93South – Thoughts on New England Web 2.0 - Promoting new technology within the Boston Area

Published: September 20, 2009

Source: Adweek.com – Top News

My Note: Important article! – The patent system needs an overhaul.

The runaway success of OfficeMax’s "Elf yourself" upload-your-face-on-an-animated-character campaign attracted lots of attention, but not just from the millions of consumers who sent elves to their family and friends. In late 2007, an obscure New York company called PixFusion filed a lawsuit against OfficeMax and its agency, Toy, for violating patents titled "method and apparatus for producing an electronic image" that covers the process of uplo…

Published: September 20, 2009

Source: iMedia Connection: All Feeds

Need a new digital agency but don’t know where to start? You’re not alone. Find out what you should consider before inking a deal with a new digital partner.

Published: September 18, 2009

Source: BtoB Magazine – News Feeds

Mountain View, Calif.and#8212;Google has introduced its own display ad exchange, based on technology acquired in its 2008 purchase of DoubleClick.

Published: September 16, 2009

Source: Xconomy

VC, startups, Economy Robert Buderi wrote: It’s no secret to those in the innovation community that venture-backed companies are central to America’s economic prosperity. But in its ongoing effort to help reinforce that message—perhaps particularly in light of its current efforts to fight President Obama’s idea of regulating venture capital firms as investment advisers—the National Venture Capital Association this morning relea…

Published: September 15, 2009

Source: Web Innovators Group

We are just two weeks away from our September 29th Web Innovators Group meeting and I wanted to announce our set of demonstrating companies.  The doors officially open at 6:30pm at the Grand Ballroom in the Cambridge Royal Sonesta, with the “Main Dish” presentations to the entire crowd starting at 7pm: Book of Odds – Pre-launch Sneak Preview – Amram Shapiro Epernicus – Eric Silberstein Mikhail Shapiro BatchBlue Software…

Published: September 17, 2009

Source: Daily Business Update

Associated Press MONTPELIER, Vt. — New England’s governors have endorsed a plan calling for up to a third of the region’s electric power to come from wind by 2030, possibly with a big new network of high-voltage transmission lines to move the energy from source to market. At a conference with eastern Canadian provincial premiers that ended Tuesday in St. John, New Brunswick, the governors endorsed a blueprint for the region’s energy future bas…

Published: September 17, 2009

Source: Daily Business Update

By Casey Ross, Globe Staff Governor Deval L. Patrick’s administration today is launching a Web-based marketing campaign to help retain workers and showcase opportunities for business expansion in Massachusetts. The campaign, which will use the slogan "It’s All Here," will feature a new website, www.massitsallhere.com, that will provide information on unique places to work and visit as well as programs to help grow businesses and create jobs in…

Published: September 20, 2009

Source: Daily Business Update

My Note: An ice-cream startup…cool. ;-)

By Chris Reidy, Globe Staff MooBella Inc., a Taunton company that is gearing up to market a "make-your-own" ice cream machine, said that it has secured $18 million in Series A funding from W. Health LP, a venture fund managed by Inventages. According to MooBella, its multi-patented technology allows consumers to buy fresh, hard-scoop ice cream that is made in about 40 seconds. During that time, a machine about the size of a refrigerator mi…

Published: September 18, 2009

Source: VentureBeat

The word’s finally out. Google said Apple did reject its Google Voice application for the iPhone because it “duplicated the core dialer functionality”, according to parts of an unredacted letter released by the Federal Communications Commission today. That’s funny, because Apple just said last month that it “continues to study” the application and hadn’t rejected it. (The parts the FCC released today were originally blacked out in t…

Published: September 18, 2009

Source: Mashable!

Back in March, Hulu took some initial steps into what we like to call “social TV” by adding some basic social networking components to the site. Today, they took another step in that direction with the launch of the Hulu: Watch Now Fall Premieres apps for Facebook. The new app works much like CNN’s integration with Facebook for the Obama inauguration, with the video playing on the page next to a widget for updating your Facebook status and…

Published: September 18, 2009

Source: TechCrunch

Well, something clearly broke down behind the scenes in the ongoing Apple/Google negotiations over Google Voice on the iPhone, because Google released one of two nukes it has been holding back. In a letter to the FCC today, Google disclosed previously unpublished information about Apple’s rejection of their Google Voice application. There’s no longer any question – either Google or Apple is flat out lying to the FCC: Apple: “Contrary to p…

Published: September 20, 2009

Source: The Jeff Pulver Blog

On Monday, September 21st at 8:30AM EDT I will be interviewed about twitter on Fox Business: Money for Breakfast. The segment should be watchable over at: http://interactive.foxbusiness.com/live. – - – Tags: 140conf, social media, 140 Characters Conference, twitter, Jeff Pulver

Published: September 20, 2009

Source: Mashable!

My Note: Not being able to comment on a RT is BAD.

UPDATE: for a different view, see Retweets Revisited: Commenting on Retweets is Important – One month ago, Twitter announced Project Retweet, Twitter’s plan to officially support the popular act of retweeting as a feature. Currently, users reshare interesting tweets using the RT syntax (e.g. “RT @mashable“). What Twitter intends to do is formalize the process by making retweets a core feature and displaying retweeters underneath the ori…

Published: September 17, 2009

Source: ReadWriteWeb

The BBC is looking to encode TV listing metadata and employ a compression algorithm to circumvent piracy, ad removal and illegal copying. According to a recent blog post by the EFF’s Danny O’Brien, the group wants to get mandatory DRM onto digital TV receivers via a broadcast flag. In other words, a "public service broadcaster" wants to lessen the way we consume media by forcing manufacturers to limit product playing abilities. While open source…

Published: September 20, 2009

Source: VentureBeat

My Note: Only 3 NE co. at DEMOFall09?

The DEMOfall 09 conference for companies launching new products and technologies is less than a week away, and it just released the full list of presenting companies. Right now, all we have is the company list. For more information about what these companies do and what they’re launching, you’ll have to wait until Tuesday morning, when the launch presentations begin in San Diego — that’s when we’ll publish a full list of company descri…

Published: September 19, 2009

Source: VentureBeat

I’m in the midst of playing Halo 3: ODST right now, but I thought I’d take a break to write about a game within the game. This title is Microsoft’s big video game for the fall season on the Xbox 360. The company’s spun-out Bungie Studios video game studio put together the game in just 14 months, thanks to the cancellation of the Halo movie and film director Peter Jackson’s aborted Halo games. But apparently that was plenty of time for F…

Published: September 20, 2009

Source: Mashable!

One of the key challenges for modern organizations is to define a social media policy. What’s acceptable? What isn’t? And how should you go about creating such a document for your workplace? We’ve tried to aid with this process at Mashable through articles such as Should Your Company Have a Social Media Policy? and 10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy. We’ve also published guides like Social Media for Business: The Dos Don’ts…

Published: September 15, 2009

Source: VentureBeat

Augmented Reality — the ability to superimpose data and information over a view of the real world — is arguably hot these days, and there’s no scarcity of articles and blogs on the space and AR apps. VentureBeat first reviewed AR apps two months ago. As more time has passed I decided to take a deeper look at the technology, business models and utility behind the startups to separate hype from reality. To do so I talked to AR expert Robert R…

Published: September 16, 2009

Source: VentureBeat

TV networks are stretching into new markets. The latest move: USA Network, which operates a popular basic cable TV channel network, is expanding into social games with its Character Arcade game portal. It’s launching partnerships with game startups NeoEdge Networks, Bigpoint, and Bunchball, all of which will stock the Character Arcade with a combination of ad-based casual games, free-to-play online games with virtual goods transactions, and com…

Published: September 16, 2009

Source: VentureBeat

My Note: Must read post…

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This column originally appeared on his blog.) Over the last 30 years Wall Street’s appetite for technology stocks have changed radically – swinging between unbridled enthusiasm to believing they’re all toxic. Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for t…