Monday, March 3, 2008Userplane Tops Friendster PopularityLos Angeles-based Userplane, the division of AOL which develops chat and instant messaging applications, said Monday that the firm's webchat platform has been ranked number one as the most popular Friendster application. According to Userplane, the firm's application was used by nearly 800,000 members last month of the Friendster social networking web site. Userplane develops web applications which can be embedded into social networking, dating, and other social web sites.
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Nirvanix Expands BoardSan Diego-based storage service provider Nirvanix said Monday that it has added Michael V. Wall to its board of directors. Wall was most recently at Intel Corporation, where he was general manager of the firm's Storage Group. Wall has also served at Cray Research and IBM. Nirvanix is a venture backed firm which provides storage as a service. The firm competes against Amazon and its S3 storage services.
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William Morris, Accel, Venrock, and AT&T Target SoCal InvestmentsThe William Morris Agency, Accel Partners, Venrock, and AT&T said Monday morning that the firms have agreed to create a new investment firm to seed and grow firms in Southern California. The firms said that a new joint fund will focus on discovering, funding and building companies focused on the "Web 3.0" consumer media technology arena. According to the firms, the new fund will be managed by Richard Wolpert, previously chief strategy officer of RealNetworks and president of Disney Online. Size (More info...)
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Interview with Paul Ryan, Done RightPaul Ryan is founder and CEO of Done Right (www.Done Right.com), a Pasadena-based startup in the lead generation and local advertising industry. The firm is venture backed by August Capital, Mohr Davidow, and others, and recently closed an (unannounced) Series C funding round. We caught up with Paul last week to get the latest on the firm's services, and also to hear Paul's contrast between his experience as CTO of Overture Services and running Done Right. Paul spoke with socalTECH's Ben Kuo.
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Broadcom Buys Blu-Ray Chip Provider Sunext DesignIrvine-based Broadcom said this morning that it has acquired Sunext Design, a Sunnyvale-based firm which develops semiconductors for the high-definition, Blu-ray Disc market. Broadcom said the deal is worth $48M in cash for all of the outstanding shares of Sunext Design. Sunext Design, Inc. is the U.S. subsidiary of Sunext Technology Company Limited. Sunext develops a single-chip device which connects with Broadcom's Blu-ray Disc systems-on-a-chip. The acquisition has been approved by the board (More info...)
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Breach Names CFOCarlsbad-based Breach Security said this morning that it has named Craig Kussman as Chief Financial Officer of the firm. Kussman joins the company from Ascenta Therapeutics. Kussman has also served at Discovery Partners International, SYNAVANT, IMS HEALTH, Cognizant, and Dun & Bradstreet. Breach security develops web application security products for both vulnerability management as well as data leakage prevention.
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FastSoft Hires New Sales DirectorMonrovia-based FastSoft said this morning that it has ppointed a new Direct of Sales for its Eastern Region. The firm said that it has appointed Eric Anderson to the position, to serve the firm's Eastern US and Canadian regions. Anderson has served at Internap, Broadwing Communicaitons, and Arch Communication and is based in Boston. FastSoft is developing products used for accelerating the transfer of dat over the Internet; the firm's technology is based on research from Caltech. The firm is ven (More info...)
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