Thursday, June 13, 2013


Insights and Opinions: Why You Should Give Before You Get
For today's Insights and Opinions section, where we share the wisdom and opinions from the local tech community, we feature a post by Mark Suster: Why You Should Give Before You Get. Mark is a frequent blogger, conference speaker, and thought leader in the technology industry, and a venture capitalist at GRP Partners. I have a motto in business and life, “give before you get.” It’s a philosophy, really. And it applies to business relationships & networking as much as it does to (More info...)
posted on Thursday, June 13, 2013(Full story)

Frost Venture Partners Snags OCTANe's Vasquez
Frost Venture Partners, the "big data" startup incubator started by DatAllegro's Stuart Frost, has just hired away Luis Vasquez, OCTANe's VP of Entrepreneurship and LaunchPad director, as its new Vice President of Investor Relations. According to OCTANe and Frost, Vasquez joins Frost Venture Partners on July 1st. Vasquez had been at OCTANe since 2004, and was one of the key drivers behind OCTANE's LaunchPad program, which helps accelerate startups in the technology, life science, and clean tech (More info...)
posted on Thursday, June 13, 2013(Full story)

Tapping The Creativity Of The Crowd With Tongal
You've seen the company's work in the Superbowl, on television, and on the web, all for big brands--but you might not know it came out of the crowdsourcing efforts of Tongal (www.tongal.com). The Los Angeles company--which is backed by $15M from Insight Venture Partners--has come up with a way to utilize the web and its deep depth of creative talent to produce many viral videos and commercials for its clients. We caught up with James DeJulio, the company's President and one of its co-founders, (More info...)
posted on Thursday, June 13, 2013(Full story)

SGN Buys Mob Science
Los Angeles-based social games developer SGN, which is led by former MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe, said today that it has acquired Mob Science, the social games developer behind Zynga's Legends: Rise of a Hero. Financial terms of the deal were not announced. According to SGN, the acquisition of San Diego-based Mob Science will add 11 new talented recruits to the company, as well as a catalogue of nearly a dozen social and mobile game titles. SGN said Mob Science will remain in their offices (More info...)
posted on Thursday, June 13, 2013(Full story)

ESET Takes On Microsoft SharePoint Protection
San Diego-based security software developer ESET is extending its line of security products today to Microsoft SharePoint. ESET said it has launched a new product called ESET Security for Microsoft SharePoint Server, which specifically provides real-time protection security for Microsoft's popular corporate portal software. ESET said its launch of the product is designed to help companies facing the retirement of Microsoft's similar security product, Forefront, in 2015. The new software provides (More info...)
posted on Thursday, June 13, 2013(Full story)

Life Technologies Buys Korean Firm
Carlsbad-based life sciences equipment maker Life Technologies announced this morning that it has acquired Life Science Korea (LSK), a distributor of instruments based in Seoil, South Korea. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Life Technologies said that LSK has more than 1,000 customers in the academia, government, pharmaceutical, biotech, hospitals and applied markets. LSK has been Life Technologies' primary distributor in South Korea since 1994.
posted on Thursday, June 13, 2013(Full story)

The Search Agency Launches Award Program
The Search Agency, the Los Angeles-based search marketing agency and online marketing firm, said today that it has launched its own, annual awards program called the Stars of Search Award. The Search Agency said it will award search marketers in the area of paid search, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, mobile marketing, comparison shopping and search retargeting. The company said the awards will be given as part of the Direct Marketing Association's annual conference.
posted on Thursday, June 13, 2013(Full story)