Venture Capital Firms

Another example how the online travel industry is growing, despite the current economic downturn, is a company called “Yapta. Yapta offers a website where people can go and compare air fare and get good flights for bargain prices. Any time, when the economy is not doing too well, people will always be looking for a bargain where ever they can get one.

Using Yapta is very easy. All you need to do is to sign up by clicking on the join link and type in your email address, first and last name, a password, and confirmation of your password. You should be getting a confirmation email as soon as you sign up, but it does take about five or ten minutes for the confirmation email to come. Upon receiving the confirmation email, simply click on the link they give you and you are in. It’s that easy and best of all signing up to Yapta is free.

Once you have signed in and logged into Yapta, working with the service is also easy. Once you sign into your Yapta account, you will see three different options, which are tracking airfare price drops, tracking hotel rates and availability, and tracking for airfare vouchers and credits. All three of these services can be a big help to the bargain hunter.

When you are looking for airfare price drops on Yapta, you will see several fields which prompt you to type in the city of departure and destination, and then you have the option to choose a round trip or one-way fares. You will also see a drop menu that will show a calendar where you need to choose departure date and for round trip flights a calendar for the date of your return flight. One problem that Yapta does have is that it can load slowly on certain internet services and sometimes the server may not respond. This might turn away the more impatient users. However, when the site does work, after you have typed in all the above information, you will see a whole list with different airlines and their airfares. The site will even tell you whether the flight is a nonstop or has stops. Supposed you want to fly to Tbilisi from Chicago O’Hare. At your departure just type in Chicago and you will have three choices, all airports, Chicago Midway, and Chicago O’Hare International Airport. You will notice that most of the flights are operated by United Airlines. You will see a hyperlink that tells you how many stops you have. The only problem is that the prices are quite unrealistic. It is hard to find a price on Yapta for this flight that is under $3000. That is awfully high when tickets for this same flight are offered by various travel agents for under $1600.

The next option on the My Trips page of Yapta is dedicated to tracking hotels and rates. This feature also helps you see if there is a vacancy at a particular hotel. To use this feature, all you need to do is to click on the Track Hotels button. You will find several fields to fill out. You can also filter out other hotels, but this can sometimes yield no results. For example if you would like to stay at Hotel Vere Palace in Tbilisi, you will not be given any information on that particular hotel. However, if you do not filter any hotel, all the hotels in Tbilisi will appear. You will first see the high-luxury hotels from Marriot, Radison, and Hilton, and then all the others. The problem here again is that it will not really find the best prices and for avid travelers, this feature may also not provide that much of a service.

The third option in My Trips is designed to find refunds from flight vouchers or other credits. For example you are flying Lufthansa to Munich with flight 435 and you want to see if you can get some credits from this flight. This feature is very user unfriendly and you keep getting error messages unless you type in the fields correctly, which the site does not explain.

Yapta is based in Seattle, Washington and the company’s investors include First Round Capital and Voyager Capital, which invested $700,000 in seed funding and $2.3 milliion in series A funding.

Voyager Capital is a vc firm that mainly invests in companies who are in the IT, digital media, wireless, and software industries. Furthermore, Voyager mainly invests in the geographical location around Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and northern California areas. Voyager’s strategy is a “go to market” strategy, which is a strategy that helps new companies aggressively take their product or service to the market and helps the entrepreneurs develop an effective marketing strategy, crucial for new startups to execute in order to be successful. Some other companies in Voyager’s portfolio include Placecast, Amplitude, AboutUs, Capital Stream, Elemental, GoAhead, and others.

First Round Capital is a vc firm that mainly invests in early stage startup companies who are in the tech industry. First Round Capital especially looks for entrepreneurs who have an innovative product that could disrupt the tech industry. The vc firm is managed by Joshua Kopelman, Chris Fralic, Rob Hayes, and Howard Morgan. First Round mainly invests in seed and early stage funding for its portfolio companies. Other companies in First Round’s portfolio include 33Across, Aggregate Knowledge, AppNexus, Aster Data Systems, BazaarVoice, BiggerBoat, and others.

Yapta does have some heavy competition. Some of Yapta’s major competitors that could pose serious competition for the company include Kayak, CheapFlights, TripHup, and others. The two biggest competitors, however, are Kayak and CheapFlights.

Kayak is a website that provides a travel search engine and offers a service similar to what Yapta provides. Some of the services that Kayak offers is finding and comparing airfares, hotels, car rentals, etc. Kayak is based in Norwalk, Connecticut and employs 75 people.

CheapFlights actually pioneered the online travel industry by offering price comparison of airfare. CheapFlights partners up with many airlines and Priceline to help find the bargains for you. CheapFlights is based in London, United Kingdom and was founded in March, 1996.

For more information about Yapta, click here.

For the past decade, the internet has become the major source of media for the majority of the population in the United States and Europe, as well as in other parts of the world. Furthermore, since the majority of the American people have had access to the internet in the mid 1990s, the internet has graduated from the slow 56k modem connection to the super-fast broadband connection of today. As the internet is able to traffic more information with a much larger bandwidth faster, many websites have started with videos and internet television. Internet television was first pioneered by Youtube, but after that all kinds of TV websites have appeared on the web. In 2006, Joost was launched as a website that shows videos and TV shows and allows you to view videos and even share them with your friends. You can even share videos with your friends on Facebook with Joost.

Joost is currently undergoing public beta testing and anyone can join Joost for free and the sign up process is amazingly easy. When you join Joost, first you need to type in a username, which must be at least four characters or numbers with no spaces. The nice thing about the sign up application on Joost is that it will point out anything filled out wrong in red lettering and if each field is filled out correctly, the lettering appears white. This is very convenient because it saves time because you can be sure that every field is filled out correctly before you hit the submit button. After you have chosen your username and Joost has accepted it, you need to type a password and reconfirm the password. After that, you need to type in your first and last name. You will also need to type in your zip code, and then hit the submit button and you’re in. Joost will send you an email to confirm your email promptly and before you get that email, your service with Joost is not affected.

Navigating and using the Joost website is also rather easy. You can also search for your friends who might be on Joost and Facebook and share videos with them on Joost. Joost also allows you to search for videos selected to your individual taste.

Joost is a privately owned company based in New York City and the company’s founder is Niklas Zennström, who was also the CEO and cofounder of Skype, one of the world’s largest IP phone and video conferencing services. Skype is not the only successful company that Mr. Zennström founded. Before founding Skype, he also founded other companies, including KaZa, which is a consumer file sharing network similar to Napster. Mr. Zennström also ran the European branch of Everyday.com as its CEO.

Some of the several successes that Joost has had since its founding include its partnership with Viacom. According to a press release on the company website, dated February 20, 2007 states that Viacom was to be a key content partner with Joost. Viacom is a large producer of TV shows and feature films. According to this article, Viacom is to provide its branded content of entertainment for free on Joost’s websites, which Joost users can view for free. The article further states that Joost is a service that combines the best quality internet TV for the new Web 2.0. Furthermore in that article, Philippe Dauman, CEO and President of Viacom stated that Viacom is very pleased to start a partnership with Joost.

In September of 2008, Joost began to offer UK viewers hundreds of hours of hit shows by sealing a partnership with ALL3MEDIA International. In an article, also on the company site, that is dated September 30, 2008, explains that with this partnership, Joost users in the United Kingdom will be able to view such shows as Peep Show, Shameless, Derren Brown, Ultimate Force, and much more. Furthermore, the article states that Joost is not just a website for viewing TV shows online, but the website also has a social networking feature that allows users to interact with each other and talk about the various TV shows that they have watched over the Joost network.

Recently, in an article dated June 30, 2009, Joost announced that it will be providing white label online videos on its website. The article further states that more and more media companies are looking for high quality internet video portals to show their premium content. Furthermore, Joost will have to rework its business practices to keep these partnerships. After reworking these partnerships and providing more solutions that will improve TV viewing online, Joost will commercially offer white paper video content online.

Joost’s investors include CBS, Inc.; Index Ventures, Li Ka Shing Foundation, Sequoia Capital, and Viacom. All of the above investors all took part in a gigantic series A funding of $45 million in May of 2007.

CBS, Inc. is one of the largest broadcasting networks in the United States and has a large selection of hit shows. CBS partners with Joost and many of its videos are featured on Joost’s website.

Index Ventures is a vc firm that invests mainly in IT companies that represent a good investment opportunity. The team at Index Ventures is a group of dedicated entrepreneurs who built the vc firm up brick by brick. Some other companies in Index’s portfolio include 7TM, AlertMe, Betfair, Boku, DoubleTwist, King.com, Love Candy, and others.

The Li Ka Shing Foundation is a fund that was created by Mr. Li Ka Shing, who is the chairman of Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited. Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited is actually a branch of the Cheung Kong Group and is based in Hong Kong. The Li Ka Shing Foundation is a charitable organization that is based on Mr. Shing’s belief on how to form a successful equitable society. According to Mr. Shing, an equitable society can only be founded when every individual in that society is ready, willing and able to do his or her part.

Sequoia Capital is a global vc firm with its headquarters in Menlo Park, California and also has offices in China, India, and Israel. Sequoia Capital was built by some of the best known successful entrepreneurs, who include Steve Jobbs, of Apple; Larry Ellison, of Oracle; Bob Swanson, of Linear Technology, and others. Some other companies in Sequoia’s portfolio include Zappos.com, Afara, AMCC, AdMob, eHarmony, and others.

Viacom is one of the world’s leading entertainment content company, which generates all kind of prime-time entertainment brands. Some of the brands under the Viacom name include Media Networks, MTV, BET, TV Land, Spike TV, VH1, and others. Viacom invests and partners with companies that can be of good interest for the large media company.

Joost does have some competitors, but the biggest competitor is Hulu. Like Joost, Hulu is an online video sharing site which believes in bringing in premium entertainment to the masses. Hulu was founded in Los Angeles, California, and has six people on its management team.

For more information about Joost, click here.

We always have everything in motion around us, moving, lively. Technology had long back evolved with capturing these motions and storing them for future viewing. Then came the era of the internet, and it became more than a necessity for the videos to be shared, it was a lifeline. Estimated increase in growth of internet video population has gone from 65% to 85% within the past few years.

Founded in 2005, Visible Measures provides new solutions and capability to allow internet video publishers and advertisers understand the audience behaviours and accurately predict and analyze the success of internet video programs. They accomplish this by capturing and measuring every video interaction in every video from every viewer, from play to pause, to rewind to forward-to-a-friend and more. They major in providing video placements with benefits to the major brand advertisers. The technology works upon integrating the video streaming and viewing of the viewers to the hosts.

The company’s video solutions are provided by three core and powerful technologies, i.e., the Video Placement Multiplier, Viral Reach Database, and Video Metrics Engine and thus providing a rich technological and interactive platform for both the user and the provider.

The website has also been in the news recently for providing the top ten movie trailers chart and continuously posts the tricks and perks of understanding the online film trailer performances. One of the main features of the website is to provide with the 100 Million view club, with ratings and other details which are trusted throughout with accuracy. The list is a diverse collection of campaigns, including music and movie videos, trailers, user-generated videos, and clips from TV shows having the user hits as the common feature for all.

The company’s Partner Program is designed so as to help partners develop new opportunities and grow their businesses into profitable ventures. Built on a strong understanding of the partners’ needs, this program is sustained on solid foundation blocks of significant resource commitments to build strong and productive relationships with the partners. The company has partnered with internet video platforms Brightcove and the platform to provide their customers with analytical services as a pre-integrated solution for there projects.

The current investors for the company are:

• * Mohr Davidow Ventures that invested in hi5 networks, ProActive Software, etc.
• * General Catalyst Partners that invested in Kayak, EZ Prints, etc.
• * Northgate Capital that invested in Widgetbox, Silver Spring Networks, etc.
• * Mohr Davidow Ventures that invested in Tiny Pictures, Mantara, etc.
• * General Catalyst Partners that invested in Sand 9, Big Fish Games, etc.

Visible Measures had been also involved in a major product release for video advertisers.
Vidmeter gathers data from across the internet and provides an accurate and detailed representation of the most popular online videos in various forms. Since, it seems impossible to tell the exact number of hits and views a given video has been receiving from every website and every download, Vidmeter accumulates the reported view count from a large cross-section of web-based video sites, and hence indicates the relative popularity of the video among the viewers.

The major competitors it faces in the industry are Intempo Digital and Mixercast. The two majors specialise in music sharing and also eat up the larger chunk of the video industry. Intempo in particular had been involved in release of a large number of products for making streaming/download easier for the user.
Mixercast on the other hand is the mastermind creation of developers from Yahoo, Microsoft and many such large firms. It highlights the fact of legal sharing and personal sharing with customised products being available for the same.

For more information about Visible Measures, please click here.

Outspark, an online game company that focuses on the community besides the engaging online multiplayer and Role playing games (RPGs), was founded in January 2007, by Susan Choe and has now over 4.7 million users. Outspark is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with a subsidiary office in Seoul, Korea.
Enjoying rapid success due to a unique business model that has flourished an online community engaging in social events, in-game and around the game networking and user generated content, not to mention the amazingly personalized user experience, this site has over 5.4 million unique visitors each month engaging in “massively multiplayer online” (MMO) games.
In less than two years, Outspark has signed deals with various leading internet service distribution and game developer partner companies including YouTube, XFire, Meebo, Yahoo! Games, BesyBuy and not to mention BitTorrent, among others.
On December 2nd, 2008 Outspark recruited Paul Thind, formally working in Habbo, a competitor, as the firm’s chief business officer.
In January 2008, Outspark raised Series B $11 million capital from investors Tencent Holdings, DCM and Altos Ventures. And in July 2009 they raised series C $8.3 million capital from investors Syncom Venture Partners and SBI Investment.
Currently Outspark offers the following games:

• -Fiesta
• -Secret of the Solstice
• -Bread ‘n Butter
• -Project Powder
• -Blackshot
• -Wind Slayer( their latest offering)

They are about to release another game titled “Dance Groove”.
There are other browser based games as well, just waiting for the users to come and enjoy. With all the games free to play, it is the consumer (read player) who will benefit the most out of this venture with a plethora of games at his/her disposal.
To sign up for a free Outspark player account or for more information please visit the Outspark site.
Among those that invested in Outspark there are Syncom Venture Partners and SBI Investment.
Syncom Venture Partners was founded in 1977 and has headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. A leading media and communications venture capital firm that supports talented entrepreneurs dedicated to creating innovative business of great escalating value. Approximately $400 million of private equity capital is managed by Syncom.
SBI Investment is a subsidiary of SBI Holdings, Inc., which is one of the largest and most active venture capital firms in Japan. Established in 1996, the company has since focused its investments on current growth sectors such as information technology, bio-tech and life sciences. Offering comprehensive support to entrepreneurs through its venture capital fund, provides them with the risk capital, support in the terms of taxes and finances, public offering related consultation services and capable managers. Managing various venture capital funds, its total fun size is of over $1 billion.

Founded in 2004, Xoopit which has been undergoing beta testing has now been acquired by Yahoo. First before explaining Yahoo’s acquisition of Xoopit, let’s explain what Xoopit exactly is. Xoopit is a website which is the amateur photographer’s digital dream. Founded in 2004, Xoopit allows you to upload your photos from your computer or bring in your video files from Flikr, Youtube, Shutterfly, Kodak, and Picasa in one website. Now, however, with Xoopit being acquired by Yahoo, you will be able to have more options to send your photos and video clips to your friends and family. With the acquisition of Xoopit, size limits of photos, graphic images, and video clips will be a thing of the past. As of now, Yahoo just signed the agreement for the acquisition, but in the near future, you will see that Xoopit will appear as one of the tabs in your yahoo email account.

The merger did cause some concerns for Gmail users, who have Xoopit, but as the message on the official announcement on Xoopit’s company site states that Gmail users have nothing to worry about. The first question raised by Gmail users is if the Xoopit service will continue with Gmail. Xoopit answers by saying that as Xoopit gradually gets integrated into the Yahoo infrastructure, Gmail users will still be able to use all the services that Xoopit offers for the time being. Furthermore, Xoopit is an application that was created for Gmail, so Xoopit will continue to run on Gmail and Gmail users will not notice any changes for a while.

Xoopit works by providing an app that you can attach to your email browser known as “My Photos.” My Photos is an app that allows you to organize all your photos online and even send them through your email to your friends and families.

Xoopit is based in San Francisco, California and until this acquisition was a privately owned company that worked closely with Gmail. The two founders of Xoopit are Bijan Marashi, who also serves the company as its CEO; and Jonathan Katzman, who also works at Xoopit as the company’s COO.

An article filed with Trends & News on July 22, 2009, states that the merger of Xoopit and Yahoo is official and the article’s headline reads “Xoopit + Yahoo Mail = Moving Beyond the Massive Digital Shoebox.” The article goes on to further state that most email inboxes do change into digital shoeboxes filled with intimate family photos that people share with close friends and family. Furthermore, the basic inbox can be a disorganized mess. Xoopit will organize all your photos and you can send what ever ones you want through the email. The article goes on further to state that Yahoo’s acquisition of Xoopit is a big deal, because Yahoo already has the largest photo organization system on the net and with Xoopit on board, it will get even better. The attachment limits for photos, which has been a problem for many people will be eliminated when you use the Xoopit My Photos with Yahoo.

Xoopit also has a video on its website that shows the “future of email.” The video is a quick overview of the Xoopit application and how it will work with Yahoo. It has music over the entire video, which can be muted and explains in great detail how Xoopit works and walks you through step by step on how to save and share your favorite photos and moments in your life with friends and relatives.

Xoopit’s investors include Foundation Capital, who invested together with some individual private investors in $1.5 million in seed funding in December of 2006 and then in March of 2008, Accel Partners and Foundation Partners invested $5 million in series A funding.

Founded in 1995, Foundation Capital is a vc firm, who’s single goal is to build great companies. The philosophy of the partners at Foundation Capital is that the most powerful aspect of the foundation of a company is the idea. The idea of a product or new service that can disrupt the markets is the most powerful driving force in a company’s success. Furthermore, at Foundation Capital, all the vc firm’s partners have been entrepreneurs and are willing to share their entrepreneurial experience with new entrepreneurs as they make that first step. Some other companies in Foundation Capital’s portfolio include Aktino, Altor Networks, Azure Power, BabyCare, Biz360, Calstar Products, and others.

Accel Partners has been around for over 25 years and is a global vc firm with offices in London, China, and India; along with its headquarters in Silicon Valley. Accel Partners likes to invest in entrepreneurs who are courageous and have a breakthrough idea that can take over a market. Some other companies in Accel’s portfolio include Facebook, Real, Xen Source, Glam.com, JBoss, BitTorrent, MacroMedia, RiverBed, and others.

For more information about Xoopit, click here.

As we are already more than ten years into the Information Age and the internet, search engines keep coming up like mushrooms after a rain storm. Some are general and others are more specific. Perhaps you need a particular item and you are constantly frustrated because when you need to buy an item it is out of stock at your local big box store. Well, there is a search engine for you too. Introducing Milo — the search engine for shoppers and people who like to know ahead of time before something is in stock at their local stores. Milo is the newest of the search engines out there and is still in beta testing.

Milo works by having a large choice of your large chain store names and it will browse the inventory of all the sponsored stores inventory to find what store near you has that item you are looking for in stock. The search engine itself is very simple to operate. When you first log on the site, you will find your home city and a search bar. Furthermore, you will see below all the store names that Milo will search for your item, and you can even specify a particular store name if you wish to do so. What’s even better, the service is free and you do not need to register or sign in.

To date, Milo has 13 store names available for searching a product. Furthermore, next to each store logo you will see a caption showing the location of the nearest store in or near your city. The stores, who’s inventories Milo can browse, include Lowe’s, JC Penny, Home Depot, American Eagle, Barnes & Nobles, Best Buy, BevMo, Ikea, Borders, Guitar Center, Staples, Office Depot, Nordstrom, Sears, Macy’s, Micro Center, Radio Shack, Target, Wal-Mart, and EBGames. Note, however, Milo is still undergoing public beta testing, so in the future the list is likely to grow.

Using the search engine is also quite simple. Suppose you are doing some landscaping and you want some landscape lighting to accent certain parts of your landscaping, such as specimen trees or bushes, water features, etc. In the search bar simply type “landscape lighting” and a whole list of stores and varieties of different landscape lighting will come up. Landscape lighting may be a too broad term, so you may want to narrow the choice of what type of light you are looking for. After you made the query, you will notice below the search bar a whole variety of choices. For example, you may want to see what is in stock in all the stores. As default, Milo will have the check box by all stores check marked. Next to the all box, you will see a box next to other stores that carry some of the top brands of lighting fixtures. For landscape lighting, you have the option to search the inventories of either only Lowe’s, Best Buy, Fry’s Electronics, or you can click on the hyperlink that asks you if you want Milo to show more and all the stores that have linked to Milo will show up.

If you are knowledgeable about the different store names, you should be able to know which stores sell what. For example, Best Buy is a store chain that mainly specializes in consumer electronics and appliances. Obviously there is no sense in looking into that store’s inventory. Lowe’s and Home Depot, however, are stores that specialize in home and garden products, so these stores are the more sensible to look up.

For other products you can also search for a specific brand, but that does not apply to home & garden merchandise. You can also choose the price range that you are looking for.

Now, let’s go back to the search. You will notice that “landscape lighting” is too broad of a search for you and you want the low voltage landscape lighting. With just landscape lighting, you will find that you will find other light fixtures as well. What will happen if we narrow the search down to “low voltage landscape lighting,” or “solar landscape lighting?” If you narrow the search down to just “low voltage landscape lighting,” you will find that all the low voltage or 12 volt lighting fixtures or whole sets that are available in your location and the stores that have these items in stock. For example, in Michigan City, IN, there are two stores that have low voltage lights in stock. These stores are Wal-Mart and Lowe’s, and besides Michigan City, you can also find items in other stores near Michigan City. The items that are in stock in the Wal-Mart or the Lowe’s in Michigan City will appear at the top of the list, but if you scroll down, you will see items in stock in stores that are in towns near Michigan City, such as La Porte, Valparaiso, Chesterton, or even as far as South Bend or Chicago.

Other helpful features on Milo are maps that are provided by Google Maps which show your location and you can also find the stores that are listed in your search where the product you want is in stock.

Milo is the brainchild of the child prodigy, Jack Abraham, who named the search engine after his beloved dog, Milo. Jack Abraham started his career in computers and technology at age 13, when he started working with data extraction encoding and processing mechanisms for ComScore. Mr. Abraham also worked on behavioral targeting strategies for Microsoft and Drugstore.com. Another one of Mr. Abraham’s achievements is the development of the automated arbitrage system for eBay. Mr. Abraham is currently studying at the Wharton School of Business, where he will be graduating magna cum laude with a customized degree in Technological Entrepreneurship, which is a merger between business and computer sciences. When Mr. Abraham graduates, he will receive the title of Joseph Wharton Scholar. Mr. Abraham still works at Milo as the company’s CEO.

Another cofounder of Milo is John Evans, who is a seasoned entrepreneur and has founded several other companies before founding Milo. Mr. Evans also worked at J. P. Evans, Inc., which is a small software company with a seven-person staff, where he ran all operations. J. P. Evans was also founded by Mr. Evans and builds custom solutions for various technical problems and has some Fortune 500 companies among its clientele.

The third cofounder of Milo is Ted Dziuba, who is casually known as the company’s minister of defense and works on the company’s Python code. Mr. Dziuba joined the founders of Milo after hearing about them from Pressflip, which is a machine learning company in which Mr. Dziuba was also a cofounder. Mr. Dziuba is also one of the cofounders of Google.

Milo’s investors include ICBT Capital Partners and Youniversity Ventures, along with several individual investors, who are Keith Rabois, Len Lodish, Jawed Karim, Kevin Hartz, and Dr. Magin Abraham.

ICBT Capital Partners is actually a privately owned hedge fund that invests in both public markets and high growth private equity funds. ICBT is based in San Francisco, California.

Youniversity Ventures is a vc firm that seeks business students or young entrepreneurs who have an innovative product and are in the internet and consumer industries. Besides providing entrepreneurs with the necessary capital, the people at Youniversity also provides mentorship, expertise, and the contacts that are vital to get the business up off the ground and in flight. Youniversity Ventures is located in the Twin Cities in Minnesota and invests in the geographic location of the Twin Cities and the Bay Area in California. Some of the entrepreneurs that Youniversity Ventures has backed include the founders of Paypal, Youtube, Linkedin, and others.

For more information about Milo, click here.

“Honesty is the best policy — when there is money in it” said Mark Twain. From time immemorial money has always taken the frontlead in people’s lives. Right from the days of Barter system to the ancient copper coins to the present day currency……….all of it almost dictates to us how we live our lives. Paper money, Credit Cards, Debit Cards etc. are only a few modes of payment available to the never ending list of buyers today. While some find the traditional way of exchanging money as the true form of purchase, some like to crank it up a notch and use their credit cards. We live in a day and age where different geniuses are trying to make living easier and more livable. And one of such discoveries is BOKU.COM.
BOKU.com is raising the bar for online payments using your mobile phone for the purchase of products and services across the internet. The main aim of BOKU.com is to merge bank worthy transactions, technology and mobile users together on the internet and create a trustworthy, reliable platform for the easy accessibility of the market.
BOKU.com has its base in Chesterfield, UK and California, USA. Mark Britto, the President and CEO of BOKU.com is the leading man in making this site the leading mobile payments platform. With a strong team force working in the fields of Business Development, Marketing, General Counsel and so on, Boku.com is soon reaching success of epic proportions.
BOKU.com has the advantage of being tied up with investors like Benchmark Capital, Index Venture and Khosla Ventures who not only double up as advisors and innovators but also as the company’s strong backbone.
The site has separate features for both publishers as well as customers. It is a well defined distinction and we will deal with each respective group in brief.
PUBLISHERS: BOKU.com lures prospective publishers with the tempting offer of a conversion rate going up to even 80% in some countries. And since a higher conversion rate means a higher net payout, BOKU.com proves to be a profitable option for publishers. Since mobile payments are soon becoming the latest fad and is used by over 4 million people, publishers are given a boost to explore new markets, new demographics and even new revenues. With an estimate of 1.6 billion consumers around the world, there are many people wanting to use their mobile phones in their virtual lives. Boku.Com complies to publishers from over 10 nations. The website ensures detection and prevention of fraud through their numerous processes and systems.
CUSTOMERS: One alluring factor of Boku.com is the absence of any form a cards or form filling. With over 4 billion recorded online credit card frauds worldwide, the facility of making payments through the phone is a secure option as it is handled by only you. And without the presence of the 16 digit credit or debit card number which can be stolen, you are well on your way to fraud free, secure and safe transactions.
For those who are in need of further help or just have a query, the site has a support page to help you with any kind of problem.

For more information about BOKU.com click here.

Need a product or a service over the internet and it’s taking ages to find it… technology presents to you the “SEARCH ENGINES” - a fast and new way of finding what you want when you want it. Among the search engines that are available to the “searching” crowd, sites like Google, AOL pages, Excite are helpful in finding their specific requirements. But one search engine that stands out amongst the hundreds out there is Topsy.com.
In a nutshell if you were to ask what makes Topsy.com so different from the rest, then this would be your answer: Topsy.com is your taste of old meets new. Unlike other search engines which regard the Internet as a collection of documents or files, Topsy.com sees the Internet as a stream of conversations. To them, it is a relationship which influences once speech and thought process. Through fast paced communities like Twitter, Flickr, Digg, Yelp, Identica and so on, Topsy.com keeps tabs on people’s conversations. Hence when you use this site to search for something, unlike other search engines which may provide you with outdated information, Topsy.com tells about what is being spoken of now, this week or even the past month. So one word you could use for this site would be “Fresh”.
Topsy.com is actually the brainchild of 4 people - Vipul Ved Prakash, Rishabh Aiyer Ghosh, Gary Iwatani and Justin Foutts. The site has the support of a 5 member Board of Directors and 10 member team. Topsy.com’s main investors are BlueRun Ventures, Ignition Partners, Founders Fund and Scott Banister.
Topsy.com categorizes search results into time windows - all time, month, week, day, hour. Hence the result for a search would be one which would be fresh and important to the individual. This is usually called the “right - time window”. Topsy also searches for user names, full names and mini bios of Twitter users. There is something called a “topsy bubble” which is present near every link to show how many hits each search result has received.
One of the most distinctive features of Topsy.com is its ability to discover the list of people who have responded to your query. This list is specific to the time window mentioned. Topsy.com computes with the reputation and the potential of these authors based on the quantity and quality of the hits they receive.
If you wish to contact Topsy.com with a query or a suggestion or any other specific need, then they have delegated different help contacts to suit your type of requirement.

For more information about Topsi.com click here.

Have you ever been in a situation where you meet someone at a party or a family get together and you get a feeling of being in the midst of absolute strangers? People come and give you a beaming smile and just out of sheer courtesy you mingle with them but the only thought in your mind is “who is this person”? If a survey is taken, then I can guarantee you that the result would be that at least 1 out of 4 people would have faced such an awkward experience. Well wouldn’t you want to know who your extended family is? Wouldn’t you want to interact with relatives who do not belong to your immediate family circle? Well if your answer is yes……….then there is a saving grace in the form of Geni.com.
Geni.com is that platform where you can build on your family tree. You can connect, share and preserve relationships with those relatives who you didn’t even know existed. And the USP of this site is that all you need to do is the basic groundwork of including members who you do know and the rest can be filled out by the rest of the family. Only people who belong to your family can log into their personal profiles and edit or add new members of your never ending growing family.
Geni.com was founded by a group of former executives and early employees belonging to PayPal, eGroups, eBay and Tribe. This website is financially backed up by Founders Fund and Charles River Ventures. Since its inception, Geni.com has got the recognition of being the nest way to track family members and the easiest way of building up one’s family tree. Geni.com was bestowed with the honor of being one of the best 50 sites by Time magazine and was even honored in PC magazine as one of the Best Free Software.
Geni.com gives you the chance to add photos, videos or events and this can be shared by all the members of your tree and for those members who still aren’t a part of the tree, they can log into the site, register for it and join the clan. It enables you to keep track of the various birthdays, anniversaries or any special events in the family…….something that all of us have a problem keeping a note of.
This site let’s you know to what extent your family tree has been completed and it gives you timely updates whenever a new member has either updated his/her profile or added a new member into your tree. Geni.com can be used as your very own personal newsletter. Any events or future engagements could be posted here to let the rest of the family know about what’s happening where.
With the feature called Hot Matches list, you can find duplicates existing in someone else’s tree and thus expand and develop your own tree. Who knows through this you might just find an uncle or an aunt or even a long lost cousin.
Just when people almost gave up hope of knowing their extended family, Geni.com came to the rescue as I couldn’t think of a better way to bring the entire family together. So go ahead, build your tree and see it grow!

For more information about Geni.com click here.

In the 21st century, we live in an age of mobility and technology. Furthermore, the two seem to go increasingly go hand in hand. With a huge range of mobile devices available from cell phones and smart phones to small GPS devices. Cars have GPS built in and some of the higher end phones, such as the iPhone 3G and the Blackberry also have GPS and other directional mapping apps available. Now yet a new company is joining the new directional mapping market. Introducing Waze, the company that advertises the “way to go.”

Founded in 2006, Waze has been leading the way in creating a new directional mapping program for the variety of smart phones available today. Waze, however, is not your regular directional mapping program that will just show you where to go or the best way to get there. Waze is that and more. The extra goodies that Waze will provide its users with include traffic, areas where construction could be a problem, and accidents and incidents. Furthermore, for the speeder and the type that consider the highway patrol as “costly pigs;” Waze also has something for you, which is even better than your conventional radar detector. What Waze has for you lead foots is a map that shows where all the speed traps and speed cams are — not giving the traffic cop a clue that you know where they are. Much better than a detectable radar detector, which cannot detect speed cams anyway. Also available with Waze’s services and apps is the showing of areas where parking is available.

The service that Waze is creating is still in its infancy and in the Alpha phase. You can sign up to be an alpha tester for Waze, since the Waze service is a service where drivers provide information to other drivers onto their mobile phones. To be an alpha tester for Waze’s service, you must have a smart phone that is compatible with Waze. The phones that will work with Waze are shown in a list where you fill in the proper fields for registration. These phones are the HTC Touch Pro2, Android G1, Android G2/Magic, iPhone, LG Incite, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Diamond 2, HTC Touch Fuze (Pro), Samsung Omnia HD i8910, Samsung Jack, Samsung Propel Pro, HTC Tilt, Motorola Moto Q9, Samsung Epix i907, HTC Snap, and Nokia E71x. Along with having one of the above mentioned phones, you will need to type in your first and last name, your email, and your city of residence.

Waze is a company that is based in Israel and its founder is Ehud Shabtai, who is a software engineer who graduated from Tel Aviv University with degrees in Philosophy and Computer Sciences. Furthermore, while at Tel Aviv University, Mr. Shabtai also received a PDA for a GPS navigation device and the navigation software, but unfortunately the product that Mr. Shabtai developed did not show the real conditions on the road that can be a nuisance to any driver. This is where the idea for Waze was born.

What makes Waze different from your average GPS device is that it is a dynamic navigation platform that has an eclectic system of working. The Waze platform works by incorporating GPS technology together with open source software and a community of drivers. The drivers are the key to the Waze network. The drivers are the ones who bring in the real-life road condition information in the Waze platform. When a driver drives through an area or on a particular stretch of the Interstate and can see where the construction areas and what detours are the best to take. The drivers will also be able to tell each other about speed traps and speed cams, so you lead foots know when to slow down before getting that expensive ticket.

Waze’s investors include Blue Run Ventures, Magma Venture Partners, and Vertex Venture Capital. The rounds of funding that these vc firms participated in and the amount of money that was invested in Waze is not disclosed to the public.

Blue Run Ventures is a vc firm that is solely dedicated to early stage companies in the tech industry and provide them with the foundation they need to become successful companies that will redesign the tech industry. Some other companies in Blue Run’s portfolio include Fwix, Good Media, Like.com, Inker, Topsy, and others.

Magma Venture Capital is one of Israel’s leading vc firms and it mainly focuses its investments in early stage companies in the communications, semiconductors, internet, and media industries. Some other companies in Magma’s portfolio include Zon Networks, Phonetic Systems, OutSmart, Extricom, and others.

Vertex Venture Capital is another one of Israel’s top vc firms and mainly invests in Israeli or Israel-related companies in the information networking, communications, and enterprise software industries. Some other companies in Vertex’s portfolio include Expand Network, Scopus, Flash Networks, Voltaire, Zeugma, and others.

Waze does have a few competitors and one of the noteworthy competitors is Mobile Crossing. Mobile Crossing is a company that was founded in 2004 with a vision to be a better navigation service for frequent drivers. The service that Mobile Crossing offers is similar to that of Waze. Mobile Crossing is based in Sunnyville, California and is a privately owned corporation.

For more information about Waze, click here.

As the internet is getting more advanced and able to handle more bandwidth, video is becoming a more frequently used medium on the internet. Until now, however, video on the internet could be a problem, since certain plugins would be needed to view these videos. Because of the near monopoly of Windows, many videos run together with only Microsoft Internet Explorer in conjunction with Windows Media Player. If you were using Mozilla’s FireFox browser for surfing the net, unless you download the right plugins, viewing video on FireFox would have been impossible. Furthermore, if you are a Mac user, you would be also out in the cold. This is the reason why Apple created Flip4Mac, which is a plugin that simulates Windows Media Player and allows to view Windows compatible videos on your Mac using the Safari browser.

Adobe created the Flash Player, which is compatible with both Windows and Mac and provides a much smoother video streaming experience. Now, however, Kaltura arrives on the scene and is about to revolutionize the way video is being viewed on the net.

What makes Kaltura stand out from other internet video technology is its innovative open source video platform, which allows you to all kinds of things with your video, including developing your own video apps.

Kaltura’s video platform is based on a modular platform that is built with Kaltura Widgets, which are building blocks that are completely customizable to the advertiser’s needs. These widgets can be customized in all kinds of different ways, including skinning and combining different workflows, generating new video based apps. All the ways that Kaltura Widgets can be customized are listed below.

One of the most common methods to customize these widgets is by first collecting and then ingesting content into the stream. Basically, creating, collecting and ingesting content is the best way that you can promote user generated video on your website. Collecting and ingesting content allows users on your website to upload and import their content and add it to video on your site. This can be great for social networks which use video content. Furthermore, video ingestion can be used to upload different resolutions of video, including HD video streams.

Kaltura also allows you to create your own video players with your own feel. With the ability to publish your own content, you can create your own playlists, publish all kinds of video resolutions, including HD. Furthermore, for those of you, who are online merchants, you can use Kaltura’s platform to market and merchandize your product and have it on your website in high quality video, in the end attracting buyers to your site and increasing your revenues.

You can also manage and create your own apps. Developing your own apps can give you the ability to create something completely different. You can go into the Kaltura video gallery and see what exactly can be done with your videos. The possibilities can be endless, from creating your own video blogs to immersing branded entertainment with your videos. You can also create video wikis.

Kaltura is based in Brooklyn, New York and is a privately owned company which has recently been in the news because of its work together with Wikipedia.

According to an article from Softpedia, dated July 18, 2009, video will be coming soon to Wiikpedia. The article basically states that there have been rumors around that Wikipedia is working to support video formats. Lately, the Wikipedia foundation has been coming out with more information about the new Wikipedia video platforms. The article further states that Wikipedia has tried several avenues, but what seems to work the best is that using tags, such as

Another article, on Read, Write, Web; dated July 18, 2009, states that Wikipedia has developed a video portal using a player known as an Ogg and for FireFox users, Wikpedia has created a video fireogg plugin. The article further states that Wikipedia is working closely with Kaltura in developing its video platform.

In a Cnet article dated July 17, 2009, Wikpedia will launch its controversial video player. The article further states that Wikipedia’s choice of the Ogg Theora as a video platform has caused quite a fracas in the web. Where the more prominent companies, such as Apple and Google both prefer the macro video formats, such as that provided with the Adobe Flash Player, Wikpedia has chosen to go with this new video format pioneered by Kaltura.

Yet another article published by Wired Magazine also states that Wikipedia is going video. In an article dated June 18, 2009, Wikipedia officials have gone to New York and worked together with Kaltura to develop a user edited video platform for Wikipedia that is not shackled by copyright infringement laws. The article further states that along with Kaltura and the Mozilla Foundation to name a few.

Kaltura was founded in 2006 by Ron Yakutiel, Dr. Shay David, Dr. Michal Tsur, and Eran Etam with the intention of revolutionizing online video streaming. All three founders have vast experience in marketing, advertising, and the media industry as well as being seasoned entrepreneurs who founded several other companies before hand.

Mr. Yakutiel has great entrepreneurial experience and has founded a whole slew of successful companies in Israel, the United States, and Canada in the internet, mobile applications, and security industries. Mr. Yakutiel was also a helicopter pilot at one time and enjoys traveling to remote and exotic places, such as Papua New Guinea and the Amazon. Mr. Yakutiel also enjoys shark fishing, scuba diving, sky diving, and bungee jumping. Mr. Yakutiel graduated from the Wharton School of Business with honors and received an MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurial Management. Mr. Yakutiel also still currently works at Kaltura as the company’s CEO.

Dr. David is a great asset to the company because of his broad experience in ventures in the tech industry, starting companies, and helping large enterprises turn ideas into products. Dr. David graduated from Cornell and got his PhD. Dr. David enjoys world travel. Dr. David also currently works at the company as the Vice President of Business and Community Development.

Dr. Tsur has deep experience in entrepreneurship and has started many startups in the tech industry and has the knowledge to boot it up. Dr. Tsur is very athletic and is an avid swimmer. She enjoys competitive swimming and tri-athletics. Dr. Tsur also enjoys hiking and is a mother of two. Dr. Tsur graduated from the University of New York and received her PhD in Application and Game Theoretics. Dr. Tsur also works at the company as President.

Mr. Etan also has experience in founding companies and was a cofounder of ICQ and also worked there as the Vice President of R&D. Later, ICQ was acquired by AOL for over $407 million. After that acquisition, Mr. Etan was a Vice President at AOL for a while and then went on to found other internet startups. Mr. Etam enjoys spending his spare time with his wife and children.

Kaltura’s investors include Avalon Ventures, which invested $2.2 million in series A funding, and 406 Ventures, which invested an undisclosed amount in series B funding in 2008.

Based in San Diego, Avalon Ventures is a vc firm that mainly invests in seed and early stage companies in the life sciences and IT industries both locally and across the United States. Founded in 1983, Avalon has eight venture funds totaling over $11 billion. Some other companies in Avalon’s portfolio include Afraxis, Carolus Therapeutics, Otonomy, SimulMedia, and others.

406 Ventures is a vc firm that invests in companies which have an innovative product in the IT industry. The vc firm was founded by seasoned entrepreneurs who have the know-how in starting a business from the ground up. 406 Ventures was founded in 2005 and identifies the latest trends in the IT industry and invests accordingly. Some other companies in 406 Ventures include Ambient, Bit9, Mashery, Memento, RatePoint, VeraCode, and others.

Kaltura does not have any noteworthy competitors as of yet.

For more information about Kaltura, click here.

Wouldn’t you like your own personal space where you can not only store your important notes but also have it almost communicate to you? Well maybe in the past this would have seemed like a far fetched idea, but not in today’s world. Presenting EVERNOTE… your very own work station where you can take notes, clip WebPages, snap photos using your mobile phones, create to-do lists and if this hasn’t triggered off your interest yet, then you can even record audio on this.

Evernote presents to you the most ideal way to access your information anytime, anywhere. Once you save any given information on Evernote, the powerful image and text recognition engines analyze the content and make it searchable, so accessing it would be child’s play.

Evernote was launched in 2009 and has it’s base in Mountain View, California and has a 50 member team. This company was conceptualized by Amir Behrooz and is headed by Phil Libin who is the current CEO. Though comparatively new in the business world, Evernote has already achieved the distinction of having one million registered users and has raised approximately $4.5 million last year alone.

Evernote’s 2 main investors include Troika Dialogue and Amir Behrooz the founder of Evernote and owner of Alimed, a leading manufacturer and supplier of high end products for all segments of the healthcare market.

The success of Evernote was not an overnight one. It was and continues to be steady and consistent. Through it’s Iphone application, Evernote has been downloaded around a million times. The company also has Mac and Windows clients as well as a Web browser version. If you were to have a breakdown in percentages, when it comes to usage, Windows has a 36% usage, Mac has a 28% usage, iPhone has a 20%usage, The Web browser version has an 11% usage, the Blackberry is at 2% and all the other mobile devices stand at a modest 1%.The numbers pertaining to the company are instructive because the number of downloads does not equal the number of registered users. The success of Evernote lies in it’s active users which amounts to almost 360,000. Though the number might seem relatively less, over the past one year this number has created over 36 million notes. The notes posted come in the form of Web clips, text notes, Photos, PDF documents, Voice notes, Digital ink and so on.

The main goal of Evernote is to enable people to capture any idea, moment or experience in any possible way they want and in any given possible platform and, later on, making it as accessible as they can. And they have achieved the desired results with the creation of text and ink notes, snapshots of whiteboards and clips of WebPages.

Since this is a very new, easy and convenient method of storing information, there are other companies who are in the running alongside Evernote. Evernote has 2 main competitors in the market namely Springnote and Radar Networks.
Springnote is a service that has captured the essence of Wiki. It works as a representative service of the web as a platform and the writable web.
Radar Networks is pioneering the mainstream adoption of the Semantic Web or what is sometimes called “Web 3.0″.

For those wanting a pocket friendly option, then Evernote provides it’s users with a free account. But for those who feel it just isn’t enough, then they can opt for the Evernote Premium. It comes complete with full synchronization, 500 MB of monthly allowance, stronger security and many more premium features. Evernote has approximately 13,755 Premium subscribers which comes out to about a 3.75 conversion rate. With time, the number of Premium subscriptions and the conversion rate is on the rise. The annual run rate is about 650,00 which may not sound much but Evernote has it’s other share of revenues. According to Phil Libin, the company’s CEO, if Evernote has about a million paying subscribers then that would be considered a decent profitable return for Evernote.

Evernote is your friendly companion which does not limit itself to only your PC or your mobile. It can be downloaded into your Mac, Windows mobile, Palm Pre, Blackberry, Web clippers and into your SanDisk U3 flash drives.

Evernote recommends the following products to make it easy for their users to capture anything, anytime: GRIFFIN CLARIFI CASE FOR THE IPOD 3G and EYE-FI WIRELESS SD CARD.
GRIFFIN CLARIFI CASE FOR THE IPOD 3G comes with a built in lense to make snapshots super clearwhich further improves evernote’s recognition results.
The EYE-FI WIRELESS SD CARD goes directly into your digital camera and your photos go directly into Evernote through Wi-Fi

For more detailed information about Evernote click here.

During a time where economic times are difficult and more people are loosing their jobs, needless to say the crime rate is rising and more people are looking for more effective ways to protect their homes and businesses from theft and other crimes. In fact, during such tough economic times, the security industry is doing very well and Ingrid Home Security is no exception to the rule. Furthermore, Ingrid Home Security has a revolutionary proprietary technology that allows you to control your home security system’s parameters through wireless controls.

Founded in 2004 and based in Berwin, Pennsylvania; Ingrid offers a whole array of technologies to keep your home and property protected. What makes Ingrid’s technology so revolutionary is that unlike most of your conventional security systems, there is no messy installation, no tearing through walls for placing wiring, or no requirement for a land phone line. Most of the security systems that Ingrid Home Security can be operated through your wireless phone or other communication device.

The way the Ingrid system works is by having a cordless phone and security remote control unit in one unit. This device allows you to keep your security controls with you at all times and this unit also has a panic button, incase someone is breaking into your home at night, when you are home alone. Along with the handset, Ingrid Home Security also provides a base to recharge the handset’s battery.

The next item in the Ingrid Security System is the Keypad Counsel, which is not only a security system keypad, but also doubles as a speaker phone and even has a weather station that can alert you when severe weather is on the way, giving you enough time to run to the basement when that tornado hits.

The next device in the Ingrid Home Security System is the Grid Extender. This is the brain of the entire system and enlarges the wireless grid to cover your entire house. The Ingrid Home website even advertises that you can use this device to cover your neighbor’s home if you wish to do so. This device will send all security information and security breaches to the Ingrid Home Security Monitoring Center.

Ingrid Home Security will even provide you with a security keychain, which has a panic button that you can press either inside or outside your home. You can also attach your house and car keys to the ring on the keychain.

Along with these wonderful gadgets, your system is supplied with eight points of protection. These points of protection are sensors that dedect motion and can detect whether there is an intruder inside your home when you are gone and can trigger the alarm. The alarm is also included in your system and has a high decibel siren that can scare the intruder away.

The security package also comes with an auxiliary battery pack for extra power and Ingrid Security signs for your yard.

Ingrid also offers you online access to your home’s security system from your laptop from anywhere in the world. You can access your security center and make changes to it from your office, a hotel, or where ever.

Ingrid Home Security has also been in the news. According to an article from the New York Times, that was dated October 29, 2008, the article states that Engineer, Mr. Jongsma had built a house where the builders installed a pre-wired security system and later on, Mr. Jongsma decided to reconfigure his home security system but soon found out that he was in over his head. Furthermore, the article stated that most alarm companies have their monitoring service and their system can only be used by their service and might not work properly with others, and the monitoring services can be fairly expensive. The Ingrid System, however, allows you to have a pay as you go plan and all of it is wireless.

On January 22, 2008, PC World wrote that the Ingrid Home Kit was well worth the time to install. This article continues to state that most conventional security alarm services, such as ADT use outdated analog phone land lines, whereas the Ingrid System is completely wireless and works on the broadband wireless network, therefore the system is not just restricted to one home.

Ingrid Home Security’s investors include Novak Biddle Venture Parters and PA Early Stage Partners, which invested $6.6 million in series A funding in September of 2004; Centerpoint Ventures, which invested $8.1 million in June of 2006; and ZG Ventures, which joined Novak Biddle Venture Partners, Centerpoint Ventures, and PA Early Stage Partners in a $13.5 million investment in series C funding.

Novak Biddle Venture Partners is a vc firm that provides both venture capital and private equity to early stage companies in the IT industry within the Mid-Atlantic region. Some other companies in Novak Biddle’s portfolio include 2tor, Appian, Starfish, Social Gaming Network, Education Initiative, and others.

PA Early Stage Partners has currently changed its name to Novitas, which according to them, means early stage success. The vc firm mainly invests seed and early stage funding to companies in various industries. Novitas also plays an active role in helping the startup company’s success. Some other companies in Novitas’s portfolio include Arista Systems, LightWire, Nistica, Fortera, EZ Prints, and others.

Centerpoint Ventures is a vc firm that has the philosophy of not just offering the needed capital, but also choosing the right deals and showing up at board meetings. Centerpoint is an active investor that follows its portfolio companies every step of the way. Centerpoint Ventures mainly invests in the first or second round of funding. Some other companies in Centerpoint’s portfolio include D2Audio, Voyence, Netbotz, Neoworld, and others.

Ingrid Home security does not yet have any competitors that are noteworthy enough to provide serious competition.

For more information about Ingrid Home Security, click here.

There has been no technological advancement that is as awesome or versatile as the creation of the internet. What is the most amazing thing about the internet is that it is such a powerful engine for many entrepreneurs and more innovative technologies and services have been spawned by the internet. The latest evolution on the internet is an online invitation publisher, Anyvite. Anyvite is a privately owned corporation that was founded in 2008 with the goal to publish a free invitation service. The slogan at Anyvite is that “an event creation should be simple, easy, and produce a quality result.” In the About segment of Anyvite’s website, the creators of Anyvite state that the purpose for creating Anyvite is to allow for people to create invitations for all sorts of events ranging from weddings to birthdays to graduations, or practically anything else that you would like to invite a few people to.

How Anyvite works is very simple and the user-friendly interface allows you to create a quality invitation with relative ease. When you first come to the website, you will see a large green button that will ask you to try Anyvite. The first thing that you need to do is to choose from the thousands of themes and images available on the Anyvite website. If you do not see an image that fits the event that you are creating, you can even upload your own picture in JPEG format. A tip for uploading your image, make it small, there is a size limit. The next step is to enter the details of your event. This is done by typing in your name, address, RSVP, and other information that you would like to have on the invitation. For those of you in foreign countries or speakers of foreign languages, Anyvite does accept the text of non-Latin alphabets, so you can do invitations in Russian, Ukrainian, or any other language that uses the Cyrillic alphabet. You can even use Georgian, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, and Japanese script in writing your event invitation.

The third step is inviting guests. Anyvite has several different kinds of options on how to approach this. Some people like to invite everyone, others want to invite only a select few. Anyvite allows you to do just that. You can import email contacts, Evite contacts, or you can even import emails manually to invite a select few friends. Sending the invitation is also rather easy. All you need to do is to type in your name, email, and password. That’s it, and it’s all free.

Well if the service is free, how does Anyvite make a profit? Anyvite makes a profit with advertisements powered by Google.

The one known investor of Anyvite is the Y Combinator, which invested an undisclosed amount in seed funding. The Y Combinator is a new kind of vc firm that is there for startup tech companies who need to get over that first step, obtaining the necessary capital to get off the ground. The Y combinator also cares about how the entrepreneur gets started and will help him all the way through that first tough step. Along with providing that necessary capital, the Y Combinator also provides new entrepreneurs with the knowledge and resources to get started successfully

Anyvite does have a few competitors, however the two major competitors are Evite and EventElephant.

Evite is one of the major online event invitation generating services serving over 15 million registered users. Evite is a corporate subsidiary of Ticket Master and is based in Los Angeles, California with seven people on its management team.

Based in the United Kingdom and Ireland, EventElephant is another online event invitation generator which has a platform that can allow the user to easlily organize events and generate quality invitations and send them to their online friends. EventElephant has two people on its management team and is a privately owned LLC, which was founded in 2007.

For more information about Anyvite, click here.

As social networks are growing in popularity, there is a constant flow of new social networks out there that provide something for everyone. The newest one of these social networks is Slinkset. Slinkset claims to be a news related social network which allows you to register, if you can get the registration to work, that is.

According to the company’s website, you are able to create your own social news network in seconds. When you do create your network, you are supposed to have the ability to customize your own design, use your own domain, etc. You can even auto post links through the RSS method. Slinkset also has a link that allows you to visit other Slinkset sites. Slinkset also features sites and gives typography tips.

Registration on Slinkset, however, is not what it is cracked out to be. After trying to register into Slinkset, the registration failed every time. Either there is something wrong with the password or something else, it’s hard to explain. Furthermore, there are few or no directions what so ever to make the sign in process easier or successful. Furthermore, if the registration process is not user friendly and people are unable o sign in and start using the Slinkset site, how will the company succeed?

Slinkset was until recently owned by Anzavista, but now it was acquired by blogging company, Posterious, Inc., which is a company that allows you to write and post blog entries. Posterious acquired Slinkset in June of this year.

Slinkset’s sole known investor is the Y Combinator, which invested an undiscloded amount in seed funding in 2008.

The Y Combinator is a unique vc firm that is solely dedicated to providing the needed capital to startup companies in the internet, software, and tech industries. According to the Y Combinator, getting started is the hardest step for fledgeling entrepreneurs and the vc firm is dedicated to get them over that difficult first step. Furthermore, when it comes to technology, the team at the Y Combinator are all young techies with the passion for new technology and are more than willing to help out the diligent entrepreneur who has a unique technology that will revolutionize the internet industry.

Slinkset does not have any noteworthy competitors, but there are some companies that provide a similar service to Slinkset. One of these is Digg, which was founded in 2004 and provides people a place to explore and share content from anywhere on the internet.

For more information about Slinkset, click here.

Based in Brazil, Power.com is a unique social network that allows you to sign in and access other social networks, such as Twitter, Linkedin, Orkut, MySpace, Facebook, and Hi5. What makes Power.com different from other social networks, is that you do not need to sign up like you need to do with other social networks. If you are already signed in in one of the above mentioned social networks, you just need to type in your username from one of those networks and type in the password that you use for that network and you are in. Power.com allows you to access all the information in your other accounts and use them on Power.com

This new service by Power.com, however, does not come smoothly. In January of 2009, Facebook did not like Power.com’s platform and sued the company for infringements on copyrights. Facebook does not like that users can log on to their Facebook accounts from other social networks, and this is the reason for the lawsuit. In fact, Facebook prefers that its users would log on directly to the Facebook website. The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court in San Jose. Other claims that Facebook has made against Power.com are of unlawful competition and Facebook also claims that what Power.com is doing is also a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Barry Schmidt, a spokesman at Facebook stated in an article from the New York Times dated January 2, 2009 that Facebook had several discussions with Power.com over this issue for over a month without any concessions from Power.com, Facebook decided to take the company to court. According to Steve Vachani, founder of Power.com, the company wanted to work together with Facebook on how to best create this service and wanted to cooperate with Facebook, but obviously Facebook decided to take another direction. The complaint that Facebook filed states that Power.com uses a program that solicits uses and saves all of Facebook’s users’ login data for use on its own website. Furthermore Facebook also claims that Power.com also sends emails that are misleading advertisements to the Friends of Facebook.

The fight does not end there, in fact recently it just got hotter with Power.com counter suing Facebook, claiming that Facebook is a monopoly and argues that Facebook is curbing the competition by restricting its users to the Facebook server and by blocking users’ access to Power.com. Furthermore, Power.com charges Facebook with monopolization of the trade because Facebook has made billions of dollars while restricting users’ data within its service and Power.com also claims that Facebook only decided to sue them after they refused to follow the rules that Power.com worked out together with Facebook.

Power.com is a ptivately owned venture backed company with three people on its management team. The people on the management team include Steven Vachani, CEO; Boyan Josic, director of corporate development; and Eric Santos, director of public engineering.

Power.com’s investors include Draper Fisher Juvertson, or DFJ, and Esther Dyson.

Based in Menlo Park, California, DFJ is a premier vc firm that focuses its investments on early stage companies. Besides its headquarters in Menlo Park, DFJ is also global with offices in Shanghai, China and in Bangalore, India. DFJ is an active investor that provides its portfolio companies with more that just the necessary capital they need to run successful companies. Other companies in DFJ’s portfolio include 4info, Abuzz, Achex, AppStream, Boxbe, and others.

Esther Dyson calls himself a catalyst for startup companies and his vc firm is EDVentures, which invests in markets throughout the United States and other markets throughout the world, including Russia.

Power.com has one competitor that is worth mentioning, FriendFeed. FriendFeed is a social network that provides the same kind of service that Power.com provides. FriendFeed is a privately owned corporation, which employs nine people and has four people on its management team.

For more information about Power.com, click here.

Founded in 2004, Ozmo Devices has been innovating new devices that can use the WiFi connection to link together with your WPAN or WLAN. The company’s technicians are developing a two-part solution which has a driver incorporated in it that coexists with the host platform’s WiFi device, which could be a computer or other device. The other part of this solution is a low powered component that is highly integrated into the system and is embedded in the wireless peripheral. Furthermore, the type of platform that Ozmo is developing can leverage itself to any of your WiFi devices from your iPod Touch or iPhone to your laptop computer and in linking these two devices you can have your own WLAN or WPAN.

Along with this innovative platform, Ozmo also provides applications to make all the peripherals work together smoothly.

As of 2008, about 95% of all PC laptop computers are WiFi enabled and naturally the laptop computer is what most people use WiFi with to connect to the internet. It would only make sense for Ozmo to make the laptop computer to be the first basis for applications for Ozmo’s technology. The value of millions of laptop computers can significantly increase when Ozmo devices with a WiFi chip in them are linked wirelessly to your laptop. Furthermore, you can use your computer together with other peripheral devices such as mobile devices, consumer electronics, and hi-tech television sets and set up your own WPAN or WLAN.

With the advent of technology in the late 20th Century and the first nine years of the 21st Century more and more devices are becoming outfitted to be WiFi capable. Whether you have any kind of consumer electronics, the newest MP3 players or cellphones are all equipped with WiFi. The first WiFi MP3 player that was WiFi equipped was Apple’s iPod Touch, and now everyone is jumping into this market. Video games are also going WiFi, with many video games being made to work with devices that are WiFi equipped. The problem, however, lies in bandwidth. Video players and video game controllers which can output highly graphic video games require more bandwidth than what the ordinary WPAN can accommodate. Ozmo Devices also provides a solution for this. All the peripherals that Ozmo creates for consumer electronics do provide the bandwidth for high-quality video and audio files.

What really gives Ozmo Devices the potential for taking off in the marketplace is its home entertainment platform. Nowadays home entertainment systems and computers are integrated with television and internet being merged into one unit. One of the benefits of having internet based TV is that the variety of channels to your avail is amazing. Some web-based television platforms even allow you to view TV channels from all over the world. Ozmo Devices has the technology needed to wirelessly integrate your home entertainment system with your computer. Ozmo Devices allows you to connect unlimited devices to your home entertainment system.

Ozmo Devices is based in Palo Alto, California and was founded in 2004. The company employs 26 people.

Ozmo Devices has been in the news quite a bit since its founding. In March 30, 2008 Ozmo Devices’ subsidiary, H-Stream Wireless received $12.55 million in series A funding from Granite Venture Partners. The article stated that the revolutionary platform that Ozmo provides solves many problems with WiFi connections and different WiFi devices, allowing for many peripherals to be connected wirelessly at the same time. H-Stream Wireless, however, develops wireless semiconductor solutions.

In 2008, Ozmo announced the launching of WPAN applications for low powered wireless devices. The article also states that in 2004, when Ozmo was founded, the company also invented and launched the H-Stream Wireless.

Ozmo’s investors include Granite Ventures, Tallwood Venture Partners, and Intel Capital.

Founded in 1992, Granite Venture Partners is a vc firm that mainly invests in early stage companies in the communications and software industries. Granite Ventures has over $700 million under its management and has invested in over 80 companies since its founding. Some of the companies in Granite Ventures’ portfolio include Airtight Networks, GigaNet, InfoGear Technology, NetBoost, and others.

Intel Capital is the vc arm of the CPU maker, Intel, and invests in companies that have a product that is of interest to Intel.

Tallwood Venture Partners is a vc firm that is devoted to the semiconductor industry and the vc firm raised its first fund in 2002, which consisted of $180 million and then raised its second fund in 2005, which consists of $250 million. The vc firm’s main investors are Stanford and Harvard Universities. Some other companies in Tallwood’s portfolio include Abound Logic, Astute Networks, Ciena, Calypto, and others.

Ozmo Devices does have some competitors, one of which is Nanoradio, which is based in Kista, Sweden. The company offers products that are similar to those that Ozmo Devices makes. Nanoradio was founded in 2004 and employs 55 people. Nanoradio has three people on its management team.

For more information about Ozmo Devices, click here.

RentHop is another new company that offers a service. RentHop’s website is a service that helps people find a place to rent or buy, and also allows landlords list places to rent or sell, bypassing the need to hire a real estate broker, which can be a costly undertaking. The site allows you to sign up or register for free, but the main problem with the site is that it does not seem to function the way it is supposed to.

For example, if you are planning to find an apartment to rent somewhere in America’s heartland, and you type in the town of your choice to try and find a place; you always end up with a map of New York City. Furthermore, only after spending time browsing through all the nooks and crannys of the RentHop site, you will find out that it only caters to New York City real estate. This is great if you live in New York City, but if you are trying to find a place somewhere else, it will do you no good. If RentHop only caters to New York City real estate, that’s fine, but it should make that clear on its homepage, not to confuse people.

RentHop works by registering on the site. Registration is simple and free. When you first go onto the site, you have the option of either logging in or registering as a new member. The registration process requires you to type in your first and last name, email, create a user name and password. You also have the option of typing in your current address and your city to help you find a place.

Once you have logged into the site, you will see the homepage will have changed by the log in and register buttons changing into “find housing” and “offer housing” buttons. You will also see pictures of apartments that RentHop has to offer. You can click on the find housing and a whole list of apartments throughout New York City will appear.

RentHop also allows you to offer housing by clicking on the “offer housing” button. Once you have clicked on the “offer housing” button, you have the option of typing the address of the apartment or home you plan to list. You can also type in the name of the city. For example, suppose you want to offer a place in Michigan City, Indiana. Suppose you own, for example 119 Oakdale Way, Michigan City. First type in the address, city and state, and zip code. If your rental home is a unit in a condo complex or apartment complex, you will also need to enter a unit number. You also have the option of uploading photos of your rental property. Once you have typed in all the important information you post the offer for people to see.

Another problem with RentHop is the contact information is only one email address and no phone contact. This leaves those people who like to talk to people out in the cold. Furthermore, the company does not disclose company information, such as investors, how many people they employ or their management.

For more information about RentHop, click here.

With the advance of the internet, many magazines or newspapers started going onto the internet, subscriptions have also been done online, however, doing an online subscription is not easy. Zuora is a service that attempts to solve the problems that online subscription companies face.

To use Zuora, you must sign up for its service, and it does not cost anything to sign up. The only problem is that when you sign up for Zuora’s service, you will not be prompted to type in a user name or password like you do with other internet based sign-up forms. Zuora is designed differently, because instead of prompting you to type in a user name or password, you need to type in your name, your business name, your email, and your phone number. You will also be prompted to choose from a menu that asks you what your company offers. You have the option to choose either subscription based products, software as a service or SaaS, or neither. You also have a second menu that asks you what status your company is in. You can choose pre-revenue, less that $1 million, $1-5 million, $5-20million, $20-100 million, or $100+ million. You will need to select any one of these. The required fields will be marked with a red asterisk and you can also fill out optional information, such as your title, city, or country. When you are done filling out the form, you click on the “submit” button, and you will get an email that thanks you for your interest in Zuora, but no user name or password. The question is that how can someone use a company’s products if he does not have any access to them?

The one product that Zuora has featured on its homepage is Z-Billing. Z-Billing is a billing system that is supposed to be designed specifically for online subscription companies, and the advertisement for Z-Billing 2.0 basically states that there are many kinds of subscription products that web-based subscription companies offer, from music to software to DVDs and other services or products.

Some of the features that Z-Billing is supposed to have is that it can scale according to the growth of your business, provide full pricing flexibility, to allow you to constantly introduce new products; it supports any subscription model, allowing you to have a one-time subscription fee or a recurring monthly or yearly fee; tax automation and compliance, which is a new feature added to Z-Billing 2.0 and allows you to figure out your taxes with relative easy; an automatic currency converter; and many more features needed for a web-based subscription business.

The main problem with Zuora is how to gain access to its products. According to its overview on TradeVibes.com, Zuora is considered as a bearish company. Some of the viewers on TradeVibes commented that Zuora’s pricing not sustainable, furthermore it is impossible to log into Zuora’s service. Therein lies the question on how can users access the products that Zuora has to offer? Most people who do business on the internet like to have things running smoothly and not have to constantly contact tech support to get a problem solved.

Zuora is a privately owned corporation that is based in Redwood City, California and was founded in 2006. Zuora has four people on its management team and its main founder is Tien Tzuo.

Tien Tzuo is the driving force in the company and has also founded other startups as well. Mr. Tzuo helped in the founding Zuora after working at Salesforce.com, where he was also a cofounder. Mr. Tzuo also currently works at Zuora as the company’s CEO and is also an adviser to Cloud9 Analytics and also sits on Zuora’s board of directors.

Zuora’s investors include Benchmark Capital, which invested $6.5 million in series A funding in March of 2008 and Shasta Ventures and Lehman Brothers Venture Partners, which invested $15 million in series B funding in October of 2008.

Benchmark Capital is a vc firm that is focused on helping talented entrepreneurs build successful companies. One of the key phrases at Benchmark is team work. This is what makes Benchmark Capital unique among other vc firms, they like to consider themselves as part of the team of their portfolio companies. Benchmark Capital is usually the first investor in a company’s life, providing seed and early stage funding to companies in the tech industry. Some other companies in Benchmark’s portfolio include Mazu Networks, Atrica, Blue Coat, Decru, Securify, and others.

Shasta Ventures is a vc firm that is dedicated to backing early stage companies run by outstanding entrepreneurs and mainly invests in companies that are in a wide range of different industries. The goal of Shasta is to provide entrepreneurs not only with the capital they need, but also help them set realistic objectives to make their companies succeed in the marketplace. Some other companies in Shasta’s portfolio include Apptio, ArchRock, Asterpix, BabyCenter, BlueNile, Click Forensics, and others.

Zuora does have some competitors, but the most noteworthy one is Paypal. Paypal is an online bank, which allows you to deposit or withdraw money digitally to your bank or credit union. You can also use Paypal to make online purchases. Paypal is safe to use and your money in Paypal is secured by all kinds of different security features. Paypal is used by most of the world’s most prominent online merchants and auction sites. In fact, eBay only uses Paypal for online transactions. Paypal is a subsidiary of eBay and was founded in 1998.

For more information about Zuora, click here.

In recent times, the mobile industry is expanding and there are always new emerging markets for new and more sophisticated mobile devices, from hi-tech phones to small pocket computers that fit into the palm of your hand and, the iPhone, of course. These emerging markets in the mobile industry are always a great breading ground for new startup companies and Modu is no exception.

Modu is very unique because it has introduced a very revolutionary product into the market. Not only does Modu create the world’s lightest phone, it also has a modular phone which is a device jacket that can be attached to another portable device, such as an MP3 player. The Modu Jacket is also revolutionary, because you can change a jacket whenever you like and the different jackets that Modu makes can accommodate practically any lifestyle.

One of the jackets that Modu offers is the Modu Express Jacket, which is a jacket that advertises to turn your Modu phone into a playful and entertaining device. The way this works is that the Modu phone is just a phone, but the jacket is the actual interface that gives the basic Modu phone all kinds of features that you could find in multiple mobile devices. The Express Jacket is a jacket that has a slim design and comes in a huge variety in colors and patterns. Furthermore, the Express Jacket is designed to turn your phone into a fun messaging device.

Another of Modu’s jackets is the Modu Music Jacket, which turns your phone into an MP3 player as well as just a mere cellphone. The face of the Modu Music Jacket has graphic equalizers on the display screen and what makes the music jacket so amazing is that it even comes with its own loud speakers that have high quality sound. This MP3 player is not just for headphones anymore. These speakers power excellent sound for their small size, allowing you to blast the neighborhood with the stored music tracks.

Are you an avid bicycle rider? Well, guess what? Modu also has something for you. Introducing the bicycle jacket, which allows you to affix your phone to the handle bar on your bicycle. The jacket also comes with an added accessory that is also affixed to the handle bars on your bicycle. The Modu Bicycle Jacket is also equipped with an extra large display screen with large text that can be easily seen when a call is coming in or scrolling through menus while riding on your bicycle and still being able to pay attention to the road.

The three products mentioned above are only a few of the jackets that Modu has available for its phone. Furthermore, as mentioned above, all these jackets are interchangeable and you can even have several different jackets to suite all your different needs in life.

Modu is based in Kfar Saba, Israel and employs ten people. The company was founded in 2007 and is a privately owned corporation with four people on its management team, who are Dov Moran, CEO; Ronen Faier, CFO; Itay Sherman, CTO; and Udi Weinstein, CIO.

Besides being Modu’s CEO, Mr. Moran is also the founder of the company. Mr. Moran is not new at founding companies, since before founding Modu, he founded Msystems, which is the company that invented both the USB flash drive and the flash chip or card. Msystems became worth more than $1 billion and was acquired by Sandisk.

As the company’s CFO, Mr. Faier oversees all the financial operations at Modu. Before coming to Modu, Mr. Faier was the CFO at Glue Software Technologies and Sandisk Israel. Mr. Faier has quite a bit of experience in corporate finances and also held key positions in the financial departments of Msystems and other tech companies. Mr. Faier was also the financial controller at VocalTec Communications, Ltd.

Mr. Sherman works at Modu as the company’s CTO and oversees all the technical operations at Modu. Before coming to Modu, Mr. Sherman worked for Texas Instruments, where he held key tech positions. Mr. Sherman joined Texas Istruments when it acquired the innovative cable modem developer, Libit; where he worked as the company’s marketing director. Mr. Sherman also worked for the Israeli Defense Ministry.

As Modu’s CIO, Mr. Weinstein is in charge of Modu’s entire IT operations. Mr. Weinstein worked at Sandisk as the company’s vice president before coming to Modu. Mr. Weinstein also has over 10 years of experience in IT, organization, and methods. Mr. Weinstein’s main role at Modu is to make sure that the communications systems of the company work smoothly.

Modu’s main investors are Gemini Israel Funds and Genesis Partners, who funded Modu $20 million in series A funding in June of 2007, and $100 million in series B funding on March 25, 2008. Qualcom also invested $7 million in series C funding for Modu in January of 2009.

Gemini Israel Fund is a vc firm that mainly invests in early stage companies that are based in Israel. The goal of the Gemini Israel Fund is to support Israeli entrepreneurs build successful companies. Some other companies in Gemini’s portfolio include Contextream, Massive Impact, RADLive, WeFi, and others.

Genesis Partners is a leading Israeli vc firm that mainly invests in the tech industry. The types of entrepreneurs that Genesis seeks to invest in are those who are diligent and have an innovative technology, along with the desire to build fast growing companies. Some other companies in Genesis’ portfolio include AGI, ColBar, Elcom Technologies, Lucid, Netect, and others.

Modu does not have any known competitors as of yet.

For more information about Modu, click here.

Astaro is a company founded in 2000 and designs an internet gateway that simplifies your email and protects you from viruses, spyware, phishing, and other pitfalls of the internet. Astaro is a privately owned venture backed company which is based in Wilmington, Massachusetts and employs 170 people.

When you look at the Astaro website, you will see four ways that Astaro claims to help you secure your internet activity and protect your computer from viruses and other internet dangers. These are the Astaro Security Gateway, the Astaro Web Gateway, the Astaro Mail Gateway, and the Astaro Command Center.

The Astaro Gateway is an internet portal which comes with both hardware and software and is designed to integrate the complete network. Furthermore, the Astaro Gateway interface has a user-friendly threat management system that can provide an all in one solution for all your internet security needs. Some of the features that the Astaro Gateway includes are a network security feature, which can protect your network from a huge variety of internet threats, including viruses, denial of service attacks, port scans, worms, trojans, and other threats; a mail security feature, which scans and filters your emails to prevent spam, viruses, phishing, and other destructive emails out of your network; a web security feature, which can protect employee access to your network and filters all web FTP traffic to protect your network from viruses and other online threats; and finally, the Astaro Gateway provides you with easy management and up to date service.

The Astaro Web Gateway is an interface that is designed to keep all your web data secure and can also control what your employees can access on the web. Some of the features that are included in the Astaro Web Gateway include URL filtering, which controls what your employees can or cannot browse over the web and Astaro advertises that this feature not only increases productivity, but also can enforce compliance and reduce legal risks to the employer. Another feature is the Malware Detection feature, which is a feature that helps your network monitor all FTP traffic and filter out viruses, spyware and phone-home applications, which can pose serious security threats to your network. The use of this feature in the Astaro Web Gateway can greatly reduce the leakage of sensitive information to undesirable parties or hackers trying to get into your network.

The Astaro Mail Gateway is an all in one solution to monitor your employer’s emails on your company’s network. The Astaro Mail Gateway protects your emails from spam, worms, phishing, and viruses. Furthermore, the Astaro Mail Gateway is a user-friendly end portal that can allow users to keep a quarantine email log.

The Astaro Command Center can be a key feature for internet service providers and employers alike to oversee the entire network operation. The Astaro Command Center is used to monitor the overall system, see what is going on and to control aspects of the network. The command center also offers a single-sign-on feature, which allows your users to sign on only once, simplifying the login process onto your network.

As for a startup, Astaro seems to doing rather well, with global expansion and the company has offices in the United States, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, Jordan, Singapore, and Switzerland.

Astaro’s known investors are Insight Venture Partners and Wellington Partners, which invested $6.7 million in series B funding in May of 2004.

Insight Ventures is both a vc firm and a private equity firm, which is a leader in providing the necessary capital to new global software, internet and data service companies. Insight Ventures was founded in 1995 and has over $3 billion under its management. Some other companies in Insight’s portfolio include ExactTarget, Connexus, Nistevo, Cleanwise, Argus Software, and others.

Wellington Partners is a vc firm that has been around for at least ten years and is dedicated to the success of European entrepreneurs. Wellington Partners mainly invests in companies that are in the clean tech, digital media, software, and life sciences industries. Wellington Partners has offices in London, England; Munich, Germany; and Palo Alto, California. Some other companies in Wellington’s portfolio include BridgeCo, Cavendish Kinetics, Adconion, Goom Radio, SMS Guru, and others.

Astaro has one noteworthy competitor, Alert Logic. Alert Logic provides a similar service and product as does Astaro and is a company that is based in Houston, Texas and was founded in 2002. Alert Logic is a privately owned corporation and employs 52 people.

For more information about Astaro, click here.

Founded in June of 2006, Aprius is the newest company that bids to revolutionize I/O gateways and the products that Aprius offers are solutions that virtualize and pool the I/O gateway, high performance and shared storage, cost effective host-to-host communications, and a high availability sparing for PCIe resources.

The I/O gateway is a device that enables PCI Express resources to be provisioned, moved, managed, or consolidated. Furthermore, the Aprius I/O gateway virtualizes all of the above into one pool, whenever the need arises to do so. In doing so, the Aprius I/O gateway helps businesses and high-end computing customers to achieve the highest performance possible from their servers. Furthermore, higher performance and more traffic flow also provides for lower costs and higher profits for the companies with Aprius products.

Aprius has a line of products that is solely dedicated to a higher I/O gateway performance. Aprius’ technology is also good for businesses because it is scaleable and resilient, as well as having a high port count system architecture, which can be used to interface a high volume of servers serving both industrial and high computing networks.

Aprius also offers applications that are designed to help I/O providers to run their I/O gateways more smoothly and efficiently. The way this software works is by I/O virtualization, server expansion, computational acceleration, high performance storage, and host-to-host communication.

Aprius investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners and NEA, which invested $11 million in series A funding in 2007, and the two above mentioned vc firms also pitched in with Menlo Ventures in $20 million in series B funding.

Lightspeed Venture Partners is a vc firm that is a global leader in investing in early stage companies and Lightspeed has more than $2 billion under its management. Lightspeed Venture Partners is based in Silicon Valley, California and has offices in Israel, China, and India. Some other companies in Lightspeed’s bill include 99Bill, Aerohive, Blaze DFM, Blue Nile, CoalTek, and others.

NEA or New Enterprise Associations is a vc firm that is also a leader in venture capital and focuses on helping entrepreneurs turn their ideas into successful companies. Founded in 1978, NEA invests in all stages of a company’s life and has over $8.5 billion under its management. Some other companies in NEA’s portfolio include Anicus, Xen Source, 3Com, Alteon, Argon Networks, and others.

Menlo Ventures is a vc firm that is based in Menlo Park, California and is dedicated to providing long term capital and management support to early stage companies and was founded in 1976. Menlo Ventures has over $4 billion under its management and has a team of partners with deep experience in the tech industry. Some other companies in Menlo’s portfolio include 3Par, Acme Packet, CellFire, UUNET Technologies, InfoSeek, Mobitv, and others.

The founders of Aprius are Jean-Marc Verdiell, who still works at the company as its CTO; Marc Epitaux, who still works at Aprius as the company’s Vice President of Components and Engineering; and Peter Kirkpatrick, who also serves the company as the Chief Architect.

Dr. Verdiell has experience in management, product development, and research in the optoelectronics industry that spans over 19 years and has held key management positions in prominent companies, such as AT&T Bell Laboratories, SDL, and Intel. Dr. Verdiell also directed the Optical Digital Group in October of 2001, where he was in charge of developing Intel’s optical technology strategy. Dr. Verdiell graduated from the University of Paris, where he received a doctorate in optoelectronics.
Marc Epitaux has worked in the development engineering and team management department for over 13 years and was an early contributer at LightLogic, where he developed 10 GB/s optical modules and manufacturing automation technology. Mr. Epitaux graduated from EPFL, Switzerland in 1992 with an MS in Micro Engineering.

Mr. Kirkpatrick is also an asset to the company, because of his incredible experience in the development of high speed communication systems. Mr. Kirkpatrick also worked at Intel, where he worked on path finding in short reach optical interconnects. In 1999, he graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado, where he received an MSEE in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering.

Aprius does not yet have any noteworthy competitors to speak of.

For more information about Aprius, click here.

The job search has been on the internet for a while, and there are many job searching networks available, but there is one that seems to stand out from them all. Visual CV is the online social network that is designed for those of you who finished your college education and are looking for a good job. Visual CV basically provides you with a free service that can also allow you to import your Linkedin profile, if you have a Linkedin account.

Signing up on Visual CV is very easy and user friendly. All you need to do is to type in your first name, then your last name, and your email address. After you type in your email address, you will be prompted to confirm your email address and then you must type in and confirm a password, which must be a minimum of eight characters. After your password, you must type a series of letters and numbers that appear in a graphic above. That’s it, then you are in. You will not be able to log into your account until you get your confirmation email. That email usually comes in seconds after you have successfully signed up for Visual CV. When you get the email, all you need to do is to click on the hyperlink in your email that tells you to confirm your email and it will directly open up Visual CV’s website and walk you through establishing your account.

Once you are in your account, you can set things up with relative ease. After you have edited your Visual CV profile, you will see a bar graph that tells you how much of your profile is complete. You will see after you have finished your initial profile, you will see the bar graph will tell you that your profile is 30% complete. On your account, you will see that you have two options: 1) the option to share your profile with others, and 2) the option to edit your profile. If you are not finished with your profile, you can go to the edit option and you can do all kinds of things to create that killer resume or curriculum vitae that will land you with that good paying job. You can upload your personal image by clicking on the square at the top right hand corner of the website. You can also add a summary, edit your work history, and your educational history.

The parts of your online Visual CV resume are known as columns and the above mentioned material is in your main column. At the top of the website, you will see a toolbar that has all kinds of options for columns that you can add. Suppose you want to add your interests or skills as a column to your resume. For your interests, you click on the interests button on the toolbar. You will see at the bottom of the group of columns an interest column that you can edit. All you need to do is to click on the edit hyperlink and a text box will appear on that column. All you need to do is to type in all your interests and then hit save button and that’s it. What you wrote will be saved and you or anyone else who views your profile will see it when they see your profile. Visual CV offers even more options that cannot all be covered in this article.

If you choose to share your profile with someone you know or a potential employer, you can click on the share hyperlink and you will be prompted to add emails of people, with whom you want to share with. You have the option to choose your contacts from either your Linkedin account or from your email’s address book. You can click on either one of these options. You can even change your privacy status and promote yourself with Visual CV.

Visual CV was founded in 2008 and is based in Reston, Virginia and employs 20 people. Visual CV has three people on its management team and they are Phillip Merrick, who is one of the two cofounders of the company and also serves Visual CV as the company chairman. The second cofounder is Clint Heiden, who also serves as the company’s CEO. The third member on the management team is Douglas Meadows, who is the vice president and the general manager of operations.

Philip Merrick is a seasoned entrepreneur, who also founded Bibury Partners, where he still works as a managing partner of the firm. Bibury Partners is an early stage technology advisory and investment firm. Mr. Merrick also was a cofounder of webMethods, Inc, which he founded together with his wife in 1996. webMethods is a company that became a leader in business integration software.

Clint Heiden is the second cofounder and before founding Visual CV, he was the CEO of the Heiden Group, which is a recruiting firm for venture backed companies in the tech industry. The Heiden Group also builds sales and marketing teams up from scratch for these companies so the sponsored companies can have an effective marketing strategy to sell their products. Mr. Heiden also has over 17 years of experience in the executive field that includes P&L, Finance, sales, marketing, and business development.

The two major investors of Visual CV are Valhalla Partners and Heidrick & Struggles, which invested an undisclosed amount in series A funding in November of 2007.

Valhalla Partners is a vc firm that invests in companies in the IT industry. Valhalla is an amazing vc firm that is able to generate a large amount of capital and a track record to prove it. Over 20 years ago, Valhalla Partners had about $3 billion to about $240 billion in capital under its management today. Some other companies in Valhalla’s portfolio include Advertising.com, Avail, B2B Markets, Enterprise DB, Exelon, and others.

Visual CV does have a few competitors and one of its more noteworthy competitors is ResumeBear, which is a privately owned corporation that employs 12 people. ResumeBear was founded in 2008 and is based in Solana Beach, California. ResumeBear has four people on its management team and two people on its board of directors.

For more information about Visual CV, click here.

A new form of advertising has appeared on the internet. Introducing Pinch Media, which is an advertising company that offers a free service and even allows you to create your own application. Using this service is very simple and you do not need to be a techie to be able to create an app on Pinch Media. You even have the option to charge for downloading your application if you choose to do so. You can even have your application to be in several different languages. The languages that you can choose from are English, French, Italian, German, Japanese, and Spanish. After you have written what the application will do, Pinch Media will launch it automatically. Once you have successfully created your application, you will see at the top of the website, that your application and the name of your application successfully added to Pinch Media. You will be required to create your own application to be able to use the services available on Pinch Media.

The two major services are the Pinch Analytics, which is an analytic system that is compatible with mobile phones. This program is integrated with your app and you can see all the valuable data about the market of your product. Pinch Analytics is free to use and your app is automatically enrolled into it after you have created it.

The second service is Pinch Advertising. Pinch Advertising is an app that can be used on the iPhone and the above mentioned Pinch Analytics is required to enroll your app for this service. Furthermore, Pinch Advertising is also offered simultaneously with JumpTap, which is a leading network in the mobile advertising industry. This also allows you to integrate your app with JumpTap’s sales team and enables your app to work with the iPhone. If you choose to enroll your app with this service, you need to click on the hyperlink below that will say enroll and your app’s name. When you click on this link and plan to enroll your app with this service, you will see a whole page that explains the terms and services this service provides. You will also be notified that JumpTap will handle all the payments. Your adds will appear on the iPhone as a banner at the top of the iPhone display. You will not be prompted to type in a credit or debit card number or your cellphone number for payment.

Pinch Media is a privately owned company that is based in Hoboken, New Jersey. The company’s management team consists of its two founders, Greg Yardley, who also works at Pinch Media as the company’s CEO and Jesse Rohland, who also works at the company as its lead developer.

Mr. Yardley has quite a bit of experience in designing analytics and ad serving products. One of the reasons of Pinch Media’s success is because Mr. Yardley is a former Yahoo employee and worked on Yahoo’s real time auction for the Yahoo advertising. Mr. Yardley joined Yahoo, when it acquired Right Media, where Mr. Yardley was the lead product manager.

Mr. Rohland is the engine that runs Pinch Media’s engineering efforts. Before joining Mr. Yardley in founding Pinch Media, Mr. Rohland also worked at Yahoo, where he was the key developer. Before coming to Yahoo, Mr. Rohland was a developer at several e-commerce sites.

Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital, and W Media Ventures are the three major investors in Pinch Media and invested an undisclosed amount in series A funding in seed funding in May of 2008.

Based in New York, Union Square Ventures is a vc firm that mainly invests in early stage companies in the IT industry and that have an innovative product that has the potential to disrupt the market. Some companies in Union Square’s portfolio include 10gen, Adaptive Blue, AMEE, Boxee, Clickable, and others.

With offices in Philadelphia and San Francisco, First Round Capital is a vc firm that primarily invests in early stage companies that are competitive. The vc firm does not offer capital to companies that do not have a competitive edge in their markets. Some other companies that First Round Capital has in its portfolio include 33Accross, Ambient Devices, AppNexux, Aster Data Systems, and others.

W Media Ventures is a vc firm that mainly invests in internet opportunities and looks for entrepreneurs who want to build outstanding companies. Some companies in W Media’s portfolio include AbeBooks.com, AdMarketplace, Nexopia, TeamPages, TechVibes, and others.

Pinch Media has one major competitor who is AppLoop. AppLoop is a privately owned company based in Silicon Valley, California and was founded in 2008. The company employs two people and has two people on its management team.

For more information about Pinch Media, click here.