Geodelic Scores $7 Million To Boost Its Location-Aware Mobile Apps Business

Exclusive – Mobile application developer Geodelic has raised $7 million in a Series B financing round led by MK Capital, with previous backers Clearstone Venture Partners and Shasta Ventures participating.

The round brings the total amount of capital injected into the company to more than $10 million.

Initially incubated by Clearstone in 2008, Geodelic develops a free application for mobile phones that come with ‘search-less search’, meaning the app automatically browses and shows your points of interests in your immediate vicinity. The company was founded by Rahul Sonnad, who previously founded thePlatform, a Web video publishing service he sold to Comcast back in 2006.

The Geodelic app, which is available for iPhone and Android, lets you swipe through locations to quickly find a good coffee joint, closest bank, grocery store or favorite restaurant.

The application is also capable of learning what you seem to like, presenting you results based on your profile. Users get the added benefit of Geodelic’s integration with select reservation and review services (e.g. OpenTable).

The Geodelic network also contains content-specific mobile guides, which can soon be created by anyone. One example is the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which enables users to discover the attraction, locate their favorite stars of stage and screen and to access photos and biographies straight from the app.

Additionally, Geodelic technology has been licensed by carriers such as Korea Telecom to allow enterprise customers to quickly deploy mobile guides and to interact with their consumer base.

Geodelic’s makes money by partnering with brands and marketers to create a network of so-called Experiences. The startup’s authoring system allows businesses to publish location-triggered content to Geodelic users on the fly and provides detailed, real-time statistics they can use to improve their location-based offerings. A relevance engine even tracks user behavior, allowing marketers to reach consumers as efficiently as possible at the point of sale.

To date, the Geodelic application has been downloaded over half a million times on Android phones, the company says. It is also available for iPhone (iTunes link), and currently in development for Blackberry devices.


Skimlinks Rolls Out SkimWords To Turn More Links Into Affiliate Revenue Opportunity

Affiliate marketing platform Skimlinks has launched its latest product that aims to make it even easier for publishers to place revenue generating affiliate links in their content.

Dubbed SkimWords, the feature, which is currently in beta, differs slightly from the company’s main offering. Rather than simply converting existing retailer links to affiliate links on-the-fly, it looks at the page’s content and converts any references to known products into fairly non-obtrusive geo-targeted links to retailer sites where the item can be purchased.

The fact that these links are location-aware – at the country level – is perhaps noteworthy since it accommodates a site’s international traffic and therefore hopefully doesn’t leave much money on the table.


Apprupt Launches Self-Service Affiliate Network For Mobile Apps

Apprupt, an affiliate network for mobile apps, has today launched its self-service platform for “appvertisers” (a slightly silly name).

It enables app developers to sign up to apprupt on a cost-per-install basis, enabling them to track their marketing campaigns for both paid and free apps. Features include account management (including campaign spend), and reports and analytics providing “the ability to determine the ROI at any given time” by measuring the number of app downloads generated.


Facebook Hiring 500 People In India

Facebook recently announced it would be opening an office in Hyderabad, India, to be able to provide better round-the-clock and multilingual support to its ever-increasing number of users, advertisers and third-party developers.

According to Business Standard and India Times, the company is set to launch its India operations from the ‘City of Pearls’ – its first office in Asia – within the next two months.

In a press release on Sunday, the State Information Technology and Communications department said Facebook had been granted permission by the government to set up an office in a business incubator at the Raheja Mindspace special economic zone (SEZ).

The new office will add to Facebook’s operations in Palo Alto (California), Dublin (Ireland) and a recently opened office in Austin (Texas).

According to The Economic Times, an Indian government official also said that Facebook has been allotted about 50,000 sq ft space and is going to recruit close to 500 people for running its operations. Facebook, which has nearly 8 million users in India and nearly 500 million users across the globe, would reportedly invest $150 million in the initial phases.

Information provided by CrunchBase


Video: Next-generation Electric Mini Vehicle ULV

It seems interest in the development of electric cars has really picked up steam in recent months, especially in Japan. A research team at Tokyo-based Waseda University has manufactured the ULV [JP], a one-person electric vehicle with a number of selling points: it’s cheap, it’s small and light (72.6kg), and it has a decent driving range (80km).

Read more…


iPhone 4 Costs $188 To Make


Another day, another iSuppli teardown. The folks at iSuppli have found that iPhone 4, according to their estimates, cost $188 to make. While this is almost comically low, it says something about Apple’s ability to mass produce phones and the high margins they’re able to make on relatively low-cost products.

The gyroscope chip, for example, apparently costs Apple $2.60 while it costs $2.90 in quantities of 200,000. These disparities pop up in a number of places, which, sadly, lends an air of WTF to the proceedings.

Read more…


mSpot Debuts Cloud-Based Music Streaming Service For Android

Mobile entertainment startup mSpot is debuting its free music cloud service today that allows you to sync your entire music collection across Android phones and PCs/Macs to the public today. The service, which was launched into private beta in May, streams music to your browser and Android phone.

Here’s how it works. The service’s application that operates in the background of your computer managing the upload and day-to-day syncing of your music library. In addition, it can upload playlists, coverart, ratings and song information you may have entered using iTunes. The application will manage your music for you, making automatic updates whenever changes occur in your library, and on across different connected devices.

And mSpot’s cloud service automatically re-syncs music when new songs and albums are added. The service also promises to handle transitions between spotty and solid coverage areas and reduces data charges on your mobile plan. Other features include the ability to see lyrics of songs and to make a ringtone out of any song.

MSpot is betting big on this service. The company has been developing this proprietary playback
technology that allows users to play songs from the cloud instantly for four years. mSpot mobile application automatically senses network conditions and adapts playback accordingly even without network coverage.

While mSpot offers free storage for the first 2 gigabytes (approximately 1600 songs), additional storage is available for purchase ranging from 10 gigabytes (8,000 songs) for $2.99, 20 gigabytes (16,000 songs) for $4.99, and 50 gigabytes for 9.99.

mSpot’s streaming service will be incredibly an useful application for Android users. But that’s until Google launches its own cloud-based music streaming service, which is expected to take place later this year. The company even acquired streaming technology Simplify Media to boost its service.

Lala did this as well, but Apple has shut that service down after acquiring it. And we expect that Apple will be launching a cloud-based version of iTunes soon, which would also pose a serious threat to mSpot’s offering.

Mspot is best known for its Mobile Movies site, which will let users stream full-length movies on their mobile phones, on the web, so you can enjoy mSpot’s online streaming movie service on your computer. mSpot has struck deals with Paramount, Universal, Image Entertainment, and Screen Media Ventures to stream full-length movie rentals to users’ PCs and cell phones, allowing you to switch between both devices as you pick up and leave off throughout a movie. The PC streaming functionality builds upon the mobile movie service mSpot launched last year. The service, which just launched an iPhone app, includes 1000 titles that can be streamed to both a computer and mobile device.

Information provided by CrunchBase


Simple Website For A Pool Co.

I need a simple website for my new swimming pool company. Also I want to have my email address at my website (something like abramsfamily2006(at)mywebsite.com. Additionally would be nice (but not necessary) to have a rating system on the website, that would allow to my customers leave a review about our services. Any visitor should be able to see the reviews. I should be able to delete them if needed. Rating system is a plus but not required by my project (depends on the budget). I’m not looking to spend a lot of money on this website (around $100). I want it simple and cheap but look nice and professional. I will provide with pictures and some text. Website has to be search engine optimised. I have a website I created myself at www.bestpoolcompany.com. You can look at it to give you an idea. But its a complete mess, because I’m not a programmer. That’s why I need a professional to help me create better website.
Any type of programming options is fine with me. Thanks, looking forward to your bids.

Company Logo Design

Logo Design for a drug & alcohol testing and collections company. Company name is “Safety & Health Connections”. Needs to portray the connecting of safety to health. Need at least 2 concepts, of which 1 must incorporate the color green. Must be workable with website, stationary, business cards, etc. Final files must include hi-resolution b/w, 1-color, & 4-color. Please include samples of previous work.