Jelli, the radio startup offering local stations tools that allow their listener base to control the music selection and playlists, has just been awarded a patent on the concept of user-controlled broadcasting. The patent (U.S. Patent No. 8,392,206) is dubbed “Social Broadcasting User Experience,” and refers to a range of methods related to audience participation with a one-to-many transmission… → Read More
Gigwalk, the mobile temp agency that allows users to get assigned jobs (or “gigs”) from companies in need of real-world data or market research, is today upgrading its business-facing platform as the service grows to accomodate larger-scale job assignments from customers like Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, TomTom, eBay, and others. It’s also adding another big-name brand to its roster – Reckitt… → Read More
It’s a little ironic that adrenalin-fuelled, sometimes dangerous extreme sports like windsurfing, kiteboarding and skiing also have a very pedestrian angle to them: it’s hard to do them when the weather isn’t quite right. There have been apps developed to try to meet that challenge by tapping into weather data providers, but sometimes these don’t actually give a personal feel of how the wind or… → Read More
InfoArmy — a startup built on the “Data 2.0″ concept of crowdsourced competitive intelligence — has today sent out a letter, printed in full below, to its researchers informing them that it is pulling the plug on its current business model after failing to find enough sales for the research reports, and being unable to sustain the quality of the work that was being produced. As a result, it will… → Read More
Tongal has raised $15 million for its video content and social platform, which rewards people for making video advertisements for consumer brands. With the investment, which was led by Insight Venture Partners, Tongal plans to build out its global creative community. → Read More
Editor’s note: Alec Lynch is the founder and CEO of DesignCrowd, an Australia-based design crowdsourcing service that recently launched in India, Singapore, and the Philippines.
When most people think of crowdsourcing, they think of websites like iStockphoto, Mechanical Turk, Threadless or Wikipedia. But not many people think of Asia. The truth is, crowdsourcing in Asia is secretly… → Read More
Flashnotes, a marketplace where students can buy and sell their notes and other course materials, has closed a seed round of $1.8 million as it looks to take its platfrom nationwide, from 75 schools in the U.S. it is in today. The investment has some impressive names behind it. Led by Ryan Moore of Atlas Venture and Jordan Levy of Softbank Capital, it also included participation from a list of… → Read More
InfoArmy, only four months into its life as the operator of a crowdsourced competitive intelligence platform, is announcing a significant injection of capital as it continues to build out its business. The company has raised a $17.3 million Series B led by Norwest VenturePartners, with Trinity Ventures also participating. The total raised by InfoArmy to date is now $19.3 million. (The… → Read More
Flipboard, the popular social news magazine for iOS and Android, is now turning its editorial eye to the land of Kickstarter. Starting today, the company will begin sourcing projects from the crowdsourced funding platform which it will then include in various sections of its Content Guide. Because Flipboard is most interested in the future of publishing and content distribution, the initial group… → Read More
Jelli, the crowdsourced social radio platform, is today announcing $9 million in additional funding, in a round led by new investors Intel Capital and Relay Ventures. The round also saw participation from existing investor First Round Capital, as well as individuals including Roger Ames, former Chairman of EMI Music.
Related to the funding news, Jelli also detailed its growth over the past… → Read More
Editor’s note: Gil Elbaz is an entrepreneur and pioneer of natural language technology. In 1998, he co-founded Applied Semantics, which developed contextual advertising products, including ASI’s AdSense. In 2003, Google acquired ASI, and after a four-year stint at Google, Gil found Factual in 2007. Follow him on Twitter.
The term data market brings to mind a traditional structure in which… → Read More
Crowdfunding is so hot right now, and not just the big, sprawling platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo but the proliferation of more focused/specialised funding platforms that aim to serve a particular niche. The latest niche crowdsourcing platform to join the fray is Gambitious — and the particular crowdfunding furrow it’s aiming to plough is video games. → Read More
Open Ocean, the VC fund led by former MySQL and Nokia execs, is investing $1.3 million in Stockholm, Sweden-based startup Truecaller — maker of the crowdsourced phone directory app and web white pages service that lets you look unknown phone numbers and match them with names. The Series A funding comes from Open Ocean’s Fund Three fund. → Read More
Editor’s note: Nasir Jones is co-founder of 12Society and a multi-platinum recording artist. Follow him at NasirJones.com and on Twitter: @Nas.
On July 24, I found out that my newest album hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200. This isn’t my first time around the block, but it’s one of the most satisfying. I started as a hungry MC from QB, but now I am trying to give back to the hip hop… → Read More
MobileWorks launched last summer with a simple, yet big mission: Build a viable alternative for Amazon Mechanical Turk and in so doing create a motivated, happy and accurate virtual workforce. To be the anti-Turk, the startup set out with a novel approach (and a social mission) — to pay workers fair wages and create a collaborative online work environment in which microwork would become less… → Read More
It’s not a spelling mistake, it’s a typo. That’s my line and I’m sticking to it. But what if proofreading, along with copywriting and translation, could be offered akin to a Software-as-a-Service, API included? That’s the ambitious aim of TextMaster which this week uncloaked its technology stack to enable third-parties to start building apps that integrate the full functionality of its… → Read More
Yancey Strickler, co-founder of Kickstarter, dropped us a line about the systems in place to “hide” failed projects. He told us that Kickstarter does indeed hide many projects from search robots, but it’s for a good cause.
“The original poster was correct in noting that we don’t have a browse area for projects whose funding was unsuccessful,” he wrote. “This isn’t to ‘hide failure,’ as the… → Read More
Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding have been two of the biggest trends to affect how businesses — especially small businesses and sole traders — raise money, with sites like Kickstarter.com and in the UK Funding Circle attracting a attention for being a great way of getting backing for projects or business ideas bypassing the traditional and expensive world of bank loans in the process.
Now a… → Read More
Who needs governments? The ongoing trend toward mobile, social and crowdsourcing apps has led to a wealth of new community-based resources that support or supplant traditional civic and government services. Think Kickstarter instead of the NEA or Canada Council. Or consider the new Circle of 6 app, which is intended to help prevent violence before it happens, by letting users reach out to friends… → Read More
Crowdsourced news platform NewsiT.net just announced that it has raised $500,000 in seed funding. And, timed to match the beginning of South by Southwest, it’s also launching its iPhone app.
The company was founded by longtime journalist Melinda Wittstock, who has worked for the Times of London, BBC Television, the Guardian, the Observer, ABC News, National Public Radio, and MSNBC/CNBC. → Read More
OpenLabel, a startup that wants to augment everyday products’ barcodes with crowd-sourced information that helps you decide whether to buy, has raised $80,000 in seed funding in a round led by Peter Kirwan, also an investor in IFTTT. Also participating in the round were Tim Drees and Doug Taylor. According to OpenLabel co-founder Scott Kennedy, this $80K is just the first part of a larger $300,000… → Read More
@WalmartLabs, the digital technology division of the world’s largest retailer, is launching a contest today which uses crowdsourcing techniques to determine which items the company should stock in its stores and on its website. The contest, called Get on the Shelf, will be heavily promoted by all of Walmart’s social media presences, including Facebook, Google+ and, most importantly, Twitter. → Read More
Adam Penenberg aka The Man Who Took Down Stephen Glass decided to write about Serv.io, a crowdsourcing content farm that allows publishers to request articles for quick publication. They call it “content engineering,” which does not bode well for my job since I have a MA and not an MSc.
The resulting article, written with tongue firmly in cheek is an excellent example of the dangers of “content… → Read More
Just this morning we reported on the creation of a Google Group whose members are discussing how to use facial recognition technology to identify looters from London’s riots in online photos. Now, a second site has come to our attention which makes the process of identifying rioters even easier, no special technologies needed.
The site, called Zavilia.com, is simply posting all the photos of… → Read More
Whether it’s an altruistic push to give back to and interact with their fans or to just drum up publicity for their brands, it seems that a number of well-known musicians, artists, and creatives are turning to Talenthouse to get inspiration for their projects from everyday web users like you and me.
These crowdsourced projects tend to range across the board: Soundgarden (I had no idea they were… → Read More
Almost a year ago Sellaband, the number one crowd-funding website for musicians went bankrupt. The website was then acquired by a German company and now Public Enemy managed to raise $75,000 despite all the problems of the past. Is this the future of music business? It very well may be. → Read More
So far, an estimated 82 million gallons of oil have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico. Everything BP has tried to stop the largest oil spill in history has failed. The company has tried everything from “junk shots” to “top kill” to containment domes, and is still spending $100 million a day to try to cap the well and clean up the mess. The company is even open to suggestions.
Whether they are… → Read More
Once an internal bookmarking site shared amongst Intel employees, Cool Software is now open to the public. It’d be easy to take potshots at the lame name, the photo of five people in summer clothes leaping into the air atop a frozen lake, and that it’s basically the same stuff you could find in the software section of Digg.com but the fact that it’s little more than an internal… → Read More
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