Wednesday, January 18, 2012Local Utilities Back Green Button EffortA number of local utilities are backing an effort announced Wednesday by U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, to help standardize and make household energy use information available to consumers. According to the White House, Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, and eventually Southern California Edison, Glendale Power & Light, as well as others, will make a "Green Button" available on their websites which will make it easier for households to download their household energy (More info...)
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Ranker Names COO, Taps Jones For BoardLos Angeles-based Ranker, the online service which allows anyone to list and rank things on any topic, said today that it has named Mani Dhillon as Chief Operating Officer, and tapped former MySpace CEO Michael Jones for its board. The company, headed by Clark Benson, said that Dhillon was most recently the GM of Urbanspoon, and has also served at EA Mobile and Cisco. Jones, who is CEO of Santa Monica-based Science, was formerly CEO of MySpace, and also founded Tsavo Media and Userplane. Ranker (More info...)
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Gamzee Shifts Staff, Looks Towards Smaller GamesLos Angeles-based Gamzee, the HTML5 game development firm headed by Howard Marks, one of the founders of Activision, has shifted its staff as it rethinks how to approach the market. The startup develops the Skyscraper City social game, which lets users create and build a city, adding buildings, redeveloping neighborhoods, and more. According to Marks, the firm has decided to rethink the opportunity, and now sees that it's important to create smaller, rather than bigger games, due to the time it (More info...)
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Break Media Launches New Ad UnitLos Angeles-based Break Media, the online content publisher which runs Break.com as well as a number of other sites, said it has launched a new advertising unit it is calling "Social Video Accelerator". The firm said that the unit provides guaranteed cost-per-view (CPV) ads through its family of sites. Cost-per-view charges advertisers based on how many times people actually view their video ads. Break says its sites now reach more than 120 million unique viewers per month.
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Evisions Buys Education Software FirmIrvine-based Evisions, a developer of software for higher education institutions, said this morning that it has acquired Cayuse, a developer of web-based software for grant proposal development. Financial details of the deal were not announced. Cayuse, which is based in Beaverton, Oregon, will be combined with Evisions' Portland operations.
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Interview with Greg Borrud, Seismic Games
How do you take what you've learned, having been part of the growth and creation of the traditional, videogame industry, and apply that to the new world of social games? That's what Los Angeles-based Seismic Games (www.seismicgames.com) is looking to figure out, headed by Greg Borrud, Eric Gewirtz, and Chris Miller. We caught up with Greg Borrud, formerly the co-founder of Pandemic Games, to hear more about what Seismic is up to. Seismic is venture backed by DFJ Frontier and venture capitalist (More info...)
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Disney Launches New Baby SiteGlendale-based Walt Disney Company has launched a new, online destination aimed at expecting and new parents, DisneyBaby.com, the firm said Tuesday. According to Disney, the new site will provide a product showcase of Disney branded baby products, for expectant and new parents. Disney's new site also includes such features as a baby photo sharing service, and tips from other mothers. The company said the new site is being sponsored exclusively by Huggies.
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Spreebird Adds Personalization To Daily Deals ServiceIrvine-based Local Corporation said today that its daily deals site, Spreebird, has debuted a new design that it says providers greater user personalization and relevant deals. Local said it now provides a personalized, deal ranking technology which puts the deals users are most likely to be interested in--based on their location and purchase history--at the top of the page. Local launched Spreebird in May of last year.
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ValueClick Launches Political Advertising ProductWestlake Village-based ValueClick Media, the ad network division of ValueClick, is taking advantage of the runup to the Presidential elections with a new product. ValueClick said it has launched GoVote, a new advertising product aimed at political marketers. The company explained that its new product allows marketers to acquire and influence campaign donors, volunteers and voters, allowing those marketers to specifically target registered voters and politically active Americans. As part of the n (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 18, 2012(Full story)