In This Update:
• Icahn and Shareholders Raise Pressure on Yahoo Board
• Symantec Buys Online Backup Service SwapDrive For $123 Million
• Sprint, Clearwire Vow “Third Pipe” Broadband Option
• BBC Plans Giant Web Archive
• U.S. Could Face Glitch in TV Converter Box Program
• ABC to Scrap Webcast Format
• Google Offers Update to “Trends”
• NYTimes.com Aims for Brand Dollars from Local Advertisers
• Microsoft Proposes Gadget Feature Disabling Technology
• Polaroid, Zink Debut Pocket-Size Photo Printer
• France to Block Child Pornography Websites
• Microsoft Testing Prototype of Facebook-Like Social Network
• Comedy Site FunnyorDie Gets Investment from HBO
• T-Mobile Invests in Roaming Specialist Roamware
• 5th Finger Raises $7 Million for U.S. Mobile Marketing Play
• Voice-to-Text Mobile Transcription Service Yap Raises $6.5 Million
• Location-Based Software Firm deCarta Raises $6 Million from T-Mobile
• GlassBOX Raises $4.9 Million for Broadcast/VOD Channels
• Movieset Gets $2 Million for Behind-the-Scenes Footage Site

Icahn and Shareholders Raise Pressure on Yahoo Board
REUTERS
Yahoo Inc’s board of directors came under increasing pressure over an employee severance plan on Tuesday, with shareholders suing the company demanding a swift trial and investor Carl Icahn threatening to hold the board “personally liable” for approving it. Both Icahn and the two Detroit pension funds which are suing Yahoo over its rebuff of buyout offer from Microsoft Corp believe the employee severance scheme was a major factor in de-railing the $47.5 billion deal. But lawyers for the funds contend in court papers that their litigation “is the only vehicle” for challenging the severance plan and are seeking trial ahead of the company’s August 1 annual meeting, where Icahn is seeking to overthrow the Yahoo board. The plaintiffs contend that the severance arrangement is nothing more than a maneuver to make any takeover of Yahoo prohibitively expensive.
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Symantec Buys Online Backup Service SwapDrive For $123 Million
TECHCRUNCH
Last week, Symantec signed a deal brewing since February to buy online storage service SwapDrive . A source close to the company says that Symantec paid $123 million. According to the source, the company made $13 million in profits last year, on revenues of $22 million. That’s up from $5 million in revenues the year before, and the company is projecting $40 million in revenues this year. Those numbers put the acquisition at roughly 10X profits and 5.6X revenues (most likely those are operating profits). It turns out the real growth-driver for the business is as a white-label online backup and storage service. The company, which was founded in 1998 and is based in Washington, D.C., powers the online backup services sold by more than 60 partners, including Iomega, Dell, Intuit, Best Buy, and Symantec. All told, the company is adding 13,000 new customers a day, and has 50 employees. The company raised $2.65 million in a series A round in 2001 from Core Capital Partners and some angels. It raised another round later from Contour Ventures and ASAP Ventures.
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Sprint, Clearwire Vow “Third Pipe” Broadband Option
REUTERS
Sprint Nextel Corp told U.S. regulators on Monday that its new wireless broadband venture with Clearwire Corp would give Internet users a long-sought “third pipe” to compete with cable operators and phone carriers. In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission, Sprint and Clearwire said the new venture would offer an open-platform WiMAX service that would expand broadband use in the United States. “The transaction will make the promise of an alternative broadband platform, or ‘third pipe,’ a near-term reality …,” Sprint and Clearwire said. The comments were part of a 64-page application with FCC, which will review the deal to determine whether it is in the public interest. Sprint, along with top U.S. cable companies announced last month they would invest in Clearwire to introduce high-speed wireless Web services.
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BBC Plans Giant Web Archive
TELEGRAPH.CO.UK
The BBC is creating a huge online archive that will host every radio and television program it has produced over its 81-year existence. The move, started under director general Mark Thomson last year, is aimed at countering claims that the corporation holds little information on its own content. The archive will have a web page for each episode of every TV show, and more than 160,000 pages have already been made. BBC director of vision Jana Bennett says the project will contain synopsis information on each show. It will also feature links to access the content – including to the BBC’s iPlayer, BBC websites, the upcoming BBC, ITV and Channel 4 on-demand video service Kangaroo, or third-party services such as iTunes.
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U.S. Could Face Glitch in TV Converter Box Program
REUTERS
U.S. officials are facing a potential glitch in a program designed to help television viewers make the switch to digital TV next year. A Commerce Department official told House lawmakers that more money might be needed to mail out all the $40 government coupons that will be available to subsidize converter boxes that some TV owners will need for the February 2009 switchover. Bernadette McGuire-Rivera, associate director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said at a hearing that it was possible the agency “would have to get more money, basically to buy more stamps to send out coupons.”
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ABC to Scrap Webcast Format
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Walt Disney Co.’s ABC News is close to scrapping the current format of its daily “World News” Webcast, an online version of the evening news anchored by Charles Gibson, which the network trumpeted as a major step into its digital future when it launched two years ago. ABC’s news-division president, David Westin, says the network is considering ways to reinvent the broadcast, including as a series of updates throughout the day. “I have no interest in abandoning this,” he says, “I want to look at it and say, ‘What have we learned from it?’ ‘How can we reconfigure it?’ ‘What can we do better?’” The troubles with “World News” highlight a larger struggle across the broadcast landscape to deliver news on the Web. The broadcast networks’ news divisions haven’t been able to convince many viewers or advertisers to move with them online, in part because their TV audience is older.
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Google Offers Update to “Trends”
REUTERS
Number-crunchers can rejoice as Google Inc offers deeper access to the underlying figures for users’ Web searches, giving some insight into trends based on the relative popularity of various words. The Internet search leader is expanding its existing Google Trends service to allow users to see underlying numerical data on the popularity of any particular search in Google’s vast database of search terms, relative to others. Google Trends was begun two years ago as an entertaining but limited way to indicate what the world is thinking about over time, at least in terms of Web searches. Now Google is giving users the ability to search across terms in its database, instantly chart how they compare to other search terms, then export the underlying numerical data into a common spreadsheet format to compare with other data.
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NYTimes.com Aims for Brand Dollars from Local Advertisers
CLICKZ NEWS
A new, self-serve ad offering from The New York Times caters to small and local businesses. As newspapers struggle with steady depletion of classified ad revenue from these types of advertisers, such offerings could help recoup some of those lost dollars. It could also help generate more revenue from smaller advertisers than text ads or Web classifieds do. Through a partnership with self-serve ad platform firm AdReady, the publisher will help business owners create and manage CPM-based display ad campaigns to run on NYTimes.com. They can upload their own creative into the system or use its ready-made ad elements.
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Microsoft Proposes Gadget Feature Disabling Technology
REGISTER HARDWARE
Depending on your point of view, it’s either intensely annoying when someone uses their phone in a train’s quiet zone, or very annoying when you’re in one and want to use your phone. Microsoft has made itself mediator and hopes to patent technology to ensure that if you shouldn’t be using a gadget in a certain place – then you physically can’t. Microsoft’s technology is called Device Manners Policy (DMP) and it could ensure that if a sign says “No photography allowed”, then your camera or your phone’s camera won’t work. DMP could also be used to block phones from receiving incoming calls during a meeting. DMP isn’t designed to stop you using every feature on a particular gadget, just those that aren’t allowed at a certain location.
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Polaroid, Zink Debut Pocket-Size Photo Printer
CNET
Polaroid is ready to introduce a new instant-photo product fit for the Digital Age. The PoGo, a mobile, inkless printer with a cute name, is small enough to fit in a pocket and prints wallet-size pictures that can be turned into stickers. The company–which continues its attempt to transition from an analog past to a digital future–hopes the Polaroid-on-the-go will revolutionize instant photo printing. The product receives images via Bluetooth from a camera cell phone or through a USB cord from any digital camera. Then it uses inkless Zink technology to heat up the photo paper and bring out the colors embedded in the paper’s dye crystals. Without ink heads, printers can be smaller and save money on ink. However, the Zink paper will still cost extra–an average of 35 cents per print. Future plans include larger prints that rely on the same mobile, inkless concept.
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France to Block Child Pornography Websites
REUTERS
France plans to use the help of Internet service providers to block websites which disseminate child pornography, Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said on Tuesday. In a speech on fighting cybercrime, Alliot-Marie said Internet users would from September be able to flag sites which carried child pornography, incitement to terrorism and racial hatred, or attempted fraud. This real-time information would help the French state to draw up a blacklist of sites that disseminated child pornography which it would transmit to Internet service providers, who have agreed to block such sites, Alliot-Marie said. “It is not a question of creating a Big Brother on the Internet,” she said in the speech. She said the French state would pass on information about any illegal sites which were run from overseas to the host countries, EU police agency Europol, or to international police agency Interpol.
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Microsoft Testing Prototype of Facebook-Like Social Network
COMPUTERWORLD
At the request of its SharePoint and Office product development teams, Microsoft Corp.’s Office Labs operation has created and is testing a prototype of an internal social network that can provide employees with feeds and updates about their colleagues. Chris Pratley, general manager of Office Labs, is slated to disclose details of the prototype – called TownSquare – Thursday at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston. The project was launched in January and has already been used by about 8,000 Microsoft employees. With a layout that is strikingly similar to Facebook.com’s (in which Microsoft invested $240 million in October 2007), TownSquare is fueled by enterprise news feeds that use Web services to query SharePoint for public information, such as promotions and company anniversaries, about an employee. TownSquare also notifies users when a document or file is modified. Users can customize their feeds and monitor who is receiving information about them.
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Comedy Site FunnyorDie Gets Investment from HBO
VARIETY
HBO is getting into bed with Will Ferrell’s FunnyorDie.com Internet vid venture. Pay cabler has bought a small equity stake in the 2-year-old comedy website and has commissioned 10 half-hours of programming from Funny or Die as part of the deal. The wide-ranging pact also envisions the two sides partnering on a host of future projects, from the live comedy tours that Funny or Die is developing to a possible Funny or Die-branded programming block on one of HBO’s offshoot channels. HBO’s interest in Funny or Die is believed to be less than 10% of the company. Funny or Die, which bowed in 2006 with backing from venture capital shingle Sequoia Capital, completed a second round of financing late last year that valued the company at about $100 million.
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T-Mobile Invests in Roaming Specialist Roamware
ALARM:CLOCK
T-Mobile Venture Fund has made an undisclosed strategic investment in US mobile roaming firm Roamware. California-based Roamware provides voice and data roaming solutions to 317 wireless operators worldwide. It also develops mobile media applications for delivering multimedia content. The firm will use the capital “to fund inorganic growth initiatives”, says EVP and CFO, Eran Pilovsky. It had previously raised funding from DCM-Doll Capital Management, Accretive Technology Partners and Shelter Capital as well as the software companies BEA Systems (NASDAQ: BEAS), and TIBCO Software.
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5th Finger Raises $7 Million for U.S. Mobile Marketing Play
MOCONEWS
San Francisco-based 5th Finger plans to announce today that it has raised $7 million in venture capital from Starfish Ventures in Australia. The company, which was originally founded in Sydney, Australia, where it was acquired by ninmsn, has now been independently re-established as 5th Finger in the U.S. The mobile-marketing company will use the capital to fund its U.S.growth. 5th Finger manages cross-platform, cross-country interactive SMS and Web marketing campaigns. The company is looking at working with multiple sectors, including food/beverages, pharmaceuticals, retail, media/TV and live events.
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Voice-to-Text Mobile Transcription Service Yap Raises $6.5 Million
VENTUREBEAT
Voice-to-text converter Yap has raised $6.5 million in a Series A funding round, led by SunBridge Partners. Harbert Management Corporation, Pittco Management and existing angel investors also took part in the round. North Carolina-based Yap uses voice-recognition software to convert speech into text. Once installed on your phone, the service allows users to send text messages or updates to social networks without having to type. Yap is entirely automated, unlike some services such as Jott and PhoneTag that employ humans to convert the messages. The company has also opened up its platform to third-party developers and plans to license its technology to other players.
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Location-Based Software Firm deCarta Raises $6 Million from T-Mobile
VENTUREBEAT
Location-based mobile software specialist deCarta is raising $6 million from T-Mobile Venture Fund. The firm says the investment is part of a “larger financing round”, with additional backers yet to be disclosed. Last month, peHUB reported that deCarta was receiving $10.5 million of a new $21m round. The firm raised a $15 million round from Norwest Venture Partners in Jul 2007, with existing backers Cardinal Venture Capital and Mobius Venture Capital also contributing. California-based deCarta develops a software platform that lets mobile operator connect smartphones to personal navigation devices, such as GPS. Its platform is adopted by US carriers such as AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, ALLTEL, Bell Mobility, Telus and Boost, as well as eight carriers in Europe.
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GlassBOX Raises $4.9 Million for Broadcast/VOD Channels
DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE
GlassBOX Television, a provider of cross-platform broadcast and video-on-demand channels, announced on Tuesday that it has raised about $4.9 million in new venture capital financing, led by JLA Ventures. Aver Media, Frantic Films Corp. and several media industry investors also participated. Toronto-based GlassBOX’s first channel, BITE TV, launched in 2005, and the interactive channel is now available on cable, satellite, IPTV, mobile and broadband websites. The company will use the funds to launch new cross-platform broadcast channels, and for a re-launch of BITE TV in the fall that will include new content and a new broadband Internet video portal.
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Movieset Gets $2 Million for Behind-the-Scenes Footage Site
NEWTEEVEE
Movieset, a site that aggregates behind-the-scenes footage of various film productions, has raised $2 million in first round funding from Rho Capital, as part of a total $5 million commitment from the firm to be based on achievement mileposts. Vancouver, Canada-based Movieset lets producers post sneak peeks and other behind-the-scenes, on-set footage of films in production — content that would likely eventually be included in DVD extras. The company said it recently signed 75 movies slated for production to its service while at the Cannes Film Festival.
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