Qriously Raises $3.5 Million Led By Spark Capital For Its Question-Based Mobile Ad Network
Qriously, the “question network” that’s trying to reinvent the mobile ad, has announced that it’s closed a $3.5 million Series A round led by Spark Capital. Previous backer Accel Partners also participated. This brings the total raised by the London/New York-based company to $2.6 million, having closed $1.6 million in seed funding in March 2011. Meanwhile, Qriously says it will use the new funds to expand its U.S. and European footprint and, more interestingly, to push its new mobile ad product based on what it calls “opinion targeting” — an approach that essentially uses sentiment as the basis for targeted advertising. When Qriously originally launched, CEO and co-founder described the startup’s mission as wanting to “democratise mass insight”. Through an SDK offered to mobile app developers, Qriously lets advertisers display questions instead of traditional mobile ads so that they can measure sentiment in realtime but also based on a user’s location. Advertisers can ...
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BlackBerry's QNX Inks Deal With 7digital For In-Car Music Service, Gears Up For Auto Rivalry With Apple
BlackBerry has been hit hard by Apple and Android in the enterprise smartphone market, and now it’s making some moves to make sure that it doesn’t face the same fate in the automotive segment. QNX, BlackBerry’s operating system subsidiary that makes the new BB10 operating system, today announced that it would be adding music streaming service 7digital into its in-car entertainment and information system, QNX CAR. The deal will see 7digital’s catalog of 23 million tracks, and HTML5-based music store, preloaded on to the QNX system, and the music service will work across the 40 countries where 7digital already has licensing agreements. (As a point of comparison on footprint, yesterday music streaming service Spotify added several new markets to its global coverage, and now works in 28 countries.) QNX says that this will in turn mean that automotive OEMs and others working on in-car systems can now build customized digital music stores into QNX-based infotainment systems. These will ...
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Zuckerberg Launches A Tech Lobby, But What Will It Do Differently?
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made headlines today on the announcement of his new technology lobby, FWD.us, that he formed with his powerful Silicon Valley friends. But, behind the starstruck stories of DC’s new power players, it should be noted that the technology industry already has a litany of lobbies, comprised of the same board members as FWD.us, who have been active in politics for years. Before everyone gets carried away, it’s worth understanding what tech money has gotten Silicon Valley already and what FWD.us will need to do to distinguish itself. What Already Exists The technology industry is handsomely represented in the halls of Congress. According to OpenSecrets, the industry’s lobbying coffers shoveled out $202 million in 2012, almost twice as much as in 2004 ($105M). Facebook even has its own Political Action Committee to fund specific candidates. And, to be sure, most major tech corporations have swanky DC diggs, where they throw elaborate champagne parties on rooftop ...
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Amazon Acquires Social Reading Site Goodreads, Which Gives The Company A Social Advantage Over Apple
Today, Amazon has announced the acquisition of social reading service, Goodreads. Specific terms of the deal weren’t disclosed and it should close by the end of Q2. Goodreads had raised $2.75M in funding from the likes of True Ventures, since launching in January 2007. When we talked to them last August, the site had over 10M members and had catalogued more than 360M books, adding 22M each month. Now, the site boasts over 16M users. This type of social integration could give Amazon a major advantage over e-sellers like Apple, who have no social components to their product whatsoever. With people actually discussing and sharing the books that they’re into, having an Amazon direct connect makes complete sense. The site can offer special deals to Goodreads users, which in essence is now Amazon’s book-reading social network. Here’s a look at the spike in books added per month in a graph from last August. With a connection to Kindle, those numbers will skyrocket: Amazon VP of Kindle content, ...
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Netflix’s ‘House Of Cards’ Is Internet TV-Funded Original Programming But Don’t Kid Yourself It’s Ad-Free (Spoiler Alert)
When Netflix bid on and won the rights to House of Cards back in 2011 – buying the show before it was shot and committing to two full seasons – it made headlines. And with good reason: Funding such a high-profile slice of original programming – with David Fincher and Kevin Spacey on board — cast Netflix in a role typically occupied by HBO. Rumours of a $100 million+ price tag for HoC were bandied around. An AllThingsD source suggested a minimum of $3 million per episode – putting the total cost at $78 million at least. Netflix has not publicly confirmed how much it’s spending on the show, although a WSJ source “familiar with Netflix’s plans” claimed the cost would likely be far less than $100 million. Whatever the final figure, Netflix has rolled out a red carpet of grand claims regarding what the show means for Internet TV. “We believe that February 1st [the date the first season of HoC was put on Netflix] will be a defining moment in the development of Internet TV,” ...
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