Davy_en
Trust male - 26 years, United Kingdom
Blog 8202
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NY Judge Throws Out Last AOL Time Warner Merger Lawsuit
It’s fairly ironic to learn that there was still a lawsuit lingering over Time Warner’s merger with America Online from the beginning of this decade, given that AOL is in the process of spinning off and hitting the public markets as an independent entity before year’s end.
Anyway, there was still one pending suit out of the hundreds that were filed after the multi-billion dollar merger, and now it has been dismissed as well. The end of an era, of sorts.
A federal judge has thrown out the last of the Mohicans lawsuits, granting Ernst & Young’s motion to dismiss shareholder Dominic Amorosa’s complaint alleging it had failed to link the auditor’s statements to investor losses. U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon of the Southern District of New York dismissed the private investor’s case earlier this week, saying the E&Y was not the cause for any of the man’s losses.
Amorosa, an AOL shareholder who voted in favor of the merger with Time Warner and exchanged his stock at a one-to-one ratio for stock in the combined entity, filed his suit in May 2003 as the last in a wave of lawsuits that followed media reports of widespread fraud at AOL and its successor corporation.
Aside from Ernst & Young, the suit named AOL, Time Warner, the merged company, Bertelsmann AG and 11 individual executives, but all of those defendants had previously been dismissed from the case in earlier proceedings.
(Source: Law360)
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MOG Launches All Access, Sets New Standard For Online Music
MOG’s much anticipated All Access music service launches today for anyone to come and give it a try. I’ve been using the service for the last few weeks and, despite my initial skepticism over the fact that users must pay for the service, I’ve been impressed. MOG makes millions of songs available users on demand over the Internet. The user experience and social aspects of the service put it far ahead of any online music service available today, and it’s well worth the $5/month.
All Access is a nearly flawless product that is an absolute joy to use.
MOG, founded in 2005, was essentially a social music portal and advertising network until today. But they’ve been working on this All Access product for well over a year now, hoping at first to provide it free to consumers. But the big music label’s willingness to dabble in free streaming music to consumers is clearly waning – and so MOG was forced to charge users for the service.
And I think a lot of users may just be willing to pay for the service once they realize how much better it is than it’s most obvious competitor, MySpace Music.
For whatever reason MySpace has been slow to iterate on its year-old service. The service remains slow and buggy. Getting to and listening to music requires more steps than it should. And the advertising is often intrusive. Perhaps it’s the fact that they have to pay every time a user listens to a song, but sometimes it just seems like MySpace Music is trying to slow you down rather and add friction to the music experience.
MOG, by contrast, just flies. Searching, discovering, saving and listening to music is intuitive and fun. The social aspects of the service let you share and discover new music with friends. And the user experience will be an inspiration to the next generation of web designers.
And as if that wasn’t enough, MOG Radio, a feature of All Access, is just about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Or rather, heard.
Our complete overview of the service is below. But don’t rely on us, give it a try. MOG is letting people test the service for free for an hour, without any obligation (no credit card required). And we’re also pleased to give 250 TechCrunch readers a one month free membership to MOG All Access. Just email TechCrunch@MOG.com, first come first serve.
Overview Of MOG All Access
Music Library: MOG has songs from all four major labels: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI Music. And they also a deep collection of indies as well. If the music is legally available anywhere online, it’ll likely be available on MOG.
Overall user experience: Prepare to be shocked. Everything is as it should be. Music is played via a fully controllable pop up window, so you don’t have to stay on the full site. You’ll see album art and information on the song currently being played. Related music is listed below the song, or, if you’re listening to a playlist, other songs on the list. There are no restrictions on skipping or changing songs at all, and the service responds as quickly and crisply as if it were a desktop application.
One feature I love – lyrics for whatever song you’re listening to are one click away.
Search & Discovery: It’s awesome. Search by artist, album or song. Or a combination. Search is very fast – as I said above, it’s a lot like using a desktop application like iTunes to search for music sitting on your hard drive.
And if you can’t think of what you want to listen to, check out the playlists that others have created and made public. MOG ranks them using an algorithm to push the most popular and most played lists to the top. Or find other users who you share music tastes with and follow them. You’ll see what they’re listening to.
MOG Radio: This is worth the $5/month alone. If you’re a Pandora fan you’ll know the joy of typing in a song or artist you love and listening to music from other related artists. It’s an amazing way to discover new music. But MOG goes way beyond what Pandora offers. Not only are there no ads and you can skip songs at will without limitations, they let you decide exactly what you want to listen to.
Only want to hear David Bowie songs? No problem. Just keep the slider (see image) all the way to the left. But if you want a more Pandora-like experience, slide it to the right and get some Iggy Pop, Queen, Duran Duran and other artists you might like as well.
Pandora doesn’t let you just listen to one artist because it changes the nature of their music license from radio to on-demand. MOG doesn’t care because they pay a set fee per user per month to the labels no matter how much music you listen to. So if there’s band you love and don’t want to bother creating a playlist, just type it in, set the music slider to the left, and listen to as much of their music as you want.
Library And Playlists: If you stumble onto a song you love, you can one-click save it to your library or put it into a playlist. See more on playlists in our post here.
Wish List: As I said, MOG is nearly flawless. But I do have a few requests. First, I’d like to be able to type two or three artists into search and create a radio station on the fly that only plays those artists. MOG says that is something they’re considering. Another request – I’d love it if MOG could scan my iTunes collection and automatically add all those songs and Playlists to my MOG library.
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Branders.com Scores Another $5 Million In Venture Capital
Branders.com, an online-only promotional items store operator, raised another $5 million in venture funding, bringing the total invested in the company to $46 million. Participating in this round were Menlo Ventures, DCM, Venture Strategy Partners and Altos Ventures, all of whom backed the company in the past.
According to the Promotional Products Association International organization, the promotional items marketplace reached $18.1 billion in 2008, and saw growth even despite the recession. Branders.com is one of the leaders in this space, having launched over ten years ago and currently boasting more than 100,000 customers, including The White House and many Fortune 500 companies.
The San Mateo, CA-based dot-com survivor also claims profitability, but did not share revenue numbers.
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CrunchGear in China: Seeing Where the Tech Sausage Is Made
Greetings from sunny Shenzhen, just north of Hong Kong. I've spent some time in Asia - at least the tech centers - and have never found a place like this. It's like Blade Runner meets 1990s Prague meets the end of the world. I'm here to report on what's going on here in terms of electronics and how it's changing the way we think about price, cost, and value. It's pretty crazy.
Thirty years ago Shenzhen was a rice paddy, a town of about 50,000 souls. Today it is a hive, and a dirty one at that. Smog is a way of life. As the sun goes down over the city, the streets take on an amber cast and the darkness falls quickly. There are no picaresque sunsets here. -
HipLogic Raises $7 Million To Bring Smartphone Intelligence
Mobile application platform HipLogic has raised $7 million in Series B funding from Benchmark Capital, Stage 1 Ventures, Bay Partners, and Accrue Sports and Entertainment Ventures. HipLogic’s platform helps improve content discoverability and applications on both smartphone and non-smartphones.
Formerly known as Numobiq, the startup raised $4.5 million in Series A funding in 2008. Founded by three veterans from Sun Microsystems, it wants to bring sophisticated applications to the simplest cell phones by keeping all the complexity in the network. In essence, HipLogic is trying to bring the quick, easy interface of the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry to more simple, lightweight phones that are available for the mass market.
HipLogic makes existing phones ’smarter’ by allowing consumers to toggle on a more iPhone like interface complete with real-time content, social networking and apps. This is all done via a free downloadable mobile application that has yet to be launched. Behind the curtains, HipLogic’s application platform features a lightweight, JavaScript virtual machine connected to the cloud and aggregates info from network operators and the web to create mash-ups on mobile devices
HipLogic is currently being deployed through a partnership with The Carphone Warehouse, a European mobile retailer and hopes to partner with retailers and phone developers in the near future. The startup is remaining mum about the intricacies of its platform for now, but HipLogic could be on to something.
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Gift Guide Giveaways: Samson Go Mic and… Mittenberry!
Another day, another set of giveaways in honor of our Gift Guide. Today we have a Samson Go Mic - you know, for podcasting - and a pair of mittens with thumbs that pop off that the manufacturer is calling Mittenberrys but we're calling a cute idea.
To enter, just pop over to the contest pages on our Gift Guide. -
Seeking Alpha Finds $7 Million In Funding, Partners With Nas
Financial information and analysis community Seeking Alpha announced that it has recently closed a Series B round of financing to the tune of $7 million, led by first-time investor DAG Ventures with participation from existing investors Benchmark Capital and Accel Partners.
Seeking Alpha also inked a content partnership deal with Nasdaq.com, under which terms it will deliver opinion pieces from its now 3,272 contributors and timely news products like MarketCurrents and Wall Street Breakfast. You can see the integration in effect here and here.
Seeking Alpha scored its first similar major content partnership agreement with Yahoo Finance around the time that it secured its first round of funding from Benchmark and Accel.
The company also informed us that Instablogs, its blogging platform customized for finance that was launched in May 2009, recently crossed 2,000 publications from financial advisers, portfolio managers, newsletter authors, data providers and economists alike. According to PaidContent, Seeking Alpha claims more than 4 million monthly uniques based on internal Google Analytics stats.
On a sidenote: it seems like there’s renewed interest from investors in innovative companies in the stock market analysis and discussion space: we earlier today reported that StockTwits scored another $3 million in funding from True Ventures and Foundry Group.
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Web-Based Productivity Suite Zoho Launches Full Integration
Zoho is undoubtedly the lesser known name and an underdog in the productivity suite race with Google and Microsoft. But the startup has a compelling strategy: Zoho continuously launches integrations with its competitors and also iterates on it product to offer new and innovative products. Previously, Zoho has launched various integrations with Google sign-ins and with Google Apps. Today, Zoho is launching a full integration between Google Docs and Zoho’s Apps.
Google Docs users can now attach files from Google Docs to Zoho’s CRM within Leads, Accounts, and Cases of Zoho CRM. When users try to attach a document from Google Docs, they will be prompted to authenticate using Google credentials. Google Docs will be listed within Zoho once users sign-in.
And while composing emails in Zoho Mail, users can attach files directly from Google Docs and Zoho Docs. Zoho users also have an option to upload files directly from Google Docs to Zoho Docs.
Zoho currently has a limit for users to to upload only 5 files at a time and plans to offer increased flexibility in the future. Lastly, files from Google Docs can now be attached directly in Zoho’s project management app Zoho Projects.
This latest and more robust integration with Google Docs represents Zoho’s compelling strategy to continue to innovate by launching new products and add-ons to its existing offerings. Most recently, the startup launched Zoho Discussions, a online forum tool for businesses; and Zoho Recruit. Over the past two years, Zoho has added support for Sharepoint, mobile, Google and Yahoo IDs and group sharing.
Zoho knows that it will have to fight an uphill battle to keep users from flocking to Google Apps and soon Microsoft’s Web-based version of Microsoft 2010. Although Zoho ’s the underdog, the startup’s strategy may be paying off—the startup has reached 2 million users in just 4 years.
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StockTwits Adds $3 Million From Foundry Group And True Ventu
StockTwits, a social and microblogging service for stock investors, has pulled down another round of financing – $3 million in a Series B round led by Colorado-based Foundry Group. Foundry Group partner Seth Levine joined the company’s board of directors, and True Ventures, an investor from earlier this year, also participated in the round.
The service launched just a year ago as a way for Twitter users to organize, share and discover their thoughts on public company stocks: “Users can eavesdrop on traders and investors, or contribute to the conversation and build their reputation as savvy market wizards. The service takes financial related data and structures it by stock, user, reputation, etc.”
In September the service moved on from Twitter and built their own platform and Air desktop application. They kept the familiar 140 character format for messages, and users can easily cross-post to and from Twitter.
StockTwits is also part of an official NASDAQ iPhone application.
Traders are clearly enamored with the product and love the constant stream of company/sector specific data. And new products, like StockTwit TV, seem to be a hit (even if, for most people, listening to stock talk is like watching paint dry). The service will expand greatly next year, says CEO Howard Lindzon.
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More Research To Back The Notion That Streaming Kills Piracy
Research conducted by London-based Global Web Index, a collaboration between online market research agency Lightspeed Research and Trendstream, suggests that streaming might in fact be the right antidote against content piracy.
The findings are in line with other research and conclusions reached earlier this year by The Leading Question, MusicAlly’s consumer research division, which suggested that the number of teenagers who download copyrighted content from illegal sources has fallen dramatically over the past few years in favor of streaming.
According to the Global Web Index, streaming video online has unequivocally turned mainstream with almost two thirds (64%) of Internet users watching video clips, almost a third (31%) watching full length TV and video programming and 13% sharing videos. 27% of UK Internet users have downloaded free TV shows/films to their desktops.
The research showed that the most active internet users – those who spend more than three hours a day online – are the most likely to download illegal content, either through a P2P network or unauthorized file sharing websites.
Contrary to popular belief, the research also shows that people who download illegal media content are not only driven by the desire to access it for free, but increasingly by the fact that they want to get their hands on the content as soon as it’s available, even if only legally in other countries.
Whilst the research shows that consumers don’t really like using P2P networks to obtain content, people tend to use them when they can’t find what they want any other way.
Tom Smith, Managing Director of Trendstream says:
“Thanks to the rise of online services such as Spotify, Hulu, iPlayer and of course YouTube, the environment has been created where you can stream almost all the content you would ever want. If everything I want is available on demand, the concept of ownership is diminished. I no longer need to have it on my hard drive. I just play what I want when I want. This is not only a threat to traditional packaged sales of music, TV and film, it will also kill off piracy. Why pirate when you can stream?”
To reach its conclusions, Global Web Index interviewed 16,000 web users in 16 markets for a first wave. The survey was carried out online between July 6 and the August 7 of this year: 2000 internet users were interviewed in the US and the UK, 1000 users in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, China and Canada and 750 users took part in the survey in The Netherlands, Russia, Mexico, Brazil, India, South Korea , Australia, Japan. GWI plans a second wave this and next month.
(Top image via Flickr / cc Maurits Burger)
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