In This Update:
• Google Taking a Step into Power Metering
• Ticketmaster, Live Nation Announce Merger into Live Nation Entertainment
• Whispersync could be the Real News out of Kindle 2
• Mobile Messaging Platform Provider Waterfall Mobile Raises $3.7 Million
• Oodle Shows Decent Growth, Raises $5.6 Million More
• Presentation: Barack Obama’s Internet Strategy
• Craig Newmark’s Keynote Unlocks the Secrets to Building a Community
• Mozilla Call for EU Intervention in Browser War is Troubling
• Video Ad Firm WhistleBox Raises $2.3 Million First Round
• Investors’ Community Cake Financial Nabs $1.26 Million in Funding
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Google Taking a Step into Power Metering
NEW YORK TIMES
Google will announce its entry Tuesday into the small but growing business of “smart grid,” digital technologies that seek to both keep the electrical system on an even keel and reduce electrical energy consumption. Google is one of a number of companies devising ways to control the demand for electric power as an alternative to building more power plants. The company has developed a free Web service called PowerMeter that consumers can use to track energy use in their house or business as it is consumed. Google is counting on others to build devices to feed data into PowerMeter technology. While it hopes to begin introducing the service in the next few months, it has not yet lined up hardware manufacturers.
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Ticketmaster, Live Nation Announce Merger into Live Nation Entertainment
PAIDCONTENT
There were reports that the two ticket vendors had merger plans, but now it’s official: Ticketmaster and Live Nation have announced the deal. It’s a tax-free, all stock merger with a combined value of approximately $2.5 billion, and the new entity will be called Live Nation Entertainment. The deal is subject to the usual legal issues, including regulatory review, and there’s sure to be some pressure against it from the music industry and others who see this consolidation as a threat. A lot of ego to fit into one space … Barry Diller, chairman of Ticketmaster Entertainment, will be chairman of the board with Michael Rapino, now CEO of Live Nation, as CEO and president, and Irving Azoff, now CEO of Ticketmaster, as executive chairman and CEO of Front Line.
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Whispersync could be the Real News out of Kindle 2
COMPUTERWORLD
The introduction of “Whispersync” technology may well be the bigger technology news from Amazon.com Inc., which announced its Kindle 2 e-reader today in New York. Not much was said about Whispersync by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos during today’s announcement, but the official Amazon.com press release defines Whispersync as technology that “automatically syncs Kindle 2 and the original Kindle, which makes transitioning to the new Kindle 2 or using both devices easy for customers.” What has caught the interest of industry analysts, however, is the next sentence from Amazon: “Kindle 2 will also sync with a range of mobile devices in the future.”
The statement suggests that a Kindle 2 user could start reading a book on the e-reader and finish reading it on an iPhone or an Android phone, analysts noted.
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Mobile Messaging Platform Provider Waterfall Mobile Raises $3.7 Million
MOCO NEWS
Mobile messaging platform provider Waterfall Mobile has secured $3.7 million from undisclosed investors according to a regulatory filing. The San Francisco-based company founded in 2005, is also trying to raise an additional $4.6 million for a total of $8.3 million in this current round. In the past, it’s been backed by Vista Equity Partners, though no word if they are coming back in this round. Waterfall Mobile has two main products: Mesgme, a mobile messaging platform, aimed at giving marketers and media companies the ability to deliver targeted mobile ad campaigns, and a mobile messaging platform called AlertU aimed at delivering emergency notifications.
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Oodle Shows Decent Growth, Raises $5.6 Million More
TECHCRUNCH
Online classifieds service Oodle is reporting decent growth in the first month of 2009 with over 10 million visits (both Quantcast and Compete reflect a significant traffic surge ). Add to that the fact that social networking juggernaut Facebook has selected the company to power its classified listings application and you know they’re on to something over at the San Mateo, CA-based startup. Its investors seem to agree, as they have just injected more capital in Oodle: Greylock Partners, JAFCO Ventures and Redpoint Ventures are adding another $5.6 million to the startup’s war chest, bringing the total amount invested in the company to $21.6 million .
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Craig Newmark’s Keynote Unlocks the Secrets to Building a Community
READ WRITE WEB
In an era where user generated content is changing our entire culture, rare is the company that can successfully harness the collective creativeness of its community, cultivate loyalty, make money consistently, and continue to flourish. Enter Craigslist. Listed as the tenth top site in America on Alexa and with close to 50 million unique visitors a month according to Compete, Craigslist is one of the few companies that appears to have worked it out. It all began in the fertile dot com era when Newmark, while working at Charles Schwab, realized the time was ripe to begin something of his own. In early 1995 he started sending out a simple CC list, e-mailing arts and tech events to a small group of interested subscribers. Very quickly, people started e-mailing him with news about jobs and apartments in the hope he would add them to his mailing list.
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Jobvite Brings Job Listings to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter
VENTURE BEAT
Jobvite’s new tools sound compelling is because they allow you to integrate a recruitment campaign across so many sites and services. The Facebook and LinkedIn applications are pretty similar. Basically, a company sends a listing to its employees, customers, and anyone else who has installed an application. Then it recommends people in those users’ social networks who might be a good fit for the job. If they decide to refer thats someone for the job, a message gets sent to that user. And if that user decides to apply, their information is sent to the company’s Jobvite campaign. The Twitter integration is a bit more limited – it lets you advertise jobs via general “tweets” or direct messages, and it recommends followers who might be a good fit.
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Mozilla Call for EU Intervention in Browser War is Troubling
ARS TECHNICA
Mozilla Foundation chairperson Mitchell Baker contends that the inclusion of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser in the Windows operating system represents an ongoing threat to competition and innovation on the Internet. She supports the European Commission’s investigation of Microsoft’s bundling tactics and believes that remedies are needed to address Microsoft’s alleged abuses. To that end, Mozilla intends to assist the commission by offering expertise about the browser market. The European Commission issued a finding last month declaring that Microsoft has abused its dominant position as an operating system vendor by tying its web browser to the Windows platform. The commission has sent a Statement of Objections to Microsoft which outlines the basis for the accusation.
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Video Ad Firm WhistleBox Raises $2.3 Million First Round
PAIDCONTENT
Whistlebox, an advertising technology firm that helps companies run user-generated video hubs on their sites, has raised $2.3 million in its first round of funding, per peHUB. paidContent has confirmed with co-founder and CTO Chas Martin that King Street Capital led the investment; the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based startup will use the funding for tech development and sales. Site owners can set up contests and create video ads with Whistlebox’s application; it currently powers SugarTube, the online video portal for Vermont-based ski resort Sugarbush. Whistlebox was founded in 2006.
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Investors’ Community Cake Financial Nabs $1.26 Million in Funding
PAIDCONTENT
Cake Financial, an online hub for individual investors, has picked up $1.26 million worth of a $1.5 million round of funding, per peHUB, citing a regulatory filing. We confirmed that previous investors Alsop Louie Partners and KPG Ventures participated in the follow-on round; Cake Financial lists Bay Partners and Ron Conway’s Baseline Ventures as backers of its first round, which was undisclosed.
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