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Elevator Pitch contest launched

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StartupNation has launched the 2009 “Elevator Pitch” contest to recognize the next great business ideas and entrepreneurs worthy of funding.

Sponsored by Toshiba America Information Systems and GoToMeeting and Citrix Online, the winning entrepreneurs will receive a pre-arranged one-hour presentation to top tier investors and give them a competitive edge in seeking investment in this challenging economic climate.

Contestants interested in competing in the contest can submit an video pitch until March 20, 2009. Video submissions should be quick-hitting business plan pitches designed to entice investors (thirty seconds and 100-150 words). The top 100 contestants will be selected by popular vote and then judged by a panel of StartupNation judges as well as an outside panel of renowned angel and seed stage venture capital investors. The top five pitchers will be announced on April 7, 2009.

Originally posted on February 11, 2009 @ 11:05 am

Tsavo Media acquires user-generated recipe site Open Source Food

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nibbledishSeveral hundred thousand palates can’t be wrong. With this, Tsavo Media announced that it has acquired Open Source Food (OSF) from Egg & Co., a venture of Tokyo-based web producer Jon Anthony Yongfook Cockle.

With the acquisition, OSF has been renamed NibbleDish and will join Tsavo’s new network of content sites for consumers, currently in development.

Yongfook will remain with the company. A serial web-app builder, Yongfook is also responsible for the popular lifestreaming software Sweetcron and analytics tool Gumtrail. From his base in Tokyo, he works with various Japanese companies as an outside consultant, building web apps and overseeing production.

Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Originally posted on February 6, 2009 @ 12:01 pm

Mobile Internet usage on WiFi now widespread across US

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Mobile advertising marketplace AdMob revealed in its January 2009 Mobile Metrics Report that there is a continuing widespread mobile Internet usage on WiFi in the United States and strong growth in Western Europe.

The states that generated the most WiFi traffic are California with 18 percent, New York with 14 percent, and Texas with eight percent.

Other highlights from the January 2009 report:

• Worldwide requests increased 8 percent month over month to 6.8 billion, led by double digit growth in Western Europe and Asia.

• Traffic from Western Europe increased 132 percent in the last year to total 550 million requests in January 2009, with Spain and Italy growing the fastest.

• The iPhone is now the number one device by usage in Western Europe with 21 percent share of total requests. This strong share reflects dramatically higher mobile Web and application usage by consumers and AdMob’s strength on this device.

• Nokia and Sony Ericsson are the number two and three manufacturers in Western Europe, with 22 percent and 17 percent share, respectively. Nokia continues to dominate the smartphone category with 11 of the top 15 devices.

• Windows Mobile has 5 percent share of market in Western Europe with only one device, the Samsung i900, in the top 15. Worldwide the Windows Mobile OS has 8% share of smartphone requests.

Originally posted on February 12, 2009 @ 11:10 am

Personal guide for life experiences launches with $5 million funding

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Ludic Labs has unveiled Diddit, a site where people discover new life experiences, get credit for activities done, share personal stories and connect with others like them. Diddit combines a comprehensive guide of life activities with an engaging social platform immersing users in rich and diverse lifestyle content from top ski resorts visited to Paris attractions explored to green living habits practiced.

Diddit has raised $5 million led by ,a href=”http://www.accel.com”>Accel Partners with additional financing from KPG Ventures, the company’s founders and private individuals.

The Diddit site already has 10,000 registered users who have checked off more than 750,000 things they have done in their lives ranging from marathons completed to Broadway Theatre houses visited under the company’s invite-only program started a few months ago. With the alpha version of the site, visitors can now easily browse over 300,000 activities in structured categories including Travel, Family, Sports, History, Great Outdoors and Geek Culture. Members check off activities accomplished, list adventures they dream of doing, toast users’ achievements, engage with others in competition or play and form micro communities of interest, making Diddit their personal playbook for life’s experiences.

Diddit is the brainchild of the early development team of search engine company Inktomi. The team includes an Inktomi founder, a founding vice president of research and development and early technical and product leads, bringing expertise in the area of large-scale distributed information systems to the company.

Originally posted on February 12, 2009 @ 11:40 am

Filed Under: Web

Tributes.com launches ‘Light a Candle’ program with American Heart Association

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tributesOnline resource for local and national obituary news Tributes.com has launched the ‘Light a Candle’ program, offering consumers the opportunity to place a virtual candle in memory of their loved ones. Visitors can now light candles or place online gifts on any of the more than 84 million current and historical obituaries available on the popular national obituary news site as well as share photos, videos, recollections, and other artifacts of a treasured life.

In addition to allowing users to light a free virtual candle, Tributes.com offers the option of lighting a candle in honor of a charity, and to make donations in support of various fundraising and awareness campaigns happening throughout the year.

Originally posted on February 15, 2009 @ 8:08 pm

Filed Under: Web