Ooyala Brings Free, Live Coverage Of The Australian Open To The Web (For The First Time)

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Tennis anyone? You have to love this. Realtime event coverage startup Livestream recently brought commercial-free, streaming coverage of New Year’s Eve in Times Square to the Web. If you caught more than a few minutes of network TV coverage of NYE, you would have been subjected to the ungodly number (and frequency) of ads. Livestream’s commercial-free coverage was a welcome respite.

This morning, Ooyala, one of the biggest web video and analytics providers, is volleying back with some live coverage of its own. The startup has partnered with Tennis Australia (the governing body of tennis within Australia) to bring free live coverage of the first major tennis tournament of the year to people around the globe.

Interested viewers can click over to Australianopen.com to watch live matches from all seven courts, along with special features, highlights, and interviews. According to the Ooyala team, Tennis Australia chose the startup because of its ability to quickly integrate its digital solutions with a capacity for potentially millions of viewers. (This follows ESPN’s recent announcement that Ooyala is now powering all video on ESPN.com.)

Something else that’s kind of cool? This is the first time the Australian Open will be delivered online for free. However, unlike Livestream’s coverage of New Years Eve in Times Square, Ooyala’s live coverage will not be commercial-free. But, luckily, tennis fans won’t be headed for an onslaught of advertising, as Ooyala’s VP of Marketing, Allen Bush, told us that streams will have a 15-second preroll sponsored by Rolex — and are commercial-free thereafter.

Live, online viewing was available during the most recent Olympics, and it seems this is yet another example that the world’s largest sporting events are following suit. Hopefully, this will continue. Ooyala and others are proving to big media that this kind of action is good for business — and, more importantly, fans.

Now if they just orchestrate a Federer vs Nadal final …

Watch the action here.



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Social, Mobile Gifting Service Wrapp Raises $5M From Greylock And Atomico To Launch In The US And UK

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Wrapp, a social gifting service, has raised $5 million series A funding from Greylock Partners and Atomico, the VC firm formed by Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Skype, Kazaa and other companies. The startup had previously raised $5.5 million in funding from Atomico and Creandum. As part of the most recent round, Greylock partner and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman will be joining Zennström, and Creandum partner Johan Brenner on Wrapp’s board of directors.

Co-founded by Rebtel and SendIt founder Hjalmar Winbladh, Spotify founding CTO Andreas Ehn and others, Wrapp lets friends give, receive and redeem digital gift cards using mobile devices, and allows friends to contribute to gifts given by mutual friends. With Wrapp, which offers iPhone, Android and web apps, you sign in via your Facebook account, and you can then tap the Celebration tab on the app, browse your friends or major events, and select the person you want to send a gift card to. All available gift card offers for that friend are automatically listed.

You can then select the retailer and the gift card offer you want, write your celebration greeting, select a delivery date, enter payment details (if you’re contributing extra funds to a free gift card), and send the gift. Your friend will be notified and celebrated through Facebook and the Wrapp application. Merchants can actually specify the amounts they’d like to offer via the service, and target specific demographics of users with gift card options, which is something other online social gifting options don’t allow.

Wrapp is currently growing more than 30 percent week-over-week and is now working with more than
35 large and medium-sized merchants in Sweden including the country’s largest sporting goods retailer Stadium, Dixons Retail’s consumer electronics chain Elgiganten, Amazon’s LOVEFiLM.com, designer underwear brand Björn Borg, street fashion brand WeSC, and home improvement chain Clas Ohlson.

In December alone, Wrapp users used the service to buy 250,000 gift cards. And the app has gone viral, with 2 percent of all Facebook users in Sweden downloading the app. AFter three months live in Sweden, one percent of the Swedish population has interacted with Wrapp.

While gift cards is a massive, $100 billion industry, the market hasn’t really been disrupting with social and mobile technologies until now, says Hoffman. For Hoffman, who currently sits on six boards (out of a large number of investments), it’s impressive that he chose to take a board seat with Wrapp.

He explained to me that in commerce startups, there’s the challenge of how to solve the equation in retail of being good for consumers, merchants, and for the business. “If you solve all three, you have an interesting and transformative play,” he says. Hoffman adds that Wrapp solves all three of these problems.

First, the app allows consumers to easily send gifts to friends in groups or individually, for any occasion, and leverages mobile as well Second, on the merchant side, it provides an advertising platform as well as a way to bring people into brick and mortar (and online) stores. And merchants don’t have to spend anything unless consumers come in and purchase an item.

The ability to target to specific demographics is also part of the winning formula for Wrapp. While the conventional way to purchase gift cards is at retail stores at the checkout line, this platform allows retailers to access a variety of information about potential customers including gender, age, where they live, and more.

“This is inherently a very interesting viral play, with a pair of experienced entrepreneurs and an efficient way of helping both online and offline retailers,” Hoffman added.

Winbladh tells us the new funds will be used to launch the social gifting service this quarter in the U.S. and U.K., and to expand throughout Europe and additional major markets around the world later this year. “We’re here to build a global company and do something completely new with the online to offline market opportunity,” Winbladh says.

He says that the service is already in talks with a number of large online and big box retailers in the U.S. According to AllThingsD, Wrapp is looking to partner with retailers like Best Buy and Target at launch.

Wrapp’s service is certainly appealing from both consumer and merchant standpoint. Now more than ever, retailers need to be looking for compelling technology plays to help draw traffic both online and offline. Similar to the way that ShopKick is innovating on rewards for retailers, Wrapp could be the answer for gift cards.



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Chegg Launches Mobile Reader For Online Textbooks

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Having built, bought and partnered its way into the textbook distribution business, Chegg is launching a long-promised mobile web version today that lets readers easily read and mark up their textbooks. Of course the move is timed with Apple’s forthcoming announcement event (like Kno’s was), which based on everything everyone is hearing, has something to do with offering and/or creating digital textbooks.

But regardless of any potentially competitive plans, Chegg’s eTextbook Reader has been in the works since August, back when Leena wrote a preview of it. Built in HTML5 by the team from acquiree 3D3R, it provides all sorts of features that I wish I had available when I was in college last decade (at least as I saw them over a screencast).

On top of the basic functionality — letting you buy or rent textbooks to read via an internet-connecrted device — it includes a way to highlight and save text, write notes in the margins, write notes for any page, and view all of these annotations in an aggregated view. So you could read and mark up a chapter, and then go check out what you noted later on when you’re studying for a final.

Other features include a view of the passages that users have marked up the most, a tool for looking up definitions from Wiktionary and context from Wikipedia, and a way to ask questions drawn from the text you’re reading, and get answers back from the existing community of Chegg users.

Chief executive Dan Rosensweig emphasizes to me that HTML5 as a technology has been more than suitable for all of its requirements. Indeed, the look and feel of the app looked great from what I could see in the screencast and should be popular with the company’s 4.5 million users. But going that route also makes business sense, considering Amazon’s existing interest in the publishing interest, and Apple’s emerging one. Apple, according to the latest rumors, could be integrating some sort of textbook creation or distribution feature directly into its iBooks app.

More broadly, Chegg has syndication deals with five top textbook publishers, meaning that unlike some competitors it’s not getting sued by these content owners as a result of providing popular titles to students. That could prove to be a key part of how it differentiates itself on top of improvements like the reader today.

Screenshots below:



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6waves Lolapps Buys Mobile Games Developer Escalation Studios

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Social gaming company 6waves Lolapps (6L) this morning announced its acquisition of Dallas-based Escalation Studios, a mobile games development firm.

Three months ago, 6L already moved to buy Beijing-based social gaming company Smartron5, but apparently they felt there was still some mobile gaming expertise missing.

Explains Rex Ng, CEO of 6L, which was formed in July 2011 by merging the respective businesses of Lolapps and 6waves:

“We will double our business in 2012 and mobile will play a significant role in our growth on both the publishing and development sides of our business.”

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but 6L says the addition of Escalation Studios expands the company’s overall headcount to more than 210 employees worldwide.

Escalation Studios’ co-founders, Tom Mustaine and Marc Tardiff, will become Design Directors, while co-founder Shawn Green will become Director of Engineering for 6L.



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Alienware Releases The X51, A $699 Small Form Factor PC That Looks Like A Gaming Console

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The Alienware line just got a little brother, its Mac Mini if you will. The X51 is the gaming company’s smallest form factor desktop to date. But, since it’s an Alienware, it still packs plenty of gaming horsepower and customizable options.

Prices start out at $699 for the Core i3/Nvidia GT 545 but prices can quickly rise once different options are selected. For $1149 (sans a monitor) gamers can buy a system powered by a Core i7, 8GB of RAM and an Nvidia GTX 550. A 1TB hard drive, HDMI 1.4, WiFi, USB 3.0, a slot-loading DVD burner and digital 7.1 are standard options while a Blu-ray drive is available for a little more.

The X51 signals an interesting departure from the standard Alienware. The Dell brand has long unabashedly sold massive gaming beasts. The bigger the better. But the X51 shows that gamers are looking to smaller form factors. The Mini-ITX system isn’t as small as a Mac Mini, but is rather the size of a traditional desktop. This new system can be oriented vertically or sit on its side allowing it to go on a desk or fit in an entertainment system — that is, of course, if you want a glowing desktop under your HDTV.

Look for the X51 to start shipping next week.



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AmEx Puts $125M In And Partners With Chinese Mobile Payments Company Lianlian To License Serve

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American Express is making a significant move in the expansion of its digital wallet, Serve to international markets today. The credit card company is announcing the first global partnership for Serve with Lianlian Group, of of China’s leading mobile payments providers. Additionally, AmEx has also made an equity investment of $125 million in LianLian Pay.

For background, Serve integrates a variety of payment options into a single account that can be funded from a bank account, debit, credit or charge card. AmEx has landed a number of lucrative carrier partner deals for Serve in the U.S. but this is the first step towards expanding Serve’s technology into one of the fastest growing consumer markets in the world.

Amex has entered into an operating agreement with Lianlian Group which will allow Lianlian to license and use Serve in products and services it develops for its consumer and business customers in China. The Serve platform will help power a new Lianlian Group digital wallet that consumers can use to top up mobile phone minutes, pay bills and purchase products or services online.

Founded in 2004, Lianlian Group has served approximately 300 million mobile phone accounts. It operates a network of over 300,000 small business agents across China where customers can buy additional top up minutes on their mobile phones. A portion of that network also allows customers to purchase airline tickets, video gaming credits and utility bills.

Group President for Enterprise Growth for American Express Dan Schulman tells us in an interview that American Express has come to realize that in a lot of fast growing economies internationally, people move money in different ways and in order to enter these markets, the company has to think beyond just plastic cards and checks, and consider moving straight to mobile platforms.

With the Lianlian Group, AmEx gets access to a company that has partnered with 3 of the largest carriers in China, and served one-third of all Chinese mobile users through payments network infrastructure, he explains. So a Chinese consumer who was paying cash to get minutes can now load the Serve-powered Lianlian digital wallet and have the choice of digital commerce, paying bills via their mobile wallet, send peer-to-peer payments, buying more minutes and ringtones and more, says Schulman.

AmEx is generally predicting China to be a huge market for its mobile and digital payments products and is planning to open a new American Express’ Enterprise Growth Group office in Hangzhou, China. The China-based team will provide technical and consulting support to Lianlian Group on the Serve partnership, and the new outpost will be headed by Matthew Lee, President, Enterprise Growth, American Express, China.

With the mobile penetration in China, it’s no surprise that AmEx chose the market as its first global opportunity to expand Serve. AliPay is also playing in the space.

Another area where we’ll see Serve expand is on data. As Harshul Sanghi, American Express’ VP of Enterprise Growth Group, told us recently, the personalized experience is going to be key in providing the digital wallet that consumers flock to. Intent data, structured data and unstructured data will all play a part of delivering a personalized payments experience for Serve.

In terms of financial companies, American Express has been at the forefront of trying to expand their mobile and digital offerings beyond the credit card business. Besides carrier partnerships for Serve, AmEx has announced a number of recent partnerships in the payments space include Foursquare, Facebook and even Zynga for personalized deals. The company has also been acquiring payments technologies and will be doing more investing in the space with a new $100 million fund.



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A Step Forward? Bertelsmann & Others Back $100 Million Venture Fund For Innovative Education

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Just as (mobile) technology is bringing some exciting changes to the health industry, it’s simultaneously over in the classroom trying to save education before it’s too late. I’m not sure we’re even close to “too late”, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that, like the health industry, the educational system (and I don’t limit that to the U.S.) is broken.

Millions of young people are entering a system that just isn’t built to handle the diversity of learning styles — or the speed of innovation. Peter Thiel is right: Higher education is in a bubble. I’m not sure dropping/stopping out is the always the best answer, but the point remains.

The truth is that, while higher education may be in a bubble, most institutions are starved for cash. Whether they’re subject to the consequences of their own poor decisions or victims of an unkind global economy, (generally speaking) institutions are strapped for cash. California, for one has been struggling mightily, with funding for public education at an all time low last year.

Because of these funding limitations, institutions struggle to take big steps forward, with STEM initiatives, technology in the classroom, etc. It’s not just because they don’t want to change, but certainly fear does play a role. As this is the case, there’s been some blurring of lines between for-profit and non-profit institutions over the last few years, as universities and colleges try to figure out how to move forward. Patrick Gibbons advises startups to take their innovative products to entrepreneurial schools, like private schools, virtual schools, charter schools, home school networks or even directly to the students — essentially, for profit schools, hungry for enrollment.

In light of all this, I was intrigued by the news yesterday that some education veterans have launched something called the University Ventures Fund, a $100 million fund, which is essentially endeavoring to bring private capital to help colleges and universities push forward. Interestingly, while the fund has a whole mess of investors, German media giant Bertelsmann and the University of Texas Investment Management Company are the two largest investors.

The fund, which will make investments in about six projects, is looking to approach innovation from within rather than from the outside, partnering with “rather than competing against” (in their words) traditional institutions. The fund is partnering with a host of the top 30 colleges and universities to direct private capital into programs “that address major economic and social needs”, and University Ventures Fund Partner David Figuli told Inside Highered that all of these projects will look to take advantage of “technology-enabled innovations”.

And judging by one of its projects, Higher Education Online, part of that focus will be on distance learning, as the organization will be partnering with top European universities to bring undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs online (and market them) both in Europe and abroad.

Again, this is only part of the answer, but these public-private partnerships can certainly make some waves. Check out University Venture Funds’ announcement here.

What do you think?



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Calling The World: Vox.io Just Might Be The Next Euro Startup Sensation

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A European company by the name of Skype taught the world that enabling people to make free voice and video calls over the Internet would be an enticing offer to hundreds of millions of users, and make for a great business at the same time. Now, a Euro startup called Vox.io plans to challenge them by envisioning how digital telephony should work in 2012 and beyond.

They provide a simple tool that lets people make free calls to other vox.io users from their desktop browser, or their iPhone (app link). But vox.io is not your traditional VoIP service, and on the Web requires no downloads or installations of any kind.

The startup, which hails from Slovenia, stands out because it has built its service to fit nicely into the current Web ecosystem, moving away from plugins, desktop apps and the like, with modern real-time and mobile communication trends squarely in the back of founder Tomaž Štolfa’s mind. Notably, the software is also designed from the ground up to play nicely with other Web services, and even allow in-stream access to third-party content (think Flickr photos or YouTube videso) in the future, too.

This differs from the path chosen by the likes of Skype, Viber, fring, JAJAH and Rebtel, mind you.

The company also focuses on simplicity and great design, and doesn’t shy away from experimenting when it comes to the business model, which is always a tricky thing for a telephony startup.

When you sign up for its service, you’ll get a profile URL like vox.io/name, which will serve as the central point of contact with the ability to replace your one or more telephone number(s).

You can use the online tool to place voice and video calls to other users, or call regular local and international regular lines for a fee. I tested it, and the call quality was outstanding. Vox.io also supports group calls of up to 5 people, and lets you easily import and sync your existing contacts.

The company plans to generate revenue from calls to traditional telephony and the delivery of SMS messages. Calls from one vox.io user to another will always remain free, but the company says it is exploring different ways to move away from charging users for minutes – one of its ideas is charging for ‘disposable call links’ that could last for, say, 14 days rather than a single conversation.

Basically, such disposable links could be shared with people you’re not necessarily close with but need to speak to all the same, and they would stop working after the call. No more deciding between giving out your phone number or not, in other words. On top of that, a vox.io/name profile also fits nicely on business cards, email signatures and on social network bios, and can rapidly be shared over SMS, IM, calendar events and whatnot. It’s like Skype for the Web generation!

I realize I’m raving, but I’m excited about this startup for a good reason – you’ll see what I mean when you use vox.io yourself. There are obvious things missing (support for other mobile platforms, instant messaging, more payment options to purchase call credits and more) but it’s already a stunning product for such a young Slovenian company operating on fairly limited resources.

Vox.io is backed by angel investors and renowned European startup accelerator Seedcamp; the startup won the Mini Seedcamp London event in January 2011 and was justifiably selected as one of the top startups at Seedcamp Week 2011. If what I’ve been hearing through the grapevine is accurate, the company will soon be announcing a significant additional financing round, though.

Give the vox.io beta service a solid whirl and let us know what you think.



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Interactive Medias, Interview with Russ Haines of Eye Vapor and Touch Designer

So much is going on in the way of real time interactive software and animations that I find just trying to get a good understanding of all the possibilities inherent in the many programs on the market is daunting. As a freelance 3d artist/visual poet working with different companies, understanding the technology is important to me artistically as well as for employment. I am also a resident artist at Vortex Immersion – a company that among other things stages real time interactive and and immersive events in conjuncture with different artists and companies. For me the key is to stay calm and find the tools that work to create what I need. One very interesting tool I recently rediscovered is Touch Designer. Touch Designer put out by Derivative is a visual development platform that can be used to create real time and interactive media systems, as well as live music visuals.  When I first came across the software program Touch Designer in about 2002 or 2003, it was being primarily used to VJ. About 6 months ago I again came upon Touch in a demo being given at the Vortex Immersion Dome downtown in Los Angeles by Russ Haines of Eye Vapor.   Among other things the company Eye Vapor creates live interactive performances. In that particular demo Russ was interactively flying a spaceship around the Vortex Immersion dome. Eye Vapor has done some very impressive work. At a corporate show in Boston this past year they had set up real time graphics that viewers could interactively control using iPads.  For other events such as a musical event hosted by Yoko Ono at the Hollywood Bowl or the EMA event at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles they had dancers interacting with the on screen graphics, and sound being interactively controlled by visuals. At a Halloween event for Manguin No1 Absinthe they created live 3d stereo graphics.

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