Sunday, April 03, 2011

Mobile Ad Network JumpTap Raises $20 Million

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/01/mobile-ad-network-jumptap-raises-20-million/

Mobile ad network JumpTap has raised $20 million in new funding, according to a recent SEC filing, out of a $27 million round. This would bring the company’s funding to nearly $90 million. We’ve contacted the company for confirmation.

JumpTap is one of the largest remaining independent mobile advertising networks, in addition to Millennial Media, Greystripe, InMobi and others. Jumptap's data-driven technology promises highly targeted advertising and the company partners with digital and media agencies, publishers, wireless carriers and brand advertisers to serve an array of mobile advertising solutions.

While it’s unclear who the investors are in the round, the company recently landed a deal with Tokyo-based cyber communications (cci). Part of the partnership included an investment in the mobile ad network, so the SEC filing could relate to this deal.

Despite the heated competition in the mobile advertising space, JumpTap appears to be growing, at least in terms of employees. The company added 23 employees since the beginning of 2011 from companies including Apple, IAC, Time Inc, and Maxus.



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Making Angels: The Pipeline Fund Announces 2011 Fellows

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/01/making-angels-pipeline-fund-2011-fellows/

The New York-based Pipeline Fund, which aims to increase the number of women who become angel investors and social entrepreneurs in the U.S., today announced its inaugural class of Pipeline Fund Fellows and mentors (listed at the end of this post).

The Pipeline Fund Fellowship accepted ten women who are influencers in their fields, and have a track record of charitable giving. Together, they will go through a six-month “boot camp” in New York, learning how to route some of their wealth into angel deals, that will score them an equity stake in for-profit, for-good businesses.

The founder and chief executive of the Pipeline Fund, Natalia Oberti Noguera (image below) is serious about resolving bias against women that she — and many others — perceived in the investment and startup ecosystem.

She believes that women with enough cash to become angels, while they may not be “needy,” could use help from seasoned investors figuring out: what makes a viable portfolio strategy, how they should conduct due diligence, valuations, or scare up a strong pipeline of deals. She’s enlisted accredited angel investors, many of them men she noted, as mentors.

Accepted Pipeline Fund Fellows are required to chip in $5,000 each to a collective fund, and agree to select a female-led, for-profit social venture in which to invest their first $50,000 together. They’ll be asked to run a pitch “summit,” which they’ll host in June in New York City, to select the right startup.

TechCrunch asked Ms. Oberti Noguera if she is concerned that the philanthropists who get hip to the notion of investing in for-profit social ventures, may wind up slowing down their philanthropic giving. She said she would never encourage them to divert cash from charitable efforts. She also explained:

“This is the inaugural year of our program, so we don’t really know what the impact will be in full, but we will study the outcome carefully.

In the application process, we told fellowship candidates, there will be a group decision to be made about funding a social venture. We asked: what if your favorite is not chosen, how will you react?

Several applicants said they would consider investing on their own, beyond the Pipeline Fellowship. We view that as a positive for social ventures, and female founders.”

[Ed's note: While optimistic about programs that support a diverse investment and entrepreneurial community, TechCrunch will be interested to see if these newly-minted angels continue to invest in businesses led by women after the session ends. For more on women in tech, investing and startups, check out TechCrunch's ongoing coverage.]

Image: Snow angel (CC) via Lars Christopher Nøttaasen

2011 PIPELINE FUND FELLOWS

Dawn Barber
Dawn is the co-founder of NY Tech Meetup, and is also the Apprenticeship Director for the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. She is on the board of InSITE, and is a New York City Trustee of The Awesome Foundation. Dawn lives in New York City with her husband and daughter, and received her B.A. from Clark University.

Conor Barnes
Conor currently works at Good Cents Bookkeeping providing financial management to small businesses while pursuing a Master’s Degree at Rutgers University Business School. She is also a member of Echoing Green's Social Investment Council. Conor holds a A.B. in Political Science from The University of Chicago.

Monica A. Barrera, D.D.S.
Monica holds a D.D.S. from New York University. She has owned and operated her own dental practice in New York for the last 16 years. Monica is a medical member of the Surrogate Decision-Making Committee of the state of New York, which advises on medical needs for patients with disabilities.

Elizabeth Crowell
Elizabeth is the partner/owner at Sterling Place, a Brooklyn-based, boutique retail store that specializes in home furnishings, rare antiques, and specialty gifts. She serves as the Co-Chair of the Atlantic Avenue Business Improvement District Steering Committee and as a Troop Leader for the Girl Scouts of Greater NY. Elizabeth holds a B.A. in Philosophy with a minor in Latin American Literature from Smith College.

Erica Frontiero
Erica is a Senior Vice President in Capital Markets at GE Capital. With over 10 years in debt sales and trading, Erica sells commercial loans raised for corporations and private equity clients across a wide spectrum of industries to investors. She is also the co-leader for the NY/NJ chapter of the Women's Network at GE, which fosters women's professional development, and is an active volunteer with Dress for Success; serving as the President of Y.E.S.!, Young Executives for Success. Erica is a member of the creative advisory board for Orchid Worldwide and holds a B.A. in Economics from Wake Forest University.

J. Kelly Hoey
Kelly is a business strategist and adviser to companies and firms on networking; creating and engaging voluntary communities; and, business relationship development strategies. She is the former President of 85 Broads, a women's global business network. Kelly holds an L.L.B. from the University of British Columbia and a B.A. in Political Science and Economics from the University of Victoria.

Diane Kaslow
Diane is the President of Kaslow Fine Art and an investor in Food52.com. She has been actively involved with the development and growth of several charities. Diane holds an M.B.A. from Case Western Reserve University and a B.S./B.A. from John Carroll University.

Jessica Magoch-Roazzi
Jessica most recently served as Regional Vice President of Sales at Atlantis Health Plan. She is a Kundalini Yoga instructor and Shotokan Martial Artist. Jessica holds a B.F.A. in Acting from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Emma Nothmann
Emma is a Principal at Booz & Company and is based in San Francisco, California. She leads the firm’s North American Education Practice and currently serves as a Harvard College Interviewer. Emma holds an A.B. from Harvard University in East Asian Studies.

Maggie Williams

Maggie recently joined the Wright Group, a government relations firm where she assists social justice organizations with their legislative advocacy. Prior to the Wright Group, Maggie worked in the New York State Senate, first as counsel to then Senator now Attorney General Schneiderman and as Judiciary Counsel to the Democratic Majority. In addition, Maggie serves on the boards of the North Star Fund and Resource Generation. Maggie holds a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law and a B.A. in History from Yale University.


2011 PIPELINE FUND FELLOWSHIP MENTORS

    Neil Anderson, Founding Investor, ARC Angel Fund; Founder, Immersive Enterprises Incubator; Director, Acol Advisory
    Rob Delman, Vice President, Astia; Managing Director, Golden Seeds; Partner, ARC Angel Fund
    Brad Feld, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Foundry Group; Chair, National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT)
    Francine Hardaway, PHD, Co-Founder, Stealthmode Partners
    Katie Rae, Managing Director, TechStars; Co-Founder, Project 11 Ventures
    Ed Reitler, Partner, Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt LLC; Founder, Angel Round Capital, L.P.
    Dimple Sahni, Founding Partner, DS Inc; Co-founder, Epylon.com
    Kathleen Utecht, Principal, Wharton WVP Ventures
    Claire Wadlington, Partner and CFO, FA Technology Ventures
    Mike Yavonditte, Founder and CEO, Hashable


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Momentomail Sends Messages from Gmail or Yahoo Accounts In the Future [Email]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/#!5787941/momentomail-sends-messages-from-gmail-or-yahoo-accounts-in-the-future

Momentomail Sends Messages from Gmail or Yahoo Accounts In the FutureYou'll totally remember to send a nice email on your sister's birthday. Likewise, you won't need to remind your co-worker about that meeting 20 minutes before it happens. But just in case you're overly optimistic, you can sign into Momentomail with Gmail or Yahoo, and schedule an email for the future.

You've got a simple queue on the left side of Momentomail's page to manage or cancel your future messages, and you can have your messages BCC'ed to yourself to ensure delivery. That's about it, but that's pretty neat, under the right circumstances. It's a free service to use, and requires a Gmail or Yahoo Mail account.

Momentomail [KyMa Labs]

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MsgMe.at Is a Simple, Minimal Reminder Service [Reminders]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/#!5787846/msgmeat-is-a-simple-minimal-reminder-service

MsgMe.at Is a Simple, Minimal Reminder ServiceMsgMe.at is a simple reminder service that helps you schedule quick reminders and emails you when the time comes.

There are, of course, more robust reminder services like Remember the Milk, but if you're looking to schedule a reminder extremely fast and don't require any bells and whistles, MsgMe.At can help you out. All you have to do is enter in your reminder message and schedule a time. Tell MsgMe.At to remind you and it'll send an email your way. That's it. Very straightforward.

UPDATE: If you want a similar service that works with SMS text messages instead of email, check out Betwext Remind.

MsgMe.at Is a Simple, Minimal Reminder Service MsgMe.at


You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter and Facebook.  If you'd like to contact him, Twitter is the most effective means of doing so.

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Five Best Desktop Customization Tools [Hive Five]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/#!5788337/five-best-desktop-customization-tools

Five Best Desktop Customization ToolsYour desktop is your virtual home, and much like you're real home, customizing it to fit your needs and style can make the difference between between a drab and depressing workspace and one you're excited to work on. Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite desktop customization tools, and now we're back with the five most popular tools for the job on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Image courtesy Lifehacker reader 0John0.

Five Best Desktop Customization Tools

Rainmeter (Windows)

Rainmeter is a great tool for tweaking your Windows desktop. This actively developed tool attractively displays all kinds of information on your desktop (like your to-do list, calendar, weather, and a ton more), and from all kinds of sources on your computer or via the internet. You can change its look using themes available from their web site. Rainmeter is widely used and for Windows is a great way to customize your desktop.


Five Best Desktop Customization Tools

GeekTool (Mac)

If you want to display system information, text files, photos, graphs and other information on your Mac desktop, GeekTool can do the job. By default it ships with only a few plug-ins capable of monitoring text files, launching scripts, and monitoring system information, but used with conjunction with user-created Geeklets (GeekTool scripts), GeekTool can be extended to display any number of sources of information.


Five Best Desktop Customization Tools

Samurize (Windows)

Samurize is another tool for customizing information displayed on your Windows desktop. Similar to Rainmeter, Samurize has many plug-ins that allow you to extend its functionality and the information it's capable of displaying on your desktop. The app itself doesn't appear to have been updated since 2007, but it works with Windows 7, and users are still submitting new plug-ins.


Five Best Desktop Customization Tools

Conky (Linux, FreeBSD)

Conky is a customization tool that allows you to put system and other information onto your Linux desktop. Like many of the other tools featured above, the most popular way to use it is often to display current CPU, memory, and disk usage—but there are hundreds of other system options you can display, including things like email (IMAP and POP3) and currently playing music. Conky allows you to write any type of custom plugins you can think of using the Lua programming language.


Five Best Desktop Customization Tools

Fences (Windows)

Fences is a unique program that's a bit different than the rest of the options in today's Hive. Rather than focusing on the kind of customization in which you add attractive information-focused widgets to your desktop, Fences is all about organizing your desktop clutter. Using the tool, you create boundaries (or fences) around areas on your desktop where you would like wrangle and organize certain shortcuts. These fences organize your desktop and all those shortcuts into a more attractive and manageable interface, keeping those desktop-cluttering shortcuts translucent in the background until you need them.


Now that you've seen the contenders, it's time to cast a vote for your favorite desktop customization tool.



What is your favorite desktop customization tool?customer surveys


Want to add a note about your favorite customization tool and what makes it so great? Let's hear it in the comments.

About the Hive: Every week we ask our readers to submit their nominations for a favorite software or service. The last Hive Five winner was Southwest Airlines for readers' favorite frequent flyer program. Check back on Tuesday for the results of this week's Hive Five: the best desktop customization tools.

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