company. He also has nine years of experience at Microsoft.

    Lipsky says Cockrill is the perfect hire because he’s the “perfect mix of product and technology leadership. He lives and breathes products and technology, and that’s a difficult combination to find. He’s a ground-floor entrepreneur. He is a company builder.”

    PhotoRocket has consisted of Lipsky and about five advisors and consultants who’ve been working on and off for about a year. Another key team member is Gary Roshak, who’s been on board since early January. Roshak came from Yahoo and Marchex, and is an expert in mobile, digital media, and interactive advertising.

    The company has been in offices in the SoDo neighborhood of Seattle since December. Lipsky also has plans to build a much broader R&D laboratory, and he says PhotoRocket is an example of what would come out of it.

    It all sounds pretty exciting and ambitious—if maddeningly vague. And what will people think if they find out what secret products PhotoRocket is building, ahead of schedule?

    “It isn’t going to happen,” Lipsky says.

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  • Alliance of Angels Invested $9.1M in 2009

    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    Seattle-based Alliance of Angels said today that it invested more money in 2009—$9.1 million in 29 companies—than in any previous year. The investments were made in software (33 percent of the money), cleantech (28 percent), retail and consumer products (12 percent), and other sectors like Internet, mobile, biotech, and medical devices. Besides direct investment, the group says it helped facilitate an additional $8.3 million in funding for its portfolio companies from other sources. Alliance of Angels is an angel investor organization focused on working with startups and entrepreneurs in the Northwest; it is a program of the Technology Alliance and has been investing in tech and other high-growth companies since 1997.

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  • How Amazon Innovates: Lessons in Strategy for Microsoft and Others

    Amazon
    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    Sometimes a question that sounds naïve at first can lead to a revealing answer. So here goes: What is it about Amazon’s corporate culture that seems to foster creativity and innovation, while Microsoft gets ripped constantly for failing to innovate? Are there simple principles at work inside Amazon that might explain the difference?

    I choose to compare these companies for a basic, if unscientific, reason: they’re the two biggest publicly-traded tech firms in town. And just as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) helped define a generation of entrepreneurs and technologists in Seattle—and around the world—many would argue that Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) will help define what comes next.

    OK, so comparing these two tech giants is like discussing apples and oranges. They have vastly different customers, business models, and technologies. And one is a lot bigger and older than the other. We’re talking about a 35-year-old Microsoft that is more than triple the size of 16-year-old Amazon, after all.

    But people forget how much Microsoft has grown in just the past decade. The Redmond, WA, firm more than doubled in size from 2000 to 2009, going from about 40,000 to 90,000 employees worldwide. In that period, its revenues increased by a factor of 2.5 (from $23 billion to $58 billion), while profits also climbed, albeit at a slower rate (from $9.4 billion to $14.6 billion). By comparison, Amazon had just over 24,000 employees at the end of 2009, when it made about $900 million in year-end profits (on $24.5 billion in revenues). So Amazon’s size and revenues are more comparable to Microsoft’s in 2000, though its profit margins are much lower. My point is that Amazon today looks a lot like Microsoft did a decade ago on some important measures of business success.

    So for now, let’s focus our questions more carefully. How has Amazon managed to remain nimble even as it has grown to 24,000 employees? After starting with a simple website that sold books online, it now offers a huge diversity of products, from books and other physical goods to an e-commerce platform, cloud computing services, Kindle e-books and readers, and now, mobile applications. What deeper lessons can startups and big companies, including Microsoft, take away from its story?

    Amazon is a hard company to get to know. For better or worse, its executives rarely talk to the press, and they almost never comment publicly on business strategy or competitors. (The company declined to comment for this story.) So instead I’ve been talking with former Amazon employees, as well as outside tech observers, to get a better feel for the culture and strategy there. And to get some insights straight from the horse’s mouth—from founder and CEO Jeff Bezos—I had to dig around a bit more (see further below).

    Without a doubt, Amazon’s culture comes from the top. From the beginning, Bezos did things a little differently. Former Amazon executives say the CEO liked to hire people fresh out of …Next Page »

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  • The X Lists Debut: San Diego’s Online Reference Library for Innovators and Entrepreneurs

    Xconomy logo1
    Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

    If Xconomy had a storefront in downtown San Diego instead of a Web address, it might be easier for readers to see what we’ve got under construction, because people could peer behind the plywood fencing and the signs reading “Pardon Our Dust.” Instead, curious visitors who clicked on the tab that says “resources” only got the unsatisfying message “Coming soon…”

    Until now, that is. Our latest project is finished, and I am proud to introduce a new section on our website that we call the X Lists.

    In our quest to be the authoritative voice on technology innovation in San Diego, we’ve created the X Lists to serve as a one-stop shop for the range of resources that entrepreneurs should find useful as they work to fulfill their own quests. We want them to be the Web’s most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to innovation resources in the San Diego area, and we’ve organized them according to the stages in a startup’s development: Start, Fund, Network, Work & Grow, and Analyze. We also hope you’ll help us keep the lists up to date—so if you know that a relevant organization or resource is missing, please let us know at [email protected]

    In saying “we,” however, I must give credit and express my personal thanks to Erin Kutz, an Xconomy Boston assistant editor (and the newest addition to Xconomy’s editorial staff), who researched and prepared these X Lists for San Diego’s innovation community.

    If you’re just getting started, the X Lists include information and links to local business plan competitions and incubators that were established to help educate and guide entrepreneurs at the outset of their journey. We also list the angel groups, venture firms, and corporate venture funds where you can hear your first “No,” or perhaps “Hell No!” or maybe someday, “Yes.” (I’ve heard a San Diego venture firm partner advise entrepreneurs who are looking for seed-stage capital that they should expect to present their business plan to about 50 VCs. Also listed are …Next Page »

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  • Man reunited with wallet after more than 60 years

    GENEVA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ohio (AP) – A man who renovates old homes in Ohio has found and returned the wallet lost by a Florida man more than 60 years ago.

    Jerry Busch says he was putting in wiring four years ago when he found Henry Leland’s wallet in the rafters of a house in Geneva-on-the-Lake, 45 miles northeast of Cleveland.

    Eighty-one-year-old Leland says the wallet was stolen during a weekend he spent in the area in 1949.

    Busch did some detective work to find the wallet’s owner but then set the matter aside. Recently, his wife got curious, did an Internet search based on the identification in the wallet, and tracked Leland to Florida.

    Last week, Jerry and LuAnn Busch made a winter getaway to Fort Myers, Fla., and met Leland to return his property. He says seeing it again was amazing.
    —
    Information from: The Star-Beacon, http://www.starbeacon.com

    Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.

    Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services


  • Naperville author urges us to find our own angels

    Sue Storm has a message for those seeking answers in good and bad times: Summon an angel.

    Storm, a Naperville resident and host of the Internet radio show “Angel Talk,” tells readers how to reach out for heavenly help in her new book “Angel First Aid – Remedies for Life, Love and Prosperity.”

    The book, recently released by Sterling Publishing Co., explains how to contact angels for guidance in everything from meeting a soul mate to healing the body – or even locating a lost pet.

    The book features visualization exercises, called remedies, plus stories of people who have used them successfully in their lives. Storm will teach some of these exercises to participants at a book-signing and discussion for “Angel First Aid” Sunday, March 7, at Barnes and Noble in Oak Brook.

    Storm first recalls seeing angels at the age of 18 months, when she was tangled in her bed covers and suffocating. She says she believes they brought her mother into her room just in time to save her. And through the years, Storm has come to believe that it is her life’s purpose to help others work with angels to achieve their goals.

    “Guardian angels are accessible to humans at any time,” she said, discussing her new book in a telephone interview. “And they want us to know, ‘You are never alone. And there is always hope.’”

    Here is an edited conversation with Storm:

    Q. Do you believe that every human being has a guardian angel – or angels – assigned to them from birth? And who assigns them?

    A. Yes. Everyone has at least three angels that are with them from birth that stay with them through their entire life. Those angels are chosen for them to help fulfill their life’s purpose. The angels don’t choose who they are going to be with – God chooses.

    Q. In your book you give an index of many angels and their names (Michael, Gunther, Joseph, Rebecca and many more), and you explain that specific angels can help people with specific aspects of their lives – health, love, communication, etc.

    A. Knowing the name of the angel that has a specific duty or holds a specific role is really important. You can call on that angel, and they will get the job done. Of course you can always just say “angels help me” to reach any angel, but it’s better if you go to a specific angel.

    Q. What do you think is the best way to get messages from angels, and how do you find out the exact names of your own guardian angels?

    A. When you are calm and taking deep breaths, you are more apt to get the message from them. Angel messages come in on the breath. To find out the names of your guardian angels, just ask, “Angel, what is your name?” and sit quietly, and you will hear the name.

    Q. Do you believe that angels can be near you, without appearing to you in their full form?

    A. Oh yes – you can recognize their presence through things like coincidences in life, or perhaps a warm feeling that you get.

    Q. Can you explain the remedies – visualization exercises and techniques – in your book a bit more?

    A. If there is a situation where you want to manifest something better in life – you want to create something better for yourself – this book is a simple, easy way to learn how to do that. Use the remedies that are specifically designed for the situation in life you want to improve. The more you practice talking with your angels, the more you can communicate with them, accept them and invite them into your life – and the better things will get.

    Q. What do you say to someone who does not believe in angels?

    A. I say you have nothing to lose by communicating with your angels and letting them help you. Give it a try. Give the angels the opportunity to connect with you – then listen to them, and see if your life doesn’t improve.

    Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

    Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services


  • Walmart Closing Down Vudu’s Porn Channel

    To no one’s great surprise, Vudu has announced that now that it belongs to Walmart it will be shutting down the adult section. No more streaming HD porn from Vudu, everybody. Their announcement after the jump.

    Dear VUDU After Dark Partner,

    As you may have recently heard, VUDU was acquired by Wal-Mart. In conjunction with this acquisition we will be discontinuing the “After Dark” adult service over the coming days. Upon completion of the shutdown process, we will settle all accounts with you and ensure that you are paid the full amount you are owed under our existing agreement.

    Attached to this agreement, please find a voluntary termination notice to our existing distribution agreement. As there has been no breach of contract by either party, there are no grounds to terminate the agreement under its existing terms. However, given the discontinuation of After Dark, we believe it makes sense for both sides to voluntary terminate the agreement. The alternative is to allow the agreement to expire under the existing terms, but we believe this is cleaner for all parties.

    We ask that you complete, sign and return this termination notice at your earliest convenience. Please let me know if you have any questions.

    “Hot And Bothered: Walmart Shutting Down Vudu’s Adult Section” [TechCrunch] (Thanks to GitEmSteveDave!)

  • Smilebox CEO Talks New Funding, Profitability, and European Expansion

    Europe, a new frontier for U.S. tech startups
    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    Smilebox is turning into an intriguing story of a young company grappling with the challenges of expanding to new markets and geographies. The Redmond, WA-based company just raised $2 million from its existing investors, as we reported yesterday, and the money is being used to fuel its expansion to Europe, starting with the U.K., Germany, and France.

    I spoke with CEO and founder Andrew Wright this morning about his company’s plans, and how it’s doing in a tough environment for consumer tech companies. He confirmed that the $2 million is a follow-on to Smilebox’s $7 million Series B round from December 2007. And that the money was raised to expand to the European market. The new effort is being headed by Yannis Dosios, a marketing executive and four-year veteran of Smilebox. Dosios is now based in Athens, Greece (his home country).

    Smilebox is a photo services company that helps consumers do things like share pictures and videos across social media and blogs, manage and print photos through retail chains, and create greeting cards and DVDs using their personal digital media. The key to all of this is that Smilebox provides about 1,000 original templates for designing scrapbooks, photo albums, and so forth. The company says 10 million customers have installed Smilebox. (The software is a hybrid between an application that sits on your hard drive like iTunes or Windows Media Player, and a pure Web service like Google search, though Wright says it’s mostly the latter.)

    “We have a personalized content platform,” says Wright, who previously worked at RealNetworks and Microsoft. Smilebox’s ideas and products apply globally, he says. But on a regional level, it has to market them properly and develop content that relates to local consumers stylistically and culturally. That means understanding U.K. holidays as compared to the U.S. or Germany, for example, and designing localized templates around that.

    Of course, Smilebox faces big challenges in getting established in Europe, especially as a small company. It will take time to understand each country’s culture, educate the market on what Smilebox provides, and build relationships with local partners. “I’m a content network. It’s like launching a broadcast TV channel. The good news is it’s hard to do, so if you do it, you build barriers to entry,” Wright says. “It’s not easy for other people to duplicate what we’ve done.”

    Nevertheless, the company faces competition from the likes of Shutterfly, Snapfish, Hallmark, and Photobucket. (And it has some similarities with startups like Animoto and Picnik, but those are focused on professional slide shows and photo editing, respectively.) But so far, so good. Wright says Smilebox was cash flow positive for the fourth quarter of last year, and that its revenues were “up well over 100 percent” for 2009 compared with the previous year.

    Smilebox was founded in 2005 and has raised a total of $16 million from Frazier Technology Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and angel investors including Rob Glaser, Paul Thelen, and Richard Wolpert. Last summer, the company acquired Preclick, which was based in New Jersey and the Seattle area, to tap into what Wright calls “high demand” for printing pictures at retailers like Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. Smilebox now has just over 50 employees and is looking to hire eight to 10 new staff in Europe by the end of this year, Wright says.

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  • Amazon and Microsoft Strike Patent Deal, Yapta and Kayak Team Up, Smilebox Scores Cash, & More Seattle-Area Deals News

    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    Microsoft showed up in three deals this past week, involving healthcare-IT, Web search, and software patents. Other than that, the Northwest deals scene felt a little too quiet for its own good.

    —Redmond, WA-based Smilebox raised $2 million in equity financing, according to a filing with the SEC. The investors weren’t disclosed, and Smilebox hasn’t officially confirmed the funding yet. Smilebox, which provides software and photo-related services for making electronic greeting cards, scrapbooks, and photo albums, is backed by Frazier Technology Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and a number of prominent angel investors.

    —Portland, OR-based Monsoon is being acquired by Alibris, a California-based online marketplace for new and used books, music, and movies. Financial terms weren’t given, but the deal is for cash and stock. Monsoon makes software and tools for managing and processing online selling. Alibris works with and also competes with Seattle-based Amazon.com and other big retailers.

    —Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) said it has signed a patent cross-license agreement with Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) that gives each company some access to the other’s intellectual property portfolio. The agreement covers technologies including Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader and its use of Linux-based servers, and Amazon apparently will pay Microsoft an undisclosed amount under the agreement. The wording of the announcement has fueled rumors that the deal was made to avoid patent litigation over open-source software that might infringe on Microsoft’s IP.

    —Seattle-based Yapta formed a partnership with Kayak, the travel search site based in Connecticut. Terms of the deal weren’t given, but Kayak will power the flight search on Yapta.com, while considering how to pair Yapta’s airfare-tracking service with its own search results.

    —It’s not a new deal, but Ryan reported on how the integration of Andover, MA-based Sentillion is going over at Microsoft. The Redmond, WA, software giant completed its acquisition of Sentillion early this month (for an undisclosed price), and is using the technology to make its healthcare software more user-friendly and practical for busy doctors and nurses.

    —The search partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo has been approved by U.S. and European regulators. Essentially, Microsoft’s Bing will be the unified search engine, while Yahoo will handle search advertising sales. The alliance was first announced last July, and it is seen as a strong effort to compete more effectively against Google in search and online ads.

    —Just for the record, Seattle-based Cozi confirmed that it recently raised $5 million in equity funding from a new (unnamed) strategic investor. Cozi makes Web-based software to help families organize and schedule their activities and chores, and communicate better. CEO Robbie Cape affirmed the company’s advertising business model is going strong. Cozi had previously raised a total of about $16 million from angel investors and partners.

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