Family Learning Center

Posts Tagged ‘Management Platform’

E-Commerce Platform Shopify Buys Up StoreSync To Shore Up Mobile Strategy

E-commerce has become a vast ecosystem that pumps billions upon billions of dollars through the web and easily connects consumers what their objects of desire at a single click. On the backend of e-commerce sites, there is plenty of opportunity for tech giants and startups to help power retailers’ online storefronts. Google, IBM, Microsoft and many others offer various technologies to help online retailers seamlessly sell their products on the web. One notable startup in the space, Shopify, which provides a turnkey e-commerce technology that lets anyone create a storefront online, has acquired MNDCreative, the developers of StoreSync, a mobile e-commerce management platform. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Unsurprisingly, Shopify’s acquisition of StoreSync aims to help expand its existing offerings onto mobile devices. StoreSync will be available exclusively to Shopfiy customers, and will be integrated tightly with its web platform.

StoreSync mobile application lets users tap into online store sales statistics, order processing, shipment status and product and customer information from an iPhone. Shopify’s web-based platform allows anyone to set up a store in moments, add items to sell, upload images, add tags and group items, and integrate PayPal or other credit card processor for payments. Storefronts and shopping carts can be customized and the platform assures security for all transactions. The startup has a staggered price range for various offerings starting at $24 per month.

The acquisition makes sense for Shopify; retailers will need to have mobile access to their e-commerce information and StoreSync provides this technology in a simple and efficient way. However, it will be interesting if the company will soon roll out functionality for the Android.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Read the whole story…

iPhone Developers Get An Open Ad Management Platform From .App/Ads

As the ecosystem around iPhone apps continues to explode, the opportunity for advertising and monetization grows simultaneously. There are been an abundance of mobile and specifically iPhone centric ad-networks that have emerged, like AdMob (which was acquired by Google a few weeks ago), Greystripe, InMobi and others, to help developers make money from advertising on aps. And ad exchange startups such as AdWhirl (acquired by AdMob a few months ago) and MobClix help developers optimize ad placement by dynamically choosing so serve ads from ad network that bidding the highest to reach the users of that particular app. A new kid, .app/ads, has stepped onto ad network block today, hoping to provide the most open, and appealing ad networks for iPhone developers to optimize their app ads.

While .app/ads serves a variety of purposes for developers, one of the startup’s primary functions is as a completely open iPhone app ad exchange. Like the other players, .app/ads provides a uber-simple dashboard for app developers to create mutiple ad slots within their apps, list their apps, and implement advertising through a variety of ad-networks/exchanges. But what makes .app/ads different is that its fully open to developers can run any ad network or any ad exchange whenever they want. And developers can pick and choose to integrate the ad code they need from the companies they want vs. a pre-selected loaded SDK. And there’s no limit to the number of SDKs developers can add. It’s like ordering from an a la carte menu.

Apple recently rolled out the ability to implement in-app purchases for free apps, which was a boon to developers. .app/ads will power in-app purchases for developers for free, allowing developers to run in-app purchase ads easily. Once a product is setup, developers can create an add with text and images, and simple add the advertisement to the rotation. The site will automatically rotate in the in-app purchase add with other ads.

.app/ads also lets developers tweak the content of ad slots. For example, developers can import Twitter feeds to fill an ad slot. When an app user clicks on a particular link in the Tweet in the feed, he or she is taken to the source of the link within the app. So if the link was from TechCrunch, the user could browse TechCrunch from within the developer’s app. .app/ads also will allow developers to import RSS feeds into the slot as well as promote other apps, contests, updates and more. While this content will be mixed in the rotation with ads, the basic idea is to give developers the option of engaging with their users in other ways besides advertising. And the platform lets developers set the frequency of appearance of certain ads or content.

Another compelling feature of .app/ads is a developer to developer marketplace where developers can barter with each other for ad space, set pricing terms and eventually sell ad space directly to each other. Currently this is the only feature where .app/ads. is monetizing; the platform is taking 10 percent of each transaction on the marketplace.

As of now, .app/ads caters solely for iPhone developers and apps. The startup’s founder Evan Rifkin told me that the open platform has been optimized for the developer, and aims to level the playing field for developers to have a fully transparent app ad management platform. Openness on ad exchanges has been an issue in the past, when AdMob announced its decision earlier this year to cut off ad network aggregators like AdWhirl and Tapjoy, claiming it had been hearing of complaints of technical glitches related to ads served by such “ad net mediators.” The company later announced a delay in this decision in August.

Of course, the ad network and exchange place is crowded and .app/ads will now count Google as a competitor thanks to its recent acquisition of AdMob. But the newly launched startup has experience on its side. Rifkin is a seasoned entrepreneur, who sold startup Flux (formerly Tagworld) to Viacom last fall. He also co-founded Adconion and ad network Traffic Marketplace (sold to Uproar/Vivendi Universal).

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Read the whole story…

LayeredBrain promises to triple your video ad revenues

With high speed Internet connections becoming widely available, the online video market is booming: 25 billion videos were viewed in September alone in the US, according to comScore statistics, twice as many as a year ago. This might get video-sharing site YouTube feeling all warm and cozy, dreaming about hitting break-even, but what about those people actually creating video content? When do they get to start seeing a profit? Romanian startup Brainient hopes to answer that question with its new video monetization platform, LayeredBrain, currently in beta testing.

LayeredBrain lets you add interactive elements to video content. For instance, if you have an iPod in your video, you can define a hotspot over it, attach a link to the product, and the link will automatically be converted to an affiliate link. The application supports around 7000 merchants and has access to over 65 million affiliate links so, unless you’re selling something really exotic, there’s a pretty good chance your product will be on that list. And if your videos feature the same product more than once, LayeredBrain will automatically detect and tag that product for you. The company’s developers are still playing with the detection technology, but they should have it in production within the next few months.

LayeredBrain also lets you create polls, cue points and chapter markers to guide viewers through the video, and add images or other elements on top of your video.

And if you’ve already got a favorite video-management platform, there’s not need to switch, since LayeredBrain can be integrated with other platforms such as Brightcove, Vimeo or a custom CMS, directly through an API. As far as advertising is concerned, you can set your own ad campaign, you can use the affiliate network or you can integrate ads from Doubleclick, Google Adsense or Brightroll.

LayeredBrain is not the only player on the interactive video advertising market. Innovid, an Israeli startup founded in 2007, focuses on placing interactive elements into videos for advertising purposes, two of their most spectacular features being the clickable canvas and the integration of 3D objects. However, Innovid doesn’t support integration with other video management platforms and with affiliate networks. Quick.tv is another competitor, UK based, that offers video advertising through interactive elements and also provides integration with popular video management platforms. Veeple, a US startup, provides a solution for embedding almost anything in videos — PDF or PPT files, audio and video files, hotspots and social icons. Veeple also has an auto-detection technology for tagged objects and has recently launched a free API for integration with third-party Flash Players and CMSs.

Emi Gal, CEO and founder of Brainient (pictured), says the main difference between LayeredBrain and its competitors is how the money is made. LayeredBrain provides integration with affiliate marketing links, besides offering the interactivity tools, which leads to a revenue stream three times higher than with regular video advertising, he says. Since this subject came up, I was curious to know just how much money a regular video can make.

Gal had some dazzling calculations in store: “If you run pre-rolls on your videos, charge a $30 CPM and get half-a-view per pre-roll, per video, that means you’re making on average 1.5 cents per video view. If you attach an affiliate link on top of that video, for an average purchase of $60, a 10% commission and a 0.5% conversion rate, it could bring you 3 more cents per video view. To sum up, we can triple a publisher’s revenue just by adding contextual affiliate links on top of the video.” 4.5 cents per video might not seem much, but if your video reaches 100,000 views, that’s $4,500.

For now, we’ll have to take Gal’s word for it, but for the next few months, he plans on getting enough traction to put together some case studies to prove LayeredBrain generates more money for publishers.

Launched just two months ago, LayeredBrain has already raised 100,000 euros from Seedmoney and Seedcamp and has a third round of investment in the pipeline. Brainient, the company developing Layered Brain, is also behind another video product, Veevid — an open source video management platform. Its R&D and technical support teams are based in Bucharest, and its sales and marketing teams are in London.

[Image credit: wall-street.ro]

Read the whole story…

Seedcamp Finalists Announced for Third Annual European Startup Event

Twenty-one entrepreneurial teams have been selected to participate in Seedcamp Week 2009, a London-based, startup-focused event now in its third year. Seedcamp also selectively funds (and subsequently accelerates) around 5 startups each year; to date, 14 teams have received funding.

Read on for a full list of the finalist startups and details on a few of the teams competing for their share of this year’s investments.

Sponsor

Here are a few of our Seedcamp picks:

Shout ‘Em is a co-branded microblogging service with features that allow for photos, attachments, and community-building. The team likes to think of their product as the Ning of microblogging.

The concept behind Vooices is fascinating: It’s a phone-controlled, multiplayer, real-time application for public-space screens and online games. It works on any phone, on any network, in any country, and requires no downloads. Check out the sample apps on their homepage, and developers, take a look at their API.

Boxed Ice’s sole public product is Server Density, a hosted service that allows users to monitor servers and get e-mail or SMS alerts when things go wrong. Users can check up on CPU load, memory usage, and processes. The company just rolled out an update that moreover allows for server grouping and user permissions.

Brainient went dotcom-era retro chic with their company name, but the concept is totally 2.0. This startup is all about helping users manage, analyze, enhance, and monetize online video. Veevid, a video publishing and management platform, and Layered Brain, a product focusing on generating revenue from online video, are two of their offerings.

Codility is a tool that allows non-technical folks to screen job candidates for programming abilities. It’s a testing system that’s ideal for small- to mid-sized businesses or recruiters.

PlugIn SEO is essentially a “paint-by-numbers guide to SEO” for site owners that takes its users through such basic building blocks as organic rank tracking, keyword taxonomy management, descriptive URIs, and blogging for search engine optimization.

Comufy is a browser-based social utility that combines short status message services such as Facebook with chat programs such as AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, and Skype, as well as email. Users can establish groups and even control the way others can contact them. Registration is now closed, but this is one program we’d like to test drive.

The Loc8 team is working on location-based mobile apps. They claim their bespoke applications can be up and running in just a few days, and they created a custom application for the renowned Edinburgh festivals that allowed iPhone users to find out what shows were happening near them and get directions to those venues.

But wait! There’s more! Check out these teams, too:

World on a Hanger is a software development shop creating tools for building small- to mid-sized fashion labels.

Erply is billing, accounting, point-of-sale, and inventory software.

Pearl is a browser-based enterprise tool that purports to handle and help users manage info on everything from jobs and sales to websites and customer service.

Kukunu is a travel-related startup in stealth mode.

Joobili is a travel-related startup that shows users the best time to visit a particular destination.

Teachable is a by-teachers, for-teachers directory of resources for the classroom.

Advertag is in super-stealth mode, but we’ll go out on a limb and guess that it’s an advertising startup, maybe even one based on context and, I don’t know, tags?

VouChaCha is a location-based mobile app for coupons or vouchers.

YubiTech is a smartphone app development utility that aims for ultimate OS and device agnosticism.

We couldn’t read the text on the site for Amman, Jordan-based Talasim, but if any of our intrepid readers can, we’d love to know what it’s all about. Put it in the comments!

Patients Know Best is all about patient-managed healthcare.

PetsIcon is a startup about dog health.

And last, we have Wondergraphs, a startup so stealthy that we are truly left to wonder what the heck they might be up to.

Discuss

Read the whole story…

OpenCalais to Add Semantic Metadata to Oracle Databases

Enterprise giant Oracle released its Database 11g Release 2 today, and it now supports OpenCalais, the Semantic Web service from Thomson Reuters. Native support for OpenCalais means users can now extract rich semantic metadata about people, places, companies, and events. Oracle directly calls the OpenCalais API through your normal database administration, though users will still have to grab an API key from Reuters.

OpenCalais began as the Clear Forest service and was acquired by Reuters back in 2007. By pairing with a leading enterprise-class database like Oracle, OpenCalais will prove that it can handle increasingly large document transactions, providing better search indexing and other semantic know-how to businesses as well as the consumer Web.

Sponsor

Other than getting an API key, incorporating OpenCalais should be straightforward. The basic gist is that it will take just about any type of text or HTML document, from Microsoft Word to Adobe PDF, and add simple yet useful metadata.

That metadata is extracted through natural-language processing (NLP) that identifies the “who, what, and when” contained in an unstructured document. Oracle’s Spatial 11g, an RDF management platform, directly calls the API to perform the transaction.

The basic OpenCalais service can do up to 40,000 transactions per day at a maximum rate of four transactions per second. For those needing more transactions or those who require an SLA (which is many enterprises), you’re going to have to use the commercial version. If you’re interested in incorporating OpenCalais, we suggest you take a close look at the FAQ to be sure about which version you’re going to require.

Discuss

Read the whole story…