NetSuite Moves to ‘Commerce as a Service’

The New York Times - May 15, 2012
NetSuite manages corporate data and has been quite successful at its cloud-based system of sales, order and inventory management software. Now it has developed software to help customers build complex retail operations using little more than a Web design team. It could also fundamentally change what NetSuite does.
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NetSuite Offers Software for Mobile Devices, Tablets

Bloomberg News - May 15, 2012
NetSuite Inc. (N), the software maker majority-owned by Oracle Corp. (ORCL)’s Larry Ellison, is adding to its lineup of online applications with software enabling companies to manage consumer transactions from websites and mobile devices. The software, which will be delivered to customers over the Internet, includes components for managing e-commerce merchandising and loyalty programs and can be used on tablets, including Apple Inc.’s iPad, the San Mateo, California-based company said in a statement.
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New Life: How Myspace Spawned A Start-Up Ecosystem

Forbes - May 15, 2012
The MySpace story demonstrates both early mentorship and the beginning of an evolution. MySpace drew tech talent to Los Angeles that ended up staying in the city. The workforce built at MySpace can be credited for spawning many other new companies, tech teams, and start-ups. Just a few of those include: SGN, Gravity, Beachmint, Cocodot, and Gobbler.
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One Theory On Why The iPhone Is Dominating Flash Sales Site Traffic

Business Insider - May 13, 2012
At OneKingsLane, a designer flash sales site specializing in home decor, iPhone and iPad owners stand far above other mobile devices among mobile shoppers (who make up more than 20 percent of OneKingsLane's revenue). Why? We sat down with Doug Mack, CEO of OneKingsLane, to find out why.
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From Disrupt NY To A Multi-Million Skype Acquisition, GroupMe Tells All

TechCrunch - May 11, 2012
There may not be a wilder tale of a Disrupt success (though plenty of startups would beg to differ), which is why we've chosen GroupMe to kick off a series I'm doing on "Disrupt Startups: Where They Are Now."
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Is YouTube Killing the Viral Video Star?

Mashable - May 9, 2012
As YouTube continues to ramp up original programming and push for its partner channels, viral video stars of the past are beginning to feel the heat. Now production studios pool together YouTube talent, providing the resources to make content. Maker Studios is one of the most well-known of these companies. Some of its services include production, management, distribution, sales and marketing.
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Facebook's Reach Generator Gets Competition From Adaptly

Adweek - May 9, 2012
Adaptly is one of a handful of companies to have emerged in recent years promising brands a more efficient way to advertise on social media sites without buying from the Facebooks and Twitters of the world directly. With Evergreen, the company is taking a different approach from Facebook's Reach Generator.
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Adaptly's $10.5 Million Round Will Buy the Social Marketing Platform a Sales Force

PandoDaily - May 9, 2012
Alongside its funding news, Adaptly announced a new product called Evergreen. It's a tool that helps Facebook advertisers amplify their most effective content for max exposure. Put simply, it's a ‘poor man's Reach Generator.
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Mobile Set to Surpass Desktop Sales at Some Flash Sales Sites

Mashable - May 8, 2012
One Kings Lane, a site for discounts on upscale home goods, has doubled its mobile sales in the past year. Currently more than 20% of the company's revenue comes from mobile devices, CEO Doug Mack tells us.
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Hallo Berlin! Startup School General Assembly Expands To Germany

Business Insider - May 8, 2012
This summer, startup school General Assembly (GA) will open its second international campus. GA launched in London last November; now it's headed to Berlin where it will partner with telecom company Deutsche Telekom to open a campus and offer classes on technology, design and entrepreneurship.
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Berlin Says 'Willkommen' to General Assembly

Forbes - May 8, 2012
General Assembly, a 20,000–square-foot, New York-based coworking space opened in January 2011, is continuing its international expansion this summer with the opening of a Berlin campus. The company also hit a milestone on Tuesday, having enrolled its 10,000th student.
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Go Inside the Big New Web Channels

CNBC - May 2, 2012
Go inside some of the biggest original content channels online. From new production houses to former network chiefs and conglomerates like Disney -- companies are taking advantage of shifting viewing patterns and expanding their brands on the Web. Hear the strategies of some of the industry's leading innovators including Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger; Electus founder Ben Silverman; BermanBraun co-founder Gail Berman; Funny or Die CEO Dick Glover; and Maker co-founder Lisa Donovan.
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Upfronts 2012: YouTube Announces New Channels

Hollywood Reporter - May 2, 2012
Later this year, YouTube will also roll out "The Picture Show" channel from Tribeca Enterprises, producers of the annual Tribeca Film Festival and Maker Studios.
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Robert De Niro's Tribeca Enterprises Partners with Maker Studios on YouTube Channel

Tubefilter - May 2, 2012
The actor, director, and producer's Tribeca Enterprises (which De Niro started with Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff in 2003 and is the company that operates the renowned Tribeca Film Festival) just announced a partnership with the next-generation media company Maker Studios for a brand new YouTube channel dubbed The Picture Show.
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2012 Game Changers

The New York Enterprise Report - May 1, 2012
NY Report takes a look at a few entrepreneurs who are building businesses today that will fundamentally change the way business is done in the future. The Game Changers are industry disruptors who are creating rapidly scalable businesses. They can change their business model in hours, not months. Many of these companies are mission-driven and are as focused on the good they can do in the world as they are on the profits they stand to earn.
General Assembly - Party Hosts
JIBE - Employee Location Specialist
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Mobile Roadie Adds iPad And Mobile Web To App Development Platform

TechCrunch - May 1, 2012
Mobile Roadie, which allows anyone to develop and create sleek, rich media iPhone and Android apps, is launching a native iPad app creation platform and self-service mobile website product.
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Mobile Roadie Adds iPad Apps, Changes Pricing

Billboard - May 1, 2012
Mobile Roadie has updated its platform, changed its pricing structure and now offers native iPad apps and mobile-optimized web pages. The three-year-old company offers a do-it-yourself app creation and hosting platform that now powers 3,000 apps - 1,500 in the last 9 months - to 20 million end users.
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Automattic Grows Up: The Company Behind WordPress.com Shares Revenue Numbers and Hires Execs

AllThingsD - April 25, 2012
Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, is a quiet Web powerhouse. WordPress now powers 70 million sites, up from 35 million sites a year ago. Almost half of the biggest blogs in the world are hosted by WordPress.com or run on their own versions of the open-source WordPress platform. The company is profitable, and expects to bring in $45 million in revenue this year, according to CEO Toni Schneider and founder Matt Mullenweg.
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WordPress.com Parent Company Automattic On Track To Make $45M In Revenue This Year

TechCrunch - April 25, 2012
Automattic, the software company best known for running the for-profit fork of the WordPress blog publishing system, is perhaps the best proof out there that blogging can be a real business. The company, which was founded in 2005 by 28-year-old WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg, disclosed some big numbers in an interview published today by AllThingsD's Liz Gannes. Automattic is profitable and on track to make $45 million in revenue this year. WordPress — both through its open source software and the WordPress.com platform — now powers 70 million sites.
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Social Ads: A Chat With The Company Helping Pepsi, Kraft Find Their Tweeps

Forbes - April 25, 2012
If the Social TV phenomenon has taught us anything, it's that all our tweeting and posting about shows can be turned into powerful data. TV professionals get it now — from the writers looking to see which story lines click, to the marketing department measuring and leveraging engagement — their eyes are now glued to the buzz.It also helps networks help advertisers connect to deeply invested audiences through particular shows. But late last week, Bluefin Labs unveiled Signals Brand Edition, a way for those advertisers to help themselves. Because, it turns out, you don't stop tweeting and posting when the show goes to commercial.
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25 Up-And-Coming Startup CEOs In New York

Business Insider - April 24, 2012
Jake Schwartz is founding an impressive startup school in Manhattan and London, General Assembly, that houses hundreds of entrepreneurs.
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Can Social Data Tell You If Your TV Ad Actually Ran?

AdAge - April 16, 2012
Dozens of social-listening startups are generating data on viewer reactions to shows. But Bluefin Labs is moving into a higher degree of difficulty: tracking social reaction to every TV ad that runs on the 40 networks it tracks. It is called Bluefin Signals Brand Edition, and a number of marketers, including PepsiCo and Kraft Foods, and a host of media agencies, such as MediaVest and Horizon Media, are giving it a try.
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NAB: Bluefin Labs launches ‘Signals Brand Edition' to track social TV data around commercials

Lost Remote - April 16, 2012
Social TV analytics keep getting smarter and smarter. Bluefin Labs CEO Deb Roy recently told the audience at the NBCU Social TV Symposium that “as soon as you have one advertiser that cares about a like or tweet, you are setting currency exchanges,” and that, “we'll see standards being set.” His company has just made a big announcement to offer brands a chance to start pushing these standards with their new “Bluefin Signals Brand Edition.” It launches with several initial clients including PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, Mars, Humana and Quicken Loans, together with agency partners Starcom MediaVest Group, Hill Holliday, Horizon Media, Initiative, MediaCom, Optimedia and Zenith Media.
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What a Short (But Packed) Trip It's Been for Social TV

AdAge - April 16, 2012
While social TV isn't entirely new (remember 2000, when AOL tried to bring the chat room to TV with its set-top box?) viewers appear to be onboard now. As Ad Age sees it, the social TV we know -- in which social networks and mobile apps let live-TV viewers gossip about their favorite shows in real time -- was born five years ago, when Apple was spurring the U.S. smartphone market and Twitter was finding its footing. Though social TV has some distance to travel, here's a look at its history and milestones. FEBRUARY 2011: Audi runs the first Twitter hashtag (#ProgressIs) in a Super Bowl commercial. The game spawns 1.8 million public comments on Facebook and Twitter, according to social-data tracker Bluefin Labs.
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YouTube stars get Hollywood superagents

USA Today - April 13, 2012
Forget Variety. Michael Green has put down the bible of showbiz and is actively seeking the next big star among a wave of homegrown YouTube producers and performers attracting millions of viewers online. Other Los Angeles-based firms — Big Frame, Maker Studios and Mighty Fresh lead the pack — are also looking to YouTubers as a major new source of potential income.
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60 Second Pitch: General Assembly

Wired - April 12, 2012
Epicenter finds out why the founders of General Assembly, a NYC-based start-up, think their campus in Flatiron is going to be the next big thing in education for young tech entrepreneurs.
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These Ex-MySpace Execs Want To Make The Web More Personal

Business Insider - April 12, 2012
Search is no longer the only way people find stuff on the Web. Instead of always firing up Google, people go to their social networks. They watch the videos their friends post to Facebook, read articles from Twitter, or find recipes on Pinterest. Gravity, a startup founded by three ex-MySpace execs, is already cashing in on this shift.
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Maker Studios Hires Former Salesforce Exec Lissack as CTO

PandoDaily - April 10, 2012
Maker Studios is the latest Los Angeles company to recruit a Silicon Valley stalwart, hiring Ryan Lissack as its first ever CTO. Lissack, who was most recently the Senior Director of Software Engineering at Salesforce.com, joined the next-generation content network under the radar in January and has since begun presiding over a significant build out of its technology team and infrastructure.
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How CBS leveraged social for Academy of Country Music Awards

Lost Remote - April 9, 2012
CBS Interactive was extremely prepared to both capture the social buzz and then issue stats from the awards to display the success they had on both the social and linear sides of the equation. We spoke with Marc DeBevoise the VP/GM for Entertainment at CBS Interactive about the growth and Bluefin Labs provided a graphic to illustrate this growth.
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Interview With Michael Schneider, Mobile Roadie

SoCal Tech - April 5, 2012
If you're a music artist or band, and you want to create your own fan app for the iPhone, Android, or iPad, you're looking at hiring an app development firm, spending six months, and $100,000--right? Actually, no---thanks to Santa Monica-based Mobile Roadie. Mobile Roadie, headed by Michael Schneider, develops tools that make easy for non-programmers to create their own mobile apps.
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Maker Studios Signs First Musical Act, Mike Tompkins

TubeFilter - April 4, 2012
Mike Tompkins is an incredibly talented Canadian musician with a penchant for covering pop hits in wonderfully produced, visually appealing videos reminiscent of the Brady Bunch opening theme and without any musical instruments. By way of his voice, mouth, and video editing skills, Tompkins has amassed over 460,000 YouTube subscribers, 70 million views, an appearance on Ellen, a gig with Timbaland, and now, a deal with Maker.
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Disney Exec Ankles for Maker Studios

Variety - April 4, 2012
Maker Studios has lured an executive over from Disney's digital division to become the company's chief programming officer. Chris Williams will oversee an aggressive expansion under way at Maker, which is one of the most-watched content brands on YouTube.
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NCAA Basketball Championship: 5 #Keywords To Mark My Depression

Forbes - April 3, 2012
More than 1 million comments streamed across Social Media channels last night about the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. Bluefin Labs counted 1.45 million comments around a slightly more narrow time.
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Exclusive: Maker Studios Partners With Mike Tompkins in 'Long-Term Artist Development' Deal

Billboard.biz - April 3, 2012
Maker Studios was created to change how video is made in the YouTube era. Now the company has taken its biggest step into music. Musician Mike Tompkins, a songwriter and interpreter of Top 40 pop hits, is the first musician to partner with Maker Music Network. His new single, "Stand Up," is featured in the marketing for the documentary "Bully."
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Infographic: Taylor Swift, Toby Keith, Miranda Lambert Generate Most Social Media Activity During ACM Awards Telecast

Billboard.biz - April 2, 2012
Social media activity during Sunday night's Academy of Country Music telecast peaked with Taylor Swift's Entertainer of the Year win, according to Bluefin Labs (see Infographic below). Toby Keith's performance of "Solo Red Cup" had the second-most activity and Miranda Lambert's Album of the Year award for "Four the Record" win was third.
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Madonna Updates Fans on New Album, Tour Via iPad App

Mobile Marketer - April 2, 2012
Pop icon Madonna has rolled out an iPad application that lets fans get up-to-date information on her new album and upcoming tour. The iPad app is powered by Mobile Roadie. The company has worked with other artists including Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Adele and Drake.
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Mobile Jobseeking is Going Mainstream [INFOGRAPHIC]

Mashable - March 31, 2012
According to this infographic by mobile job search and recruiting company JIBE — based on research done by marketing research company Kelton Research — more than 4 out of 5 of surveyed smartphone users would use an iPhone, Android, Blackberry or Windows phone to search for jobs. Of those, nearly half would actually apply to a job right from a smartphone. Given the number of American who own smartphones has surpassed 100 million mark, the level of jobseekers looking to potentially score a job right on their phones can be staggering.
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One Kings Lane CEO Sees Profit in 'Next Year or Two'

Bloomberg - March 30, 2012
Douglas Mack, chief executive officer of One Kings Lane, talks about the shopping website's strategy and growth. He speaks with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television's "Bloomberg West."
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A New Vintage Marketplace From One King's Lane

New York Times - March 28, 2012
Susan Feldman, a founder of the home-furnishings flash-sale site One King's Lane, decided to create an online marketplace that could function as a cross between an edited-down version of eBay and a marked-down version of 1stdibs.
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Fresh iPhone Apps for Mar. 27: Madonna update, Oyster.com update, Bitter Sam, Sliced Bread

Appolicious - March 27, 2012
Get excited for the latest album from Madonna with her updated iOS app, which now packs iPad support and provides news, music, photos, videos and more.
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Gravity Gets the Interest Graph Going; Partner Include Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch

Semantic Web - March 26, 2012
Just a little over a year ago The Semantic Web Blog introduced our readers to Gravity in this article. The project, spearheaded by former MySpace execs, is focused on building the Interest Graph. The team's been pretty quiet about development efforts since that time — until just this month, when it announcedGravity Labs to let the public in on a little more about its underlying Interest Graph infrastructure and to showcase the platform.
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One Kings Lane: From The LAX Arrivals Terminal To $200M In Revenue

TechCrunch - March 25, 2012
This wasn't your typical founder story, but four years later, their brainchild, One Kings Lane, would become a business with over 4 million members, with expectations of over $200 million in revenue for this year.
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Gravity's Early Stats Show that Users Prefer the Personalized Web, Whether They Know It or Not

Pando Daily - March 24, 2012
Gravity, which calls itself the "Interest Graph Company," delivers personalized content to visitors of sites like The Wall Street Journal, TIME and TechCrunch.
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How Apps Helped Make Spider-man a Star On Broadway

Mobile Entertainment - March 20, 2012
Mobile Roadie - though best known for its work with bands and musicians - helped the team behind the Broadway production of Spider-man: Turn Off The Dark turn the stage play into a mobile app.
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Who Won: March Madness Vs. 'The Walking Dead' [Infographics]

Forbes - March 19, 2012
One is do or die, the other is un-die and do damage. It's March Madness vs. "The Walking Dead:" A Social Media shoot-out .. according to Bluefin Labs,CBS and its three partner networks airing the NCAA Tournament must be celebrating an unquestionable slam dunk: 2.46 million social media comments in the first two rounds. When it comes to social chatter between the two monsters of this March, there are striking similarities.
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The Revolving Door Newsletter

MediaBistro - March 16, 2012
March 15, 2012: Mike Finnegan has been named VP of client services at Adaptly. He had been director of automated trading at Xaxis.
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The Personalized Web Is Just an Interest Graph Away

GigaOM - March 15, 2012
I recently discussed the idea of interest graphs with Gravity CTO Jim Benedetto, who described how his company determines visitors' interests so its content-industry customers can deliver personalized experiences. Gravity does that by tracking a user's activity across the Gravity network of sites to try and get a true sense of a user's interests so it can feature that content automatically whenever that user visits a Gravity-powered site.
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Actually, There May Have Been A Winning App At SXSW

Business Insider - March 15, 2012
"No app won SXSW this year," is the general consensus. Having been at SXSW, we'd argue there was. Highlight was used a good amount. Over time we think people will realize it was a decently big SXSW hit. It didn't throw a launch party but the app was the topic of many conversations and we found ourselves checking it multiple times per day. Our "normal" (non tech) friends have started downloading it too. But one other app was used more than Highlight. GroupMe, which was the breakout app last year, may have won two years in a row.
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Start Making: General Assembly Launches Online

Huffington Post - March 13, 2012
On some MBA campuses you may be able to find Essentials of Startup Law in a forward-learning MBA, possibly Introduction to Developing Entrepreneurial Ideas, Turning Your Brand Into a Competitive Advantage, but what about Digital M&A Secrets, Intro to SEO, Getting Your Startup in Top Tier Tech News, How to Read a Cap Table, How to Hire and Retain Developers, Make Life Easy with Algorithms? These are just a few of the classes offered last week at General Assembly, a New York City startup campus featuring courses relevant to internet startups.
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One King's Lane Adds a Marketplace

Wall Street Journal - March 11, 2012
One King's Lane is becoming the latest e-commerce site to expand from its flash-sale roots. The furniture and home-goods site on Monday plans to launch an eBay-like marketplace called Vintage and Market Finds. It will let third-party designers post antique and vintage products on the site, but unlike eBay, all the items will be at fixed prices and will be vetted by a One King's Lane team.
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Kobayashi Eats 13 Grilled Cheeses in One Minute at SXSW

ABC News - March 11, 2012
Thirteen grilled cheeses in one minute. That's 26 pieces of bread and 13 slices of American cheese in sixty seconds. Yes, that's the new world record for grilled cheeses eaten in one minute, set today by Takeru Kobayashi here in Austin at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW). In an event held at the GroupMe Grill at the technology and interactive festival, the well-known competitive eater shoved each sandwich down his throat by dunking them first in water. Recordsetter.com presided over the event; the website tracks world records.
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SXSWi's Rainy First Day: Tumblr Ponchos; 'Future of Entertainment' Panel

Billboard.biz - March 10, 2012
At a more commercial SXSWi panel on Friday night, entitled, "Future of Entertainment: Viewer Becomes User," the discussion centered on how to make entertainment more interactive and engaging in an age where nearly half of all American adults own smartphones. The discussion featured reps from MTV and Showtime; two mobile social applications -- GetGlue and GroupMe; and Bluefin Labs, a company tracking engagement with TV programming through social media buzz.
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Exactly How Much Did That Skateboarding Dog Earn?

AllThingsD - March 9, 2012
That's a cool YouTube video you made. How much money is it making you? If you distribute your own clips on the world's biggest video site, that's easy enough to figure out: You look at the site's analytics tool, which will tell you exactly how much ad revenue the video is generating. But if you've signed up with one of a growing number of YouTube networks, which promise to increase your distribution and dollars in return for a cut, that can get a little fuzzier. YouTube provides the information to the networks, but they're not required to pass it along to their partners. Now one of the bigger networks, Maker Studios, is pledging to make all of its data available to all of its creators.
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Super Tuesday sets tweet record for 2012 election

Lost Remote - March 7, 2012
Bluefin Labs counted just over 530,000 social media comments on Super Tuesday night, and Twitter said the event set a record for the election season. "In just the hour between 6pm and 7pm PT, there were nearly 40,000 Tweets referencing Rick Santorum. In fact, this is a new 2012 Election Twitter record," the company explains in a blog post. "Our previous highest candidate spike belonged to Newt Gingrich, on the day he won the South Carolina Primary."
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Super Tuesday: Men Win, At Least In Social TV Politics

Forbes - March 7, 2012
According to a study released by Social TV metrics company Bluefin Labs this morning, men won by a landslide in the tweet-off over Super Tuesday results. Of the 531K comments that Bluefin tracked around the primaries, 64 percent of that conversation was sustained by XY types.
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Adele tops 1.5m app downloads for iPhone and Android

Guardian - March 6, 2012
The app was released for iPhone in September 2011, and then Android in mid-February 2012. XL used the Mobile Roadie platform to create both versions.
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Has the internet sparked an educational revolution?

BBC - March 5, 2012
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Maker Studios Is Flush With YouTube Cash

LA Weekly - March 1, 2012
"Epic Rap Battles of History" creator Nice Peter and comedian KassemG have practically become household names, at least among the internet savvy. Maker hopes they can extend their comedy success to the soon-to-be-launched Maker Music, which will feature music-centric channels.
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Skype Launches GroupMe for Windows Phones

PCWorld - February 29, 2012
Skype this week launched the GroupMe app for Windows Phone, following its August acquisition of the tool that enables free, real-time group texting. GroupMe lets you communicate instantly with up to 25 colleagues using chat, photos, and location sharing.
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Apps Rush: TNW Magazine, SprintTV for iOS, Kid Launcher, ESPNsoccernet, Funpark Friends and more

Guardian UK - February 29, 2012
GroupMe for Windows Phone - Now a subsidiary of Skype, group messaging service GroupMe has a new Windows Phone app. It lets users start groups with their existing phone contacts, switching between instant messages and SMS according to connection — although for now, the SMS chat only works in the US. For Windows Phone
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Inside New York Tech's Nerve Center

Forbes - February 29, 2012
Don't let the cordial atmosphere fool you: General Assembly means business. Four young partners — Brad Hargreaves, 25, Matthew Brimer, 25, Adam Pritzker, 27, and Jake Schwartz, 33 — constructed the space with funding from a host corporate sponsors, including Rackspace, Skype and the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. The New York Economic Development Corporation blessed it with a $200,000 grant. In September, the partners raised another $4.25 million in venture funding from the investment arms of Jeff Bezos, Yuri Milner and Howard Schultz among others.
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Startup, Meet Agency: How Silicon Alley and Madison Avenue Are Finally Working Together

AdAge - February 29, 2012
Adaptly, whose partners range from Diageo to Ogilvy, is a Cinderella story, though one becoming more common as agencies pay closer attention to the startups in their backyard.
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How StumbleUpon saved itself

Fortune - February 29, 2012
According to Sethi, some advertising clients prefer to allocate the majority of a campaign budget to StumbleUpon. When Arby's wanted to get the word out about a new burger last year, they employed Adaptly to help advertise equally among Facebook, Twitter, and StumbleUpon. Within days, Sethi's company realized that nearly 91% of user engagement around the video ad campaign — in other words, people interacting with the ad — was happening on StumbleUpon. As a result, Arby's shifted the rest of the money for that campaign away from Facebook and Twitter and over to Camp's service. And a content web site like Buzzfeed, which also advertises via StumbleUpon, may see traffic in the millions for some posts.
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Gravity Personalizes Websites Based on Your Interests

Mashable - February 28, 2012
Kapur's company has initiated a third way to filter through the content on the Internet — he calls it interest graphing. Gravity's technology graphs your interests and then organizes website content based on what you're most likely to be interested in viewing.
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GroupMe for Windows Phone makes a triumphant return with huge features

TheNextWeb - February 28, 2012
GroupMe, the cross-platform messaging app for Windows Phone, iOS, Android and even BlackBerry, had been quiet on the Windows Phone front for quite some time. But now, according to a post on the Skype blog (Skype acquired GroupMe in August of last year), the app is updated and back with a vengeance.
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When Does It Make Sense to Outsource Your Software Development?

Mashable - February 28, 2012
Michael Schneider is CEO of Mobile Roadie, the leading self-service mobile app platform. With more than 16 million users, Mobile Roadie powers over 3,000 apps for some of the world's most popular artists and brands.
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Social TV Ratings: Billy Crystal Okay, But Oscar 2012 Smashed By Grammys

Forbes - February 27, 2012
Bluefin counted a 293 percent growth over last year's 996K Oscar mentions. And it showed relatively brisk engagement all the way to the end of the show. It was the second largest entertainment event in Social TVs short history.
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Facebook Developer Wildfire Integrates Adaptly

AllFacebook - February 27, 2012
Adaptly's social advertising and optimization technology has been integrated into the Wildfire Social Marketing Suite, giving marketers on Facebook and other social networks the ability to create, control, and track content via a single interface. The proprietary technology from Adaptly, which tracks more than 160 social metrics and is aimed at optimizing consumer engagement including likes, comments, and sharing, was added to the suite of tools from Wildfire, which enables marketers to design, publish, and manage content on Facebook and other social networks.
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On Twitter, the Oscars Were Huge — But Not Whitney Houston Huge

AllThingsD - February 26, 2012
Social TV tracker Bluefin Labs counted 3.44 million "social comments" about last night's Oscar awards. That metric, which primarily tracks Twitter usage but also includes some data from Facebook and other services, is certainly big. But it's much smaller than two other big live-TV events this month. Bluefin counted some 12 million comments for the Super Bowl, and 13 million for the Grammys.
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I'd Like to Thank My Twitter Followers

The Wall Street Journal - February 24, 2012
Last year's Oscar broadcast had 966,000 social-media comments, and overall, the social-media Oscar chatter was positive, according to Bluefin Labs, a social-media analytics company. During the Oscar telecast, 87% of all social-media comments were about the Academy Awards, and the third most frequently used term was "love" (after "#oscars" and "Oscars"). "Dress" was fifth. The vast majority of measurable "social-media mentions" are culled from Twitter because—unlike Facebook status updates, which often are visible only to a user's friends—most tweets are publicly posted.
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No Jive. JIBE Goes Enterprise

ERE.net - February 17, 2012
When we first saw the email about JIBE launching some new tools, our first thought was, "You mean this is new?" Our ignorance is forgivable since it has been two years when last we wrote about the social recruiting company. And that was just when it launched.
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JIBE Makes It Easier to Get Referred for the Job You Want

AllThingsD - February 16, 2012
Everybody knows that when you're looking for a new job, it helps to know someone who works where you want to work. More often than not being referred for a job by someone on the inside is a big factor in getting versus not getting job.
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Five Things to Do Before Your SXSW Launch

Entrepreneur - February 16, 2012
For new tech companies, a good showing at Austin's South by Southwest Interactive festival can carry you down the path to startup glory.
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Good Morning! SESAC, Rdio+Roku, Whitney, Japan, MetroLyrics, Adele, Epic...

Digital Music News - February 16, 2012
Mobile Roadie has just joined forces with MXP4 to add gaming elements to their artist apps.
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MXP4 and Mobile Roadie take social music games to mobile devices (exclusive)

VentureBeat - February 15, 2012
Michael Schneider, CEO of Los Angeles-based Mobile Roadie, said that adding social games to the app platform makes it more compelling for mobile users and helps artists make more money. Mobile Roadie powers more than 3,000 apps with 15 million users for musicians such as Katy Perry, Madonna, Taylor Swift, The Beatles, Linkin Park, Adele, Pink, Bon Jovi, and Avril Lavigne. Now, any of those artists can add Bopler Games to their apps in a self-serve manner.
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YouTube Natives Topping Big Names Early On

AdWeek - February 15, 2012
For example, Maker Studios, perhaps best known for nurturing comedic YouTubers like Ray William Johnson and Nice Peter, started off strong with its mothers-oriented channel The Moms' View, which has amassed nearly 60,000 subscribers and 2.1 million views since launching in December; and Tutele, its more narrowly focused Hispanic-themed channel, which claims close to 25,000 subscribers as of Wednesday (Feb. 15).
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As YouTube Comes Of Age, Google Eyes Studios

Dow Jones - February 15, 2012
Tom Pickett, YouTube's global head of content operations and YouTube Next, a team tasked with fostering talent, pointed to Maker Studios as a positive development--though more ambitious than Google's internal studio efforts. "Anything we do is going to be much more contained and targeted, and about engagement rather than long-term infrastructure," Pickett said.
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Grammys' Social Ratings: Adele, Not Whitney, Drove The Conversation

Forbes - February 14, 2012
Bluefin (see infographic) calculated that the Grammys (13 million mentions) outpaced the Super Bowl (12.2M), making it the largest recorded social media event to date. If you look at Bluefin's graphic, you'll see even more moments that topped Hudson's stirring performance. What does that say? Something important, I suspect, and old fashioned: That people stopped what they were doing and became absorbed in the moment.
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Grammys Spawn Record Levels of 'Social TV' Activity, Led By Adele, Chris Brown, Jennifer Hudson

Billboard - February 14, 2012
Not only did people tune into Sunday night Grammys telecast, they created a record number of social media comments about the event. The telecast, as well as the 3 hours preceding and following the telecast, generated 13.0 million comments from U.S Facebook and Twitter users, according to Bluefin Labs, a social analytics company that tracks social media engagement related to broadcast TV. Bluefin clients - advertising agencies, TV networks, brands - use its data for insights into consumer engagement with TV shows.
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Music Stars Build Their Own Apps

Bloomberg Businessweek - February 7, 2012
Schneider once built custom apps for clients that cost about $50,000. Prices for his do-it-yourself service, which includes managing the app, range from about $1,000 to nearly $9,000 per year, depending on the app's features. "Even people who have a lot of money want to save money," says Schneider.
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Do-It-Yourself Mobile Applications Win Honeywell to Disney: Tech

Bloomberg Businessweek - February 6, 2012
The DIY app trend is fueling demand for services provided by such companies as Taptera, Mobile Roadie and Socialize Inc.'s AppMakr, which can make it easier and cheaper to build mobile apps. They're part of a market for mobile-application development that generated $20.5 billion in revenue in 2011, and the figure may rise to $100 billion in 2015, according to a report from research firm Research2guidance.
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A Super Social Bowl

AllThingsD - February 6, 2012
You could have watched the Super Bowl without checking Twitter or Facebook, but you probably snuck at least a few peeks in throughout the game. And a lot of you ended up typing something, too. Bluefin Labs, a "social TV" start-up that analyzes commentary during TV broadcasts, says it saw 11.5 million comments during tonight's game. That's up more than 6x over last year's broadcast.
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Super Bowl ads grab social-media buzz

USA Today - February 6, 2012
Super Bowl social-media buzz was as much about the commercials as the Big Game on Monday. Leading the trending pack: a grandma slinging a baby for Doritos; David Beckham baring his tattooed body for apparel retailer H&M; and Clint Eastwood's "Halftime in America" oratory for Chrysler. The black-and-white spot with the soccer star wearing only his extensive body art (tattoos) and his H&M David Beckham briefs, topped all others early Monday with more than 109,000 total social-media comments via Twitter, Facebook posts and blogs, reports Bluefin Labs, a social TV analytics company.
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From Manning To Madonna: NBC's Super Bowl XLVI Blasts Social TV Record [Infographics]

Forbes.com - February 6, 2012
Bluefin Labs, which tracks social buzz for television, has just sent over the data they collected from last night's Super Bowl on NBC. One word will suffice: Giant. Before last night, the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards had captured the most social media comments, with 3.1 million. The Super Bowl last night pulled down 12.2 million, according to Bluefin. But that's not even the most telling statistic for how much social television grew in 2011.
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14 Incredible Women to Watch in Silicon Valley

Business Insider - February 6, 2012
Alison Pincus and Susan Feldman founded a $440 million company, One Kings Lane.
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Tour One Kings Lane, The Big $440 Million Elephant In Online Flash Sales

Business Insider - February 5, 2012
One Kings Lane (OKL), a fast-growing decor flash sales site that generated over $100 million in revenue in 2011, needs somewhere to get all that growth done.
In its New York office, where 80 of the company's employees work on everything from product photography to site maintenance, you can tell immediately that this is a company focused on beautiful design. With their signature elephants and lots of furniture from the site, the office is tastefully decorated and very comfortable.
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Another Sunny Day for Cloud Company NetSuite

AllThingsD - February 2, 2012
You know, this whole cloud computing thing might just turn out to be something after all. NetSuite, the cloud-based software outfit that businesses use to, well, run their businesses, just reported its latest quarterly and annual results, and the results are pretty good.
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NetSuite Q4 Tops Estimates

Forbes - February 2, 2012
NetSuite reported better-than-expected fourth quarter results.
For the quarter, the provider of cloud-based enterprise software posted revenue of $64.1 million, up 23% from a year ago, and ahead of the Street at $63.4 million. Non-GAAP profits of 5 cents a share beat the consensus by a penny. Calculated billings, which is defined as revenue plus the change in deferred revenue, was up 36% from a year ago.
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NetSuite sees strong 2012 on cloud demand

Reuters - February 2, 2012
NetSuite Inc's (N.N) fourth-quarter results beat Wall Street expectations, as the business software maker gained from a shift by small and mid-sized companies to low-cost, nimbler cloud-based products. The company said it was taking market share from traditional mid-market and enterprise resource planning vendors like Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O). "They have a series of products in the mid market that are just dying very rapidly and I think we really took Microsoft to the woodshed this quarter," Chief Executive Zach Nelson told Reuters.
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General Assembly Has Had 6,000 People Take Its Classes, And It's Opening A Second Huge Campus In NYC

Business Insider – January 25, 2012
"The new campus is an extension of what we've been doing," co-founder Adam Pritzker tells us. He says General Assembly made the decision to launch a second campus in New York over another city because it's dedicated to building a powerful educational experience there.
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Social TV Startup Bluefin Labs Lands $12 Million Investment

AdAge - January 24, 2012
While networks and agencies both subscribe to Bluefin's web-based dashboard currently, Mr. Roy said he expects more revenue and growth to come from the buy-side of the TV ad business. Last year, Publicis' SMG began targeting ad buys based on Bluefin's analytics. Mr. Roy said that Bluefin plans to expand internationally next year, with Japan as a likely target market thanks to the strong growth of social media there and new investor SoftBank Capital's presence in the market. With the investment, Time Warner Investments' Rachel Lam is joining Bluefin's board.
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Time Warner leads funding for second social TV company

Reuters - January 24, 2012
Media conglomerate Time Warner Inc (TWX.N) is leading a $12 million round of funding into a start-up company that analyzes tweets and Facebook posts as people watch their favorite TV programs. Social TV analytics company Bluefin Labs is also backed in its second round of funding by another new investor, SoftBank Capital, as well as existing backers Redpoint Ventures and Lerer Ventures.
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Twitter While you Watch TV?

The Wall Street Journal - January 24, 2012
Are you the kind of person who uses Twitter or Facebook while you watch TV? You're building valuable data sets for marketers. Peter Kafka has details on Digits. (Video)
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Michael Schneider: Six Mobile Music trends to watch in 2012

MidemBlog - January 20, 2012
For app maker Mobile Roadie's CEO, ubiquitous connectivity, location ticketing and social will be huge this year. Mark his words at midem!
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Winners of the '40 Under 40 Emerging Leaders Awards' Unveiled

San Francisco Business Times - January 20, 2012
Alison Pincus, chief strategy officer and co-founder, One Kings Lane
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Pulse Jumped From 1 Million To 11 Million Downloads In 2011; Now Seeing Download Every 2 Seconds

TechCunch - January 19, 2012
Kothari today shared with TechCrunch that over the course of 2011, Pulse went from 1 million downloads to over 11 million, and are currently averaging approximately one download every two seconds, and 1.5 million every month.
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LOVEFiLM Lands on LG, Roku Up Next

GigaOM - January 19, 2012
British online video service Lovefilm is expanding its device footprint to fend off Netflix, which launched in the country two weeks ago. Lovefilm's customers will be able to access the service on LG smart TVs, according to an announcement the company sent us via email. The Amazon-owned video service is also gearing up to launch on Roku's media streaming box once the device starts shipping in the U.K. in early February, according to a reliable source.
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GroupMe is built right into the new Winter X Games 2012 mobile app

TheNextWeb - January 18, 2012
ESPN has just released its X Games app for iOS and Android (link available soon), which among other features, includes integration with GroupMe, the easiest way to create an instant SMS style chatroom across all phones — smart and dumb.
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THR's 2012 Digital Power 50

The Hollywood Reporter - January 11, 2012
A cursory viewing of any number of viral videos — with their irreverent tone, ramshackle aesthetics and simple approach to narrative — might give the impression that fame in the digital video world largely rests on luck. But the founders of Maker Studios, a Culver City digital production company that is home to several YouTube stars, say that lasting online stardom is serious business.
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Updated: Exclusive: AP Branches Out, Adds Pulse To Its Digital Mix

PaidContent - January 5, 2012
Pulse tells me that this "one of the first times that AP has opened all their content to a partner (and they have very few mobile partners)."
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Creative Spaces: The Need for Space Outside the Office

The Huffington Post - January 4, 2012
An innovation eco-system for technology and design startups, and a mixed-use space designed to provide entrepreneurs with a range of contexts suitable for realizing their ideas — whether they require privacy, team-based collaboration, or an open exchange with fellow members.
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Creative Spaces: The Need for Space Outside the Office

The Huffington Post - January 4, 2012
An innovation eco-system for technology and design startups, and a mixed-use space designed to provide entrepreneurs with a range of contexts suitable for realizing their ideas — whether they require privacy, team-based collaboration, or an open exchange with fellow members.
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Maker Studios: The YouTube Era's HBO

Digiday - January 3, 2012
At a time when the media business overall is still quaking from a brutal recession, Maker is literally bursting out of its four offices. The company, founded in 2009, employs 200 people, and the plan is to hire aggressively in 2012. Maker co-founder Danny Zappin isn't afraid to say the Web studio one day aspires to be the "HBO of the Internet."
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Apple iPad: 20 useful apps

ZDNet - January 1, 2012
Pulse is another iPad news aggregator like Flipboard, only instead of building its sections based on social feeds it uses RSS feeds. Like Flipboard, it presents the info in a visually compelling format using images from the articles that it is linking to.
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20 Ideas Worth Stealing

Stores Magazine – January 2012
Home decor flash sales site One Kings Lane surprised 6,900 of its best customers with a special gift that shipped the first two weeks of November. Based on purchase history, shoppers received taper candles, a silver pitcher or an inlaid bone box.
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