It looks like Mangrove Capital Partners believes in the business opportunity held in helping small businesses, do more, well, business. The Luxembourg-based venture capital firm has invested $1.75M in SohoOS to further propel the company’s small business management suite. Michael Jackson, previously COO of Skype, will take a board seat.
The concept behind SohoOS’s offering is to put business utilities that are common for medium to large businesses with resources, in the hands of both online and offline small and micro businesses. Think designers, programmers, plumbers, yoga instructors, small PR firms, consultants, the list can go on and on. → Read More
In October, Amazon announced its “Kindle Singles,” product, which introduced short stories and digital pamphlets to the e-book reader’s store. In the company’s words, Kindle Singles are “twice the length of a New Yorker feature or as much as a few chapters of a typical book” and generally 5,000 to 30,000 words (roughly 30 to 90 pages). Today, Amazon is debuting Kindle Singes, its collection of short works.
Kindle Singles are available to both Kindle device and app users, and priced between $0.99 and $4.99. Amazon says the first set of published Singles include original reporting, essays, memoirs and fiction. While the company says that “the response to our announcement of Singles has been great,” it’s unclear how many Singles have been added to the Kindle bookstore. → Read More
Cloud-based video monitoring platform Sensr.net has raised $1.5 million in funding led by Spark Capital with Charles River Ventures and other strategic angel investors participating.
Sensr.net essentially allows anyone to create a web-based video monitoring system. All you need is a web-cam and a computer set up to video monitor your home or office. Sensr.net will keep track of interesting images and alert you when something happens. The startup will send you an email or a text message if they detect something out of the ordinary. → Read More
This is interesting. Verizon has just announced that it is bundling broadband with Google Apps for its small business customers.
Called Google Apps for Verizon, the package combines Google’s-cloud-based productivity suite with broadband internet access. The new offering includes 25 GB (gigabytes) of domain name e-mail storage per user; access to Gmail, Google Calendar, Sites, Docs, and Video. → Read More
According to a number of tips we’ve received in the past few minutes, the chatter on Twitter and several local reports (mostly in Arabic), it appears Egyptian authorities have moved to block Facebook.
Inspired by the recent Tunisian demonstrations against corruption, protesters are filling the streets of Cairo to demonstrate against government corruption and policies. Similar to the protests in Tunisia, the Egyptian demonstrations were partly organized on Facebook and Twitter. And yesterday, Twitter was blocked in Egypt. → Read More
Global information and measurement company The Nielsen Company this morning announced that it has priced its IPO of 71,428,572 shares of its common stock at $23 per share (precisely as The New York Times called it yesterday).
The company will receive net proceeds of approximately $1,560 million from the initial public offering of its common stock, and approximately $240 million from a bond offering after payment of commissions and estimated expenses. Total: $1.8 billion. → Read More
Social investment network operator eToro this morning announced that it has closed a funding round of $8.3 million from Spark Capital, Social Leverage and existing investors.
The money will be used to fuel international growth and further enhancement of eToro’s social trading platform. The platform basically enables investors to see, follow and copy the actions of other investors in real time. → Read More
I’ve been to a lot of tech and media conference in my day, but this week marked the first time I attended the annual Digital – Life – Design (DLD) Conference in Munich, Germany.
Not only was it a great opportunity to listen to, meet with, and hijack the Twitter and Facebook accounts of many a tech luminary, but it was also outright fun to be there.
I realize full well lip dubbing was probably last considered cool around the tail end of 2006, but that didn’t stop many of DLD’s attendees from participating in a well-organized lip-dub video recording, to the tunes of Kenny Loggins’ Footloose. → Read More
ignitAd is today introducing an ad optimization solution for publishers that includes ‘Bid Optimization Management’ technology developed in-house, which enables publishers to generate more revenue through predictive analysis and advanced bidding technology.
Coinciding with the product release, the startup has announced that it has completed a $2 million seed funding round led by DFJ Tamir Fishman Ventures and JVP Media Labs. → Read More
Babylon, the publicly listed provider of translation and dictionary software and language solutions, has been around since 1997. Today, the company is launching version 9 of its flagship translation product in an effort to turn it into a veritable ‘Quora for linguistics’ (their words), referencing the Q&A startup that was launched in June 2009.
Babylon says it can leverage some 72 million members to morph its revamped product into a live Q&A linguistics community, allowing users to help one another with any translations, linguistic advice or tips about local culture. → Read More
So Why Should You Care About NFC? Razer’s Portable Ferox Speakers Shoot Sound In Every Direction Video: Captain Planet Would Be Proud Of The T-Shirt That Detects Pollution Need to check out that mole on your arm? Just buy this $1,500 iPhone case Minimalist Swiss Block-Clock Is Beautiful, Incredibly Expensive → Read More
Crowd Factory, a startup that creates white-label social marketing applications, has raised $6.5 million in funding led by Storm Ventures with Hummer Winblad, Peninsula Ventures and several angel investors participating in the round.
Crowd Factory’s social marketing applications allows marketers to amplify and optimize campaigns, and view social-analytics and interactions. For example, Crowd Factory will take a contest held by a brand and socialize the campaign, increasing interactions and responses. → Read More
Things are slowly changing in Japan, land of the super-advanced feature phones (which have always been smartphones in disguise as far as features are concerned). Market research firm Gfk Japan [JP] is reporting that no less than seven of the top 10 handsets sold in the country between January 10 and 16 were smartphones. → Read More
As we’ve seen from the recent Quora wars, the Q&A space has come into its own in the last couple of months and this week we’re seeing reports of crazy growth in yet another contender, Q&A site Stack Overflow. In a blog post called the “State of the Stack 2010 (a message from your CEO)” CEO Joel Spolsky revealed that the StackOverflow.com site has grown 133% this year from 7 million to 16.6 million monthly unique views. Stack Overflow has also grown 129% in terms of page views from 31.8 million per month to 72.8 million per month, according to Google Analytics. → Read More
Do you like fun? Do you like chess? Do you like being alone? Well, ThinkFun has the chess game for you. Called Solitaire Chess, the game is a cross between a puzzle and standard chess. How it Works • Each game begins with the pieces set on the board in specific positions. Challenges range from Easy to Expert levels. • Pieces move as in regular Chess. • Every move must be a capture. • When there’s only one piece left, YOU WIN! Now, go ahead and click through to actually play the game and find out how you can win one of three iPhone/iPad apps or one of three actual board games. → Read More
I’ve run out of outrage to direct at the perpetrators of anti-video-game foolishness who pervade the media worldwide. The issue has been run down many times, by far more capable people than myself, perhaps most visibly in the furor surrounding Modern Warfare 2 and its “controversial” mission in which your character is forced to kill civilians in order to keep his cover intact. We weighed in at the time. That particular teacup has a new tempest in it this week in the aftermath of the tragic airport bombing in Moscow, as Russia Today brings the game in as a potential cause for the event and training tool for terrorists, complete with absurd testimonials from “experts.” I think I’ll refrain from comment on how mind-blowingly ignorant and reactionary this “report” is. Discuss. Or, actually, no. Let’s not. → Read More
This patent, filed by Nikon in Japan, is really baffling me right now. The idea is that the viewfinder or eyepiece would serve not only as a something to put your eye to and frame shots, but also as a pico projector. Isn’t that a little dangerous? → Read More
My love for the X100 is no secret. I was excited when it was announced, ecstatic to get my hands on it, and even named it my personal best of show at CES. So I’m a little jealous (but I understand, Fujifilm, I understand) that a few photo outlets on the net are getting their units for hands-on previews. DP Review’s is practical and thorough, as usual, and Norwegian site Akam.no has put up (against Fuji’s orders) an array of sample shots showing ISO performance. That’ll probably get taken down, so check it out first. [via Photo Rumors] → Read More
Never before has an EV been European Car of the Year; this year the Nissan Leaf gets it. Similar to the North American Car of the Year, which the Chevrolet Volt won, the European COTY is chosen by auto journalists; 58 of them from 23 European countries. The contest was very close. The Leaf rang up 257 points from the journos, besting the Alfa Romeo Giulietta by only 9 points. So why did the Nissan Leaf win? → Read More
HTC’s upcoming tablets hve been peeking out from various non-official sources over the last few weeks, starting with a trademark request, then a few supplier leaks. And now someone has leaked what they claim is more or less the full spec sheet for the 7″ device. → Read More
