MoFuse is a service that turns your website into a mobile website so that you can view it nicely on your cellphone. The company announced these days their MoFuse Grow service for blogs, that is using the same core software but is special for creating mobile blogs, resizes images or transcode outbound links among other features.
This sounds like a good idea but I’m not sure how many people will turn to it. If you had experience with them give us a quick note on MoFuse Grow.
By the way if you want to see how BandwidthBlog looks like (mobile optimized) check out the link.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Have you ever heard of Moli. I can’t say I had until today when I found out that a new social network managed to raise $29.6 million. The first thing I can see about it is that it’s ranking #87,000 on Alexa while Compete said they had 48,000 visitors in December.
I will let you be the judge for that one, because other than the standard features of a social network (profiles, comments or friends lists) I can’t find anything new for the market, hence they think “Moli is a next-generation social media community”. Oh yeah, there’s a “one account manages multiple profiles” slogan, but I’m not sure how innovative that is.
If you need to know more about Moli to make up your mind, other than the above, you should know they are part of Mainstream Holdings Inc which was founded by ex E*Trade CEO, Christos Cotsakos.
I am putting them in the pool for now, because the raised sum is way more than what the site offers and I don’t think Moli will take on FaceBook or LinkedIn any time soon.
via VentureBeat
Popularity: 7% [?]
In a market that is getting tougher and tougher, Ooyala the company that offers a next-gen solution for video monetization managed to raise $8.5 million in a Series B round of funding led by Sierra Ventures and some private investors. Because of that, Mark Fernandes, the managing director from Sierra is stepping on Board.
The innovative technology allows them to match concepts, object and settings from your viewing experience. For example if you see a nice yacht in a movie and you want one, you can initiate the purchase from the sponsor.
The money will be used to make the product better, and I have to agree that it can bring good income. The total amount of funding is up at $10 milion and I wish them luck with their product. So did Amazon, that awarded them the first prize at the Amazon Web Services Start-Up Challenge last month
We’ll keep you covered on that one.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Located in California, Smaato the company that wants to be the Google Adsense of mobile phones has managed to raise $3.5 million in a Series A funding and will use the money to develop their Smaato Open Mobile Advertising (SOMA) platform. The product will be delivered to phones that run on JAVA, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Palm’s OS.
The company managed to secure advertisers like Allianz, Toyota, Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, Martini or Weekly in Touch to trial out their service.
“Since founding Smaato we are experiencing a growing interest in targeted mobile advertising. With Smaato we are at the forefront for developing innovative advertising solutions to reach the mobile consumer. With the support of our international investors and our advisory board of experienced and globally connected individuals, we will continue to expand our reach within the industry on a global scale,” stated Ragnar Kruse, the Co-Founder and CEO of Smaato.
I still think Google has an advantage, but if Smaato plays the cards right, this could turn out great for them. Meanwhile, they’re near the pool.
SmaatoBlog
Popularity: 9% [?]
If there were any Arabian, Hebrew and Persian bloggers out there that can’t do it properly because of the language, Blogger.com just announced that from January 17th it should be available to them, on their blogging platform.
Arabic, Persian and Hebrew languages are different from others mainly because you write from right to the left. It was hard work to flip the entire interface but my assumption is there will be people who will get their fingers on a keyboard and will start blogging.
If you’re one of them and want to change you can do it from the menu in your Dashboard.
For a Middle East country with a lot of communication boundaries it is a very good and easy tool to break them. It’s looking great and I think Blogger made the right choice. They are now supporting a total of 40 languages.
buzz.blogger.com
Popularity: 8% [?]
I’ve just heard that Zude “an enabling technology that allows even novice web users to create and control their own web pages” managed to raise $5.3 million from Irwin Lieber and Barry Rubenstein of Wheatley Partners, Persistency Capital and Gund Investment, LLC.
You may probably ask, just like me why they did it, because $5.3 million for a website that Alexa ranks as 228,000 may not be that good for those investors. The money will be used for product development that include new tools and growing the user base but is it me, or they’re trying to be a better Netvibes?
It’s a truly web 2.0 company, I’ll have to agree but claiming to bring all your social networks in one place, consolidate your web, share photos and experiences could be to much. I’m just an inch away of putting it in the dead pool but I’ll have to wait for the signs to confirm. Meanwhile, tell us your experience with Zude, if you had any.
Source
Popularity: 7% [?]
The London-based company that revolutionized advertising, allowing small and medium websites to sell advertising on their own, OpenAds, managed to get a second round $15.5 million funding led by Accel Partners, PaidContent said. The money will be used for hiring more staff and product development but I can only ask, how will they make money from an open source product?
The answer could be simple, because OpenAds just announced they will offer a hosted version of their software. No need to upload the files and host it yourself. But still is this a good business plan? Probably so, because they may think of a commercial version.
Take Wordpress for example with their free blog hosting until you need more features and you give them some money. Wish you luck OpenAds and we shall see what the $15.5M funding can do for them.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Laaik.it, 24.com’s social news site, unveiled a new look and feel yesterday with layout and visual styling changes. Elan Lohmann, one of the brains behind the project, noted to me when they launched late last year that the project is still in early stages of development and the new interface update is evidence of that.
Some of the new additions include the news categories moved to the top of the site in a horizontal navigation which makes it easy to find popular or upcoming news in your category of choice. They have also added a ‘how to’ area to help educate users on how to use Laaik.it.
Down the right side of the site ‘Top 5 today” have replaced categories and features the top stories for the day to quickly determine popular breaking news as you arrive.
It’s exciting to see social media properties in South African being continuously improved and redeveloped on - it shows social networking is alive and well in South Africa.
When asked about the new release Elan had this to say
The first cut was rough and there were many constraints on resources. We took a step back, listened to what our users had to say - as well as the local blogging community - and implented a percentage of it. We still have a features list as long as my arm, so Laaik.it will continue to develop over the year. We have some other great projects lined up for 2008 and are focussing on those now. Watch this space” Uptake in this space in the local market is slow but we know it’s a marathon and I still believe that Laaik.it will crack the local market over time.
Popularity: 7% [?]
If you haven’t heard about Lyro yet, is the newly launched competitor of LinkedIn, the company where you can stay in touch with your colleagues, make new connections, business opportunities or share advice.
Because they have a business plan that is already on the market, to be considered a successful startup, Lyro needs to bring something new. Why would anyone move from LinkedIn unless there is something free that can bring benefits.
The first thing the company brings is some sort of online business cards (a profile) that you fill in with all your info and can be saved to your “pocket” or on your computer (yes it has Outlook Integration).
Another good point is the fact that these, online business cards on Lyro can get easily used on widgets, emails or even FaceBook applications that makes it a great tool for self promotion, like a real card.
The third thing I would have expected was finding connections easier, because getting info about particular users is not really easy on Lyro, and same goes for LinkedIn. It needs improvements and it can be done, but I am curious to know what will the price be.
Lyro might get its feet wet after a quick swim in the dead pool soon, but until then I will have my eyes on them.
Popularity: 7% [?]
In a Series B Round led by Masthead Venture Partners and Canaan Partners, video advertising network Tremor Media managed to raise $11 million. Being a “seismic shift in advertising” the company has grown since 2006 by more than 50% and managed to sign deals with partners such as EyeSpot or ExpoTV.
A recent comScore study revealed that Tremor Media reaches more than half of all internet users in the US to a total of 90 million unique visitors in November and is now on the 18th place on the largest advertising network list that include Advertising.com, Yahoo or Google.
With the online video advertising growing steady, Tremor Media is expected to invest the money in operations and advertising efforts to increase their reach.
Popularity: 8% [?]
