Amazon.com is launching the Kindle in Canada soon. The Kindle was rolled out internationally last month but Canada was not on the list at the time. In Canada the Kindle will have access to over 300,000 books and several Canadian newspapers. Some of the Canadian newspapers that can be downloaded on the Kindle include the Globe & Mail and The National Post. The Kindle will be able to store about 1,500 books and is available online for $259. The reason for the delay is believed to be negotiations with telecommunication companies and Amazon.com.
AdMob is becoming a property of Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), but the company has not been slowing down since the acquisition announcement. The company announced earlier this week that they will support video advertisements for the iPhone and iPod Touch. iPhone and iPod Touch users will still be able to surf the web or watch other videos while the video ad is playing. Videos are saved as different file sizes and will play different qualities based on the user’s connection. For example, higher quality videos will play when a user is on a WiFi or 3G connection.
“AdMob’s new Interactive Video Ad Unit brings together consumers’ love of watching videos on their mobile device with advertisers’ goal of providing an interactive, social experience for consumers,” stated AdMob Founder and CEO Omar Hamoui. “We are excited to create new ways for advertisers to engage with consumers on their mobile devices and for the developers behind the most popular and engaging iPhone applications to effectively monetize.”
Lottay allows users to create online gifts and other users can put money towards it. The company recently raised $475,000 from DFJ Frontier and hired former Evite executive Harry Lin as their CEO. This round of funding was the company Series A. Lottay collects money using the PayPal Adaptive Payments API. The gifts are sent via e-mail and Facebook. The receivers of the gift can buy the intended gift or anything else. Lottay raised a total of $675,000 thus far. The initial seed funding was also invested by DFJ Frontier.
I think Gary Brolsma will be forever remembered as the Numa Numa guy that has touched all of our hearts. Last time I heard about Brolsma, he was dancing in a Geico commercial to the song that made him famous Dragostea din tei. Now it looks like he is doing some gigs at various colleges. Go Spartans! This is just another reason why I’m proud to be a Spartan myself.
*Props to Ryan Goodrich for sending over the video.
Zumbox is the world’s first paperless postal system. The way it works is that you enter your street address to view your mail. After that you can see your mail displayed in envelope form. You can also send mail through Zumbox too. Zumbox mail can be sent to any street address in the United States.
However it seems like Zumbox is rolling out paperless mail on a city-by-city basis. They already support New York City, New York, Newark, New Jersey and San Francisco, California. And earlier this week Zumbox started to support Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“Zumbox helps the City of Minneapolis operate more efficiently while also opening a new channel of communication with residents,” stated Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak. “Now we can send and receive paperless letters and postcards from our residents via Zumbox. The time for this technology has certainly arrived, and we are excited to be among the first cities to adopt and integrate it.”
iMeem is a music and video streaming service that also has very popular applications on Facebook and MySpace. iMeem has over 50 employees working in San Francisco, California and the company started around November 2003. iMeem has close to $50 million in total funding since they started. Over 100 million people have used their service at some point and they have over 30 million registered users. Last year the company hired Montgomery and Co. to help find a buyer.
The reason why the acquisition hasn’t take place as of yet is because there is stakeholder approval pending. The amount for buying out the company is not expected to be high considering the amount of venture capital that iMeem had to take in for survival.
Once getting bought out, iMeem will more than likely be rolled into MySpace Music.
This past October many Sidekick users lost their data temporarily. This include contacts, pictures, downloads, etc. This led to several people suing Danger Inc., T-Mobile, and Microsoft Corporation (the owner of Danger). Since the time of that incident, Sidekicks were pulled from the shelves and were no longer being sold. This week Danger, T-Mobile, and Microsoft have started selling the Sidekick phones once again.
For those who were not able to access their data, T-Mobile offered them $100 gift cards. Sidekicks were slightly cheaper when they started selling again this week. The high-end LX model of the Sidekick was priced at $175, now it is priced at $175.
When a Sidekick’s battery dies, all personal data could be lost which is uncommon from many other phones. But Microsoft servers are able to restore that data. After the servers went down in October, any Sidekicks that had a dead battery had a higher chance of losing data.
Right Media was acquired by Yahoo! for $680 million in April 2007. Ever since then Yahoo! has not done much with the acquired company. Clearly former Right Media CEO Mike Walrath got fed up because he decided to quit Yahoo!
Walrath was the SVP of advertising strategy when he decided to quit. Walrath said that it was time to move on with his career and he was looking forward to taking time off and working with smaller and innovative companies. Bill Wise, another Right Media executive will be filling in for Walrath.
Wise said that Yahoo! is currently trying to rebrand Right Media to focus on higher quality display advertisers. “We always thought there would be a maturation phase where Right Media would move more up market and Carol (Bartz) has come in and accelerated the road map,” stated Wise.
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