elveston priory

This late breaking news comes out of the NewTeeVee conference: GigaOmni Media, the group behind NewTeeVee and GigaOM has raised an undisclosed amount over $1 million in its second round of funding. Providers of the current round are previous investor True Ventures, and a few other undisclosed angels.

With five blogs and multiple events this year that are presumably in the black, many of us are asking exactly what it is that all this cash is going to fund? Our guess is most of it is earmarked to pay off that plasma screen TV that Owen Thomas of ValleyWag knocked over earlier this evening.

[via PaidContent]

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here

TeamPages, a niche online social network start-up out of Victoria, BC today announces their Series A round of financing, as led by Burda Digital Ventures, and several local angel investors. The amount invested has not been disclosed, but was to be directed towards growing the team, upgrading the look and feel of the site, and “really expand the marketing efforts,” according to CEO and founder Mike Tan.

eamPages bills itself as “an online social network for parents, coaches, and athletes of sports teams that helps all participants stay in touch with each other and keep up to date with the team’s schedule of games and events.” I took a look at the service, and it lives up to its promises, and has a fairly complex system in place for everything from communication to scheduling to even statistical tracking. It’s a great system.

I get the feeling, though, that calling it a social network is a bit of a misnomer. Perhaps it is just me, and my social networking fatigue, or perhaps the feeling is actually pervasive to everyone else, but but I take a deep breath and sigh every time I see a new one pop up. It’s not that I don’t enjoy writing about the space, but there is so much stuff popping up these days being passed off as the next big thing in social networking, when it’s really just an incrementally better solution than the last one.

All that to say that in a different time where social networking wasn’t the marketing term du jour, this tool called TeamPages would have just been called an great online software solution for solving the organization nightmare that kids sports can sometimes be. Perhaps some of the cash they’ve raised for marketing the product will go towards dialing back their buzzword compliance a notch or two. I think it might help them in the end.

Bottom line, though: If you’ve been roped into putting together a sports league of some kind, then check out TeamPages. It’ll help.

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here

If you’re in any way involved with the legal process, prepare to be excited.  All others may commence groaning.

Thanks to the fine folks at Public.Resource.Org and Fastcase, 1.8 million pages of federal case law are now freely available under a Creative Commons license.  This includes all Supreme Court decisions since 1754, and all Appeals Court decisions from 1950 to present.

It’s not exactly what I’d call enthralling reading, but next time you’re in a tough spot legally, and you don’t want to spring the gazillion bucks an hour for a lawyer, now you won’t have to head down to the nearest university so you can piggyback their access to Lexis Nexus.  Just head on over to Public.Resource.Org.

In addition to having the scans and raw text of these documents, the Public.Resource team also is endeavoring to convert the documents to Wiki, as well as implement a slightly social ratings (or Digg) style feature to it (boy, that has to be exciting work).

I wonder of the Ron Paul brigade will migrate from Digg over to the legal archive social network?  Ron Paul’s a big fan of the Constitution, right?

[via Public.Resource]

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here

MashMeet Chicago is a mere 2 weeks away, but Mashable Readers in DC shouldn’t forget that there’s an event coming up in their backyard on December 7th - join the MashMeet DC group to network before the event. I’d like to thank the sponsors for their help - Clearspring, Mixx, Feedhaus, AmnestyWidgets and Searchles (see below).

Reminder of details:

Who? Mashable Editor Adam Ostrow, Mashable Community Director Adam Hirsch, Mashable readers and new startups

Where? MEZÈ, 2437 18th St. NW, Washington, DC

When? 7:00 - 10:00 PM, December 7th 2007

Dress? Informal

RSVP Required? Nope

You can also find the details of this event at:

My Mashable MashMeet DC Group
Meetup.com
Facebook Event through Facebook Page
Upcoming (more…)

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here

Nethooks is an upcoming social network for professionals. At first glance there isn’t much different from LinkedIn. But after spending some time on the site, you begin to notice some differentiating features. One unique feature I noticed is the ability to create multiple pages about you, and set the privacy on each page. This means a couple of things.

First, it means that all of your information, from your resume to your current work profile, aren’t mushed onto one page. Second, it means that you can promote various aspects of your professional career to different people. This concept of pushing targeted profiles, or granting access to specialized profiles, lets you operate under different “hats” within the same network. All in the sake of privacy. Ahh.

Because of these established privacy options, Nethooks can allow for a bit more personal information to shine through, more so than is allowed on LinkedIn. Upload images, and leave comments on others’ personal profiles. Another helpful feature is the Sample Works option, which looks to directly leverage an online network for the promotion of your work. This is a feature typically found on portfolio sites for creatives, but it can be taken advantage of for any profession. Upload your thesis, sample code, blue prints, etc.

There’s also the ability to screen contacts, by letting you ask questions of a user before they can contact you. This is somewhat like the necessity of knowing someone’s first and/or last name as well as their email address prior to sending you a friend request, but this is a bit more tailored to you,as you get to select some of the questions .

Can it Stand Up to LinkedIn?

While all of these are useful features, it may not be enough to really take on LinkedIn or Xing. Nethooks has indicated its plans for creating Facebook and OpenSocial applications, which could very much help target its core user base. However, it may still have some trouble gaining traction, as Facebook incorporates more useful and realistic networking options for getting on in life, such as the ability to apply for college. It’s clear that Facebook is layering in many unique and direct features that other services build on from Facebook’s networks.

Nevertheless, Nethooks’ great privacy features may be very appealing to users, especially as the necessity for multi-faceted profiles increases with maturing social network users and an overabundance of personal information floating across the web. Tying in Facebook users, who already enjoy a good set of privacy options for profiles, Nethooks could eventually use its Facebook app in order to convert a good amount of users.

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here