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Mobiquity raises $12M Series B from NewSpring Growth

by Steven Loeb, June 5, 2013 | Comments

Mobiquity is a professional services firm that helps businesses develop mobile solutions

(Updated to reflect comment from Mobiquity) The world is going mobile, and it is going there quickly. Frankly, though, most businesses do not have the slightest clue how to capitalize on that. They don't know what works, what doesn't or how to make an appealing app. That is where Mobiquity comes in. It helps these business creates enterprise-class apps that ...

Facebook called out for censoring mastectomy pictures

by Steven Loeb, June 4, 2013 | Comments

Cancer survivor petitions Facebook to not remove pictures of those who have undergone mastectomies

(Updated to reflect comment from Facebook) Here is a quick life lesson: there are a few groups out there that you really just don't want to mess with. These are groups so popular that, even if you are in theright, you will probably just wind up losing anyway.These groups include: 9/11 first responders; war widows; puppies; kittens; babies; and cancer ...

New Pinterest filter lets you search old pins

by Steven Loeb, June 4, 2013 | Comments

Search feature is currently being rolling out onto the web, will also be brought to mobile soon

Confession time: despite hearing so much about it over the last year or so, I have never gotten around to using Pinterest. So, I admit that I was a little shocked to learn that the social network did not allow its users to search for their old pins. I mean, it just seems like a pretty obvious feature for the ...

Zynga set to shut down OMGPOP for good

by Steven Loeb, June 4, 2013 | Comments

$180 million purchase for Draw Something studio turned out to be a giant bust

When Zynga bought OMGPOP for $180 million last March, I remember hearing rumblings very early on that the amount the company paid was far too high for what they would be getting in return. Basically, OMGPOP had one big hit in Draw Something, but has otherwise not proven that it could create a successful game. And for Zynga to spend so ...

Facebook signs 10 year lease for new NYC office

by Steven Loeb, June 4, 2013 | Comments

The 100,000 square foot space will be almost double the size of its current office

(Updated to reflect comment from Facebook, Frank Gehry and Michael Bloomberg) After announcing that it would be building both a new campus in Menlo Park, as well as a new data center in Iowa, Facebook is making an upgrade to its east coast commidations as well. 'Facebook will be moving to a new New York office, the social network revealed ...

LinkedIn revamps its Who’s Viewed Your Profile feature

by Steven Loeb, June 3, 2013 | Comments

Unlike LinkedIn, other social networks don't allow users to see who has been looking at their page

As I have written about before, LinkedIn and Facebook, while both being classified as social networks, are very different. One is a giant network where we put all of our personal information. The other is a smaller, niche network, dedicated to one specific thing: collect and track contacts for your professional life. And, because these two networks are dedicated to such ...

Zynga lays off 520 people, 18% of its global workforce

by Steven Loeb, June 3, 2013 | Comments

Company will also be shutting down offices, though no specific locations mentioned

Zynga's transition to a mobile company has not only been slow, it has also been painful as well. And that has been especially true for the company's employees. The social gaming company has already been forced to shutter numerous offices, and lay off a big percentage of its workforce in order to consolidate and become competitive again. Unfortunately for all involved, ...

Twitter finally introduces Vine for Android

by Steven Loeb, June 3, 2013 | Comments

Android app comes with unique zoom feature, Vine now has over 13 million registered users

It may have taken over five months from its debut on iOS back in January, but Twitter has finally released a version of Vine on Android, it was announced in a blog post Monday. The news was also revealed, of course, in a tweet complete with its own Vine video: Introducing Vine for Android. vine.co/v/b3v5h3Piwt7 — Vine (@vineapp) June 3, ...

Townsquare Media buys up three music sites from AOL

by Steven Loeb, June 3, 2013 | Comments

Radio station owner Townsquare also picks up ComicsAlliance

(Updated to reflect comment from AOL) Twitter and Google have both recently dipped their toes into the music space, with Twitter debuting its #Music app, and Google launching a new streaming service. But one large Internet property seems to be looking for a way out of the same space. AOL, which recently began to shut down it AOL Music site, while also ...

What's next for Big Fish Games?

by Steven Loeb, June 2, 2013 | Comments

Now that it's cornered casual gaming, will the company be going public?

At Vator Splash LA on Thursday night, we were honored to have Paul Thelen, CEO of Big Fish Games, take the stage. He spoke about his experiences starting Big Fish, including why he didn't take money at first, as well as what qualities he had to possess to make the company succeed. He also spoke about the future of Big Fish Games, and ...

Paul Thelen: Have passion, focus and conviction

by Steven Loeb, June 1, 2013 | Comments

'Starting a business is not a job, it's your life'

At Thursday night's Vator Splash LA, Paul Thelen, CEO of Big Fish Games, took the stage to talk about how he grew his company into a leader in the casual gaming space. As part of his Keynote Speech, Thelen mentioned the three most important aspects of starting a business: passion, focus and conviction. Passion Big Fish, Thelen said, was "started as ...

Paul Thelen does NOT enjoy having to raise money

by Steven Loeb, June 1, 2013 | Comments

"The one time I would say that I was least successful was when I had money"

At Vator Splash LA on Thursday night, we were honored to have Paul Thelen, CEO of Big Fish Games, take the stage to talk about his experiences growing his company. One of the main themes of the night was Thelen's decision to bootstrap the company, at least at first, with $10,000 of his own seed capital. "The dot-com bust had taken its toll and my ...

Call-blocking app Mr. Number scooped up by WhitePages

by Steven Loeb, May 31, 2013 | Comments

Mr. Number blocks calls and texts, does reverse lookups and provides Caller ID for US businesses

We have all, at one point or another, has someone we would, for whatever reason, rather not call us ever again. For most people it was probably an ex-boyfriend/girlfriend, or it could have been one of those horribly annoying spam centers that call you over and over again with the same message. But, whoever it was, its a pretty annoying ...

Funding roundup - week ending 05/31/13

by Steven Loeb, May 31, 2013 | Comments

Weotta, Moogsoft, Cortica, App.io, Conversocial, Appurify, Roku, TuneIn, Clip all raised funds

Seed-stage Clip, a new mobile payments company that markets itself to the Spanish-speaking world, raised $1.5 million in funding from Accion, Alta Ventures, Karl Mehta, 500 StartUps, Angel Ventures Mexico, and other Angel Investors in the U.S. and Mexico. TrackMaven, a competitive intelligence platform for marketers, closed $1.25 million in funding from AOL Ventures, Sean Glass, Hemang Gadhia, Adam Riggs, Tony Ayaz, Marc Solomon, Andy Klingenstein, David Cohen and Adam ...

David Karp opens up about why he sold Tumblr to Yahoo

by Steven Loeb, May 31, 2013 | Comments

Yahoo has a legacy and is "doing the exactly the same kind stuff we're hinging our business on"

As you may have heard, last week Yahoo agreed to buy Tumblr for $1.1 billion, a move that surprised many. Even Tumblr's own CEO, it seems. "I was not expecting to sell the company this year. I certainly wasn't looking to sell the company," Tumblr CEO David Karp said in an interview with Charlie Rose, which aired Thursday night, in which he revealed ...

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