StartUp Beat

-Today’s Los Angeles Times includes an article about how bankers and VCs are aggressively courting small “clean tech” companies in California.  It will be interesting to see how this sector develops over the next few years.  Link:  Capital is chasing clean-tech firms

-As noted earlier this week, several local companies are launching or debuting new products at the DEMO 07 show out in Palm Desert.  Tomorrow’s news will include a roundup of local company announcements from the conference.

1/31/07 - LeadPoint, the Los Angeles-based online leads exchange, yesterday announced the debut of a new lead trading platform for the new car market.  Building upon its mortgage leads exchange platform, which counts almost all of the top mortgage lenders in the country as customers, LeadPoint's latest offering brings the company's auction-style model to the automotive leads market.  Initially targeted to new car purchase and auto warranty, LeadPoint says that it will expand its automotive platform over the next several months to also include auto finance leads.

LeadPoint says that the new service enables dealers to dictate exactly what type of lead they want at the exact price they are willing to pay.  Dealers who use LeadPoint's new car leads exchange are not committed to minimum volumes and they can change their bid criteria and price at any time.

“Our new auto leads platform fundamentally alters the economics of how car dealerships market themselves online by eliminating the high costs of buying irrelevant leads and by enabling dealers to respond more quickly to promising customers,” said Marc Diana, CEO of LeadPoint.  “Over the past year we have received a phenomenal response to our mortgage industry products and we anticipate a similarly robust adoption of our auto platform as dealers see how easily they can improve their sales with LeadPoint.”

LeadPoint says that more than 1.6 million leads have been traded through its service since its inception in 2004.  In contrast to the fixed-price model where buyers have no control over the leads they are buying and paying the same amount for each lead regardless of quality, the LeadPoint platform allows these lenders to bid only for the types of leads they are interested in receiving.

LeadPoint - www.leadpoint.com

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1/31/07 - Los Angeles-based LiveDigital, an Oversee.net company, has unveiled a user-generated channel and video programming platform, allowing any user to design, program and brand their own "Internet channel.”  The company says that for the first time, users can harness the thousands of videos uploaded by others and “program” them for public viewing.  In addition, each month, LiveDigital will have a “Sweeps” period, and split projected advertising revenues among the top 25 channels.  Set to launch Feb. 1, the user-driven advertising and revenue sharing contest will give channel producers the chance to compete for $25,000 in cash.

“We believe that video sharing and hosting technology has become a commodity on the web.  Most of the top video sharing sites host the same popular videos,” said Sumant Sridharan, director of new media for LiveDigital.  “The real talent is how to present media in an entertaining way that will engage users for a longer period of time.”

Users of the service will be able to take over all facets of entertainment programming, including content management, design, advertising and promotion, and detailed statistical analysis.  The company also says that channel producers will have the option to show advertising on their respective channels, allowing those that serve more ads and have higher viewership to incrementally earn more money.

“As consumers gain control of their online entertainment, the Internet is being used as today’s TV, as viewers are able to find and view dynamic entertainment that simply cannot be found on mainstream television,” said Lawrence Ng, co-founder and CEO of Oversee.net.  “Most of today's video sharing sites are merely an assorted collection of content loosely organized by tags and categories.  Content becomes much more entertaining when it is programmed in a meaningful way.  LiveDigital is the first site to recognize this and provide the tools that allow each user to become their own program director.”

According to LiveDigital, additional features include a powerful set of enhanced technology features to add, edit and organize new content from anywhere on the web and “brand” their channel by customizing its every aspect with LiveDigital’s AJAX-based Theme Editor.  Programmers can also send custom newsletters and updates to channel subscribers, allow others to contribute to their channel and monitor channel performance statistics with a built-in traffic monitor so they can increase their channel’s popularity by giving their viewers what they want to see.

LiveDigital - www.livedigital.com

Oversee.net – www.oversee.net

Posted by startupbeat at 08:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

-Here’s an intriguing product for iPod fanatics (and raises the possibility of expanding the usefulness of the device).  Los Angeles-based Mogopop, founded last year and just recently launched, is a free web-based service that allows the creation, publishing and downloading of content to the iPod.  The site is www.mogopop.com, and a review of the service was posted a few days ago at iLounge:  http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/ipod/review/9410/

-Beyond just the well-known consumer services like Skype and Vonage, Internet telephony continues to be a fast growing and interesting sector.  This is a post from GigaOm about a local company called Fonality (based in Los Angeles), a startup that provides corporate-class PBX voice-over-IP solutions based on an open-source system called Asterisk:  http://gigaom.com/2007/01/25/fonality-digium/

1/30/07 - El Segundo-based Siderean Software, the leading provider of relational navigation solutions, today announced that the company has received United States patent number 7,146,362 for its faceted metadata navigation technology.  Siderean’s relational navigation solution allows end-users to gain greater access to and control over search results from enterprise and web-based information resources.

The company says that its patented solution groups metadata facets in a relational navigation engine, providing end-users with the ability to manipulate and steer through search results with the industry’s most dynamic and flexible navigation solution.

“In today’s 'network-centric' enterprise much of the critical information is unstructured, resides outside the enterprise and is not readily ‘managed’ or ‘controlled’ in the traditional IT sense.  Participation is a critical value and Siderean’s patented relational navigation solution sets a new standard that will be a key component for those organizations looking to adopt web 2.0 ideals in order to stay relevant.” said Brad Allen, CTO and founder of Siderean.  “This patent is a powerful endorsement of the unique value we’re delivering to our customers through our relational navigation technology.  With the scope of information within the enterprise and across the web growing exponentially every day, organizations worldwide are now beginning to realize that enterprise search is simply not enough as people demand more social interaction with information.  Relational navigation opens pathways to improved information discovery, and this patent validates our position as leader in information access and our vision for the future of the industry.”

In a separate announcement, the company claimed record revenue growth for 2006 resulting from several key customer wins, including the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Siderean’s information access platform provides organizations with solutions for navigating and managing structured and unstructured content.  The company’s flagship product is the Seamark Navigator.

Siderean - www.siderean.com

Posted by startupbeat at 08:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1/30/07 - Westlake Village-based Xirrus, the provider of high performance, long range wi-fi products, today announced test results by The Tolly Group confirming multiple features of the company’s Wi-Fi Array designed to maximize network uptime and create a highly available, resilient wi-fi network.

According to Xirrus, features of the Wi-Fi Array that were successfully tested included failover capabilities of the integrated access points, gigabit uplink ports, wireless backhaul links and complete array to array failover ensuring continued wi-fi connectivity for users.

“During testing, we were impressed with the robustness of the Xirrus Wi-Fi Array,” said Kevin Tolly, president, CEO and founder of The Tolly Group. “We have yet to see another Wi-Fi solution with as many integrated failover features designed to ensure maximum network uptime.”

“Given that wireless networking has become the preferred connection of choice for users running mission-critical applications, all enterprise-class wi-fi solutions should provide resiliency at multiple levels within their system to assure uninterrupted operation in the corporate network,” said Kurt Sauter, director of product marketing at Xirrus.  “The result of The Tolly Group’s testing proves the integrated nature of the Wi-Fi Array’s design delivers on multiple points of resiliency verifying the dependability of the solution in all situations.”

The Tolly Group was commissioned by Xirrus to conduct the testing.

The Tolly Group - www.tolly.com

Xirrus - www.xirrus.com

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-Oversee.net Sponsoring Conference Featuring Arrington and Zapolin – DomainSponsor, a business of Los Angeles-based Oversee.net, today announced the agenda for its upcoming DOMAINfest conference.  According to the company, Mike “Zappy” Zapolin, Co-Founder of the Internet Real Estate Group, LLC, will deliver the opening keynote on February 1.  Michael Arrington, editor and founder of TechCrunch, will be the luncheon keynote speaker on the same day.  The conference will take place this Wednesday through Saturday at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel.  More information can be found here: http://www.domainfest.com/

-Sunday’s Los Angeles Times includes a very comprehensive write-up on Los Angeles-based Internet video startup Stickam.  Link to the story: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-webscout28jan28,1,4878760.story?track=crosspromo&coll=la-headlines-entnews&ctrack=1&cset=true

-Check out MacWorld’s review of Playa Del Rey-based Axiotron’s new ModBook tablet Mac: http://www.macworld.com/2007/01/firstlooks/modbook_fl/index.php

-Here is an interesting article on MediaShift that deals with the ubiquitous web 2.0 question – “Is this another bubble?”: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2007/01/bubbliciouspaidcontent_crowd_t.html

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1/29/07 – Six companies from the greater Los Angeles area have been chosen to participate in the DEMO 07 conference, taking place this week.  Those selected include Panjea and Shipwire.com, based in Los Angeles, eJamming, based in Valley Village, and TeleFlip, based in Santa Monica.  Other local companies selected include Newport Beach-based CircleUp and Irvine-based Integrien.

The DEMO conferences are notable for the format, which allows startups and companies with innovative new products to launch in front of media, investors, business development executives and other entrepreneurs.  This year, according to show organizers, 68 carefully vetted products and services will be introduced at the event.

The Los Angeles-area companies selected represent a wide range of services and technologies, from Panjea, a social networking site for artists, to Shipwire.com, an order fulfillment and shipping company, to TeleFlip, which offers PC-to-mobile device text messaging.

In its 17th year, past DEMO events have served as a launch pad event for companies like Palm, E*Trade, Handspring and U.S. Robotics.   The show will take place this Tuesday through Thursday in Palm Desert.

DEMO - www.demo.com

-Cal Tech and UCLA Scientists Design Molecular Memory Chip – The chip is an exciting breakthrough for the future of computing power.  The New York Times covers the news here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/science/25chip.html

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1/26/07 - Inglewood-based Leads360, a provider of on-demand lead management solutions, has introduced a new, easy-to-use integrated process for verifying leads against the Federal Trade Commission's Do Not Call (DNC) National Registry.  The system is designed to ensure compliance with all DNC restrictions.

“Compliance with state and federal DNC regulations is a particularly important issue for us and our clients.  Our LeadManager solution allows our clients to quickly and easily ensure that the leads they generate and purchase remain valid and viable business opportunities.  In the past, this process was cumbersome, time consuming and costly; now it's just part of the package,” said Charles Chase, president and COO of Leads360.

In 2003, the federal DNC list system was introduced, making it an offense to call a consumer who has registered to be excluded from telemarketing sales.  Similar additional regulations exist in 37 states.  Fines of up to $11,000 per occurrence can be imposed on companies that fail to comply.

“Integrated DNC scrubbing allows our clients to focus on their core business, rather than wasting time continually exporting lists of names to be checked against the national registry,” said Chase.  “Our clients know that by using the LeadManager, they can perform their business activities in a manner that serves the community and at the same time complies with applicable state and federal laws.”

Leads360 - www.leads360.com

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1/26/07 - Westlake Village-based Inphi has announced the start of a hiring initiative designed to fill more than 30 engineering, marketing, sales and administrative positions in its Westlake Village offices during 2007.  The company cited strong growth and increasing demand for its high-performance components as the impetus for the initiative.

Founded in 2000, Inphi designs and manufactures devices that perform critical functions in consumer electronics, communications and computing platforms.

“As Inphi continues to experience robust, year-on-year growth, the need to expand and strengthen our infrastructure becomes a critical success factor,” said Paul Washkewicz, vice president marketing and sales for Inphi.  “This proactive initiative will ensure we are fully prepared to meet our customers’ needs in all aspects of our business.”

The company says that its work environment blends entrepreneurial spirit and energy with teamwork and innovation.  Through this initiative, Inphi hopes to attract experienced individuals who can tackle challenging problems and develop innovative, customer-oriented solutions.

Inphi - www.inphi-corp.com

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1/25/07 - Santa Barbara-based Procore Technologies, provider of the Procore software-as-a-service (SaaS) online tool for construction project management, announced this week that the company has successfully closed its Series B Preferred financing with $4 million in new investment capital.  The investment round was led by venture firm Great Pacific Capital.

“We are extremely pleased with the additional financing we have secured through Great Pacific Capital and other private investors,” said Tooey Courtemanche, Procore CEO.  “We’re immediately putting these funds to work in order to accelerate our sales and marketing efforts in 2007.”

The company estimates that the construction project management industry is a $4 billion national market, and says that it has only recently begun to integrate Internet-based applications into its day-to-day processes.  Procore is designed to use the Internet to consolidate the communication and scheduling needs of contractors, architects and other project team members in one, easy-to-use interface.

Procore, founded in 2002, currently claims more than 2,500 active users and more than 60 accounts.  The company says that clients are located throughout the United States and include both residential and commercial contractors.  With the proceeds from this second round of financing, Procore is looking to dramatically increase the size of its client base.

“Procore has grown largely through word-of-mouth and customer referrals over the past two years,” said Steve Zahm, Procore president.  “These new investment funds will allow us to scale up our advertising and have a significant presence at industry events and trade shows.  Procore has a great product, and now we’ll be able to let our potential customers know what we have to offer.”

Procore - www.procore.com

Great Pacific Capital - www.greatpactificcapital.com

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1/25/07 - Homassist Corp. announced today that that it has signed an agreement to acquire Irvine-based The Family Post.

According to the company, The Family Post was conceived and designed to provide high quality destination web sites for families that allow them to add user-generated digital content to the web.

The company was founded by Michael Sawtell, former president and COO of Interchange (now Local.com).  According to the company, during his tenure, he managed Interchange to seven straight profitable quarters and helped raise over $25 million in an initial public offering on NASDAQ.

Other members of The Family Post team include Darin Brannan, a member of the advisory board and the founder of Verio, which was sold in 2000 for $5.5 billion in cash.  Brannan is also the founder of WebsitePros (NASDAQ:WSPI), a leading producer of business websites for small and medium enterprises.  Steven Dong, who has served as CFO for Taitron Components (NASDAQ:TAIT), is an original investor in The Family Post and serves as the company’s CFO.

After the closing of the transaction, Homassist Corp. will change its name to DigitalPost Interactive, Inc., the name currently held by the parent company of The Family Post.

The Family Post - www.thefamilypost.com

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-Energy Innovations President Offers Opinion on State of the Union – Andrew Beebe, president of IdeaLab startup Energy Innovations, is making himself available for commentary on energy policy and President Bush’s State of the Union address, according to the Campaign for America’s Future.  Pasadena-based Energy Innovations focuses on renewable energy solutions and recently announced that it would build a solar electricity system for Google at its Mountain View headquarters (see announcement).  Link to announcement from the Campaign for America’s Future: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-23-2007/0004511609&EDATE=

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1/24/07 - Ripple, the El Segundo-based developer, distributor and programmer of out-of-home digital networks, announced yesterday that it has secured $5 million in a first round of capital funding from Trinity Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.  The company says it plans to increase its footprint in Southern California and into other major U.S. markets.

Ripple claims that it is already broadcasting on HD screens in over 375 Southern California and Hawaii retail locations, and that its programming is seen by over seven million viewers each month.  Content includes headline news from CBS, sports from ESPN and entertainment news from E!, as well as video and location-based informational content from top television and Internet brands.

“Trinity Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson have solid experience in both retail and technology, which we feel can help us successfully scale our network,” said Alex Nocifera, president of sales and distribution for Ripple.  “We are excited to add their knowledge and vision to our team.”

Ripple, previously called ActiveMaps, offers an opportunity for national and local advertisers to target hard-to-reach, sought-after audiences while being presented next to household content brands.  The company says its current distribution partners include Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Diedrich Coffee, Jiffy Lube, CBS Outdoor, Arden Realty, Kilroy Realty and G&L Realty.  Ripple’s media partners include ESPN, E! Entertainment, Yahoo!, CBS and Clear Channel.

“Ripple’s strong network, impressive technology platform for self-serve advertising and distribution and compelling content are reaching specific consumers exactly where they are during the course of the day, in high-traffic retail locations,” said Timothy McAdam, general partner for Trinity Ventures.  “Digital out-of-home advertising is a hot sector and we are pleased to add a leader in this space to our portfolio. We look forward to being an integral part of Ripple’s growth.”

"Ripple is uniquely positioned to capture the value created by converging worlds: Internet media, out-of-home networks and local advertising,” said Emily Melton, partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson.  “Ripple will change the way people experience content out of home and DFJ is excited to be part of this next generation media network."

Ripple - www.rippletv.com

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1/24/07 - eNom, a Demand Media company and ICANN-accredited wholesale domain registrar, announced today that it is working with Microsoft to enable the new domain registration services feature in Windows Live Custom Domains.

“Microsoft understands the importance of providing its customers an opportunity to create permanent, unique, personalized addresses on the web while using its Windows Live services, and we are helping make this possible,” said Paul Stahura, eNom founder and CEO and president of Demand Media.  “Our strategy is to offer world-class infrastructure, tools and domain knowledge to companies like Microsoft to put the power in the hands of the customer.”

According to the company, Windows Live Custom Domains allows consumers to easily create custom Windows Live accounts in their personal domain which then works with Windows Live and MSN services, including Mail, Messenger and Spaces.  For those who do not currently have a domain and wish to create one, eNom then enables them to register for such top level domains (TLDs) as .com, .net, .org, .info and .biz, and provide identity protection.

“From the soccer mom to the local non-profit—more and more, we are seeing end users’ desire to stake their own claim online,” said Stahura.  “As a new media company with the world’s largest domain reseller network, we are able to work with the likes of Microsoft and other online media leaders to give users access to this new form of personalization.”  

Santa Monica-based Demand Media is a vertical media company that was founded in May of last year.  The company owns a diverse platform of web properties including eNom, Hillclimb Media and eHow.com.

eNom – www.enom.com

Demand Media - www.demandmedia.com

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-Southern California Takes No.2 Position in VC Investment – According to a study conducted by Dow Jones for Ernst & Young, Southern California trails only the San Francisco Bay Area in VC investment nationwide.  The study said that VC investment in the Southern California region surged 25 percent last year.  Here is a write up on the study from the Los Angeles Times (reg. req’d: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-venture23jan23,1,2528337.story?coll=la-headlines-business), and a link to the announcement and summary of the survey results from Dow Jones and Ernst & Young (http://www.primenewswire.com/newsroom/news.html?d=112219)

-PropPoint Appoints Two New Executives – PropPoint, the Los Angeles-based Tenant In Common (TIC) 1031 real estate exchange specialist company today announced the hiring of Ryan Stepp and Scott Bjornson.  According to the company, Stepp will become the company’s vice president, client services, and will support the company’s TIC 1031 real estate investment business throughout California.  Bjornson will lead the company’s expansion into Florida and the Southeastern United States, according to a company announcement.  Link to company press releases: (http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070123005401&newsLang=en) (http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070123005412&newsLang=en)

-Interview With Energy Innovations Management – WorldChanging.com features an interview with Andrew Beebe, president of Pasadena-based Energy Innovations, and Bill Gross of IdeaLab and CEO of Energy Innovations.  Link to interview: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/005829.html

Posted by startupbeat at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1/23/07 - Los Angeles-based Oversee.net, a leader in direct navigation, lead generation and online advertising solutions, has announced that it will be expanding and relocating to a new 45,000 square foot downtown Los Angeles headquarters.  The new space will be located at 515 S. Flower St. and will encompass the entire 43rd and 44th floors of the former ARCO headquarters.  According to the company, the move is scheduled for this summer.

Recently ranked as the third fastest growing private business in Los Angeles by the Los Angeles Business Journal, Oversee originally moved to the downtown business district area in late 2003 with 20 employees.  Today, Oversee says that it employs 160 and with this move is set to double the square footage of its office space.

“Our new headquarters reaffirms our commitment to our employees and clients.  Oversee continues to capitalize on the technologies we developed to drive quality Internet traffic,” said Oversee’s co-founder and CEO Lawrence Ng.  “Our focus has always been on disciplined growth which has helped us thrive in the technology industry.  This is an important investment in our future and will foster the Oversee spirit and professional development of our employees, increase productivity, and ultimately improve and expand the services we offer to our customers.  The new 30,000 square foot gym and trendy restaurants and bars within the Plaza will help further Oversee's position as one of the best places to work.”

Mark T. Sullivan, executive vice president of the commercial tenant firm Studley, represented Oversee in the transaction.  “From economics, amenities and location, the 515 S. Flower location is ideal for a rapidly growing technology company like Oversee.net,” said Sullivan.

Oversee.net - www.oversee.net

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1/23/07 - Westlake Village-based Xirrus, the provider of high performance, long range wi-fi products, announced today that Sierra Corporation has completed a deployment of Xirrus Wi-Fi Arrays at Carter G. Woodson Collegiate Academy, a Friendship Public Charter School located in Washington D.C.

The company says that the deployment consists of 16 Wi-Fi Arrays, which cover the entire three building campus supporting more than 500 students, faculty and school employees.  

“The nature of our site is that one or two classrooms at a time will be using the Internet,” said Donald L. Hense, chairman of Friendship Public Charter School.  “We needed to be able to offer reliable and high-speed wireless Internet access for research as part of our commitment to providing state-of-the-art facilities to our students and faculty.”

“At Sierra Corporation, we offer only the best products to our customers, and Xirrus’ Wi-Fi Array is the highest performing product we’ve seen in the market,” said Rassul B. Hashemi, president, Sierra Corporation.  “Our partnership with Xirrus allows us to deploy a wi-fi network for our clients that offers twice the range and four times the coverage, making it an ideal solution for schools and other large facilities deploying wi-fi.”

Last week, Xirrus announced a partnership with smplsolutions (see story).  The company’s founders include Dirk Gates, who started Xircom.  Xirrus is funded by VC firms that include U.S. Venture Partners and August Capital.

Xirrus – www.xirrus.com

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-Geni.com Swamped By Site Traffic – Apparently, the Los Angeles-based family tree startup Geni has been overwhelmed with attention and the resulting surge in visitors to its web site since its launch last week (see story).  Michael Arrington at TechCrunch writes about the unique challenges the startup has been facing as a result.  Link:  Geni Overwhelmed With Early Popularity

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1/22/07 - The fourth-annual Los Angeles County Technology Week, featuring events promoting the technology business community in the Los Angeles area, kicks off today with a “Fast Pitch Competition” at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.  According to organizers, the competition presents management from startup companies the opportunity for a 60 second presentation of their business concept to venture capitalists. 

Sponsored by a diverse group of companies, investors, business consortiums and colleges, Los Angeles County Technology Week will also include panels that address issues that range from sustainable technology, to marketing, to women entrepreneurs and executives.

The week of events is produced by Technology and Development Group, LLC, and presented in conjunction with the Business Technology Center of Los Angeles County.  Los Angeles County Technology Week concludes Friday.

Los Angeles County Technology Week - www.latechweek.com

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-MTV Networks Invests in TagWorld – PaidContent.org reported this week that Viacom's MTVN has invested in Santa Monica-based social networking site TagWorld.  Click for full article.

-Is Web 2.0 Hitting a Wall? – Red Herring writes about the viability of “web 2.0” companies.  Full article: Web 2.0 Losing Steam?

Posted by startupbeat at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1/18/07 - Stickam, the Los Angeles-based online video company, announced today they will be providing a behind-the-scenes look this year at the Sundance Film Festival.  The company says that from January 18th through the 21st it will be on-site to capture the best parties and events Sundance attracts every year to broadcast to a worldwide audience of over 5 million.

Stickam will broadcast live from Sundance parties in Park City, Utah.  The company, which claims more than 300,000 users, says it will showcase exclusive footage from industry dinners, celebrity poker tournaments and Main Street outside the festival walls.

“Providing the exclusive footage for Sundance Escape 2007 will allow users and visitors to Stickam to be a part of the fun and excitement Sundance has captured for the last 25 years,” said Scott Flacks, Stickam vice president.  “Add to that the ability to broadcast live and conduct interactive web chats with celebrities and festival revelers, Stickam is a perfect blend of entertainment and technology and is the future of social networking.”

Stickam – www.stickam.com

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1/18/07 – Los Angeles-based Oversee.net today announced that it has established a $60 million, five-year, secured revolving credit facility.  According to the company, the credit facility was arranged and managed by Banc of America Securities LLC.  Bank of America, N.A., will serve as administrative agent.  A syndicate of lenders and financial institutions is participating in the facility with Bank of America, including Comerica Bank, California Bank and Trust and Silicon Valley Bank.

“We are pleased to have established this revolving credit line,” said Lawrence Ng, CEO and co-founder of Oversee.net.  “This line of credit will give us additional financial flexibility to support Oversee’s aggressive growth plans.  Because of the company’s excellent credit history, we were able to execute this transaction on very favorable terms.”

Oversee.net plans to utilize the credit facility for acquisitions, working capital and other general corporate purposes.  During the past year, the company has pursued an aggressive acquisition program, purchasing domain portfolios and established lines of business.  It monetizes more than 2.5 million domain names through its DomainSponsor business and owns a portfolio of more than 500,000 names.  In addition, Oversee recently announced the purchase of LowFares.com, the premier travel product comparison research site for consumers.

Oversee.net – www.oversee.net

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-Soapbox Mobile Launches Mobile Ticketing Platform With Amp’d Mobile – Soapbox Mobile announced today that through their collaboration with Los Angeles-based Amp'd Mobile and MovieTickets.com, a MovieTickets.com branded application is now live on Amp'd Mobile handsets.  Read more at MobileTechNews: http://www.mobiletechnews.com/info/2007/01/18/125021.html

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-X Prize Foundation Names New President – The Santa Monica-based nonprofit prize institute that offers multi-million-dollar awards for breakthrough innovations, including the Ansari X PRIZE for private spaceflight, announced the appointment of Tom Vander Ark as president.  See press release about Vander Ark’s appointment - http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070117005290&newsLang=en

-Michael Arrington at TechCrunch blogs about new Los Angeles-based startup Geni.com - http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/01/16/geni-launches/

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1/17/07 - Los Angeles-based FYI – Film Your Issue—and Yahoo! announced today that Yahoo! will be the exclusive online sponsor of the “Issue Film” competition, an initiative to engage young adults in public dialogue about pressing issues of importance, locally or internationally. 

Beginning today, young people ages 16-to-25 in America and worldwide are invited to create 30- to 60-second short online videos that focus on contemporary issues that matter most to them.  FYI says that these videos empower young adults to engage in pressing social issues and allow them to add their voice to the public dialogue through the increasingly popular medium of online video.  Yahoo! will host the videos through its recently-acquired Jumpcut online video editing and remixing site, and the competition will be promoted across the Yahoo! network.

Additionally, according to the companies, as the “exclusive online partner” of this initiative, Yahoo! will provide a voting platform and provide online video editing and publishing tools through Jumpcut.  With Jumpcut's free online editing tools, contestants can create and upload videos of their own original footage or remix their video or others from public video clips and photos available on Jumpcut from the community.

Yahoo! also says that Terry Semel, its chairman and CEO, will be a judge on a panel compiled by Film Your Issue.  Other judges include Walter Cronkite, Brian Williams, John Cusack, Wolf Blitzer and Peter Jackson.

FYI was founded by HeathCliff Rothman, a co-founder of Global Vision for Peace/Artists for the U.N., in collaboration with The American Democracy Project (ADP).  This year’s competition will launch in Park City, Utah during film festival season.  FYI says that it is also presenting as special guests representatives from its global organizational partners, the United Nations DPI, The Humane Society and Natural Resources Defense Council, under the joint banner of Film and Social Consciousness during the festival season.

Entries will be posted on Yahoo! and Jumpcut beginning February 1.  

FYI—Film Your Issue – www.filmyourissue.com

Jumpcut – www.jumpcut.com

Yahoo! – www.yahoo.com

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1/16/07 - Xirrus, the Westlake Village-based provider of high-performance, long-range Wi-Fi products, announced today that smplsolutions has begun deploying Xirrus’ award-winning Wi-Fi Array within several vertical applications including education, warehousing and medical facilities.

“Partnering with Xirrus allows us to take our current Triple Play product offerings and combine them with the most advanced Wi-Fi networking solution for our customers,” said David Case, president and CEO of smplsolutions.  “We have deployed the Xirrus solution in a number of sites and are continually impressed with the coverage, capacity and security offered by their Wi-Fi Arrays.”

“We are pleased that smpl selected Xirrus’ Wi-Fi Array as part of their product portfolio,” said Dirk Gates, CEO of Xirrus.  “Converging technology companies are looking for solutions that provide ease-of-use without the hassle of implementation, configuration and security concerns – our powerful Wi-Fi Arrays deliver superior coverage with less equipment than the competing Wi-Fi vendor under consideration.”

Xirrus Arrays pack 4, 8 or 16 radios along with an onboard Gigabit Ethernet Switch into a compact, ceiling mountable device that supports 802.11a, b and g and has been architected in advance to fully support 802.11n when the standard is ratified.  The high radio count and sectored antenna system allows Xirrus customers to support a large number of users with less devices while lowering costs.

Xirrus - www.xirrus.com

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1/16/07 - Internet and entertainment entrepreneur David O. Sacks today announced the launch of a new web site, Geni.com, with the mission “to create a family tree of the entire world.”  Based in Los Angeles, the company claims that the site is among the first to apply “web 2.0” principles of social media, mass collaboration, and user-generated content to genealogy.

Sacks, who is CEO of Geni, Inc., founded the company six months ago and has been quietly developing the software with a team of engineers.  The company’s CTO and co-founder is Alan Braverman, who previously founded Xoom, an international online money transfer site.

Sacks has a track record in both new and old media, serving as COO of PayPal, followed by his founding of Room 9 Entertainment, a Los Angeles-based production and finance company, for which he continues to serve as CEO.  He produced the feature film “Thank You For Smoking,” for which he is currently nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture in the Comedy or Musical category.

“The rise of social media makes it possible for humans to collaborate and solve problems in new ways,” said Sacks.  “One such area is genealogy.  Mass collaboration via the Internet finally puts us in a position to understand how every human being on earth is related.  That is our goal.”

The Geni web site allows users to create a family tree through what the company describes as a “fun, simple interface.”  When the user adds a relative’s email address, that relative is invited to join the tree.  That relative can then add other relatives, and so on.  Each tree continues to grow as relatives invite other relatives.  When trees start to overlap, the site will provide the option of merging them.  Eventually, the goal is to get to one family tree of the whole world.

“There are a lot of data islands out there,” Sacks said.  “We want to bring them together.”  

The site will also serve as an archive to millions of families’ genealogical histories which can be permanently stored by users.

Geni is free to use.  The company says it will generate revenue through advertising and eventually by layering on premium services for power users.

Geni is financially backed by venture capital firm Founders Fund in San Francisco, which was founded by former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel.

Geni.com - www.geni.com

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1/16/07 - Amp’d Mobile, the Los Angeles-based mobile entertainment provider, today announced content distribution deals with the NBA, CSTV and