What you need to know- Thursday 12/30/2010

TextualAds raised $650,000; Union Square Ventures has secured $135M; Facebook most visited in 2010

Skype is launching a brand new version of its iPhone app. This version will include the ability to turn on video in any Skype chat, bringing the feature to iPhone 3G devices, iPad and iPod Touch. 

Two-thirds of U.S. adults pay to download online content, according to a study published by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.  The 755 user study looked at 15 different kinds of online content or “intangible” digital products.

E-commerce spending in the U.S. for the first 56 days of the November to December 2010 holiday season reached a record $30.81 billion, according to comScore. This is an increase of 17 percent when compared to the same time last year

On Wednesday, Google, the United Nations, Harvard University, and Not on Our Watch launched a project  to monitor Sudan. The project, which will use satellites to do the actual monitoring, is hoping to prevent war crimes.

TextualAds, a text messaging marketing campaign creator, has raised a $650,000 seed round of funding. Investors in the round include; Dave McClure of 500 Startups; Peter Boboff & Chris Redlitz of Transmedia Capital; Marcus Segal of Zynga; Shawn Simpson, formerly of Google; and Erik Moore.

Facebook was the most visited website in the US in 2010, according to data released by Hitwise. This unseats last years champion, Google. Facebook took up 8.93 % of site visits between January and November of 2010.

Union Square Ventures has secured $135 million of a new $200 million fund. The fund is titled Union Square Ventures Opportunity Fund LP. John Buttrick was also listed as a new partner in the filing.

Sony has filed suit against LG. The company claims that several LG-made products use Sony technology. Sony is looking to block entrance to the United States market for products such as the Lotus Elite, Neon, Remarq, Rumor 2 and Xenon.