SoCal CTO
SEPTEMBER 22, 2008
Found this via Ben Kuo - The math behind Internet advertising businesses The advertising equivalence principle? So if we assume that a $1 CPM is about right and figure out what audience is required to build a $100MM annual revenue business, we find out that we need 8.33 billion monthly page views and over 300 million monthly unique visitors creating 25 page views per user.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 19, 2008
Jan Zands is the founders of Los Angeles-based phonesheet.com (www.phonesheet.com), a startup which is developing web-based software for tracking phone messages and action items. We ran into Jan and thought it would be interesting to talk to him about the story behind the firm and its software. What is Phonesheet.com? Jan Zands: It's a web based phone message manager.
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Technology Council
SEPTEMBER 26, 2008
Phil Becker writes: On Wednesday, September 24, I had the opportunity to moderate a truly interesting and educational dinner meeting of that Tech Council's Marketing SIG. An audience of about fifty people heard three panelists speak on “The New Business Boosters; How Blogging, Widgets and Streaming Video Can Make Your Marketing Efforts Take Off“ As that title [.
SoCal Tech Calendar
SEPTEMBER 26, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008 -- "HRMS and ATS Solutions for Workforce Management" CommNexus. Greater use of technology has lead to organizational use of a human resource management system (HRMS)—an integrated system providing information used by HR management in decision making. The greater use of HRMS technologies is affecting how HR activities are executed.
Advertiser: Aggregage
Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.
SoCal Delicious
SEPTEMBER 22, 2008
Futuristic Play by @Andrew_Chen. Analysis on viral marketing, user experience, game design, and online ads. As featured in technology and news publications: Are you new? Heres 5 steps to start exploring: View the "Best Of" list with 50+ essays on viral marketing, gaming, and ads » Get introduced: About this blog, why entrepreneurs and marketers recommend it » Receive updates by email or RSS feed or Twitter.
SoCal CTO
SEPTEMBER 15, 2008
Fantastic post by Dion Hinchcliffe - Ten Aspects of Web 2.0 Strategy That Every CTO and CIO Should Know. Raises some interesting points, but the general theme is: just figure out ways to get it to happen.
Southern California Tech Central brings together the best content for technical professionals in Southern California from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 24, 2008
San Diego-based RoyaltyShare said this morning it will be developing a new system for tracking limited downloads and interactive streaming. According to RoyaltyShare, it will be rolling out a platform which tracks and automates the tracking of music subscriptions and streaming, based on the recent agreement by the music industry on revenue sharing for streamed music.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
Our interview this morning is with David Sacks, CEO of Geni.com, an online family tree and social networking site, as well as Yammer, the instant messaging startup spun out of Geni.com at TechCrunch50. David has a unique perspective on the Southern California technology environment, having been the COO of PayPal before its acquisition by EBay, and having had the full Silicon Valley experience.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 10, 2008
Santa Monica-based Zag, the online car buying software firm headed by former CarsDirect CEO Scott Painter, has spun out a new company called TrueCar, the firm said late Wednesday. According to TrueCar, it will provide information about new car pricing, using the actual price people have paid for cars. The firm said it has scored Series A funding from Zag, Anthem Venture Partners, Global Retail Partners, Capricorn, Capital One Auto Finance, ARcturus Capital, Scott Painter, and co-founder Tom Tair
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 29, 2008
Calabasas-based network testing hardware provider Ixia announced today that the firm is slated to begin shipping new hardware for 100 Gigabit Ethernet testing. According to Ixia, its new 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) Development Accelerator will provide layer-2 traffic generation and analysis to companies. The new systems will begin shipping in mid-November.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 24, 2008
Pasadena-based Guidance Software, which develops software used for computer forensics, announced Wednesday that it has signed on Koch Industries, Inc. as a customer. Financial impact of the deal was not disclosed. According to Guidance, Koch will use the firm's EnCase eDiscovery software on a pay-per-use basis. Koch is a diversified firm with operations in the refining and chemical, process control, financial services, and other areas.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 22, 2008
Santa Monica-based GumGum, a venture-backed firm which develops technology for licensing content and images online, said Monday that it has partnered with photo provider Newscom. According to GumGum, it will enable publishers to license content from Newscom via pay-per-use and ad-supported licensing. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Newscom is an aggregator of editorial and creative photos, graphics, and illustrations, used in newspapers, magazines, and other publications.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 22, 2008
San Diego-based Qualcomm has inked a deal with a number of firms to integrate satellite communications into its chipsets, the firm said Monday, allowing its mobile baseband chips to connect to satellite networks. According to an announcement by Mobile Satellite Ventures LP, a subsidiary of SkyTerra Comunications, ICO Global Communications Limited, and Qualcomm, Qualcomm will integrate both satellite and cellular communications into its chips, which will enable mass-market wireless handsets to co
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 22, 2008
How is the instability on Wall Street affecting local venture capitalists? According to some local Southern California venture investors, it absolutely is affecting how they are thinking about the investment environment. John Babcock, a Managing Director at Rustic Canyon, told us that "while panics are a regular part of free markets, we are definitely into uncharted territory here in terms of the size and speed of the government response to prevent systemic market failure. " He explains, "Our pa
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 18, 2008
Hollywood Interactive Group, which develops an online web site for celebrity and entertainment news, said Thursday that it has raised $5M in a Series A funding round. The roudn came from BlueRun Ventures. According to Hollywood Interactive, the funding will go to develop its content initiatives, including MyHollywood.com, a web site for women focused on celebrity and entertainment news, fashion, casual games, and community.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 16, 2008
Los Angeles-based Cognition Technologies, a provider of search engine technology, claimed Tuesday that it has created the "world's largest semantic map of the English language." The firm said that the information is being used as part of its technology for helping to improve search results and to personalize and filter content. Cognition -- which is backed by Tim Draper, Draper Associates, Fingerhut Ventures, and the firm's CEO, Scott Jarus -- develops software which looks to understand English
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 25, 2008
Pasadena-based Cramster.com, an online community focused on students and homework, said today that it has raised $3M in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Mr. Shai Reshef, who the firm described as an online education industry veteran. Cramster.com operates an online community where students can share notes, practice exams, and help others through difficult homework problems; the site targets both college and high school students.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 23, 2008
As companies figure out a way to monetize social media, one of the areas which has been lacking is a way to measure the impact and effectiveness of social media advertising. To gain some insight into the area, we spoke with Ian Swanson, one of the founders of Sometrics (www.sometrics.com), which develops software to gather information on social media and optimize advertising.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 22, 2008
Los Angeles-based OVGuide.com, an online guide to video sites on the Internet, said Monday that it has unveiled a new search engine on its site. The firm said it the new search engine provides prioritized information about video sites, based on category, editorial ranking, user statistics, and other information. The firm previously used Google's search engine for its back end video site search.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 18, 2008
Los Angeles-based NanoH2O is reporting that it has secured $15M in additional funding, for the firm's water desalination technology. According to the firm, the round came from Oak Investment Partners and Khosla Ventures. Brian Hinman of Oak has joined the firm's board of directors as part of the funding. NanoH2O is developing reverse osmosis membranes based on technology from UCLA, and is applying that technology for water desalination.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 17, 2008
There are a lot of users, with lots of different email and instant messaging accounts, who are finding that there are too many ways to communicate with their friends and associates. Los Angeles-based Orgoo (www.orgoo.com) is looking to solve the problem by creating a unified communications service which ties all those ways of communicating together.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 12, 2008
Aliso Viejo-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals said late Thursday that it has completed its sale of its European operations to Meda AB, in a deal worth approximately $425M in cash. Valeant had originally announced the deal August 4th. The deal included certain business operations located in Western Europe, Easter Europe, and other markets. Valeant said it was advised by Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in the deal.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 12, 2008
Santa Monica-based Activision Publishing said Friday that it has acquired FreeStyleGames, a UK-based video game developer. Financial terms of the acquisition were not announced. FreeStyleGames develops music-based games, including localized, downloadable content for Activision's popular Guitar Hero franchise. Activision said that FreeStyleGames is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Publishing, and that the firm's management team have all signed long-term employment contracts with Activi
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 11, 2008
Yammer, a Twitter-like spinout out of high profile Los Angeles genealogy firm Geni.com, has scored the top prize at the TechCrunch50 awards in San Francisco. Yammer offers instant messaging focused on internal corporate communications, and is the result of work by engineers at Geni. Geni is the online, Web 2.0-style genealogy and social networking web site headed up by former PayPal founder David Sacks; the firm is venture backed by Charles River Ventures and Founders Fund.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
Los Angeles-based Leads360, a developer of lead management software, has tapped Dan Morefield as the firm's new President and CEO, the firm announced this morning. Morefield is the former COO of Experian Consumer Direct, as well as CIO at Overture Services. Morefield has also served at PayMyBills and at Home Savings of America. According to the firm, founding CEO Jeff Solomon becomes Senior Vice President and will focus on product and technology development at the company.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
Irvine-based XRoads Networks, a developer of bandwidth management hardware and related services, said today that Virtual Graffiti, an IT solutions provider, will use the firm's products to offer Internet redundancy and balancing services. According to XRoads, Virtual Graffiti will offer its ZeroOutages service, a service which provides transparent redundnacy, active balancing, and other services for boosting data center reliability.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
Pasadena-based solar thermal technology developer eSolar has inked a deal with another clean technology firm, Sundrop Fuels, the company announced today. According to eSolar, it will supply its heliostat and sun tracking technology to Sundrop Fuels, and also make that technology available to other prospective partners and customers. eSolar said the multi-million dollar deals calls for it to supply solar collecting equipment to Colorado-based Sundrop Fuels, a Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
San Diego-based event listing service Eventful has launched a new service to allow its users to track concerts. The firm released a new service today it calls Artist Tracker, which emails alerts to its users about musicians and artists performing in town. According to Eventful, the new service will let users indicate which performers they like, and receive alerts whenever those artists come to town.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
A group of movie studios is being sued by RealNetworks, in a pre-emptive strike to protect RealNetworks new DVD copying service. RealNetworks, which recently launched a new service called RealDVD, which allows owners of DVDs to copy their DVDs to a hard drive for later viewing, said that it is filing suit against the DVD Copy Control Association, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., Paramount Pictures Corp., Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc., Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., NBC Universal, Inc., War
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
Irvine-based Broadcom is adding Wi-Fi positioning features into its chipsets by tapping the technology of Skyhook Wireless, the firm said Tuesday. According to Broadcom, it is using Skyhook to add Wi-Fi positioning capability as part of its location based services infrastructure. The technology, which uses Wi-Fi signals from geolocated access points to pinpoint the location of cell phones, will supplement positioning data from GPS, assisted-GPS, and cell tower signals.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
Los Angeles-based PeopleSupport, a provider of business process outsourcing services, has gained clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust act for the firm's merger with Mumbai, India-based Essar Group and its Aegis BPO unit. According to PeopleSupport, the waiting period under the act has expired without a request for further information from the Federal Trade Commission.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
Los Angeles-based FreedomSpeaks.com an online web site focused on political social networking, said Tuesday that it has launched a new application programming interface (API) targeted at helping developers tap into information about publicly elected officials. The firm said its API provides access to over 10,000 public official profiles. The firm--which is currently trying to raise its first round of funding from investors--is providing a REST API which allows any web developer to retrieve infor
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has filed an anticipated lawsuit against RealNetworks, the group said Tuesday afternoon, asking a federal court to stop Seattle-based RealNetworks from distributing its new RealDVD software, which allows consumers to copy and view DVDs on their PCs. According to the MPAA, RealDVD violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) because its software illegally bypasses the copyright protection built into DVDs that protect movies against theft.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
San Diego-based KidZui, a provider of a kid-friendly web browser, has inked a deal with Parents.com, the online site for the American Baby, Parents, and Family Circle magazines. According to KidZui, it is in a new partnership with Parents.com, to enhance KidZui and to introduce more companies to its services. Financial details of the partnership were not released.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
Newport Beach-based semiconductor maker Conexant Systems said Tuesday afternoon that it has boosted its earnings guidance on better gross margins. According to the firm, its core operating income and core net income for Q4 of fiscal 2008 will exceed the guidance previously provided by the company. The firm said the boost came as a result of a richer-than-anticipated product mix, and increased core gross margins of 54 to 55 percent.
socalTECH
SEPTEMBER 29, 2008
San Diego-based DivX, a developer of codec technology for encoding digital video, said Monday that the firm's technology is being included in four new Blu-ray players from Pioneer. Financial impact of the design wins were not disclosed. According to DivX, Pioneer has included the firm's technology in the BDP-LX71, BDP-LX08, BDP-51FD Blue-ray players.
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