901am

New Media News Every Morning

Buzzwire launches mobile media service

By

buzzwire.jpgBuzzwire, Inc. announced today a beta preview of its streaming mobile media service, which lets users create their own customized program lineup and access it on their mobile phones anytime, anywhere. With audio and video feeds targeted to meet the widest range of interests from local, national, and international news, traffic, weather, sports, entertainment, finance and more, Buzzwire lets users easily create a personalized world of streaming content on their mobile phones.

With Buzzwire, consumers can find and personalize content from an extensive audio and video library, including live Internet radio streams. Additionally, users can add feeds found on the Internet, create playlists and share them with friends. Buzzwire is backed by Matrix Partners and Spark Capital and is emerging from stealth mode after having established the technology foundation to deliver this unique service. During the beta preview, Buzzwire will be available directly to consumers. A formal launch with select wireless carriers is scheduled for fall 2007.

Buzzwire lets users create custom playlists via a simple Web and mobile interface that does not require a client download. Buzzwire’s initial library includes almost 5,000 media sources encompassing national content, as well as content from local communities so users can get the information most important to them.

Originally posted on July 30, 2007 @ 12:14 pm

Avenue A / Razorfish announces search technology to efficiently crawl and diagnose web site performance

By

avenuea.jpgAvenue A | Razorfish announced the release of Super-intelligent Link Crawler (SiLC), a proprietary tool that crawls within web sites to detect errors such as broken links and “404 Error Messages” that alert users the web page isn’t loading. The tool analyzes why errors occur and can benchmark a web site’s performance against other competing sites. The agency has combined the tool with its search engine optimization (SEO) and web design expertise to improve search rankings and usability for major brands like U.S. News & World Report.

U.S. News & World Report recently redesigned its web site to grow traffic within its education, health, money and news sections and to improve its search capability within the site. After running SiLC, Avenue A | Razorfish discovered search engines were not ranking many of its web pages because they were viewing pages as duplicate content. For instance, U.S. News & World Report created the main content of a health page article, as well as a ‘printer friendly’ version. The web crawlers were tracking both and consequently not ranking the pages in search engine results. Within two months of the U.S. News & World Report relaunch, organic visits increased by 24 percent compared to the same period in 2006. In addition, organic visits from Google increased by 45 percent compared to 2006.

Originally posted on July 31, 2007 @ 11:55 am

Filed Under: Web

China.com forms strategic partnership with SouFun

By

soufun.jpgChina.com, a leading Internet services provider in China and a Hong Kong listed subsidiary of CDC Corporation announced that it has formed a strategic partnership with SouFun, one of China’s leading real estate websites.

Under the terms of the agreement, SouFun will purchase exclusive rights for one year to sell advertisements on the real estate channel of China.com and organize marketing events for advertisers across China. SouFun also has the option to extend the contract beyond the initial one-year term. As part of the strategic partnership, the two companies will leverage their extensive resources to promote and support their services with the mutual goal of increasing brand equity for both companies.

SouFun is a 51% owned company of Telstra, Australia’s leading telecommunications and information services company. SouFun.com claims to be China’s number one real estate website and one of the world’s top 100 online destinations with over 44 million user visits and 1.3 billion page views each month. SouFun has one of China’s most comprehensive databases of new and pre-owned homes, homes to rent, and home furnishings and fittings information.

Originally posted on July 29, 2007 @ 4:45 pm

Filed Under: Web

Entrepreneurs to meet early-stage investors in New York

By

fundingpost.jpgFundingPost is hosting a panel discussion with leading early-stage investors at its “Summer Early-Stage Investors Breakfast in New York” event on August 8, 2007. While most investor events deal with venture capitalists and later-stage investors, this event allows early-stage companies a chance to meet local early-stage venture capitalists.

Following the breakfast presentation, two companies will have the opportunity to “pitch” to the entire panel of investors. “It’s a fantastic opportunity for an early-stage company to spend 20 minutes pitching a panel of Investors,” said Joe Rubin, Director, FundingPost. “Early-stage VCs are always on the lookout for great ideas, and FundingPost is proud to provide a forum for these investors to locate promising new ventures. Several of the companies who pitched at our previous events have raised capital. We hear of more success stories all the time.”

Panelists for this event include: Gabriel Baldinucci (VP Corporate Development, Virgin USA); Jed Katz (Managing Director, DFJ Gotham); Divya Gugnani (Vice President, Pequot Ventures); Ryan Zeigler (Investment Manager, Edison Venture Fund); and Skip Besthoff (Principal, Rho Ventures).

Originally posted on July 29, 2007 @ 4:59 pm

Expedia can dance

By

Expedia is a site that delivers consumers everything they need for researching, planning, and purchasing a whole trip. Other than that, they can also dance… right in the heart of of New York. I caught up with them while having a summer walk.

By the way, this post was not paid for by Expedia.

Originally posted on July 27, 2007 @ 1:00 pm