In This Update:
• Glam Launches Brash, a Content and Ad Network Focused on Men
• HLTH Corp. and WebMD Cancel Merger Agreement, Citing Market Turmoil
• Number of IT venture Deals Falls to 10-year Low
• Who Will Control Your Data in the Web 3.0 World?
• Fox Mobile Gets Face-Lift
• Survey Finds Optimism Among Tech Execs
• Motorola is Really Getting Jazzed About That Android Social Networking Phone
• AP’s Mobile News Network Comes to BlackBerry
• Total Immersion Teams With Interpublic
• WideOrbit Raises $9.5 million for Advertising Analytics
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The law firm of new media. Major offices in New York, Boston, Newark, Stamford, and other cities. Advising new media companies from start-up to exit. Venture capital, IP protections and disputes, employment matters, outsourcing, joint ventures, acquisitions, to name just a few.

Glam Launches Brash, a Content and Ad Network Focused on Men
VENTUREBEAT
Glam Media, a content and ad network focused mostly on woman, is apparently about to launch a network focused on men called Brash.com, something we’d expected after reporting on it last month following early rumors.The site has a message saying “coming soon” (see left). The effort comes at a time when analysts and investors are watching the online ad industry closely, to see if it will remain resilient even as the economy takes a beating, or whether it will decline and wreck havoc on hundreds if not thousands of online publishers that have become dependent on the advertising for their livelihood.
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HLTH Corp. and WebMD Cancel Merger Agreement, Citing Market Turmoil
PAIDCONTENT
The wildly fluctuating financial markets have doomed a long-planned merger between HLTH Corp. and its majority-owned subsidiary, WebMD. HLTH said the companies’ boards, which both agreed to the termination, felt both sides would benefit from WebMD remaining as a publicly-traded unit, citing its approximately $340 million in cash and investments and no long-term debt as evidence of a strong balance sheet. Given the particular struggles in the credit market these days, WebMD’s growth would have been constrained by HLTH’s $650 million in long-term debt that would be coming due in 18 to 36 months. HLTH owns approximately 84 percent of WebMD. Separately, HLTH said it was buying back 50 million shares of its common stock at a price per share of $9.20.
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Number of IT venture Deals Falls to 10-year Low
CNET BUSINESS TECH
Venture capitalists pulled back sharply on U.S.-based tech deals in the third quarter, pushing the flow of deals down to a level that hasn’t been seen in more than a decade, according to a report released over the weekend by Dow Jones VentureSource. During the third quarter, 270 IT-related deals were completed, down 21 percent from the same period a year ago, according to the Quarterly U.S. Venture Capital Report. That translated into $2.73 billion in investments, also down 21 percent from a year ago. Software, which historically accounts for a large slice of all IT venture investments, fell 13 percent from a year ago to $1.15 billion. And the number of software deals declined to 125 during the third quarter, compared to 149 a year ago.
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Who Will Control Your Data in the Web 3.0 World?
READ WRITE WEB
“Imagine what your cell phone could know [about you],” pondered Sandro Hawke (Semantic Web Developer, W3C), at the Web 3.0 Conference and Expo in Santa Clara, CA this week.
“It hears everything that’s going on around you; it knows where you are, it knows the motion of your body, it sees what’s in front of it, it knows your contacts, and it hears your phone calls”. Imagine the possibilities. Unfortunately, the opportunities that Web 3.0 offers are also seen as part of the fundamental reason most people fear it. While they realize that much of their personal information is already out there, the fact remains that no one really has any way of knowing where this information is stored or who controls it; and this can be frightening.
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Fox Mobile Gets Face-Lift
REUTERS
News Corp.’s mobile content operation is rebranding and reorganizing as it aims to expand into new territories and make mobile a key growth business for the conglomerate. After recently buying out the 49 percent stake in mobile joint venture Jamba previously held by VeriSign, News Corp.’s mobile business will now be known as Fox Mobile Group. Mauro Montanaro, who has served as CEO of Jamba since January, heads FMG as CEO. The News Corp. arm will have three units: Fox Mobile Studios for mobile content production, Fox Mobile Entertainment for licensing to third parties and one Fox Mobile Distribution for distribution.
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Survey Finds Optimism Among Tech Execs
REUTERS
Despite turmoil in global markets, two-thirds of senior technology industry executives polled in a new survey say the economic slowdown will not hurt them as badly as the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000. However, more than three-quarters of respondents say their business has been impacted by the financial crisis, according to the study, which was released on Monday by the law firm DLA Piper. Still, only 27 percent said they were cutting sales and marketing expenditures, and only 15 percent said they were reducing planned R&D spending. The executives were surveyed between Sept 23 and Oct 6.
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Motorola is Really Getting Jazzed About That Android Social Networking Phone
TECHCRUNCH
Motorola, which is recruiting as many as 350 people to work on Android phones, is gearing up to make its first one:the Android Social Smart Phone. Last week, Android Guys spotted a job posting for the project, and now BusinessWeek has more details , including a mention of the Motorola job posting pictured at left on Monster looking for an Android application developer. If the people pictured in the ad to represent Motorola employees are any indication, embarrassing dance moves are a plus, but not required.
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AP’s Mobile News Network Comes to BlackBerry
MASHABLE
The Associated Press launched its Mobile News Network, a multimedia news portal designed for use on mobile devices, back in May. Now they’ve launched a client application optimized for BlackBerry smart phones, available for download over at bb.apnews.com. The Mobile News Network application works on the BlackBerry Curve, Pearl, and even the new Bold and Flip. It’s no wonder that BlackBerry, the favorite device of your typical business user, was the first device after the iPhone to receive a customized application version of the mobile news portal. iPhone users can find their MNN app in the App Store, while everyone else interested should simply point their mobile Web browser to www.apnews.com.
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Total Immersion Teams With Interpublic
SOCALTECH
Total Immersion, a French firm providing technology which interacts with a live video feed to provide “augmented reality,” said earlier this week that it has opened up a new lab in Los Angeles. The firm–which very recently opened up a U.S. headquarters, where the firm’s CEO is based–said the Interpublic Emerging Media Lab will support development and deployment of the firm’s augmented reality solutions for Interpublic agencies and their clients. Total Immersion’s products insert graphics, animation, and other 3D graphics onto a live video stream. Interpublic is a major marketing and advertising firm.
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WideOrbit Raises $9.5 million for Advertising Analytics
VENTUREBEAT
WideOrbit, developer of software that manages advertising sales, traffic and billing functions, nabbed $9.5 million in the first tranche of a fourth round of funding that the company hopes will close at $10.3 million. The round was led by Mayfield Ventures, and included existing backers Khosla Ventures, Greycroft partners and Hearst Ventures.The San Francisco-based startup has raised $30 million to date, reports StartupWire. It’s last round of funding, which brought in $14.5 million, was in February. Its software systems work with advertising spanning television, online and radio.
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