Tuesday, February 26, 2008

India's first virtual credit card

Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group's (ADAG) flagship company Reliance Communications and India's second largest private sector bank, HDFC Bank, have joined hands to offer to India's first virtual credit card - Reliance mPay credit card - to Reliance mobile users across India.

The virtual credit card does away with card number, card verification value (CVV) or even expiry date as the mobile number of the Reliance mobile subscriber becomes the credit card number.

The virtual credit card works at any merchant establishment that accepts payment via Reliance mPay.

The bank will authenticate all the information with RCom, which will be used to initiate and authorize all the payments using the customer's mobile handset.

According to a Reliance Communcations official, one can use Reliance mPay for paying mobile bills (for Reliance post-paid as well as pre-paid customers), electricity bill payment (for those consuming electricity provided by Reliance Energy), as well as for a host of other things like booking movie tickets, travel tickets, retail shopping, online shopping and dining.

As the Reliance mPay is PIN protected (the PIN number is issued to the customer at the time of issue of the virtual credit card) and the customer has to type in the PIN number each time when making a payment, it does away with the traditional risks associated with carrying credit cards and revealing its details at merchant establishments.

"We are very pleased to partner with HDFC Bank, to provide our subscribers with this first of its kind offer. We are very excited that all Reliance Mobile Customers can participate in the Mobile Credit Card evolution. This is another step towards making money transfer, mobile commerce a reality in India!" said Mahesh Prasad, President, Applications, Solutions and Content Group, Reliance Communications.

"This initiative goes beyond mobile payments, and in fact, makes the mobile phone a credit card," he added.

"In continuation of HDFC Bank's tradition of using cutting edge technology to provide the best in world class banking experience to its customers, I am pleased to announce the launch of India's first Virtual Credit Card on Reliance Mobile phone," said Rahul Bhagat, Country Head - Retail Liabilities, Marketing & Direct Banking Channels, HDFC Bank.

"An HDFC Bank customer can now shop using his Reliance Mobile and make payment without disclosing details of his credit card," he added.

Read Full Text:http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20080225/relaince-hdfc-adag-anil-dhirubhai-ambani-cvv-credit-card_2.htm

Attenalert is a keyword monitoring tool

What Company Is Offering:
Attenalert is a keyword monitoring tool that allows you to find references to specific words and phrases through various sources online. Provided as a monthly subscription based web service, Attenalert constantly tracks online sources and alerts you to new discoveries.

How It Works:
Based on the same principle as the Google Alerts service, Attenalert finds references from multiple sources whereas Google Alerts only informs you about new items in the Google indexes. Attenalert also provides additional features such as the ability to view detailed contact information about each site discovered, subscribe to RSS feeds, export results to CSV, exclude specific websites from the search results and plot graphs to show trends over time.

References to the keywords you specify are discovered by Attenalert, be they web pages, videos or blog posts.

Displayed in a simple table, you can see at a glance what kind of content is found for each site.

Add as many company names, brands, people or slogans as you wish. Attenalert will locate references online for each keyword or phrase you provide.

The service is billed based on the number of words in your account so you only pay for what you use.
More at:http://www.attenalert.com/

SportingConnections---Connecting Sports

What Company Is Offering:
SportingConnections is a great way for you to easily find others interested in participating in your sport or joining your team . The site is free for all and allows members to connect easily with others, all in one great location?. SportingConnections has incorporated all major sports and is happy to add other sports you would like to see; after all, its about helping you find the people and sport that interest you.

How It Works:

SportingConnections helps you find others to train or play with, coaches, or people just to socialise and watch sport with. SportingConnections can also help you find teams/groups who are looking for members to join them for social or competitive games in any sport. Once logged in you are able to add sports partners to your friends area, create and manage your own communities or join others. You are also able to add your favourite sports photos to your photo albums.

SportingConnections allows you to add your own team/group to the site and add members to your team/group. You have the capability to manage your team/group by using the message board to send emails to all members once they have been added to your team/group "Team mates" area. You can add photos to the team\groups photo albums and keep all your team information in one place. This enables others to search for your team, find out what your team is about, contact the team manager (the person who created the team) and potentially join your team.

More at:http://www.sportingconnections.com/

SeeSpotSlide provides a unique advertising solution

What Company Is Offering:
They've created a tool that gives the audience the tools to control the advertising in their content. Traditional ad placement on the internet is powerful and well established. They simply provide another option for adverising distribution. One with a feedback mechanism directly tied to an advertiser's target audience.


How It Works:
In SeeSpotSlide, the user creates the context - photos from vacation, videos of the kid's soccer game - and the advertiser can be invited to the party... or not. The consumer makes the call.

You may ask yourself, why would I put advertising in a slideshow of my personal photos? The answers are up to you: You love the brand. You love the spot. The product saved my life. The product helped me in my job. The spot was funny. It was sad. The important point being that the choice was yours.

Find the photos you'd like to include using by logging into the sites listed in 'MyStuff'. When the thumbnails are finished loading, drag them to the slideshow timeline (the little grey boxes on the right) and they will be added to the show.

Why would an advertiser want to be a part of this?

Because, their most targeted and faithful audience members can become mavens for their products and services. The consumers are 'pulling' their brands into their personal space with SeeSpotSlide. They are providing advertisers a means to connect with their audience in ways that have not been done before on a large scale. From broad reaching brands like the giants they all know (Coke, BMW, Apple, Starbucks) to the small, community level advertisers on a local scale, either physical (your local bike shop, the bakery down the street) or internet based (blog sites, message boards), SeeSpotSlide provides a unique advertising solution for them all.

SeeSpotSlide is located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Our sister organization.

More at:http://www.seespotslide.com/

Trackur is an online reputation monitoring tool

What Company Is Offering:
Trackur is an online reputation monitoring tool. With Trackur you can setup searches and automatically monitor the web for keywords that are important to you.

How It Works:
Trackur is the perfect solution for anyone that wants to track news, blogs, and other social media. You can track your own name, your company brands, industry trends, or even your competitor's news! In fact, you can monitor any keywords you wish.When you create your Trackur account, you'll be given the option to purchase a service plan or simply proceed to a two week free trial.

Trackur gives you the ability to define the type of content you want it to monitor. For example, if you're not interested in monitoring video and image content, you can "text only" under "advanced search."

Trackur is only able to filter the content it's fed. It's still possible that the actual web page will include--or not include--your filter keywords. For this reason, they suggest starting with just your main keyword, then adding filter keywords if needed.

More at:http://www.trackur.com/

Trupanion--A pet insurance company that specializes in lifetime coverage for puppies and kittens got $22 million in funding

What Company Is Offering:

Trupanion is a company comprised of passionate pet enthusiasts who believe that it's possible to create a pet insurance company that consistently puts the health of pets first before everything else. A pet insurance company that specializes in lifetime coverage for puppies and kittens.

How Much They Got From VCs:

Trupanion, has received $22 million in financial backing led by Maveron LLC. Trupanion is a Seattle-based company that makes pet insurance easier for owners.

More at:www.trupanion.com

Company Info:
Information: 800.569.7913
Fax: 866.405.4536
E-mail: info@trupanion.com


http://www.trupanion.com/About_Us.aspx

SellPoint--Graphical Market Intelligence

What Company Is Offering:
SellPoint's patented Active Product Tours combine rich and engaging product images and video with a customizable array of sales support materials, transforming today's static product pages into an active selling presentation that is proven to motivate shoppers to buy.

How It Works:
The SellPoint Dashboard delivers graphical market intelligence updated daily that reveals shopper interest and activity by product and sales channel. SellPoint's clients include Canon, Fuji, Epson, SanDisk, Panasonic, TiVo, Hitachi, Brother, Pentax, and more. SellPoint's Retail Syndication Network includes over 100 of the top online retailers, including Amazon.com, Best Buy, Buy.com, Circuit City, Costco.com, Wal-Mart, OfficeMax, Sears, Staples, Toys R Us and more. For more information.

How Much They Got From VCs:

SellPoint, Inc., the leading provider of on-demand video product tours, announced today that it has secured $7 million in financing from Granite Ventures, LLC and previous investor Menlo Ventures LLC. SellPoint will use this additional funding to fuel current momentum and expansion of its business.

What VCs Says About Company:
Online video product tours continue to grow exponentially. Studies show that product tours have become a key factor in converting shoppers into buyers at the online point of sale," said Standish O'Grady, Managing Director of Granite Ventures and new SellPoint Board Member. "Given this, our investment in SellPoint was an easy decision as it is the company positioned to lead this growing category based on its unique, patented Active Product Tour technology and the value it provides to consumers, manufactures and retailers."



About VCs:
Granite Ventures has been helping early-stage technology companies build solid foundations for success since 1992. They focus investments in two sectors where partners have deep domain expertise, broad industry knowledge, and significant investment experience: communications and components, and software. Granite has managed over $1 billion in venture capital and has invested in more than 100 private companies. They partner with promising and successful entrepreneurs to create businesses that have a competitive edge, and help those businesses achieve category leadership. For more information, visit www.granitevc.com.

More at: www.SellPoint.net

CircleUp is a free social communications service that turbo-charges email and instant messaging

What Company Is Offering:
CircleUp is a free social communications service that turbo-charges email and instant messaging when communicating with online and offline groups of any size. Think of CircleUp as improving email and IM to make them work efficiently for groups! With CircleUp, you can email or IM a circle of people and get back a single, organized result that you can print, share, export or archive, instead of a blizzard of individual responses.

How It Works:

You do not have to ever register to receive or answer a CircleUp. Just click on the link in the email or IM that you’ve been sent.
Registration is SIMPLE – just provide a valid email address, your name and a password – that's it! There is nothing to install. However, the service requires that you use a Flash-enabled browser to ask or answer questions.

Unique Features:
With CircleUp you can avoid:
Searching through your inbox to find replies from everyone who responded
Tracking who replied and who didn't.
Getting replies to your question sent in different formats.
Having to cut and paste answers into a Word document or Excel spreadsheet to aggregate them.
Getting replies that don’t actually answer your question .
Annoying "reply to all" messages that disrupt the group and clutter your inbox.
Fumbling through your mailbox archives to find old information .
Not being able to share answers with the group or save them for the future.

More at: http://www.circleup.com/

GeoLearning--On-demand learning and performance technology got $31 million from Fidelity Ventures

What Company Is Offering:
GeoLearning is the leading provider of Managed Learning Services and on-demand learning and performance technology. The company's products and services are used by corporations, government agencies and non-profit organizations to manage human capital development, accelerate critical business processes and drive organizational performance. GeoLearning's Software as a Service model means there is no hardware or software for clients to install. As a result, the company's Web-based GeoMaestro and GeoExpress learning management platforms can be deployed quickly, allowing clients to efficiently manage enterprise-wide learning, development and knowledge acquisition.

How Much They Got From VCs:

It has secured a growth equity investment of $31 million from Fidelity Ventures. The funds, which represent the first institutional investment for GeoLearning, will be utilized to accelerate the company’s sales and marketing efforts, continue to build its international presence and channel partner network, and potential acquisitions.

GeoLearning also announced that Fidelity Ventures partner, Roger Hurwitz, has joined its Board of Directors.

About VCs:
Fidelity Ventures invests in companies ready to enter the market and those poised for the next phase of growth. Its 40-year track record includes hundreds of successful investments in the consumer, communications, systems and software markets. Fidelity Ventures is distinguished by the ability to accelerate market adoption for its portfolio companies’ offerings, and by a global network of senior technology and business executives. Fidelity Ventures actively manages over $800 million from offices in Boston and London. For more information, please visit www.fidelityventures.com.

More at:www.geolearning.com

Glam Media got $84.6 million in private financing

What Company Is Offering;
Glam Media's distributed media network model is revolutionizing the very definition of what a media company is in the 21st Century. With 44 million global unique monthly visitors (comScore MediaMetrix), Glam Media provides a compelling mix of fresh, original content created in-house with a carefully curated Glam Publishing Network of more than 450 popular and influential lifestyle websites, blogs and magazines. For premium national brand advertisers, Glam Media offers an unprecedented array of targeted options that are singularly attractive to both upscale and aspirational consumers.

How Much They Got From VCs:
They announced the closing of $84.6 million in private financing, with $64.6 million in Series D funding and $20 million in revenue-based debt financing. Proceeds of the financing will be used to accelerate the growth of the company's distributed media network that connects premium brand display advertisers with online audiences worldwide. The equity-financing round is led by Hubert Burda Media, an international media powerhouse and publisher of more than 260 magazines titles and an investor in more than 25 high-growth digital holdings.

What's Purpose Of Raising Fund:
The new funding will fuel Glam Media's aggressive global expansion in 2008 across new territories and categories, focusing on transforming brand display advertising on the Web as the market shifts away from the dominance of portals and destination sites to the distributed media network model that Glam Media helped pioneer. The funding will also be used to make strategic acquisitions, invest in technology to grow the distributed media model and further global growth.

More at:www.GlamMedia.com

Tiny Pictures--the leading service for real-time sharing of cameraphone pictures and videos between friends got $7.2 million in Series B funding

What Company Is Offering:
Tiny Pictures, Inc. is the company that brings you Radar, the leading service for real-time sharing of cameraphone pictures and videos between friends. Radar can be accessed from PC browsers, mobile phone browsers, and through a series of applications for mobile devices.

How Much They Got From VCs:
They got $7.2 million in Series B funding. The investment was led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and included Series A investors Mohr Davidow Ventures.

Tiny Pictures had previously raised $4 million in first round financing, which includes a seed round with angel investors Reid Hoffman and Joichi Ito. This second round will allow the company to focus on international growth opportunities, as well as the further development of its recently launched ad platform.

About VCs:
Draper Fisher Jurvetson is a leader in start-up venture capital, having invested in over 150 high-tech companies. In the majority of cases, they are the lead investor for a company's first round of financing. The firm focuses on information technology businesses with enormous market potential, and helps entrepreneurs achieve their maximum potential through team building, partnerships, advice and support, as well as investments. By pursuing a people-focused approach to venture capital investing, Draper Fisher Jurvetson continues to fund entrepreneurs with the energy, vision, experience and desire to build great companies.
www.drapervc.com.


More at:http://www.tinypictures.us or http://radar.net.

Bluenog saves organizations time and money by providing pre-integrated products and solutions got $4 million Series A round of financing

What Company Is Offering:
Bluenog saves organizations time and money by providing pre-integrated products and solutions that blend open source and commercial technologies together. The company's focus is on enterprise infrastructure software including Portal Servers, Enterprise Content Management, and Business Intelligence. Bluenog's open source platform integrates with leading commercial stacks and can also be run stand-alone.

How Much They Got From VCs:

Bluenog, announced the closing of a $4 million Series A round of financing. Led by NewSpring Ventures, the dedicated growth and expansion stage venture fund of the NewSpring Capital fund family, the round will support the expansion of the company's product development and sales and marketing efforts as well as its professional services offerings.

About VCs:

NewSpring Capital, based in Radnor, Pennsylvania, and Short Hills, New Jersey, is a leading provider of private equity capital focused in the Mid- Atlantic region. NewSpring Capital currently manages approximately $500 million across its fund-specific family of three dedicated funds: (i) NewSpring Ventures provides equity capital to growth and expansion stage companies with a focus on business services, enabling technology, and information technology, (ii) NewSpring Health Capital provides equity capital to healthcare companies within the life science, healthcare services, and medical device sectors, and (iii) NewSpring Mezzanine Capital provides mezzanine capital for expansion stage and buyout opportunities in the business services, healthcare, information technology, and specialty manufacturing sectors. NewSpring Capital partners with entrepreneurs, leveraging its capital and experience, to assist them in turning their visions into reality. visit.www.newspringcapital.com.

For more at: www.bluenog.com.

Learnit--Helping your students review what they have looked at in the classroom

What Company is offering:
Learnit lists are a great way of helping your students review what they have looked at in the classroom.

How It Works:

Every day you will have 10 words to learn from a list of the 1000 most common English words. When you refresh the page, the words on your list will appear one by one. You will then be able to show or hide the meaning and swap between the two languages as you wish.

The learnit widget will make the same words appear in a different order each time. You can flip them between the language you speak and the language you’re learning. You can see them side by side, or hide them. Every time you do a search on the Internet, you can glance at them. You can put the widget on your social network site and see the same list every time you visit, and you can keep the list open as a browser window on your desktop while you work. It will even be useful for you to write down your words in your daily diary.

By seeing this same list many times in one day, learning will take place in the same way as used throughout the advertising industry. Then, next time you are actively studying (in class, with a text book or an online course) you’ll find that more and more words are familiar to you. Advertisers call this brand exposure leading to brand recall, but you’ll be learning useful vocabulary instead.

More at:http://www.learnitlists.com/

Yieldy--A Simple Ad Network Allowing Any Site to Earn Revenue Immediately

What Company Is Offering:
Yieldy is a fast solution to small and medium publishers looking to optimize their advertising revenue through supporting and controlling multiple networks and direct advertisers.
It is from the same team that brought you Texty - sharing the same infrastructure - providing very simple core functionality to thousands of publishers every day.

How It Works:

A Simple Ad Network Allowing Any Site to Earn Revenue Immediately.Yieldy provides family-friendly ad invocation code to any publisher, with easy monthly payouts based on activity paid out via Paypal.
The payouts are based on both CPM, CPC and CPA - they track all the activity on each impression then balance the activity and setup auto payouts based on that volume!

On guaranteeing payouts - they have publishers being paid now - they will pay you at the end of the month for the full amount due each month - no long term collections, etc - and they do it all via paypal.
Yieldy is releasing a backfill network that you can opt-into for Yieldy to sell your unsold inventory!

More at:http://yieldy.com/

BuzzTracker --To automatically generate news pages for a multitude of topics, both broad and narrow

What Company Is Offering:
Their goal has been to launch a news site that leverages the power of the "head of the long tail" of the blogosphere to automatically generate news pages for a multitude of topics, both broad and narrow. They currently are tracking 1,000 topics and 90,000 blogs.

How It Works:
On each page of BuzzTracker, you’ll see five content elements. The main content element is called Most Blogged — this analyzes the top blogs to determine the most blogged about story for that particular topic. This element is a great proxy for the “wisdom of the crowds” in terms of what is important for that topic. After the Most Blogged section we feature the Latest News, relevant stories for the topic sorted by recency. They have a search box which allows you to search throughout BuzzTracker to find items that may be of interest; both topic areas and individual posts and articles. Finally, we’ve integrated with both Flickr and YouTube to provide recent pictures and videos that match the topic in question.


BuzzTracker is looking for high quality blogs that feature original content and a regular frequency of postings. To have your blog considered for inclusion in BuzzTracker submit your blog using our online form.

More at:http://www.buzztracker.com/