The past 24hrs have had a few great announcements for the Boston area tech industry including funding, site launches and new feature announcements. Here is a quick run down of the events.

Invoke Solutions Grabs 7M - First reported in the BBJ, on Xconomy and now TechCrunch, Waltham, MA based online and mobile research firm announced $7 million in venture funding from North Atlantic Capital, Bain Capital LLC and BEV Capital.

Also reported on Xconomy and now on Techcrunch, Loki / Skyhook Wireless launched a new location service that will tell everyone where you are via wifi positioning technology. Do I actually want this? Reminds me of my Stalker.com post from back in 2006. Actually for mobile browsers and us iPhone users, this has great application to enable your map based programs know where they are.

Writers looking for a little extra cash? Andover’s Helium launched their writer marketplace yesterday. It’s basically a elance like platform for publishers to post submission requests including the what they are willing to pay for the article. When I looked yesterday, there were a decent load of requests with prices ranging from 70 - 180 per 700 - 1000 word article. Scott and the guys who actually get paid to write can tell me if this works out to a good per-word rate!

Finally, although I may have missed other stories, the New England Patriots released their Newenglandfootball.com site in an effort to expand their reach to the local fans through high school football teams. I love this story because it shows an innovative attempt to use social media by a major sports franchise but also because it gives the SEO expert in me a legitimate opportunity to reference the Tom Brady And Gisele Bundchen sex tape in a blog post. You dirty pigs are searching for it right now…or you will after this post!

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Technorati Tags: Boston Web 2.0,Tech,Helium,Patriots,Loki,Skyhoow Wireless,Invoke,Waltham,Boston,Andover,Football,Tom Brady,Gisele Bundchen

It looks like it will be a busy week after all.  The big news from around the web is that Enpocket, the Boston-based mobile advertising company will be scooped up by Nokia! 

Founded in 2001, enpocket is a mobile marketing, personalization and advertising platform for the wireless space that has produced thousands of campaigns for top global brands They describe their service as the first mobile advertising platform that can predict and influence consumer behavior.

Congratulations!

Utterz.com, a Maynard based site that I first covered earlier this year and one of the few technology stories that broke on 93south, came back out of stealth today and expanded their product offering to include impulse publishing of both pictures and video in addition to the original voice service. I had a chance to play around with the service this weekend and was impressed with the changes and progress that they have made.

Think of Utterz as Twitter for audio, pics and video. Utterz is a very simple concept where registered users call a pre-set number (712-432-6666) to leave short sound clips (or Utterz) that are automatically posted on the users Utterz profile. With this release, Utterz now allows users to accompany their posted messages with both pictures and video that can be submitted via email or site upload. The pictures and video are automatically matched to the previous voice utter on the website.

The company also followed the advice from my previous post and added a selection of widgets (Ok…I’m sure they were planning on it anyway) that allow you to publish your latest Utterz to your blog or online profiles. Notice my Utterz widget in the sidebar - not much of a set I must admit but I’m not sure if I am the real target.

One of the interesting parts of the overall concept is that it allows a 2-way conversation through a blog-like comment system. Users have the ability to post responses to each message through the website or directly through the phone number. When you call in, the automated attendant will notify you that their are replies waiting for your messages and give you the ability to respond…almost voice texting in a way.

This new “micro-blogging” service still has a few bugs to work out and I will be curious to see how they will handle offensive content even in a community policed format. However, I think that the new feature set combined with the site’s clever branding (a bit refreshing for east coast standards) have the potential to turn Utterz into a very popular service.

RPM Communications, the maker of Utterz and Foonz, also announced a $4 million Series A round of funding led by Morgenthaler Ventures.

Technorati tags: utterz, boston web 2.0, maynard, mobile, technology, sms, video, audio, twitter, start-up, launch

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In other local mobile news today, Quattro Wireless announced that it has received $12.3 million in Series B funding from Globespan Capital Partners and Highland Capital Partners. The Series B round, led by Globespan, brings the company’s total venture investment to $18 million, following a Series A financing led by Highland Capital Partners in 2006. Quattro is putting together a mobile advertising and mobile content platform with customers including Gillette, Univision, Playboy, NFL.com, CoverGirl, and TheStreet.com.

The Series B funds will be used to launch the GetMobile platform, a self-service solution version of their solution that includes the ability to measure their mobile presence using something Quattro calls their proprietary “juicing” technology.  Through the GetMobile Exchange, Quattro will also offer customers a bid-for-click solution that matches advertising and content.