Startup Genieo, which develops personalized home pages, has raised $3 million in seed funding from undisclosed investors. Genieo's technology automatically discovers the user’s topics of interest when they are browsing and generates a personal home-page with relevant content and personalized news widgets. A desktop application, Genieo maps and profiles user behavior on computers to determine what content to add to a user's hompage. Content that is integrated into Genieo's homepages include favorite websites,news/blog updates, Facebook status updates and Twitter Streams, a Google search bar, videos, and more.
Microsoft already featured the top search terms entered in its Bing search engine this year, leading us to conclude that "Michael Jackson Beats Out Twitter". On Bing, that is.But we could have picked nearly the same headline for Google's just-published Zeitgeist 2009, only it would read "Michael Jackson Beats Out Twitter, Facebook And Windows 7".Google once again examined the billions of queries that people around the world typed into its search box, weeded out the spam and NSFW stuff and came up with this list.
Animoto, the startup that allows you to take your images, video and your music and mash them together to create cool videos, is launching a holiday themed platform that lets you send fun and personal online greeting cards this year and provides nifty themed templates for users to work from. Animoto launched a similar initiative last year, but this year comes with more festive and innovative themes and options to bring cards to life, including pop-up cards, a Starry Night montage and a Pandora's Gift Box that will erupts into a shower of lights, colors, and wrapping.
It's interesting that Channel 4, a UK public sector broadcaster has set up an investment fund to back startups. It's even more interesting that the 4iP fund will tomorrow announce seven new investments totaling $830,000 as part of its mission to kick-start new investment in public service-oriented digital media. This is a bit like PBS investing in startups which can a) contribute to the public good and b) create an exit which pays back the investment far more than a traditional investment. TechCrunch Europe has acquired details of two of the investments. The first is GymFu, an iPhone app maker which creates apps like PushupFu designed to encourage people to get fit which we reviewed here. The other is to-be-launched The School Report Card, a new web service that should help parents make better informed decisions about which school to send their children. Here's what else we've learnt.
More and more startups are finally focusing on real business models, ones that are based on actually selling a product or service. For money, you know. The irony is that many get pretty far down the development path before realizing that adding billing infrastructure to their offering may not be as simple as integrating with PayPal's API. Choosing the right processor, and many times, processors, from a confusing multi-layered vendor ecosystem can be tricky. Poor decision-making when it comes to issues such as terms of pricing, business fit, or processing capability, can each be a deep gash in any startup's jugular. Payments-R-Us is trying to alleviate the confusion by providing a vendor-to-merchant wizard that makes it a snap to choose the right payment processor. The wizard is supplemented with some in-depth content aimed at educating merchants to better grasp the ins and outs of the terms and options offered by vendors so they can better negotiate agreements.
Digital Sky Technologies (aka DST), the Russian Internet holding company that holds stakes in several major Russian-language social networking and communication players and notably also recently invested in Facebook, is melting two of its largest portfolio companies together into one online powerhouse.Astrum Online Entertainment, itself formed by DST after merging five online game companies that were active mainly in Russia and Eastern Europe (Astrum Nival, Nikita.Online, IT Territory, TimeZero and DJ Games) back in 2007, will effectively become 100% owned by Mail.ru, the leading Internet portal in the Russian speaking world and equally majority-owned by DST.
Apple has long been rumored to integrate video conferencing capabilities in the iPhone, and most expected Skype to incorporate such a feature in its free application for iPhone and iPod Touch devices sooner or later, but Israel's fring is first to actually do it. Big caveat for starters: the camera on the iPhone 3GS is located on the back, which is handy for recording videos of people and locations in front of you but of course makes it impossible for you to point the camera at your own face while still being able to see the screen (unlike Nokia N Series phones for instance).
[Sweeden] Oskar Stål has joined Spotify as its new CTO after the departure of the original CTO Andreas Ehn, who left to pursue his own startup. I guess people slightly forget that next year Spotify is actually going to be 4 years old, even though it only launched publicly at the end of last year. (Long time in private beta).Stål comes from the mobile transaction company mBlox, where he's been for the last eight years, growing from a five-person start-up into a global business. By hiring a CTO with deep mobile experience it's clear Spotify sees the mobile as the key supporting plank in its structure. Last night I spoke to a Spotify contact who told me that since they launched the Symbian version of Spotify, the service has "gone crazy." Make of that what you will. Symbian, as a platform used by Nokia's non-smartphones, is of course a great deal more mainstream, especially in Europe, than the iPhone or Android.
Taiwan-headquartered Foxconn, the world's largest electronics manufacturer, will launch up to 10,000 consumer electronics retail stores in China, says China Daily. Until now they have not had a significant retail brand or presence.What will they sell? Probably some of the many products that they build for well known brands, including the iPhone, iPod, iMac, Sony Playstation, Sony Vaio notebooks, Amazon Kindle, Nokia phones and Nintendo Wii. But part of the plan, we've heard from an independent source, will be to use the retail presence in China to win manufacturing business as well. HP, Dell and others can move more of their business to Foxconn, along with a promise to get retail presence for their electronics in the Foxconn stores in China.Foxconn exports $55.6 billion of electronics from their factories in China, says the article, or about 3.9% of China's total exports. And that number may be lowballed. Our sources say no one outside of Foxconn even knows the real size of their exports, and that $100 billion/year or more is the street rumor in Asia.
BillShrink, the startup that looks to help users save money across verticals including cell phones, credit cards, and savings accounts, has just announced that it has grown to 1 million members since its launch in April 2008. Alongside the milestone, the site is also announcing that it has found "$1 billion in savings on everyday bills".That second statistic is a little confusing. BillShrink basically means that if its users had signed up for the top matches generated by its cost cutting tools, they would have saved a total of $1 billion. Of course, not everyone who uses the service decides to change their cell phone carrier or credit card, so the total amount of money saved isn't that high. That said, this is the first time BillShrink has disclosed the size of its userbase, and it's clear that the site is getting some solid traction.
Of the hundreds of companies I meet in any given country, I only write about a handful. Sometimes it’s the ones that seem to be copying a US idea, but in reality are building their company in a completely unique—and frequently more profitable—way. Other times, I’m captivated by an idea that’s perfect for an emerging market, but probably wouldn’t work in the US.But every once in a while I find a company that hits the trifecta: It’s addressing a big problem locally, it’s something I don’t think is offered in the US, and…. I want it. And when a product in undeveloped, chaotic, messy India can make someone in Silicon Valley feel jealous, you know that entrepreneur has come up with something good.
If you're going to leave your job at TechCrunch, you better have a good reason. I think Mark Hendrickson actually may have had one.Hendrickson left TechCrunch in March. After about two years of writing and doing development for TC, he got the startup itch. He formed a company, Worldly Developments, and along with co-founder Jay Marcyes is now ready to unveil their project: Plancast.As you can derive from the name, Plancast is a way to easily broadcast your plans to your online social circle. But a better way to think about it may be as a "Foursquare for the future," which is how Hendrickson often describes it. The main idea is that while many people use Foursquare and similar location-based services like Gowalla and Loopt to share where they are, Plancast is about sharing where they will be.
Google has just annouced the winners of its second Android Developer Challenge, a competition that looks to spur development on the Android platform by offering large cash grants to the winners. Thirty prizes were given out in total, with the top 3 winners from each of ten categories taking home $100,000, $50,000, or $25,000 respectively, with 3 overall winners walking away an additional $150,000, $50,000, or $25,000.The top winner overall was SweetDreams, an app that helps you send late night calls straight to voicemail and automatically conserves battery power by turning off features like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi at night. Second overall was What the Doodle!?, an app that's like an online multiplayer version of Pictionary. And third prize overall went to WaveSecure, a security/backup app that lets you track your phone's current location, lock it down or remote wipe your phone, and backup/restore data.
There's already been quite a bit of ink spilled over the demise of the CrunchPad but I thought I'd add a few drops. My opinion is this: the CrunchPad was a testament to the power of online media and a fascinating study in the ability of new media to enact real changes on the real world. While the product faltered, it's fascinating that the project went as far as it did given the forces arrayed against it.Think about what happened: if we reduce this to its component parts you have some dudes in California who talked to some dudes in Singapore and who agreed to work together on a piece of hardware. I've seen the prototypes and the thing worked and worked well. Most hardware manufacturers can barely take each others meetings let alone coordinate a massive project while separated by a culture and an ocean.
