Social Network hi5 Raises $23 Million

By
Mark Hefflinger
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0

*Update: The company tells DMW that it has not raised $23 million in new financing, and that the filings mentioned in the linked article below reference previous financing, landed over a year ago.

San Francisco
– Online social network hi5 has raised $23 million in new funding, including $3
million in debt, VentureBeat reported, citing regulatory filings.

Details on
investors were not provided.

Founded in 2003, San Francisco-based hi5 counts
over 50 million monthly visitors, and claims to be the third-largest social
media site.

The company last year decided to focus more on social games,
acquiring developer Big Six and hiring Wild Tangent founder Alex St. John as
its president and CTO.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/v73rj
(VentureBeat)

http://www.hi5.com

Vidyo Lands $25 Million for Videoconference Platform

By
Mark Hefflinger
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0

Hackensack,
N.J. – Vidyo, a provider of
videoconferencing services, announced on Thursday that it has raised $25
million in its third round of venture capital financing.

Four Rivers Group led
the investment round; previous backers Menlo Ventures, Rho Ventures,
Seven-Rosen Funds and Star Ventures also participated.

Founded in 2005, New
Jersey-based Vidyo offers desktop and room-based videoconferencing systems,
which can be used over the Internet, LTE, 3G and 4G networks.

The company will
use the funds to expand its sales and marketing efforts.

 

Related Links:
http://www.vidyo.com/news/news_fundingC_040110.php

Twitter Homepage Redesign Aims for User-friendliness

By
Mark Hefflinger
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0

San Francisco
– Twitter on Wednesday unveiled a redesign of its homepage, intended to display
more real-time information, and be more friendly to new users and those
visiting the site without a Twitter account. The homepage now displays "a
sample of who’s here, what folks are tweeting about, and the big topics that
they’re discussing," and includes "a set of algorithmically-selected
top tweets that automatically appear every few seconds," the company said
in a blog post.


 

Related Links:
http://blog.twitter.com/2010/03/tweaking-twitter-homepage.html

http://www.twitter.com

Pharrell Williams Debuts Kids' News Site Kidult.com

By
Mark Hefflinger
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0

Los Angeles – Songwriter and producer Pharrell Williams on Wednesday
debuted Kidult.com, a site billed as a news service designed for teenagers that
will cover politics and current events, science, health, sports and
entertainment, Billboard reports. The site also will feature a range of video interviews and other
video content. Kidult will also host a Kidult Youth Leadership Conference in
June in New York.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/v6kes
(Billboard)

http://www.kidult.com

Hulu Debuts First Exclusive Film Premiere

By
Mark Hefflinger
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Los Angeles
– Hulu, the video portal joint venture between NBC Universal, News Corp. and
Disney, is currently offering its first feature-length narrative film to
premiere exclusively on the site, Mattoid Entertainment’s "In The
Darkness." Director Andrew Robinson told Variety that "cost
considerations as well as the chance for greater exposure" led him to
premiere the sixty-minute-long horror flick on Hulu.


 

Related Links:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118017098.html

Social Games Developer Hangout Industries Gets $2 Million

By
Mark Hefflinger
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0

Boston
– Hangout Industries, a Boston-based developer of online social gaming services
for children, has raised $2 million in venture debt, according to a new filing
by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Hangout’s services
allow young users to create their own personalized avatars, play casual
mini-games, go shopping, throw parties for their friends, or just hangout in
virtual environments.

The company has raised a total of $12 million in venture
capital, according to published reports.

 

Related Links:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1396158

http://www.hangout.net

Playdom Acquires Argentine Game Developer Three Melons

By
Mark Hefflinger
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0

Mountain View,
Calif. – Playdom, a developer of
social games for Facebook and MySpace, said on Wednesday that it has acquired
Argentina-based online game developer Three Melons.

Financial terms of the deal
were not disclosed.

Three Melons has produced more than 50 games as a
third-party developer, and recently launched "Bola," its first
original title.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/v6jmt

http://snipurl.com/v6jgg
(Three Melons blog)

http://www.playdom.com

Isohunt

By
Mark Hefflinger
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0

Judge Orders Isohunt to Remove Infringing BitTorrent Links

By
Mark Hefflinger
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Los Angeles
– A federal judge has ordered BitTorrent file-sharing network search engine Isohunt
to remove all infringing content, giving the site’s 27-year-old Canadian owner Gary
Fung until April 12 to work with the Motion Picture Association of America
(MPAA) on a means of complying with the court, according to published reports. A
proposed injunction would force Isohunt to install a filter that would remove
torrents containing a list of banned keywords provided by the MPAA.

Fung told
TorrentFreak he will object to the implementation of a filter, and instead
propose creating a "lite" version of Isohunt.

This "lite"
version would remove torrent categories and simply feature a search box,
similar to Google.

It’s possible that Fung may also simply choose to block
access to Isohunt from U.S.
visitors to comply with the court.

"We’re discussing the mechanics, the
process that is reasonable for an injunction," Fung told Wired.com, adding
that keyword search filtering could inadvertently target non-infringing works.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/v6itq
(TorrentFreak)

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/isohunt

http://www.isohunt.com

U.S. Copyright Group

By
Mark Hefflinger
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0
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