Friday, January 6, 2012Brand Affinity Technologies Raises $4.5MIrvine-based Brand Affinity Technologies, the online advertising and celebrity sports endorsements startup headed by Ryan and Chad Steelberg, has raised $4.5M as part of an ongoing, $7.0M funding round, according to a filing from the firm this week. The firm has previously raised funding from ad pepper media international, CGI Opportunity Fund, Fulcrum Venture Capital, Miramar Venture Partners, Newport Coast Investments, and RimLight Capital. The Steelbergs are best known for selling dMarc Broad (More info...)
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Insights and Opinions: How Gameification Is Accelerating Business and Education
For our Insights and Opinions section today, we feature author and technology forecaster Daniel Burrus, who talks about gamefication, and what it means for both business and education.
Anyone who has children or who has been around them for a while knows that kids, as well as young adults, are attracted to video games like flies are attracted to light. And while older adults may think the kids are being lazy or using their time idly when they're connected to their Wii or Xbox using a Ki (More info...)
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dinCloud Gets SeededLos Angeles-based dinCloud, a provider of a hosted, virtual desktop service, said Thursday that it has received a seed round of funding. Size of the funding, and source, was not announced. The firm said the funding will go to grow its core service offering, which involved hosting virtual desktops for companies in the cloud. dinCloud's Chief Strategy Officer is Saad Shahzad, who was previously an investor at Norwest Venture Partners.
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Astronauts: SpaceX Opening A New American FrontierThe astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) are eagerly awaiting the planned, February 7th docking of Hawthorne-based SpaceX Dragon capsule, likening the event to the opening of the American frontier. In an interview with Space.com, astronaut Don Pettit called the SpaceX Dragon the " first of many wagon trains" which will be visitng the ISS. Southern California's SpaceX, started by tech mogul Elon Musk, won approval from NASA in December for the mission, which involves docking with t (More info...)
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Shopatron Racks Up 85 Sporting Goods ClientsSan Luise Obispo-based Shopatron, the developer of e-commerce software for brand manufacturers, reports today that it added a total of 85 new clients in the sporting goods industry during 2011. The firm said those clients included K2, Rossignol, Powderhorn, Quickpoles, Academy Snowboard, and Bolle, among many others. The firm did not detail how those clients influenced its financials, but did say that the clients came from a range of sports including cycling, watersports, snowsports, action spor (More info...)
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Guidance Software Names Two ExecsPasadena-based Guidance Software, the developer of computer forensics and e-discovery software, said this morning that it has named Daniel Lim as Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, and Alex Adrianopoulos as Vice President of Marketing. Lim has been at Guidance Software since 2007, serving as Assistant General Counsel, and also previously served at Jones Day, McGlinckey Stafford, and Beck, Redden & Secrest, among other positions. Adrianopoulos joins Guidance Software from Oracle, and also (More info...)
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AnyMeeting Dangles Kindle Fire To Spur Reviews, TweetsHuntington Beach-based AnyMeeting is looking to spur more reviews of its app in the Google Apps Marketplace, saying this week that it will enter any of its customers reviewing its app in the marketplace into a contest for a new Kindle Fire. AnyMeting, which is headed by Costin Tuculescu, offers up free web meeting software for users. The firm said the contest runs until January 20th, and also requires users to send a Twitter reply to AnyMeeting pointing to their review for entry.
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