Auteur: Rip Empson

Ads, Odds, Nate Silver Predictions And Every Other Tech Angle You Need For Super Bowl XLVII

Ads, advertising, digital advertising, ecommerce, football, Gambling, Media, mobile, social, Social Media, Startups, Super Bowl, TC, technology

Super_Bowl_XLVII_logoMillions of people across the U.S. are preparing their jerseys, face paint and horrific nachos. Yes, football fans rejoice, the big game finally kicks off tomorrow in New Orleans — that is, Super Bowl XLVII, between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Franciso 49ers. The Super Bowl is always one of the biggest media events per year, and our inboxes have been flooded with “OMG this is going to be the most social Super Bowl EVAR” emails for weeks now.

It’s going to be a close, hard-fought game between two teams that most people will probably know nothing about until kickoff. But because the Super Bowl has become such a spectacle, there are tons of things to pay attention to on the Web and on social media, while stuffing your face with fried food and trying to watch the game while asking your friends what happened on the last play.

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Kapor & NewSchools-Backed Mytonomy Wants To Bring Crowdsourced College Counseling To The Masses

edtech, education, Fundings & Exits, Mytonomy, social, Startups, TC

Myt_DashboardAt the end of 2010, Vinay Bhargava decided to leave Google — not a decision he made lightly after spending seven-plus years in Mountain View and Washington D.C. But the decision became clear after talking to a group of students at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia. The students helped him realize that, in spite of the fact that nearly 26 percent of students hire an independent counselor to help with the college search, the resources for college-bound high school students are few and far between — especially those that cater to those who are the first in their family to go to college.

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Backstage Acquires Music Promotion Startup Sonicbids For $15M+ To Build A LinkedIn For Creatives

backstage, Fundings & Exits, Music, music management, music tech, social, sonicbids, Startups, TC

sonic-bids-logoIf you’re an independent band, or actor, or clown, or really creative of any stripe, you’re probably looking for a gig. But try as you might, finding that gig is tough. But what if there were a platform that gave creatives their very own LinkedIn or CareerBuilder? In a down economy, where millions are struggling to find regular work, any site that helps musicians connect with gigs at places like SXSW, Bonnaroo or MTV, or helps actors, dancers and performers line up spots in film, TV and beyond, is a step in the right direction.

That is the reason why, in a deal backed by Guggenheim Partners, Backstage decided to shell out about $15 million to acquire the Boston-based Sonicbids. For those unfamiliar, Backstage (besides being a place that I’m not allowed) is a 50-year-old entertainment industry brand known for publishing a weekly trade rag and bimonthly industry directory/digest, among other things. Essentially, the company’s goal is to help those working in the performing arts connect with casting directors, job opportunities and career advice.

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As It Moves Beyond Rentals To Become An Academic Hub, Chegg Brings 2.5M Textbook Solutions To iOS

apps, chegg, edtech, education, eTextbooks, ios, iphone, mobile, social, Startups, TC, textbooks

Screen shot 2013-01-30 at 7.59.17 AMChegg has long been known as a textbook company, becoming one of the first companies to bring textbook rental online and reach widespread adoption. But with Amazon, Apple and others moving aggressively into the textbook market — and the market and textbooks themselves increasingly going digital — Chegg has been re-positioning. Today, the textbook company is eying EdTech’s Holy Grail of becoming the OS for students (or in their words, the student’s academic hub), a big change for a company that launched behind the Textbookflix.com URL back in 2005.

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The 17 Winners Of The Facebook, Gates Foundation’s Education App Contest Are Making College Easier

college, edtech, education, facebook, Gates Foundation, higher ed, mobile, social, Startups, TC

screen-shot-2012-09-27-at-9-38-46-amBack in September, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched a contest that aimed to challenge entrepreneurs and app developers to build awesome, innovative education apps on Facebook’s platform. The so-called College Knowledge Challenge kicked off with an EdTech hackathon co-hosted by the Gates Foundation and Facebook, located at the social network’s headquarters in Menlo Park.

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Marissa Mayer Details Her 3 Goals for Yahoo: More Users, Bigger International Reach And Broader Demographics

Marissa Mayer, mobile, social, TC, yahoo, Yahoo earnings

photo1Considering the long-standing struggles of Yahoo as a business, its board of directors battles, and Scott Thompson’s “ResumeGate”, Yahoo (and its investors) have been in sore need of some good news. When beloved Google exec Marissa Mayer took the helm as CEO back in July, finally Yahoo had a cause for optimism.

Today, Yahoo released its financial results for Q4 2012, which marked the end of Mayer’s second full quarter at the helm and showed that new CEO’s efforts to implement a turnaround are truly underway. For starters, the company showed the first signs of progress in that regard, with revenues coming in at $1.22 billion with non-GAAP EPS at 32 cents — a 4 percent year-over-year increase.

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Realtime Polling Startup GoPollGo Begins To Show Real Business Potential With “Promoted Polls”

mobile, social, Startups, TC

iphone5_1Back in early 2011, Ben Schaechter, Sam Grossberg and Paul Kompfner launched GoPollGo to address a perceived deficiency in analytics, geographical info and social integrations from the Web’s go-to polling platforms. Six-months later, with a round of seed funding in tow, the startup decided to re-focus on Twitter — on providing everyday users with the ability to more easily poll their users and drill down into realtime analytics, not unlike WayIn.

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Y Combinator Backs Its First Non-Profit, Watsi; Paul Graham Says He’s “Never Been So Excited” To Invest

education, Fundings & Exits, Health, HealthTech, non-profit, social, Startups, TC, Watsi, Y-Combinator

Screen shot 2013-01-25 at 12.43.27 PMBack in August, we wrote about the launch of a startup non-profit organization called Watsi, which offers anyone and everyone the opportunity to fund “low-cost, high impact treatment” for those who lack access to necessary care. Again, considering the fact that there are more than one billion people who are unable to afford adequate medical services (or don’t have access to them), Watsi’s mission has enormous (global) implications. And, honestly, it’s a pleasure to see a startup tackling such a big problem, in spite of the fact that it’s inherently complex, thorny and nearly impossible to solve.

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Backed By Skype Co-founder Janus Friis, Futureful Launches On The iPad For Smarter Web Surfing

apps, content discovery, Futureful, iPad, Media, mobile, social, Startups, StumbleUpon, TC

Screen shot 2013-01-23 at 7.47.40 AMIf you’re a fan of content discovery veteran, StumbleUpon, or haven’t quite been sold by its new look, then you just might have some love for a new startup out of Helsinki, Finland, called Futureful. A product of Finland’s largest, seed-stage startup accelerator, Startup Sauna, Futureful has spent the last three years quietly building a predictive discovery engine that co-founder Marko Anderson says describes as “part toy, part tool” and seeks to provide users with a personal filter for the Web’s multifarious content.

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With 40% Of Its 2.5M Users Now Logging In Via Mobile, Gogobot Finally Brings Its Social Travel Experience To Android

android, apps, gogobot, mobile, social, social travel, Startups, TC, travel

framed_topicSince launching in 2010, social travel startup Gogobot has been trying to play a role in legitimizing online travel discovery, fighting the shoddy design and link farm leanings that reined in the space. Focusing on collecting and curating quality, user-generated photos and reviews for travel destinations all over the world, Gogobot set out to create the new, digital Lonely Planet — a trusted mobile and web resource for trusted travel advice from experts and friends.

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