Moonshoot Gets $6.6 Million for Games That Teach Kids English
Palo Alto,
Calif. – Moonshoot, a company
developing online games that teach the English language to children, announced that
it has raised $6.6 million in venture capital financing, led by Alsop Louie
Partners and TL Ventures.
Founded in 2007, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Moonshoot plans
to launch its service later this year, first in Japan
before expanding to Asian countries including China,
Taiwan and Korea.
The company also said that
it named Tom Kalinske as executive chairman; Kalinske was previously CEO and
chairman of Leapfrog, CEO of Sega of America and CEO of Mattel.
Related Links:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/02/prweb3620354.htm
Study: URL Typos Netting Google $497 Million Annually
San Francisco – Google (NASD: GOOG) may be
earning $497 million each year from the ads that run on sites whose URLs are
similar to a popular site but mistyped by users, ZDNet.com reported, citing a
study from Harvard
University researchers
Ben Edelman and Tyler Moore. The researchers looked at 285,000 of 900,000
misspelled website URLs, and estimated that the top sites are collectively
receiving at least 68.2 million daily visitors.
Related Links:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=30897
Facebook Adopts PayPal for Ads, Virtual Goods Purchases
Palo Alto,
Calif. – Facebook announced on
Thursday that it has partnered with eBay’s (NASD: EBAY) online payments firm PayPal to enable use
of the platform on Facebook’s advertising and developer systems. International
advertisers will now be able to use PayPal to pay for Facebook Ads. In
addition, PayPal will become a payment option for Facebook Credits, which users
can purchase and buy virtual goods on Facebook
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uexoo
Amazon.com Offers Kindle E-book App for BlackBerry
Seattle
– Amazon.com (NASD: AMZN) on Thursday introduced a new Kindle e-book reader application for
Research in Motion’s (NASD: RIMM) BlackBerry smartphones. The free application will give BlackBerry owners
on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and other carriers direct access to the
Kindle store and 420,000 e-book titles. Amazon released a Kindle application
for Apple’s iPhone last March.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uexs8
Verizon Releases FiOS TV Remote Control App for Smartphones
New York
– Verizon (NYSE: VZ) on Thursday introduced a new mobile application for Motorola Droid
and HTC Imagio owners that will allow them to use the smartphones for its FiOS
TV digital TV service. The Verizon FiOS Mobile Remote application lets users
control channel changing, volume, the on-screen keyboard and DVR scheduling,
and also transfer photos stored on their phones to the TV screen.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uexv7
iCopyright Names Elston New CEO
Seattle
– iCopyright, a provider of online copyright tracking and licensing services,
announced on Thursday that it has named Andrew Elston as its new CEO. Elston,
who previously serves as vice president of publisher services at iCopyright,
replaces founder Mike O’Donnell, who will be working independently on new
strategic initiatives.
Related Links:
http://www.icopyright.com
Google Faces Class Action Suit Over Buzz Privacy Issues
San Francisco
– Despite the company’s attempts to address negative feedback by beefing up the
privacy features on its new Buzz social features within Gmail, Google (NASD: GOOG) now faces
a class action lawsuit over the new service, according to reports. Law firms in
San Francisco and D.C. on Wednesday filed a
class action complaint in federal court in California
on behalf of Eva Hibnick, a 24-year-old Harvard Law
School student, ABC News reported.
The lawsuit alleges that Google Buzz violates the Federal Electronic Communications
Privacy Act, Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Federal Stored
Communications Act and various California
state laws.
Hibnick told ABC she was "concerned that Google Buzz had
publicly disclosed her personal relationships."
The class action complaint
seeks an injunction against further similar privacy breaches by Google, in
addition to unspecified monetary damages.
"It’s not so much that we’re
expecting to get millions of people hundreds of dollars," Gary E. Mason,
an attorney representing Hibnick, told ABC News.
"What we’d like to see as
result is a commitment from Google that they’re not going to do this again the next
time they launch a product."
The lawsuit follows on the heels of a
complaint about Buzz filed with the Federal Trade Commission by privacy
watchdog the Electronic
Privacy Information
Center.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uexgf
(S.F. Chronicle)
http://snipurl.com/uexg4
(ABC News)
http://snipurl.com/uexjm
(DMW previous coverage)
Report: Some Apple E-books to Sell Below $12.99-$14.99
New York
– Apple’s (NASD: AAPL) deals with major publishers on pricing for e-books for its iPad may
be more flexible than previously expected, and allow the company to match
Amazon’s $9.99 list price on some titles, The New York Times reported.
Previous
reports indicated that Apple’s deals with Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan,
Penguin and Simon & Schuster set a price range for new releases of between
$12.99 and $14.99.
Three sources told The Times, however, that terms say
publishers must allow Apple to discount e-book prices on best-sellers.
Apple
also wants to discount e-book pricing on titles whose hardcover editions sell
for less than the industry standard $26 — even if they are not best-sellers.
Related Links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/technology/18apple.html
