Friday, October 19, 2007

Debt-burdened students are matched with companies interested in sponsoring them to do charity work

How the Company Started:
The site was founded by recent graduate Ian Wallace, who finished his law studies with GBP 14,000 in debt. While working at a local factory to pay off some of it, Wallace explains, he heard the owner of the business bemoaning the way most charitable contributions never produce visible results for the donor. The proverbial lightbulb went on, and Wallace printed up a brochure explaining his idea. Soon after, he was sponsored by three companies. At the conclusion of his charity assignment, he presented a report to his sponsors to show how his work had helped. Meanwhile, his debts were paid off and he had gained valuable work experience.
How It Works:

It works like this: debt-burdened students are matched with companies interested in sponsoring them to do charity work. They then choose from among a few different participating charities to work for over a period of up to 6 months following graduation. At the completion of each set milestone during the assignment, the student's corporate sponsor pays off a chunk of the outstanding debt.

Membership costs GBP 16 and is open to anyone struggling with debt—not just students. The maximum amount of debt that can be paid off is GBP 9,000. The site won't launch officially until January, but four companies and 100 students have already signed up—Wallace is aiming for a maximum of 500 to begin with. Currently Do Good 4 Debt serves only the UK, but it hopes to recruit ambassadors in different countries over the next year. It's a concept that sounds like a win-win for everyone involved—one to bring to an area near you?

More at: www.dogood4debt.com

Salesconx is an online marketplace for experienced sales professionals to buy and sell valuable introductions

What Company Is Offering:
Salesconx is an online marketplace that allows qualified, experienced sales professionals to buy and sell valuable introductions key decision makers looking for the products and services that they offer.
How It Works:
If you want to make a pitch to a certain manager for a particular company , you can put in a request at Salesconx. Someone else with that information can put it up for sale. Money is made only when the introduction is completed and confirmed so by the buyer. All members are subjected to a qualification process which requires a minimum of three years of sales experience and the reception of an invitation by a current Salesconx member. Member generated rankings and ratings are in place to keep the service clear and honest. Membership is free but Salesconx takes around 20% from transactions that occur on the site.
More at:http://www.salesconx.com/

Start Up Business School By Entrepreneurs For Entrepreneurs

Have you heared about startup business school..?Here...
What Is It?
The school has been founded out of the experiences of real entrepreneurs with real problems and not only on the whiteboards of academia. Unlike traditional schools, there are no assumptions and perfect economies to level the playing field. This is the real world where actual examples are turned into lessons for the next enthusiastic entrepreneur to learn from. Our planning process will guide you through the real world requirements of getting your business going while still providing you with the flexibility to circle back and revise your plan at any time.
We also know that planning and running a Startup is a collaborative process and not the domain of one person. It is impossible to build a business in isolation and our school brings a host of ways to network, blend, collaborate and question several audiences to find the answers you need. We'll help you connect to the people that will help you start and grow your business.
How It Works:
StartupBusinessSchool.com helps you create a business plan for your startup and there are helpful lessons provided by experienced owners, that are dedicated for each step of the business plan. You can find lessons that apply to the situation you are facing at the moment. StartupBusinessSchool.com lists 12 steps for creating a startup business. The 12 steps are divided into 4 categories; creating your company, rapid prototyping, operations and launch, and marketing and sales. You get real world guidance from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists and signing up is free. Sign up at StartupBusinessSchool.com and make your start up business a reality.
More at:http://www.startupbusinessschool.com/

Revionics, a leading provider of price optimization software for retailers

What Company is About:

Revionics, a leading provider of price optimization software for retailers.
Revionics offers proprietary Price and Promotion Optimization technology, empowering retailers with advanced pricing science and analytics designed to leverage consumer demand data. The Revionics offering predicts consumer reaction to anticipated price changes, making optimized price recommendations in alignment with the retailer’s strategies. Offered as an affordable Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution, Revionics has seen rapidly growing adoption with retailers seeking profitable growth in the face of increasing competition.

How Much They Got From VCs:
They announced the successful completion of a Series B round of investment capital bringing the total funding raised by the company to over $10 million. The Series B financing round was led by Sierra Ventures, a Menlo Park, California based venture capital firm with more than $1.5 billion under management The firm has a strong track record of success during its near 25 year tenure that includes several enterprise software and Software-as-a-Service bellwethers.
What Its Purpose For Raising Fund:
Revionics will use the new funds to further expand its sales team, accelerate product development and build out its services infrastructure. David Schwab and Vispi Daver of Sierra Ventures will join Revionics board of directors.


What VCs Says:
Sierra Ventures invested in Revionics because "we believe that they have a unique approach to delivering advanced price optimization technology to retailers through a Software-as-a-Services deployment model,” said Vispi Daver, Partner at Sierra Ventures, “Revionics offers an innovative combination of retail pricing science and technology that differentiates their service from the traditional pricing software providers. We also believe that Revionics has a very strong management team with relevant industry experience, and focused on delivering compelling results. ”
More at:http://www.revionics.com/

Hobnob is a new application that offers professional networking tools for Facebook users

What company is offering:

Hobnob is a new application that offers professional networking tools for Facebook users. The service allows you to reach out to your Facebook network with a request and then have your friends get back to you with recommended contacts. Hobnob is being launched by a company called Area 444, who also operates user-generated audio joke site Comic Wonder
How It works:
The application keeps things fairly open-ended, letting you fill in the blank after “I Want to Hobnob with: …” This means you can enter either the name of the specific person you are looking to connect with, or just enter a generic description such as “talented computer programmer.” You can then choose the friends from your network that you would like to send the request to.

Additionally, Hobnob features a “Global Connection Requests” area where you can see requests that have been broadcast to the public. This is a similar idea to LinkedIn Answers, where by helping out a stranger with their request you can gain a new professional contact. Of course, not all of the requests are strictly professional – some users appear to be using the service so far in hopes of being introduced to celebrities or for dating purposes. Hobnob is completely free.
Log at:http://apps.facebook.com/login.php?next=http%3A%2F%2Fapps.facebook.com%2Fhobnobbing%2F

Use Jumpchart to plan your website information architecture

What Company is Offering:
Use Jumpchart to plan your website information architecture.
Jumpchart is a new, online interactive sitemap . It lets you create mockups for websites in an interactive, collaborative environment online.
What's Idea Behind Creating It:
The design behind Jumpchart is to make it easier for graphic designers, web publishers and developers to create sitemaps for themselves and clients. Some of its features include the ability to add pages, sub-pages, and content. Move entire sections of a webpage around, and interlink different pages to offer a better mockup that leaves little to the imagination.

You can then get feedback from others involved, as well as your client, in order to make decisions faster. Jumpchart offers export tools so CSS and XHTML can be incorporated into your sitemap, so it’s faster and easier to begin building your website.
More at:http://www.jumpchart.com/

Melodeo, the company behind mobile iTunes access tool nuTsie, has raised another $7.9 million in funding

What Company is Offering:
Melodeo is dedicated to bringing consumers the best selection of on-demand audio and video programs for the Web and mobile phone. Their integrated system of a phone client, back-end operations and a huge content library makes us a turn-key partner able to seamlessly deliver music, news, weather and much more.
How It Works:
nuTsie lets you export your iTunes metadata to its servers, and your iTunes library is matched up to music in nuTsie’s own database. The service is free, and was only supported by a handful of Nokia phones and a couple other brands when it launched. Hopefully the funding will allow the nuTsie service to expand to other devices.

How Much they Got From VCs:
Melodeo, the company behind mobile iTunes access tool nuTsie, has raised another $7.9 million in funding. The round was led by existing investors Voyager Capital and Ignition Partners. The funding will go primarily towards nuTsie, which we first mentioned here when the service launched in beta earlier this year.
More at:http://www.melodeo.com/

LG 's video contest called “Life’s Good When…” For$30,000

LG is currently holding a video contest called “Life’s Good When…” The contest is hosted by YouTube, and LG will be dishing out $30,000 worth of LG merchandise to the winners.

Create a 15 to 30-second video that answers the question “life is good when…” and submit it via LG’s contest page on YouTube. The top 20 finalists will be chosen by LG and given a Chocoloate phone. Their videos will then be left to the YouTube audience to pick the first, second and third-place winners.
More at:http://www.lgvideocontest.com/
Via-Mash

MyGame, the social site for user-generated games recently launched by King.com, is adding 1,000+ games through King as well as ads through the Mochi

What company is offering:
Create your very own games in less than 2 minutes. It´s easy and fun, all you have to do is upload a photo, adjust it and then publish it to the world.

Why It is Again In News:

MyGame, the social site for user-generated games recently launched by King.com, is adding 1,000+ games through King as well as ads through the recently funded Mochi. This enables game developers to earn advertising revenue for the games they’ve deployed on the MyGame network. Ads will be displayed before the game, and during the game, between levels and natural breaks in game play.

MyGame has also changed up its homepage so gamers can more easily find games. There are more categories displayed on the homepage for the most popular games, and the most recent games, categorized by genre. Additional tools have been added for developers to better track their games.

More at:http://www.mygame.com/
http://www.king.com/