GatherSpace.com is a start-up based in Los Angeles, California that designs software requirements management software for enterprises.  Some of the features included in their software is requirements management, requirements traceability, iteration planning, security and collaboration, report generation, and issue/bug tracking management.

This would be especially useful for software companies that rely on communicating with people overseas.  The new software is called GatherSpace 2.0.  Some of the new features in the 2.0 version is Agile capabilities, the addition of a case model visualization tool, and project duplication.  There are also import and export capabilities using CSV and XML files.

Some of GatherSpace’s clients include Adobe, Oaktree, Helio, and PurchasingPower.  “GatherSpace has been instrumental in bridging the gap between our business analysts and software development teams,” stated Helio Development Manager Ryan Lee. “As a result of using GatherSpace, we have streamlined our requirements gathering process, reduced costly rework, and accelerated delivery of the software that drives our business.”

Zumbox is a company that designed a system for converting postal letters into electronic format.  The company announced today that they have raised $8 million in funding.

The funding was provided by Art Bilger (Shelter Capital Partners), Rick Braddock (Fresh Direct), Michael Eisner (former Disney CEO), Bill Guth (Guthy-Renker), and Donn Rappaport (CEO and founder of Zumbox).

Zumbox will be officially launching their service in Q4 of this year.  Zumbox does not digitize postal mail, but allows people to select different templates that standard mail looks like.

Then you can send the mail to anyone in the world by entering their actual postal address and it gets sent to them in electronic format to Zumbox’s servers.  Zumbox will allow the person residing at the postal address to check their Zumbox mail through their website.

The concept is a bit strange.  I have my doubts that this service will really take off, but I won’t really know until the service goes public and I get the chance to try it out.

Global Gaming Factory X Chairman Magnus Berman has stepped down.  This comes at an odd time because Global Gaming Factory is in the midst of closing the acquisition of The Pirate Bay.  Earlier this month, The Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde even stepped down.

It is unclear about why Berman stepped down, but Sunde gave his reason.  Sunde felt that after The Pirate Bay acquisition, his services were no longer needed and that he would pursue another entrepreneurial venture.  Bergman will reveal the reason why he decided to step down on Thursday when the shareholders of Global Gaming Factory votes on whether The Pirate Bay acquisition should go through.

There are rumors about Global Gaming Factory X not having enough money to complete the deal.  This is apparently why the Grokster CEO and Global Gaming Factory X Board member Wayne Rosso stepped down.

Fanbase.com officially launched today.  Fanbase has been in development over the last 18 months and was even backed with $5 million in funding from Benchmark Capital.  Fanbase aims to connect sports fans from all over the world through sharing of information that covers every team, every athlete, and every sport.

As of right now about 500,000 users have made about 60,000 contributions to the website.  Now there is information available across 1.7 million athletes and 20,000 teams.  Now that there is a large amount of information on teams and athletes, the next step is getting as many photos and videos in the website.

Fanbase was co-founded by Nirav Tolia who also led Epinions.com in a previous job.  Epinions was eventually sold to eBay.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is releasing their newest operating system this Friday.  The Mac OS X 10.6 operating system is best known as Snow Leopard.  The price of an upgrade from Mac OS X 10.5 is $29 or $9.95 through Up-To-Date.

Initially Apple was expecting to release the new operating system in September so the software is arriving early.  And it can be pre-ordered right now.  Some of the new features include out-of-the-box Microsoft Exchange Server support and 64-bit support.  The Finder software runs a lot faster and iChat has been improved.

Additional details are available on the Apple.com website.  Apple made the announcement about the new operating system back in June at the WWDC event.

Rosemary Port (pictured left) is a writer that had a blog called “Skanks in NYC.”  The blog apparently defamed a model by the name of Liskula Cohen.  Cohen sued Google, who was forced by a judge to reveal the Port’s identity.  Port was anonymously blogging under a Google Blogger account.

Now that Port’s identity is out in the open, she is mad and is not going to take it.  This is why she has informed the media that she plans to sue Google for $15 million for allowing invasion of privacy.  Port is a 27 year old studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

She is specifically suing Google for “breaching its fiduciary duty to protect her expectation of anonymity.”  Given that Google probably has a team of lawyers on retainer, Port may have a hard time seeing any money coming out of Google but at least she is getting more publicity out of the whole situation.

Ben Bator and Lauren Leto are a couple of Michigan State University alumni (just like me!) that launched a website called TextsFromLastNight.com.  The levels of website traffic that TextsFromLastNight is impressive.  The website receives about 3.5 million page views per month.

TextsFromLastNight grew at a viral pace just like FML.  The website is making money from advertising, t-shirt sales, mobile phone applications, and even a book deal with Penguin Group’s Penguin division.  Bator and Leto were considering going to law school right after graduating from Michigan State, but the success of TextsFromLastNight hindered those plans.

Between Bator and Leto, they have to look through about 10,000-15,000 funny text messages that were sent in to the website.  Visitors to the website enter their area code and a funny text message that they received recently.

Some of the funny messages that are currently on the homepage include:
(304): My life is like a Sweet Valley High book but with lots of alcohol.
(410): Its Shannon Doherty lazy not Forest Whittaker lazy
(440): you were so drunk you slurred your pauses
(201): I am no longer a man. I just realized I prefer Spongebob to college football.

This past February, Bator and Leto launched their website on Blogger.com but noticed that their traffic grew from 500 visitors per day to 15,000.  They moved their website from Blogger to their own domain name on April 16th.  Between the two of them, they had less than $10,000 in savings and from investors.

Within one week of moving their website to their own domain name, they hit 240,000 page views and their server crashed.  Several days later, traffic hit 460,000 page views.

The two even gave credit to former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick about their idea.  During the months of September 2002 – October 2002 and April 2003 – May 2003, the former Detroit mayor sent over 14,000 text messages to his chief of staff Christine Beatty.

Dutch company IREX Technologies and Barnes & Noble have made an alliance.  IREX is the second e-book reader company to have partnered with Barnes & Noble with Plastic Logic being the first.  Plastic Logic plans to launch an e-book reader next year itself.

IREX said that their partnership with Barnes & Noble will not be exclusive.  IREX is already selling e-book readers in Europe, but not yet in the U.S.  Irex’s e-book reader will have an 8.1″ touch screen and 3G wireless connection.

“We will change the dynamics of the consumer market – users want to easily purchase content from a variety of sources and we allow them to read it on an IREX eReader as well as other devices,” stated Irex North American CEO Kevin Hamilton.