Vacation home rental service HomeAway has begun trading on the NASDAQ this morning under the symbol ‘AWAY’, with the shares trading as high as $37.10. giving the company a market cap of $3 billion. That’s an increase of 39 percent, up from the company’s initial pricing of $27 per share last night.
HomeAway, which filed for an IPO in March, raised $216 million in the offering. → Read More
Yesterday we reported that Nokia has a few girly-named phones in the works, one of which being the Nokia 700 Zeta. Unfortunately, all we had to lead us down the road to spec discovery was a vague and sparsely detailed spec sheet.
Today however, a couple snap shots have been leaked of the Zeta, and we wanted to make sure to give you a more informative introduction to this C6-01 successor. → Read More
Google has long offered Google Sites, which gives businesses and consumers a way to quickly build their own websites with no HTML knowledge required, making it relatively easy for anyone without a technical background to build a simple website. Until now, the platform has not had a mobile component. Today, Google is launching new functionality in Sites that allows users to create a simple mobile landing page for free.
Similar to templates for Google Sites web pages, Sites for Mobile allows users to pick a template that suits the consumer’s needs. For example, Sites offers and e-commerce template for users who want a mobile site to sell products (via Google Checkout). Google also offers customer mobile templates for local businesses, restaurants, lead generation and social. → Read More
Basho Technologies, a data storage and management software startup serving the enterprise market, this morning announced that it has raised $7.5 million in Series D funding.
In addition, Basho announced that its board of directors has named Donald J. Rippert, long time CTO of Accenture, as the company’s new president and chief executive officer. → Read More
Chicago-based SAVO has raised $14 million in new funding led by SAP Ventures with existing investor Sterling Partners participating in the round.
SAVO’s on-demand, collaborative Sales Enablement software aims to open communication across a company’s sales teams. The software connects sales reps with the best sales materials, insights and expertise across an organization. SAVO promises to helps drive better sales conversations so reps can close more deals. → Read More
Cloudera, the startup that commercially distributes and services Apache Hadoop based data management software and services, is unveiling a new version of its service, Cloudera Enterprise 3.5. The company is also releasing Cloudera SCM Express, which makes it fast and easy for anyone to install and configure a complete Apache Hadoop-based stack.
Hadoop is a Java software framework born out of an open-source implementation of Google’s published computing infrastructure which is fostered within the Apache Software Foundation. Hadoop supports distributed applications running on large clusters of commodity computers processing enormous amounts of data. Cloudera helps distribute Hadoop, and provides practical services around the technology, similar to what Red Hat does for the Linux framework. → Read More
Oracle this morning announced that it has agreed to buy Pillar Data Systems, a privately-held provider of SAN Block I/O storage systems based in San Jose, California, which is said to serve nearly 600 customers across 24 countries. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
An interesting purchase, particularly since Pillar Data Systems is majority-owned by Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison through his venture capital firm Tako Ventures. According to a 2005 CRN article, Ellison invested over $150 million in the business. → Read More
American Express this morning announced that customers will now be able to pay for Facebook ads using Membership Rewards points, which the company says are used by millions of American Express small business and consumer Cardmembers.
Cardmembers can redeem Membership Rewards points for Facebook Ads through AmEx OPEN’s Facebook Page or the Membership Rewards program website. Each $6,750 spent can be redeemed for $50 worth of Facebook advertising. → Read More
Social enterprise giant Jive is releasing a study today, called the Jive Social Business Index, which surveyed 902 US-‐based executives at large and mid-sized companies on their views of social in the enterprise.
The study revealed that Social Business is increasingly perceived as a strategic executive imperative in the enterprise, with 78 percent of the executives surveyed admitting that having a social strategy is critical to the future success of their businesses. → Read More
After announcing its Zorro visual revamp and its Three Search Engine Monte challenge, Blekko is announcing today that it’s partnered with recipe search engine Foodily in order to curate its recipe search results.
As of today. users who search on Blekko for things like Kale Chips or Grilled Fennel will tap into the Foodily community’s curation for foodie-related slashtags like /recipe /nocarbs or /glutenfree, providing people with a curated result as well as insight into what recipes their friends like. → Read More
Clearspring Technologies, the developer of social sharing platform AddThis, is launching its mobile strategy today, unveiling optimized technologies for the iPhone, Android and mobile web.
For background, the AddThis button sharing tool is currently deployed on 9 million websites worldwide and allows users to easily and quickly share content with others through more than 300 social networking services in 70 languages. → Read More
Exclusive - Health Guru Media, a provider of health information videos, has raised $6 million in funding from a syndicate that includes new investor Western Technology Investment as well as existing backers Castile Ventures and Village Ventures. Health Guru Media operates HealthGuru.com, a video destination site with a library of more than 2,250 titles covering more than 100 different health conditions, plus lifestyle topics that include wellness and nutrition. → Read More
Well, apparently Animoto is going for it. This jewel of a startup, which lets people easily create professional-looking videos from audio and video clips and pictures, has raised a third round of funding – $25 million in a round led by Spectrum Equity Investors. Ben Spero, a managing director at Spectrum, joined the Animoto board of directors.
Previous investors Madrona Venture Group and Amazon also participated in this round. That brings the total raised by Amiando to $30 million. → Read More
SiliconBlue Technologies, which offers custom solutions for handset applications, including IP, design services as well as low-power, single-chip, CMOS SRAM mobileFPGA devices, has raised $18 million in Series D financing.
The capital injection comes from private equity firm Atlantic Bridge, with the existing group of investors including BlueRun Ventures, Crosslink Capital, NEA and Apex Venture Partners all participating in the round. → Read More
A pain point for online video conferencing platforms is that many of them don’t integrate with each other. For example, a Skype user needs to engage with a fellow Skype user to start a multi-party video conversation. Today, the Blue Jeans Network is coming out of stealth as a video conferencing solution to integrate across many platforms. In conjunction with its public release, Blue Jeans is announcing that it has raised $23.5 million from Accel Partners, New Enterprise Associates, and Norwest Venture Partners.
The name for the company is definitely original for a video-conferencing startup, but the company says that the name is exactly how clients should feel when using their product. So, you know that comfortable, easy feeling you get when wearing your favorite pair of blue jeans? This company wants to provide that ease and comfort when initiating multi-party conference calls in the cloud. → Read More
There’s no question about it: Google+ genuinely looks good. But, as thousands of people have already noted and joked about, it also really does look a lot like Facebook.
UX designer and consultant UXboy agrees, and put the two interfaces side by side to showcase just how much the entry pages of both services look alike. → Read More
For iPhone 4: Super-Cute Hello Kitty Cases From Japan Warn Friends And Foes With These Nine Aperture Science Test Chamber Labels “Light Scythe” Is A Monster LED Strip For Long Exposure Art Mouse Up And Roll Out With This Transformers-Themed Razer Gear Tag Heuer’s Android Powered Link Smart Phone → Read More
I’ve also been playing around with Google+ (and the neat mobile Web app) this morning and so far, I think it has some potential (not everyone agrees).
But people like me tend to use more than one social networking service, so I was happy to see someone has already built a Chrome extension that lets Google+ users push posts to Facebook and Twitter. It’s a little buggy from time to time, but overall, it works as advertised. → Read More
I’ve spent the last several hours using Google+. That’s a good sign.
While I first got a glimpse of the project when meeting with Google last week ahead of today’s story, such meetings are usually little more than fast-paced tutorials or worse, sales pitches. I definitely prefer to sit down and use things myself in a somewhat regular setting and see how I react. And seeing as the roll-out for Google+ is very limited right now, I thought I’d share some of those thoughts.
First of all, Google+ is easily already the most compelling social project Google has ever done. Yes, I know that’s not saying much, but it is saying something. That statement includes Wave, which was more ambitious, but was not nearly as polished at any point in its brief life as Google+ is right now. → Read More
It’s official. Jack Dorsey’s Square has joined the billion dollar valuation club. The mobile payments startup closed a $100 million series C led by Kleiner Perkins, a story we broke a few weeks ago. The new round values Square above $1 billion.
Tiger Management is also an investor. And Mary Meeker, the former Morgan Stanley Internet analyst who is now a partner at Kleiner, will get a board seat. → Read More
