• October 14th, 2009

    BigDoor Opens Doors To Public Beta Of Website And iPhone App Monetization Tool

    After a short period of near-mandatory private beta, Bellevue, WA-based BigDoor Media is today introducing the public beta of its website and mobile app monetization software solution.

    In addition, the upstart is announcing that it has raised early-stage funding ($250k) from Seattle’s Founder Co-op and a dozen angel investors, many of which are local Internet/tech CEOs. → Read More

    October 23rd, 2007

    Zango Acquires Smart Shopper For $9 Million: Now More Evil

    Everyone’s favorite love-to-hate spyware company Zango has acquired browser based comparison shopping engine Smart Shopper for what we’ve been told by two people related to the company (but unconfirmed directly) for $9 million. Smart Shopper offers what on the surface appears to be a fairly non-threatening shopping assistant add on for Internet Explorer, however according to a number of sites is really adware that does nothing more than deliver advertisements and is difficult to remove. Zango has a long history in the spyware business, having faced numerous court challenges over its business tactics whilst attempting to get in on the social networking and social shopping craze. Zango offers free games to MySpace users that according to our July 2006 report, results in users installing a spyware toolbar as well. Smart Shopper Networks was previously owned by New York based HotBar Inc, another company that comes up as a spyware producer according to a search of Google. → Read More

    July 10th, 2006

    Zango brings adware to MySpace

    These days almost every developer of a widget or a gadget tells us they are targeting MySpace – so why should malware makers be different? Vitalsecurity.org has written a long article this morning on a company called Zango that offers free videos and games for MySpace but requires installation of a Zango Search Assistant and Toolbar as part of the use of the videos. That toolbar serves up ads. Christopher Boyd of Vitalsecurity argues that this is particularly pernicious because it exploits the trust that MySpace’s young users have for the MySpace admin. He believes that a popup while on MySpace asking for permission to do anything will be presumed to originate from MySpace officially. This could well be. This is, of course, only the newest addition to the small army of services becoming available to mine the huge userbase that is MySpace for shady commercial purposes. I know I get friend requests from fake, or at least very shallow seeming, women all the time – and I don’t think it’s because they saw my name on TechCrunch. Pop-ups and adware are probably one of the most hated parts of the web for PC/IE users and the direction that this could take MySpace is truly terrible. MySpace themselves really ought to deal with this before the site’s reputation takes another big hit. This also has the potential to damage the reputation of MySpace widgets and gadgets in general. How possible is it that users will simply stop embedding video from off site if the practice becomes associated with the installation of adware? The specific details are almost not even important, there is a real risk of guilt by association. → Read More

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    True&Co — Received $2M in Seed funding from First Round Capital, SoftTech VC, SoftBank Capital, Aileen Lee, and Ellen Levy
    5.1.2012
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    5.30.2012
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    5.18.2012
    Compliance11 — Acquired by Compliance11, Inc..
    11.15.2012
    Bolt | Peters — Acquired by Facebook for $50M.
    6.21.2012
    Actual Systems — Acquired by Solera Holdings.
    5.29.2012
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    ServerOrigin — Acquired by Black Lotus.
    5.29.2012
    True&Co — Received $2M in Seed funding from First Round Capital, SoftTech VC, SoftBank Capital, Aileen Lee, and Ellen Levy
    5.1.2012
    5.30.2012
    Optimizely — Received Series A funding from Battery Ventures, Google Ventures, and InterWest Partners
    5.30.2012
    Draker — Received $475k in Debt funding
    5.30.2012
    5.30.2012
    Ellen Levy — Invested in True&Co.
    5.1.2012
    SoftTech VC — Invested in True&Co.
    5.1.2012
    Aileen Lee — Invested in True&Co.
    5.1.2012
    First Round Capital — Invested in True&Co.
    5.1.2012
    SoftBank Capital — Invested in True&Co.
    5.1.2012
    Facebook — Went public with stock symbol NASDAQ:FB.
    5.18.2012
    True&Co — Company added to CrunchBase
    5.30.2012
    InstaEDU — Company added to CrunchBase
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    5.29.2012
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