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<title>Haaze.com / sufminlanice / All</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
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<pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:10:12 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Android catches up with Apple on ad network]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=android-catches-up-with-apple-on-ad-network</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=android-catches-up-with-apple-on-ad-network</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:10:12 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sufminlanice</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=android-catches-up-with-apple-on-ad-network</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Android is now running neck and neck with Apple's iOS as the largest U.S. smartphone platform on the Millennial Media mobile ad network.The number of mobile ad impressions (how often an ad appears) in the U.S. for Android jumped 8 percent in October over September, according to Millennial Media's &quot;October Mobile Mix Report.&quot; That increase means both operating systems accounted for a 37 percent share of all impressions tracked by the ad network.(Credit:Millennial Media)Ad requests (the number of times a mobile ad is clicked on) rose for both operating systems last month but gave Android, a later arrival on the scene, the more impressive gain. Requests on Android devices jumped 65 percent over September and have grown 2,182 percent since January. Requests on Apple's iOS devices rose 12 percent over the prior month and are up 32 percent since the start of the year.Though Millennial Media is only one ad network, it covers more than 80 percent of the mobile Internet, according to the company, citing data from Nielsen. That means its ads reach around 73.5 million mobile customers.Looking at device makers rather than OS vendors, Apple is still in the lead, commanding a 25 percent share of all ad impressions on the network. TheiPhone kept its top spot with a 16 percent slice of all impressions, while theiPod Touch was in third place with 7.5 percent. TheiPad also has shown solid growth, with ad requests on the tablet jumping 112 percent over September. For October, Millennial Media expanded the coverage in its report to include all connected devices on its network, not just phones, allowing it to look at the iPod Touch, the iPad, and other gadgets, such as the Sony PSP portable game console.  Samsung's share of ad impressions grew 3 percentage points to capture 17 percent, putting it in second place behind Apple. Samsung's rise was due largely to demand for three phones: the Android-based Vibrant Galaxy S, the lower-end Samsung Smooth, and the Samsung SCH-R451. Motorola took third place among device makers with a 15 percent impression share and two of its new Android phones--the Droid 2 and Droid X--in the ranks of the top 30 devices. Research In Motion also showed some nice gains with six of its BlackBerry devices in the top 30 list and the BlackBerry Curve in second place with a 7.9 percent share of all ad impressions. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Ex-Northrop Grumman CEO joins Apple board]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ex-northrop-grumman-ceo-joins-apple-board</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ex-northrop-grumman-ceo-joins-apple-board</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 17 Nov 2010 08:10:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sufminlanice</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ex-northrop-grumman-ceo-joins-apple-board</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Ronald Sugar(Credit:Northrop Grumman)More than a year since Google CEO Eric Schmidt's departure from Apple's board, the company has elected a replacement.Going in a completely different direction than Schmidt's expertise in online search and advertising, Apple today announced the appointment of Ronald Sugar, former chairman and CEO of aerospace and defense giant Northrop Grumman. Sugar will head the board's Audit and Finance Committee.CEO Steve Jobs emphasized Sugar's engineering background in a statement announcing the appointment.&quot;Ron is an engineer at heart, who then became a very successful business leader. We are very excited to welcome him to Apple's board,&quot; Jobs said in a statement. &quot;In addition to having been the CEO of a high tech Fortune 100 company, Ron has a Ph.D. in engineering and has been involved in the development of some very sophisticated technology.&quot;Sugar led Northrop Grumman from 2003 to 2010, when he retired. Before that, he was an executive at another aerospace firm, Litton Industries, and TRW, where he was CFO.His appointment comes 15 months after Apple reportedly first met to discuss replacing Schmidt. At the time, there was talk that Apple COO Tim Cook could be given a seat on the board.Sugar joins fellow Apple board members Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell, J.Crew CEO Millard Drexler, former Vice President Al Gore, Avon CEO Andrea Jung, and Genentech Chairman Arthur Levinson. Sugar's appointment means there is still one vacant seat on the board due to Jerry York's death earlier this year.Update 2:31 p.m. PT: According to documents Apple just filed with the SEC, Sugar will be getting paid handsomely for his latest gig. He's getting the standard $50,000 per year Apple pays its board members, plus $25,000 on top of that for heading the audit and finance committee. He also gets an instant grant of 185 stock options.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[&''Data marketplace&'' Infochimps raises $1.2M to build out its data offerings]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=8220data-marketplace8221-infochimps-raises-1-2m-to-build-out-its-data-offerings</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=8220data-marketplace8221-infochimps-raises-1-2m-to-build-out-its-data-offerings</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sufminlanice</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=8220data-marketplace8221-infochimps-raises-1-2m-to-build-out-its-data-offerings</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Infochimps, an Austin-based marketplace for lists and other data sets, has raised $1.2 million in its first round of institutional funding.The idea of a a4Adata marketplacea4 sounds a bit abstract, so Infochimps chief executive Nick Ducoff gave me a few examples of what users are doing with the data. The companya4a4s focus has been on gathering social media and Web analytics, as well as government data. A Web developer could use Twitter data to improve the social experience for their users. A burrito restaurant planning a marketing campaign might use data about customers who a4Achecked ina4 on various location services as a source of leads. And the Austin city government uses Infochimps to make data available to its citizens.For now, Ducoff said, the company is not focused on making money, so it plans to spend the funding on gathering more data (both by hiring more engineers to grow its data scraping tools, and by buying more data sets ) and on improving the user experience. More than 500 developers reportedly access Infochimps data using its application programming interface, and the companya4a4s top 20 data sets have been downloaded more than 30,000 times.Infochimps demonstrated last fall at the DEMO conference co-produced by VentureBeat. The new funding comes from Houston-based DFJ Mercury. Infochimps has now raised $1.6 million.Next Story: In the latest indicator of a popular launch, robbers steal 100 copies of Call of Duty Black Ops Previous Story: Will Diapers.com buy prove taxing for Amazon.comPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: dataCompanies: DFJ Mercury, InfochimpsPeople: Nick Ducoff          Tags: dataCompanies: DFJ Mercury, InfochimpsPeople: Nick DucoffAnthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. (All story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com) You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Review: Microsoft&'s Kinect motion-sensing game system isn&'t as good as we hoped]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=review-microsoftrsquos-kinect-motion-sensing-game-system-isnrsquot-as-good-as-we-hoped</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=review-microsoftrsquos-kinect-motion-sensing-game-system-isnrsquot-as-good-as-we-hoped</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sufminlanice</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=review-microsoftrsquos-kinect-motion-sensing-game-system-isnrsquot-as-good-as-we-hoped</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Microsoft has created a unique experience with its Kinect motion-control gaming system. On its face, it&amp;'s more compelling than either the Nintendo Wii, which is now showing its age, and the Sony PlayStation Move, the wand-like controller from Sony that doesn&amp;'t go far enough in motion sensing.As such, Microsoft has created the novelty of the holiday gaming season: a game system that can recognize your body movements, your voice commands, and even your face &amp;8212' all without a traditional video game controller. Playing a game with your body as the controller puts a smile on your face, gets you off the couch, and will even convince some of your non-gaming friends to try it out. It will take you back to your childhood, when you pretended you were an expert boxer by acting out the motions. The problem is that Kinect has some design problems and isn&amp;'t accurate enough to be the cure-all for the game industry&amp;'s anemic sales, which are down 8 percent this year.My opinion in a nutshell: Kinect seems magical at the outset' it has lots of untapped potential' but the execution and accuracy could have been better. As Sony&amp;'s motion-sensing guru Richard Marks suggested in our recent interview, there are just too many times when you want to do something and Kinect thinks you want to do something else. As my 10-year-old commented, &amp;''It&amp;'s not as good as I thought it would be.&amp;'' And my non-gaming wife still managed to crash her car nonstop and drive the wrong way in the Kinect racing game, Joyride. The conclusion I draw from that is that the designers haven&amp;'t truly yet figured out how to take the difficulty out of gaming for non-gamers.If Microsoft&amp;'s ads are to be believed, Kinect is supposed to set our imaginations on fire and blow us away with its ease of use. In some respects, it manages to do that. You can, for instance, play soccer by kicking with your feet, not pressing a button or swinging your arm. That&amp;'s a new experience that hasn&amp;'t previously been possible in console games.I do believe that Kinect will become as important as the Xbox 360, Halo and the Xbox Live online gaming service among Microsoft&amp;'s great contributions to gaming &amp;8212' in the long run. And it is a far better designed product than many of Microsoft&amp;'s failures (as observed by the New York Times&amp;' David Pogue): Windows Vista, WebTV, Spot Watch, Ultimate TV, Ultra Mobile PC, Tablet PC, Smart Display, Portable Media Center, Zune, and the Kin phone.But in other places, Kinect falls far short of our expectations. Reviewers are giving initial Kinect games fairly low scores ranging from 56 (Kinect Joyride) to 84 (Dance Central) out of a possible 100 total points on Metacritic, which aggregates game review scores. I have to agree that the Kinect games I&amp;'ve played are fairly average so far.My kids still prefer the early generation of motion-control games such as Wii Sports and Mario Kart for the Wii, which are just as wildly inaccurate in responding to some of your movements but can make you laugh &amp;8212' and in a party setting, that laughter is contagious. Kinect games will make you smile, but so far they won&amp;'t make you guffaw until you double over &amp;8212' unless you crash into your fellow player while making a move.Now the question is, does any of that matter Reviewers are notoriously cranky and unforgiving. The Metacritic rating for Wii Sports, the spectacular title from 2006 that helped get the Wii off the ground, got an anemic 76 rating on Metacritic. The public, on the other hand, loved playing Wii Sports. My 70-something mother-in-law and my then-four-year-old kid had a ball playing Wii Sports together on the Nintendo Wii. The Wii was the first game system where it made sense to sell the machine by showing pictures of the players having a great time rather than showing a screen shot from a game.Microsoft is pouring on the marketing for Kinect. Having picked up on Nintendo&amp;'s selling tactic of focusing on the players and not the screen, the company is aiming Kinect at the community of mass market non-gamers, who are more easily pleased than the hardcore critics and who don&amp;'t read game reviews.My now-seven-year-old kid cracks up uproariously whenever she sees the Kinect replay pictures that show the players&amp;' crazy movements, taken by the Kinect camera. The kids laugh and smile, tire themselves out, and chatter incessantly while playing. Kids can be forgiving, and the games can be designed in a way that compensates for Kinect&amp;'s weaknesses. That&amp;'s why Kinect may take off even though it isn&amp;'t perfect. Microsoft is predicting 5 million unit sales this quarter.In that sense, I&amp;'ll acknowledge that I could be completely wrong about Kinect. But in my own humble opinion, Microsoft needs to upgrade the experience with a 2.0 release quickly or launch some better games. Eliminating latency, or delays, and making Kinect more accurate are at the top of the list of things to fix. The good news is, Microsoft can probably upgrade the experience with software downloads.I&amp;'ve had some quality time with a number of Kinect launch titles,  including Kinect Adventures (which is bundled with the system), Kinect  Sports, Joyride, MTV&amp;'s Dance Central, and Ubisoft&amp;'s Your Shape. Full told, there are 17 games available, mostly for $48 a piece.Of those, Dance Central is the best. It makes you feel like you can learn any dance just by following step-by-step instructions. In dancing, you make sweeping moves that are easily recognizable' the camera can pretty much capture what you do. It doesn&amp;'t have to know that you turned your wrist slightly to the left or slightly to the right. It just catches you shaking your behind. In that sense, Dance Central as a game is perfectly tuned to what Kinect can handle.Your Shape also has a lot of fun activities that will make you sweat and lose a few calories. I also like how it inserts your own video image into the scenery of the game so you can see how you need to move. That is an example of using a clever video feature to make up for the fact that Kinect isn&amp;'t terribly accurate at capturing your actions.Kinectimals is a game that is a mixed bag of highs and lows. It&amp;'s very cute. You can adopt a cuddly baby tiger or leopard and explore an island with them. You can pet them and make them fetch balls, much like you can in the game Nintendogs on the DS handheld. But there&amp;'s one point early in the game where you have to throw balls at a bunch of targets, as if you were bowling. The system was so inaccurate that it didn&amp;'t know which direction I was aiming for.We have had a couple of clues about what could have been done better. Microsoft considered adding a secondary processor, built into the Kinect hardware itself, that would have sped up the processing of the 3D data and presumably made the Kinect sensors more responsive to your movements. Instead, Microsoft chose to eliminate that processor in the name of cost savings. It made the Kinect slower and less responsive. When you&amp;'re playing a fast-action game, that&amp;'s the last thing you want.If Microsoft put a wand-like controller in your hand, it would give the system much better clues about where you are and what you intend to do with your body, as with the Sony PlayStation Move. You could then use your hand to press buttons when you need split-second reaction times, like when you&amp;'re shooting a gun. I think that the very best system would combine the 3D image capture of the Kinect camera and the in-hand wand of the Sony Move. But that would also be a more expensive system, and at $149, Kinect is already a pretty hefty expenditure for a lot of households.You can see the delay problem especially well in the boxing games (as in Kinect Sports). You throw a punch and have to wait for the effect before you can throw another one. When you try to jump hurdles in a race in Kinect Sports, you have to time your jump perfectly in order to make it over the hurdles. The game gives you green lights to indicate when you should jump. That compensates for the inaccuracy in the timing. But you still hit the hurdles a lot.Inevitably, one of the players (at least in my home) will shout that the game character on the screen didn&amp;'t do what the player was doing. When I try to throw a discus or a javelin in Kinect Sports, I will mess up one out of three times because Kinect can&amp;'t figure out exactly what I&amp;'m trying to do.My youngest kid had the most trouble because she always wanted to move around the room too much. Kinect has a limited field of vision. It will tell you to move back or to the side if you stray out of the camera&amp;'s view. But it happened so much with the youngster that it interrupted the play. Kinect is smart enough to adjust the camera upward, downward, or to the side when it needs to do so. But you have to be very careful to stay in the visible zone.Not everything is frustrating. The cartoon-like Kinect Adventures has some clever games, such as 20,000 Leaks, where you have to use your hands, feet, and head to plug water leaks in an undersea aquarium&amp;'s glass that spring open when fish and sharks barrel into the glass. The game requires you to move around a lot. It is accurate enough, and it shows that not every game has to have precision accuracy in order to be fun.What this means for players is that you have to learn how to play with Kinect. I expect that I will come to enjoy the same games over time because I will learn to adapt to Kinect&amp;'s shortcomings. But the promise of Kinect was that it would be able to capture my movements and translate them into the game. It doesn&amp;'t do this perfectly, so I have to adjust my game playing to be more successful. As an example, I did better with the javelin by exaggerating my movements so that Kinect couldn&amp;'t miss what my intentions were.To me, this isn&amp;'t failure. If I had to put a number on my disappointment, I&amp;'d say Kinect gets a rating of 80 out of 100. Hopefully, Kinect is a system that can be trained to be more accurate and that can be improved through software downloads. And game designers are likely to learn from their first experiences in designing for Kinect and will likely do better the next time around. I&amp;'m willing to give Microsoft credit for creating something that is innovative and reaches higher than any other game system out there. I expect there will be outstanding games made for Kinect over time that would let me rate the system at 90 out of 100 or better. There just aren&amp;'t any in the initial batch that I&amp;'ve tried out. In fact, these games make very little use of Kinect&amp;'s intriguing features: the ability to recognize voices and faces.You could call me a killjoy for being a critic. But Microsoft says Kinect is just the beginning of a new way to control all sorts of computing devices. Motion-sensing is going to be a big part of the user-interface of the future. If that&amp;'s true, then the company had better get it right.Next Story: Twezr launches one-stop iPhone app for email and social networking Previous Story: Google transforms its search results (and ads) with Instant PreviewsPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Kinect, motion-sensing, Move, reviewCompanies: MicrosoftPeople: Dean Takahashi          Tags: Kinect, motion-sensing, Move, reviewCompanies: MicrosoftPeople: Dean TakahashiDean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[With A Nice Website Update, Foursquare Did Just Get More Fun With&nbsp'Friends]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-a-nice-website-update-foursquare-did-just-get-more-fun-withnbspfriends</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-a-nice-website-update-foursquare-did-just-get-more-fun-withnbspfriends</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sufminlanice</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-a-nice-website-update-foursquare-did-just-get-more-fun-withnbspfriends</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Foursquare has always been one of those apps that was mobile-first, with the website existing as an after-thought. Sure, they&amp;'ve made their website significantly nicer over the past year, but the mobile apps are still the key. But a few updates today make the website a significantly better place to find your friends both in terms of location and on the services itself.With a post entitled &amp;''A little nip and tuck&amp;'', Foursquare outlines some of the changes they&amp;'ve made to the site. The most noticeable difference is on the main page when you&amp;'re logged in. This page has always been fairly useless, but now you can see a stream of your friends&amp;' most recent check-ins. But it&amp;'s the area along the top that is even more powerful.The Foursquare girl logo has a speech bubble that reads, &amp;''It&amp;'s more fun with friends!&amp;'' Below that you&amp;'ll see some of your Facebook friends who also use Foursquare. And if you click on the big green &amp;''Find Friends&amp;'' button you&amp;'ll go to a page that lets you find your friends on Foursquare via Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, or email invite. These tools are now significantly better for both adding and managing your friends.The Manage Friends area now shows you your Friends in common (along with their avatar) so you can see if you actually know a person that has requested to follow you. I&amp;'ve just added about 20 people I didn&amp;'t even realize were on the service and/or had requested to be my friend thanks to this. It took maybe 5 minutes.All of a sudden, Foursquare&amp;'s website has utility: as a social connections manager. Now if they would just enable check-ins via the website&amp;8230'CrunchBase InformationFoursquareInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[If You Want To Find Books In iTunes, Look In The App&nbsp'Store]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=if-you-want-to-find-books-in-itunes-look-in-the-appnbspstore</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=if-you-want-to-find-books-in-itunes-look-in-the-appnbspstore</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sufminlanice</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=if-you-want-to-find-books-in-itunes-look-in-the-appnbspstore</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Buying a digital book for your iPad is a very odd experience.  If you fire up iTunes, you can find music, movies, apps, even audiobooks, but there is no category for digital books.  You need to first download the iBooks app, and then buy books within that app.  So it is like a marketplace within a marketplace that also happens to be a reader.  The Kindle app also works that way.  It is confusing.But if you go into the App Store, you can find a whole category of iPad apps which are books.  Many of them are interactive and tend to be children&amp;'s books like Green Eggs And Ham ($3.99) or Miss Spider&amp;'s Tea Party ($7.99).  Increasingly, more and more books will end up in the App Store for a variety of reasons.  The biggest one is simply because apps are more interesting. If a book publisher wants to add any features beyond what is available in iBooks, including adding informational apps, links to the outside Web or sharing excerpts with friends on Twitter and Facebook, they are better off publishing the book as an app.  Startups like Rethink Books (which I covered yesterday) are developing software platforms for publishers to do just thata4&quot;turning books into social apps.Right now, books remain somewhat hidden in iTunes. There is no clear book category up top, other than audiobooks, among the main media types.  You have to dive into the iBooks app or find book apps in the App Store.  But if Apple is serious about making the iPad a book reading device, it should make it a little easier to find all the books that can be read on it in one place.  CrunchBase InformationiPadKindle for iPhoneRethink BooksInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Gather Raises $2.4 Million, Makes Demand Media-Esque&nbsp'Pivot]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gather-raises-2-4-million-makes-demand-media-esquenbsppivot</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gather-raises-2-4-million-makes-demand-media-esquenbsppivot</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sufminlanice</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gather-raises-2-4-million-makes-demand-media-esquenbsppivot</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Social news site Gather has raised another $2.4 million in funding this week, in order to pivot its core business and focus on being a content on demand platform for other publishers, like Demand Media. Gather currently allows to writers to submit content and generate ad revenue share based on pageviews and site engagement.Gather CEO Tom Gerace tells TechCrunch that while Gather.com reached 7 million monthly unique vistors in the past 12 months (a 700% increase) the funding will actually be used to form an entirely new parent company which will include Gather.a4sGerace plans on taking the platform built by Gather for automating writer workflow and determining author success and offering it out to other web properties and companies like Pampers. Despite our and others criticism of Gather for itsa4spoor design and specious business model back in 2006, the company seems to be holding strong.a4sGerace tells us that they&amp;'ve got four potential white-label clients in the pipeline but won&amp;'t reveal which ones or what the new umbrella company will be called. Gerace will also be using the latest financing to expand the company from 26 employees to &amp;''about 60 or 70 folks.&amp;''Investors in the Series E round included Lotus founder Jim Manzi, VC group Allen &amp;amp' Co and new entrants Progress Ventures and Nick McShane.CrunchBase InformationGatherInformation provided by CrunchBase <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Waze Cruises Past 2 Million Drivers, 250 Million Kilometers&nbsp'Logged]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=waze-cruises-past-2-million-drivers-250-million-kilometersnbsplogged</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=waze-cruises-past-2-million-drivers-250-million-kilometersnbsplogged</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sufminlanice</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=waze-cruises-past-2-million-drivers-250-million-kilometersnbsplogged</guid>
<description><![CDATA[It took Waze a full year to get 500,000 users. It then took another six months to hit a million. Three months after that, they hit 1.5 million. And in just the last two months, they&amp;'ve already surpassed 2 million users. In fact, they&amp;'re past 2.2 million, actually.Yes, the Israel-based social mapping company has become a hit. And for good reason too a4&quot; it&amp;'s a good idea and a fun one too. Thanks to cellphones with GPS and WiFi triangulation capabilities, they get users to build out their maps for them simply by driving around. And if there are issues on the road, such as major traffic jams, all of that information comes in through the apps and can be sent to other drivers.So why use it Well, first of all you get free GPS navigation. But there&amp;'s also the&amp;nbsp'gaming element. It used to be that if they didn&amp;'t have an area mapped, there would be Pac Man-like pelts so entice you to go there and earn points for driving around, mapping the area for Waze. But back in August, they allowed you to make more of a personal game out of the app. You can now cruise around your city picking up treats for sending in reports and other things.But the best part about the app may be the actual model. It used to be that you had to pay satellite or mapping companies millions of dollars for road data and information. That&amp;'s a big reason why GPS units have been so expensive. But Waze figured out a way to build their own maps and bypass the system.It&amp;'s a model that has been somewhat challenged by Google, which offers free turn-by-turn navigation through Android, but so far they haven&amp;'t done anything with other devices. Waze, meanwhile, is spreading quickly. The company says users are spending about 300 minutes a month using the service.CrunchBase InformationWazeInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Sweden&'s Spotify hits one million paid music subscribers]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=swedenrsquos-spotify-hits-one-million-paid-music-subscribers</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=swedenrsquos-spotify-hits-one-million-paid-music-subscribers</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sufminlanice</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=swedenrsquos-spotify-hits-one-million-paid-music-subscribers</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Spotify, the much-hyped music streaming company from Sweden, announced today that it has reached one million paying subscribers. Unlike most other music startups, which seek to cover the high cost of licensing music from record labels through advertising revenues, Spotify has been insistent about sticking to its freemium model, in which it gives away some services in the hopes of convincing some users to pay for more.This model has not deterred growth, as paid users have grown over 300 percent since early 2010. Only three months ago, CEO Daniel Ek said at the conference that the company had 750,000 paying subscribers. Even at that time, Spotify claimed it had more paying subscribers than any other similar service in the world.Spotify provides cloud-based streaming music in Europe but hasn&amp;'t entered the US market. Even so, Spotifya4a4s company blog announced that over 200 million playlists had been created.The companya4a4s announcement comes on the heels of having raised a large round of financing from Russiaa4a4sDST, the investment company that has backed Facebook, Groupon and Zynga. That deal reportedly valued the company at $1 billion.Next Story: Entrepreneurs Roundtable launches New York City startup accelerator Previous Story: Uncharted 3 team shows its stereoscopic 3D musclePrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: music streaming, spotifyCompanies: DST, spotify          Tags: music streaming, spotifyCompanies: DST, spotify Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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