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Web 2.0 News
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| Box.net just got Richer by $1.5 million |
| Wednesday, August 23, 2006 |
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 It’s like
realizing that your pet duck just laid a golden egg. A similar kind or euphoria
is what box.net underwent when the humble start-up, started growing faster than
it expected, realizing that it now could bring on venture funding.
The Berkeley California
based file storage service Box.net
gloats that so many people have tuned into its service that it can now seek
investment to further its business. Mark Cuban owner of Dallas Mavericks had
invested $400,000 in Box.net, previously. And now Box.net founder Aaron Levie
has teamed up with venture capitalist firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson to make box.net $1.5 million bucks richer after
the A-round of funding.
Box.net recorded
over 150,000 new registrations. And the Box.net integration with Netvibes and
Goowy might have played a key role in achieving these numbers.
Box.net is
a virtual storage application that can be used to store your files. Box.net can
move files among multiple computers, backup important data, and share documents
with friends and colleagues.
The venture
capitalist firm for Box.net, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which has a global
presence through a network of affiliated funds and offices in more than 30
cities around the world. Draper Fisher Jurvetson handles approximately $3.5 billion
in capital commitments through its collective clientele the world over.
There
is a lot of competition at the position where Box.net is currently at, not to
mention the potential competition too. But with the kind of money they have
already gathered in it goes without saying that Box.net is in safe hands and in
a good place.
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| Microsoft and Facebook all set to Tango. |
| Wednesday, August 23, 2006 |
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 Facebook and Microsoft have tied the fabled knot in what is now a strategic alliance giving Microsoft exclusive rights for providing banner advertising and sponsored links on the social networking Web site.
The two companies got discussing sometime last week about the possibilities that they can create for each other. However the terms of the deal still remain behind closed doors.
Steve Berkowitz senior vice president of the Online Services at Microsoft told Reuters that the combination of Microsoft and Facebook’s strengths would be incredibly attractive to advertisers as they forge more meaningful connections with one of the largest, most engaged audiences on the Internet.
 Facebook has more than 9 million registered users, and ranks as the seventh-most trafficked site in the United States.
Could it be that acquisitions and strategic alliances are the ‘new’ way to go for online businesses to progress and expand their product offerings? Or is it solely to increase revenues? Which way it turns out, not many can predict. But as of right now that seems to be the popular scenario, seeing from the way its working out between these two examples.
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| Salesforce acquires Keiden; now track leads from Google AdWords. |
| Tuesday, August 22, 2006 |
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 San Francisco based software provider Salesforce.com
stated that it has forged an acquisition of start-up Kieden Corp
this Tuesday, stated sources at Reuters.
Salesforce
is a well established company that sells Web-based software for companies to
manage their sales and marketing efforts. Whereas Kieden helps customers track
sales leads generated through online advertisements on Google.
Salesforce
refused to comment upon the nitty gritties of the deal. But Salesforce hopes that the acquisition
will help its business customers analyze the effectiveness of the advertising
that they place on Google. And here’s
where Kieden gets to work. By identifying which keywords attract Web surfers to
click on a particular Google advertisement, and request product information,
Kieden will collect and attach all the data to a file and submit it to
Salesforce. The Salesforce software will then use the given data to track leads
throughout the entire sales cycle right from initial interest to completed
sale.
This just
goes to prove how important it really is to advertise on Google and the kind of
return on investment that firms earn on such advertising.
The
service, which will be marketed as "Salesforce for Google AdWords,"
will cost $300 a month per customer and be offered as an optional add-on to the
basic Salesforce.com software package.
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| Acquisition came along in its ClickTracks. |
| Tuesday, August 22, 2006 |
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 Web Analytics Company ClickTracks has recently been acquired by J.L. Halsey Corp.
The legendary deal cost the J.L Halsey group approximately $10 million US, inclusive of cash and stock options. I’d say it’s a small price to pay considering that ClickTracks is one of the big names in the Web Analytics World.
The acquisition will provide for investments and increased resources for ClickTracks' product development, marketing, sales and support capabilities, and it will give ClickTracks a much larger market for its products.
ClickTracks will operate as part of the J.L Halsey group. As the agreement states, ClickTracks will remain a corporation, and will function as an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of J.L. Halsey. So, in other words ClickTracks gets the best of both worlds, along with the independence and resources to better serve their current and upcoming customers. All I can say is… What a bargain!
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| Top secret Amazon Video Store screenshots uncovered. |
| Monday, August 21, 2006 |
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 Little did Alan Taylor , an ex- employee of Amazon .com know that Friday would be the day that he would stumble upon some screenshots of what could possibly be an Amazon.com video store in the making. Alan claimed that he discovered the screenshots quiet accidentally while poking around an area of Amazon.com used by developers.
According to TechWeb.com, the pictures speak of a service called Unbox Video that offers first time users a free TV show or $1.99 off on the first movie they download. It comes with complete details on how to download the player and buy movies and video that can be played on a PC, TV or portable media player. Amazon.com stated that they preferred not to reveal details about future plans that might still be in the pipeline.
One of the screenshots displayed a list of available movies, including "The Road Warrior," "X-Men," and "The Matrix." Taylor also posted what could be the screenshot of the Amazon.com player, which appears to include features for organizing videos. The screenshots indicate the would-be service would at least support the Creative Zen Vision portable player.
Taylor, a Boston based Web developer said he knew nothing about an Amazon.com video store, and couldn't say for sure whether the screenshots indicate something actually under development. Or for all you know it might even be an experiment and Amazon.com might never end up launching this product. |
| Forget about Stardust, Need some Pixsy dust? |
| Monday, August 21, 2006 |
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 Search engine Pixsy Corp plans to unravel a site that hunts the Web for celebrity photos, and videos.
According to TechWeb.com, the new service, christened Starhabit.com, aims at becoming the largest aggregator of videos and still photos on the web. You could search for just about anything from Mel Gibson to Angelina Jolie.
Starhabit is an RSS-based site that updates itself as the news flows in will offer advanced browsing and sorting functions, as well as an AJAX interface, said Chase Norlin, Pixsy CEO. The new site boasts of the ability to locate a couple hundred thousand photos and videos, solely for the celebrity service. So, if something happened to a celebrity a minute ago, you are bound to catch up on all the gossip at Starhabit.
Pixsy, a Seattle based enterprise, which Time magazine this week elevated to the list of the "50 Coolest Websites" of 2006, also plans to eventually launch a gateway service called "PixsyPower”, that enables you to create-your-own custom photo and video search engine. Pixsy’s target market being small companies or individuals who may want to add video and photo search capabilities to their blogs, wikis or social network pages.
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| KIKO to go under the hammer |
| Monday, August 21, 2006 |
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 According to a post on KIKO’s company blog, the folks at KIKO will be selling the site to a new owner through an auction. Apparently, the development team at KIKO has been brainstorming directions that they could take KIKO to, but came up short. And therefore, they decided to sell.
And KIKO wants to let their users know that they are thankful for sticking with them through their whole journey. And that they would be around when the transition happens.
Richard White, a UI designer, and a member of the KIKO team, wrote on his blog that, “It was both a sad and liberating day for me as Kiko dived into the deadpool. I won't get into all of the dynamics of the situation, but, in a nutshell, we had lost our spark and were letting our users down by not improving the product the way we should have. We felt it best to move on to other ventures rather than try and drag this one along even further.”
We wish KIKO and the team all the very best in all their future endeavors. And we also hope that the next owner makes a good job of what he buys. |
| Blogtronix releases Blogtronix Enterprise |
| Monday, August 21, 2006 |
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 Blogtronix released Blogtronix Enterprise, a secure enterprise blogging, wiki and corporate social networking platform, which is an upgrade of its core business communication and collaboration offering. The enterprise upgrade is offered as a software and on-demand and will be announced this week at Digital Hollywood, a leading trade conference for digital media professionals.
Blogtronix Enterprise is designed to make blog and wiki communication as well as user administration easy for deployment with virtually unlimited users and user groups. New features and tools include:
- LDAP real-time authentication and single sign on
- Unlimited blog communities and groups
- Microsoft SQL Express support
- Rich Media WYSIWYG editor for Windows and Mac
- Flash based video blogging
- Secure and private workgroups
 - Integrated Corporate Social Networking
- Restore options for blog posts, comments and wiki
- AutoSave for blog posts
- Document management
- Integrated RSS reader
- Activity feeds and email alerts to users and administrators
- Powerful anti-spam protection with solid feedback management tools
- Client branding
- Usage dashboards
- Detailed blog and user statistics
- Integrated video tutorials
For maximum security behind a firewall, Blogtronix Enterprise is available as an Appliance. In addition, Blogtronix checks company blogs and comments against the corporate compliance blogging policy.
"With the new release, Blogtronix extends its lead in the enterprise blogging, wiki and social networking,” said Mr. Vassil Mladjov, Blogtronix co-founder and CEO “Blogtronix Enterprise is based on the needs and feedback of our enterprise customers and it offers a number of Web 2.0 improvements designed for the enterprise. There is a number of blogging offers on the market today but none of them has been built as a solution for secure and scalable enterprise use like Blogtronix Enterprise”
Blogtronix Enterprise introductory price of $20 per user per month is available through September 2006. The Blogtronix Enterprise appliance starts at $10,000 plus monthly user fees.
You can check out the free trial and an online demo here. |
| Finally, Google introduces Writely |
| Friday, August 18, 2006 |
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 Google has made Writely available. Writely is a web-based word processor, which Google acquired in March. The online application enables you to read and write RTF documents and save files in .pdf format. This feature, Google says is likely to be a premium feature of the paid service once Writely comes out of beta. Word documents can be imported and edited after conversion to html. Writely is already available in over a dozen languages.
Prior to this release, Google stopped accepting new users while they worked on the application. The application allows users to share their documents with each other or with nominated individuals. Collaborative editing and the addition of comments are also supported. Another thing that has been added to the application are RSS feeds. An RSS feed can be added to documents so that anyone who subscribes to the RSS feed can get an alert when that document is amended. |
| Performancing.com launches Exchange! |
| Thursday, August 17, 2006 |
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 Right on the heels of the great PayPerPost.com debacle, Performancing.com, a long-time player in the blog analytics / metrics market, targeted towards commercial bloggers (that is, bloggers who post to generate revenue) and their content, has launched it's own "Exchange".
Nick WIlson, of Perfomancing, gave notification of the official launch of their Exchange platform to all Performancing statistics users today. Nick goes on to say:
The exchange is FREE for now, and has the following broad categories: - Bloggers for hire
- Bloggers wanted
- Blogs for sale
- Services offered
- Services wanted
- Micellaneous
Sounds a lot better idea to me than what PayPerPost.com tried to do.
Performancing has been a long term player in the "respectable" commercial blogger market and this effort might just trigger of a more balanced response than what is currently prevalent on PayPerPost, at least.
Quite a few of the bloggers on the Net today earn 100% of their revenue from writing excellent, informed content and having a services platform targeted towards them is definitely the best hope to bring order to the sustained explosion that is the Blogosphere.
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| Bliki, Information Management Systems Comparison, Benefits of 'SaaS', Knowledge Management, Document Management, Enterprise Content Management, Digital Asset Management, Secure Online File Storage, Version Control System, Group Collaboration, Content Delivery and RSS casting, Personal Information Management, Community and Enterprise Blogs, Corporate Intranets, Integrated Word Processor |
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