New York Archives - Page 14 of 14

Huffington Post Co-Founder Has His Sights On CNN With New Startup

Ken Lerer, one of the co-founders of the Huffington Post has embarked on a new video startup. He is going to deliver the news via the web and has his eyes set on traditional tv cable news outlets like CNN and Fox News. According to AllthingsD’s Peter Kafka Lerer is looking to provide a news outlet for those who watch Jon Stewart, and a generation that consumes most of their media from the internet.

It’s obvious that people are moving to the web for news, and real time events especially when there are live events and breaking stories. That’s evidenced in a 20% upswing in NCAA tournament viewing online.

Lerer who, with co-founder Ariana Huffington, sold the news giant Huffington Post last year to AOL for over one million dollars. Of course the Huffington Post is a more traditional new media outlet.

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New “Fame” Game Could Get You A Whole Lotta Twitter Followers (For A Day?)

Adam Ludwin a Principal at RRE Ventures and some developer friends have created an interesting new game called “Fame”. The purpose is to raffle off Twitter followers. One lucky person each day will be followed by everyone who has entered the contest. According to their website as of the time of this posting the current pot of followers is 359 followers.

How does this work exactly? Well you login to the game at playfame.com with your Twitter account. You are then in the daily drawing along with everyone else who enters that day. Logging in gets you one chance to win that day. Tweeting about Fame gives you ten more entries per day, and if your Tweet gets more people to sign up, you get one raffle chance per new entrant that signs up using your link.

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New Startup Trendabl, An Instagram For Fashion, Enlists The Help Of Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen, Nicky Hilton and More

Olsen Twins, Olsen Twins Hot, Trendabl, Nibletz.com, TechCrunch, Sara Lacey

(photo: go4celebrity.com)

No the Olsen Twins and Nicky Hilton aren’t teaming up to announce a startup to find the hottest parties in town. They’re providing feeds for Jon Alagem’s new startup Trendabl.

Trendabl launched yesterday and is being likened to an Instagram for the fashion sect. Like Instagram, users can take photos, and upload and tag images on their free mobile app. They can also share pictures with filters too. However it’s all set around a fashion theme. Users can share their fashion feeds with other users or visit feeds of other users.

To launch Trendabl Alagem was able to recruit celebrities including; Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, Nicky Hilton, designer Michael Koors, Diane von Frustenberg, Barney’s New York and more. These celebrities, designers and upscale stores will provide their own feed of photos and fashions for users to enjoy.

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With Two Startups In The Program, New Health Focused “WellTech” Incubator Launches In New York

There’s a new startup incubator in New York City hoping to help launch new businesses in the health and wellness sector. The WellTech incubator is based in New York’s Gramercy neighborhood and is headed by Peter Ellis who is the CEO and one of the founders of SpaFinder the world’s largest spa and wellness resource.

Welltech is being financed by Ellis’ Jubilee Investments. Jubilee found it’s big success by being a first round investor in Gramercy One. Gramercy One offers cloud based business management solutions for over 5,800 spas, gyms and medical practices world wide. Gramercy One announced a $14.5 million dollar round of financing led by Steve Case’s Revolution Ventures, GroTech, TD Capital and Jubilee, last fall.

“The phenomenal success of SpaFinder and GramercyOne showed us that technology holds enormous potential for helping people lead healthier lives,” Ellis said. “New York City is home to some of the most creative innovators in both the technology and wellness sectors, and we look forward to working with them to take wellness-related technology and services to an exciting new level.”

Companies chosen to participate in the WellTech Incubator will receive $50,000 in seed capital to start their business, along with office space. They’ll also have access to GramercyOne and Spafinder executives for guidance and mentoring. There may also be future financing rounds in the cards from WellTech along with other introduced investors.

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Start Up Spotlight: Artsicle For Renting Beautiful Art

Artsicle founders Alexis Tryon & Scott Carleton (photo: business insider)

Throwing a cocktail party and want a nice piece of art for your home? Are you having an open house at the office? Do you need a couple of nice pieces of art for prospective investors to look at your office before you can afford to go out and purchase them? These are all great reasons to check out New York based artsicle.com

Artsicle’s got a cute little name for a company that provides beautiful pieces of art for all of their customers. Artsicle isn’t in the business of brokering 6 figure pieces, they rent out their art collection for as little as $25 per month.

Being New York based gives Artsicle the advantage of being connected to some of the top emerging artists. The company uses those connections to curate beautiful collections.

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Jessica Alba’s Baby Safe Start Up Honest.com Raises $27 Million From Top VCs

Yesterday we brought you a story about celebrities getting involved in the tech start up world. One name that wasn’t in yesterday’s story was Golden Globe nominated actress Jessica Alba. Alba has stared a company called “The Honest Company” which seeks to replace baby products laiden with harsh and untested chemicals, with natural products that are baby safe like diapers, household cleaners, soap, sunscreen, laundry detergent and even dishwasher gels.

Alba’s $27 million dollar round included investors have funded some of the biggest web start ups including Netflix, Twitter, Zynga and LivingSocial. It’s no wonder they’re prepared to get behind a company that offers something every new expecting family is going to want with a face everyone already knows.

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Ed Tech Start Ups Heating Up In New York

New York is a great city for start ups. There are a lot of hot marketing, web based and of course social discovery start ups out there. There are also a lot of culture start ups flourishing among the skyscraper of the concrete jungle where dreams are made of. Another important start up category is heating up in New York now as well. That category is Ed Tech, or Education Tech.

Douglas Crets, who works for Microsoft as the Developer Evangelist for the Bizspark program, founded the program, and then teamed up with Saad Alam CEO of citlighter, an online academic research tool, and came up with a new strategy to launch similar Ed Tech programs in Silicon Valley, L.A., Nairobi, Kenya and other countries.

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OMGPOP: Last Leap Of Faith Brought A Home Run

Although the financial details were off limits during Zynga’s conference call announcing the purchase of OMGPOP, the details were later revealed in a SEC filing which is a requirement for public companies like Zynga. As allthingsd and TechCrunch reported Zynga bought 100% of the outstanding stock of OMGPOP for $180 million dollars.

It’s been well documented, and it seems as if CEO Dan Porter has no bones about admitting it, before Draw Something, the future at OMGPOP was uncertain. They had received $16 million in funding over the previous four years, however as Betabeat reports their last round of funding before Draw Something was more of a hail mary round.

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Dan Porter: You Earned That Bump Like A Mother Fucker

One of OMGPOP's "The Wire" Inspired Meeting Rooms (photo: Business Insider)

Dan Porter the CEO of OMGPOP became a very wealthy man yesterday. After six years of producing games and the blockbuster hit Draw Something, OMGPOP hit the big time being acquired yesterday by Zynga.

During the press conference call yesterday Porter highlighted how Zynga got exactly what OMGPOP was doing with Draw Something. He also spoke about how Zynga would back their mission with future games. Porter will become the VP and General Manager of Zynga’s New York office.

Porter shot up in my book ten fold today when I read this walk through of OMGPOP’s offices in Business Insider. With Jason Kincaid gone from TechCrunch it’s hard to find segments like TechCrunch Cribs anymore.

Of course the news of the OMGPOP Zynga merger made the office tour piece a goto piece today. But what I found out when I viewed the story is that Porter has had all of their meeting spaces named after the hit HBO drama “The Wire”

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