“Our goal is to make online shows sustainable by providing services of scale to independent creators and Web studios,” said blip.tv CEO and co-founder Mike Hudack. “Web show creators should be able to focus on creating great content while we take care of infrastructure, distribution and advertising on their behalf. With Bain Capital’s support we know that we’ll be able to grow our offerings for producers while providing value for distribution partners in the form of excellent episodic programming.”

Press Release

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While growth in online advertising on the whole is expected to decelerate over the next few years, AdMob is seeing success in the mobile space, especially with ads targeted for the iPhone, for which it launched a specialized ad network last year. According to The New York Times, AdMob now serves advertising for 20 of the top 100 applications built for the device.

With Google’s G1 set to debut tomorrow, and the impending launch of the Blackberry Application Center , mobile inventory will likely to continue to grow for AdMob. While the likes of Google and Yahoo have also launched their own mobile ad solutions, for the time being, AdMob is in control of what it says is the biggest network.

Sequoia was joined in the round by existing AdMob investor Accel Partners. AdMob, who reports being cash flow positive, will use the funding primarily to expand internationally.

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TokBox Secures $4 Million from Sequoia

(Blip refuses to release the amount. Let's hope it's big).

BLIP.TV SECURES FUNDING FROM BAIN CAPITAL VENTURES

Online Video Platform and Distributor Closes Second Institutional Round

NEW YORK, NY - October 21, 2008 - Online television network blip.tv today announced the closing of its second institutional round of capital, led by Bain Capital Ventures. Blip.tv joins other exciting companies in Bain's venture portfolio, including LinkedIn, Thumbplay, The Find, Tokbox and LaLa Media. Blip.tv closed its first round of institutional funding in June 2007 with Ambient Sound Investments, the venture capital vehicle of the four founding engineers of Skype.

In conjunction with this funding round, blip.tv announced that it served more than 51 million video views in September 2008, a more than 250% increase over September 2007. Blip.tv measures video views by counting only one view per IP address per video per session.

'Blip.tv is the leading distributor of niche video programming on the Web, and we're proud to add them to our portfolio,' said Jeffrey Glass, a partner at Bain Capital Ventures. 'Blip leads its industry in the number and quality of content creators, in video views and in monetization. We're thrilled to be joining the blip.tv team and we're looking forward to exciting growth and innovation in the future.'

Blip.tv distributes more than 37,000 actively updated Web shows, which release an average of three new episodes per month. With Bain Capital's support, the company will continue to enhance its industry-leading advertising platform while significantly expanding its syndication relationships. Blip.tv's distribution network already includes platforms such as iTunes, AOL Video, Verizon FiOS and Sony Bravia Internet Video Link.

'Our goal is to make online shows sustainable by providing services of scale to independent creators and Web studios,' said blip.tv CEO and co-founder Mike Hudack. 'Web show creators should be able to focus on creating great content while we take care of infrastructure, distribution and advertising on their behalf. With Bain Capital's support we know that we'll be able to grow our offerings for producers while providing value for distribution partners in the form of excellent episodic programming.'

Founded in May of 2005, blip.tv is known for hosting and distributing the top independent shows on the Web, including content produced by Michael Eisner's Tornante Company, 60Frames and DECA. Michael Moore recently selected blip.tv as the primary distribution platform for his Slacker Uprising film. The company matches top shows with sponsors and operates a video advertising network of networks to monetize emerging shows. All advertising revenue is shared equally between blip.tv and show creators. Sponsors have included Unilever, Puma and Holiday Inn Express.

Now, Ebuddy has done it; it works in the standard version but also in the mobile version available at m.ebuddy.com. Screenshot below courtesy of Talking Mobile.

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Video phone calls just haven't caught on like all those cinematic depictions of the future said they would--kind of like flying cars. But a bunch of investors led by Bain Capital Ventures still believe. They've pumped a $10 million Series B round into TokBox, a video chat and calling site based in San Francisco. Existing investor Sequoia Capital also participated.

TokBox launched less than a year ago, but it has been working hard, appointing Nick Triantos as CEO, releasing a light desktop application based on Adobe AIR and building code to integrate its video chat into Facebook Chat.

"TokBox has an impressive, and very loyal and energetic user base," Scott Friend, a partner at Bain Capital Ventures who will be joining the start-up's board of directors, said in a statement. "The company is executing well, and its service offers consumers a variety of great features that strongly differentiate TokBox from competitors. We are excited to be investing with our partners at Seqouia in a company we believe has the potential to be the next 'big thing' in Web communication."

Cool! Now I'm just holding my breath for the Valley moneymen to start realizing how much we need flying cars.

When you start taking steps at being a knockoff of a site that is the largest social network and continually expanding its horizons; you are asking for trouble. StudiVZ had done the same and Facebook has taken the matter to court as reported by FT.

StudiVZ claims to be the largest and the most successful social networking site in Germany, Austria and Switzerland with 10 million active users. It has been blamed for replicating almost the whole of Facebook; from features to services. The only difference that appears to lurk around is the Blue theme of Facebook being replaced by Red.

The case might primarily be filed due to a fact that Facebook has failed at capturing the German user base. Pretty surprising given Facebook’s 80 million active user base around the world as it claims so. It was clearly mentioned by Facebook that they are looking forward to put an end to this illegal; activity and make sure that users don’t get confused or that Facebook’s reputation be harmed.

StudiVZ is based in Berlin and was brought last year by Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, a German publishing company for $112 million. The representatives for both the firms could not be reached.

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According to Senior Platform Manager, Dave Morin, Facebook will be sharing some information regarding the stuff they have planned for the event. Also some faces and names of the Facebook team will be introduced who will be speaking, presenting or just hanging out at the occasion. This will give participants some idea about different sessions and they can easily choose the one they want to attend.

Furthermore he says:

f8 is all about giving you 8 hours to interact with us, facebook engineers and people that work on this technology everyday.

According to company’s Platform Engineer, Josh Elman, at the conference they’ll walk through the new profile, stuff related to mobile and ‘Facebook Connect’ for making the web more social.

The social network also wanted to let people know about the new time of the keynote. The keynote now, will be from 1:30 – 3:00 PM, earlier from the previous time published.

More information can be found from the video below which was released by the Facebook:

Different packages are available for attendees. You can register yourself here. Special package for students are also available.

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Less than two weeks ago TokBox released its Facebook chat application, enabling you to begin a video chat session from directly within Facebook’s internal instant messaging client. Today, TokBox is launching a completely new application on Adobe Air. This downloadable app acts as a complimentary option to the Web-based TokBox version, which is likely to be a more familiar experience to video Web chat users.

The most useful aspect of the new desktop version is perhaps the fact that it allows you to always be available for a chat, instead of having to go to a website and begin a chat with another user that may or may not be available. You can receive alerts for IM friends when they are contacting you for a call. While the new desktop version of TokBox may not be earth-shattering considering the multiple desktop options we have for video chat (from AIM to Skype), it is likely a necessity for TokBox as it expands its product offerings and seeks unique ways in which to compete with the dominating video chat services that are already out there.

I still think the Web-based version of TokBox is the option I’m more likely to use, as it offers some immediacy for chat while I’m surfing the Web (given the availability of certain friends), but with the downloadable desktop version, the practicality in immediate video chats is far more evident. I’d like to see TokBox integrate with other services for its Web-based option. Its “widget-like” presence in the browser makes it a good option for services like Vysr and Yoono, among other Web-based tools.

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TokBox, the impressive video chat startup that doesn’t require any kind of extra software, has launched a new AIR app that will bring the web service’s easy setup to the desktop. Thanks to Adobe’s AIR platform, the software will be cross-compatible and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux users.

The client offers a very simple interface that should be familiar to anyone who has ever used Skype. Users can access all of TokBox’s standard features, which include Video Calls, Instant Messages, and Video Mail. Beyond the easy interface, the client also improves on the TokBox experience by giving users instant notification whenever a contact initiates a chat with them, and also allows them to set their availability status so that others know when they can be contacted. The app also generates a standard TokBox link, so that users can invite their friends to the chat even if they don’t have the client.

The new client should appeal to frequent users of the site, but it seems a little counterintuitive - TokBox is special because you don’t need to use a client, as you do with competitors like Skype or chat networks like AIM and MSN. The release of a desktop client pits TokBox even more directly against these massive networks, and makes it clear that the company isn’t satisfied with just solving a problem (easy browser-based video chat) - they’re looking to take on the big guns.

The new client’s no-hassle setup and universal compatibility make it a strong addition to TokBox’s quickly expanding offerings, which include a recently launched Firefox extension that integrates with Facebook Chat, and integration with Meebo.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  Electronic Arts, an Internet game giant has diligently collaborate with Hasbro to unveil Scrabble’s official version for much awaiting Facebook users and fans. The version that was under construction since last few months is available on EA’s casual gaming site, Pogo but the Facebook app is expected to be rolled out by the end of this month. An unlicensed version of app has already gathered a huge applause by users.

(more…)

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