Extraordinary iPhone App Identifies 2.6 Million TV Shows by "Listening" Applying listening logic to television content as Shazam has done for music, new startup IntoNow is launching its iOS application Monday that is capable of identifying 2.6 million broadcast airings, equating to 266 years of video. The television companion application is designed to create an easy way for users to connect with friends around the shows that they love. Select the TV icon from within the iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch app and IntoNow listens to what you're watching on the boob tube or internet. In four to twelve seconds the application magically returns the exact episode, and correctly identifies whether the content is airing live or if it's a rebroadcast on the original network or a syndicate. IntoNow provides users with show info, one-click access to IMDb, iTunes and Netflix, the latter of which provides users with a quick way to save episodes to their Instant Queue. Cahan speaks from years of experience in the entertainment industry.
AOL Europe acquires branded video distribution network goviral for $96.7 million AOL Europe has lead an acquision of video distribution network Goviral today, to the tune of $96.7 million. Goviral distributes branded video content for mainstream brands, as well as content producers and advertising agencies. Originally out of Copenhagen, the company now has offices across Europe. We’re hearing this deal was lead directly by Kate Burns, SVP, AOL Europe. In a statement Burns said: “Video is core to AOL’s consumer programming strategy and goviral has created an incredibly compelling platform that delivers highly measureable and cost effective solutions to publishers and advertisers.” Goviral will retain its offices in the UK, Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden and Spain. Interestingly AOL UK’s former advertising sales director Sarah Perry joined goviral in the new role of client and agency director, three months after leaving AOL. Goviral runs viral marketing campaigns predominately tailored for online distribution Learn More
Startup Launches to Save Men From Giving Bad Gifts on Valentine's Day If anecdotal evidence is to be believed, men are notoriously bad gift-givers. Seattle-based startup Thoughtful launches its social gifting private beta product Tuesday — just ahead of Valentine's Day — to help save the day. The premise is simple enough: Men need help buying gifts; Thoughtful connects to Facebook to surface local experiences and gift recommendations that match their mates' tastes. Thoughtful curates gifts sourced from local merchants who work with the startup to feature their products and experiences. The service will continue to keep track of important birthdays, anniversaries, and special events and will follow up with reminders to ensure the user's gift-buying plans are prepared accordingly. “Guys don’t shop — they buy,” says CEO Chris Lynch. While Thoughtful is targeted at men, the service will work for women as well. Thougtful, for now, is restricted to beta users in the Seattle area, which means not all men can become Thoughtful "heros" overnight.
stickybits / explore & score? Wais.co : partir à l'étranger ne sera plus un casse-tête Maxime, membre de l'équipe de Wais.co nous présente la jeune start-up créée lors de la Start-up Week-End Lyon 2011 ! Leur idée : aider les étudiants à partir à l'étranger dans le cadre de leurs études ! Présentes-nous Wais.co Wais.co pour We Are International Students, a pour but de créer une communauté d'étudiants internationaux. Les étudiants qui partent à l'étranger sont guidés dans leurs démarches : trouver un logement, trouver des contacts sur place, gérer les nécessités pour le départ. Nous avons donc pour but de libérer l'étudiant de toutes ces peurs, inquiétudes et démarches avant son départ et dans son intégration à l'étranger. D'où t'est venue cette idée ? Je m'apprêtais à partir à l'étranger et j'ai remarqué que l'ensemble des informations étaient trop dispersées, j'ai donc pensé à un site qui regrouperait de manière intelligente l'ensemble des informations. L’étudiant pourra retrouver quel type de services Wais.co ?
Paydiant Throws Its Hat Into The Mobile Payments Ring, Raises $7.6 Million Paydiant, a new Boston-based mobile payments startup, this morning announced that it closed a $7.6 million Series A round of funding led by North Bridge Venture Partners and General Catalyst Partners. The company plans to formally launch later this year. Paydiant was co-founded by Chris Gardner, Kevin Laracey and Joe Paratore, three serial entrepreneurs. Laracey was formerly venture partner at Sigma Partners and co-founder and CEO of edocs, the online billing and payments company that was acquired by Siebel Systems (now part of Oracle) in 2005. Gardner also worked at edocs, where he served as VP of products and marketing, and went on to join premium SMS mobile payments provider m-Qube (acquired by Verisign in 2006) in the same capacity. Most recently, Gardner was CMO at ExtendMedia, a digital media content delivery and commerce platform software company that was acquired by Cisco in 2010. Paydiant co-founder Chris Gardner in a statement said: We’ll be keeping our good eye on this one.
Producteev, le gestionnaire de tâches collaboratif Producteev est la première startup créée à New York par Ilan Abehassera, son CEO, installé dans la grosse pomme depuis 7 ans. Il avait déjà à son actif plusieurs expériences web notamment avec Zlio. Producteev est un gestionnaire de tâches à la fois B2B et B2C dont l’ADN est collaboratif. D’une utilisation personnelle à un nombre de connectés illimités en entreprise, la solution fonctionne online et offline en interface avec les comptes e-mail, Facebook ou Google Calendar entre autres dans des versions web et mobiles. La société revendique aujourd’hui 100 000 utilisateurs (+1500 / jour) dont près de 70 % sont américains. Selon le nombre d’utilisateurs et l’espace de stockage dédié aux sauvegardes et échanges de documents, les tarifs vont du gratuit à 30$/mois en version professionnelle. Producteev est financé par Jérémie Berrebi, Oleg Tscheltzoff et Fabrice Grinda entre autres. Entretien avec Ilan Abehassera, CEO de Producteev.
Airbnb Hits 1 Million Nights Booked As European Clone Emerges We’re quite big fans of Airbnb, the “community marketplace for space” here at TechCrunch, and we’re far from the only ones. This morning, the young company announced that it has hit a fairly big milestone: one million nights have been booked through the service since its launch (including a couple by TechCrunch staff, I might add). Airbnb also says it has registered month-over-month growth of 65% in January 2011 alone. That comes off the heels of (self-reported) 800 percent growth in 2010. More recent stats, provided by the startup: - Guests have traveled from 182 countries to listings available in 170 countries - 132,000 positive reviews submitted, representing 98% of all reviews - Most expensive listing: $10,000/night - Longest single reservation on Airbnb: 200 nights - Most reservations by a single user: 28 - 281 million miles traveled by guests - 160,000 iPhone app downloads - Number of marriage proposals between guest and host: 1