March 15, 2010

Prague, Czech Republic – KIT digital, a
provider of software for video-on-demand services, announced on Monday that it
has acquired Multicast Media Technologies, a live event broadcaster, for $18
million in cash and stock.

Founded in 2001, Atlanta-based Multicast provides a
platform that broadcasts some 50,000 live events annually by nearly 1,000
organizations, and said it derives $12 million in annualized recurring license
fees for its software and services.

Prague-based KIT announced last week that
it raised $15 million in an equity offering.

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uusa8

http://www.multicastmedia.com

http://kit-digital.com

Recommendations Engine Hunch Lands $12 Million

Mark Hefflinger

March 15, 2010

New York
– Hunch, the provider of a recommendations service based on the collective
knowledge of the community, has raised $12 million in its second round of
funding, led by Khosla Ventures, All Things D reported.

New York-based Hunch
aims to "build the ‘taste graph’ of the web, analogous to the ‘social
graph’, mapping every person on the web to every entity on the web (be that a
hotel, or a tennis racket, poet, cookbook, etc.) and their affinity for that
entity."

Co-founder Caterina Fake, also a founder of Flickr, said on her
blog that the company, which has now raised a total of at least $14 million,
"had enough cash in the bank to take us out almost another year."

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uus35
(All Things D)

http://www.caterina.net/archive/001232.html

http://www.hunch.com

GyPSii Secures $11 Million for Social Mobile Applications

Mark Hefflinger

March 15, 2010

Amsterdam
– GyPSii, the provider of a location-enabled social media platform, announced
on Monday that it has closed an $11 million funding round, led by Schroders.

Amsterdam-based
GyPSii said its mobile lifestyle and location-based applications are offered by
carriers including China Mobile, China Unicom and Telefonica, and are bundled
on hundreds of millions of devices from Samsung, LG, HTC, Lenovo and Apple.

The
company on Monday also launched Tweetsii, a new mobile application for Twitter
that includes location features.

GyPSii will use the funds to support marketing
and additional product development.

http://www.gypsii.com

http://www.tweetsii.com

Sequoia Backs Mobile Application Developer Snaptu

Mark Hefflinger

March 15, 2010

Menlo Park,
Calif. – Snaptu, a developer of
mobile applications, announced that it has secured an undisclosed sum of new
funding from Sequoia Capital.

Tel Aviv, Israel-based Snaptu, formerly known as
Moblica, offers a mobile service that incorporates social networking, news,
information and sports applications into one application that works on a wide
range of mobile devices.

The company said that Snaptu has been downloaded to over
four million phones worldwide.

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

http://www.snaptu.com

Verizon Looks to Offer 4G Handset by Mid-2011

Mark Hefflinger

March 12, 2010

Barcelona
– Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) said this week that its first handset to utilize its
next-generation 4G network could become available by mid-2011 — some six
months sooner than expected, The Wall Street Journal reported. Verizon plans to
launch its 4G network in at least 25 U.S. markets by year’s end.

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/usyzv
(WSJ)

Google Debuts Mobile Stock Check Service for Retailers

Mark Hefflinger

March 12, 2010

Mountain View,
Calif. – Google (NASD: GOOG) this week rolled
out a new mobile shopping feature that lets consumers check to see if items
they are interested in purchasing are in stock at nearby retail stores. Initial
mobile Product Search retail partners include Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma,
Pottery Barn and West Elm. The service works with Android-powered mobile
phones, as well as the iPhone and Palm WebOS phones.

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/usz3u
(Google blog)

Zimbalam Launches Digital Music Distribution Service in U.S.

Mark Hefflinger

March 12, 2010

Paris – Zimbalam, a unit of
Believe Digital that operates a digital music distribution and marketing
network, on Friday announced its U.S. launch. The service offers
artists access to 25 digital music stores and services, including iTunes and
Spotify. The company said it charges an "industry-low annual fee" of
$30 for the first year, then $19.98 per year after for an EP or album. Once the
fee is recouped, artists keep 100% of royalties.

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

http://www.believedigital.com

http://www.zimbalam.com

Twitter Launches Location-sharing Feature

Mark Hefflinger

March 12, 2010

San Francisco
– Twitter this week introduced a new location-sharing feature, which gives
users the option to include the location from where they are sending their
tweets.

"A recent burst of interest in location sharing applications,
games and services has many Twitter users excited about appending geographic
data to some of their tweets," Twitter co-founder and CEO Biz Stone wrote
on the company’s blog.

Stone added that "not everyone wants to add their
current location to a tweet," so the company has turned the feature off by
default, meaning users must activate location-sharing.

TechCrunch noted that
Twitter has offered a geolocation feature through its API since last November,
but this week’s move marks the first time it will be available directly from
the site.

The new feature currently only supports Firefox 3.5 and Chrome
browsers for Windows.

http://snipurl.com/usyh9
(TechCrunch)

Survey: More Than Half of Workers Check Devices While Driving

Mark Hefflinger

March 12, 2010

Chicago
– More than half of workers who own smart phones said that they check their
devices while driving a vehicle, according to a new survey by CareerBuilder.

Sales professionals (66%) admitted to being the biggest offenders.

Twenty-one
percent of workers said that they check their devices each time they vibrate or
beep, and 18% said that they are required by their companies to be accessible
beyond office hours.

"The lines between work and life can be very blurry
these days," said Rosemary Haefner, the vice president of human resources
at CareerBuilder.

"Seventeen percent of workers said they feel like their
work day never ends because of technology connecting them to the office."

Haefner said that workers need to allot technology-free time when away from the
office, to both reduce the potential for burnout and avoid risky behavior.

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uswx2