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LiveOps Raises Another $30M, Acquires UserEvents To Expand Its Cloud Contact Center Platform
Jan 27, 1:18PM
LiveOps, an early mover in the area of cloud-based enterprise services — focusing specifically on contact center and customer service — is today announcing a $30 million round of funding; the creation of a new subsidiary structure, LiveOps Cloud Platform and LiveOps Agent Services; and a new acquisition — UserEvents — to help fill it out. The $30 million, in debt funding coming entirely from Comerica Bank, is the largest-ever round raised by LiveOps and points to the growing interest that enterprise cloud services continue see among both users and investors; and to how LiveOps, which has been around since 2001 but last raised money as far back as 2007, is moving to take advantage of that. The company has now raised $81 million to date, with previous investors including Menlo Ventures, Benchmark, Scott Banister and LiveOps’ former CEO Bill Trenchard (who is now a partner at First Round Capital). LiveOps Agent Services will be the division of the company that will focus on its outsourcing business. This comprises 20,000 independent agents who work from home to hand some 70 million interactions a year, currently for over 250 clients. I’m still trying to nail this down but it looks like UserEvents is LiveOps’ first acquisition, although it has made strategic investments in other companies, such as participating in a $500,000 seed investment for app maker Zappli. Part of the reason for buying UserEvents — and its main product CxEngage — is to expand the services that it offers to enterprises on the LiveOps platform: like other enterprise focused IT companies, adding more services increases the touchpoints that it can have with customers. In this case, CxEngage is a contextual routing engine that is able to aggregate and process customer feedback from different channels such as social, web, mobile and voice calls, and then present this to an enterprise in real time to help either with customer calls and also with larger strategic decisions. It sounds like this will become part of new LiveOps Cloud Platform subsidiary. “LiveOps has quietly disrupted industry and brand expectations for customer experience management,” said Marty Beard, chairman and CEO, LiveOps, in a statement. “With this acquisition we are further challenging old ways of doing business. It is no longer enough to measure customer satisfaction for each channel separately. Consumers shift between channels, and contact centers must adapt to better manage these fragmented interactions across voice,Samsung Said To Be Planning 'Galaxy Glass' Computing Eyeware This Fall
Jan 27, 12:56PM
Samsung was early to market with a smartwatch in the Galaxy Gear, and now it looks like it might be one of the first in the mix with a glasses-based computing device. A new report from the Korea Times (via Verge) suggests that Samsung is currently developing a Google Glass competitor, which is in fact provisionally named “Galaxy Glass,” set for launch in September at the annual IFA tech conference. Google has yet to put a firm timeline on the consumer launch of its own Google Glass wearable computer, which is available to developers and early adopters via Google’s ‘Explorer’ program. Some reports had suggested a general launch for late 2013, but then later information from Google revised the release timeline to sometime in 2014. Samsung could conceivably beat Google to the punch, but as we saw with the Galaxy Gear, that’s not necessarily a good thing. The Gear was likewise telegraphed before its actual launch, with Samsung coming right out and admitting the device was on the way at IFA. This time around, there’s no named source discussing the device, but the Korea Times does quote a Samsung official as saying that the potential in the market is huge, and that Samsung is very interested in getting a first-mover advantage in the space. As for what Samsung Glass would do, it sounds like it would essentially provide a basic heads-up display for your smartphone on your face, pushing notifications, music playback information and basic controls to the lens of a head-mounted display. Samsung getting in among the early crop of device-makers hoping to ride this trend is in keeping with its recent strategy, which seems to be one of putting everything they can out as a shipping product. It’s a plan that gets them lots of props as a company eager to pursue innovation and drive new product development, but the first-mover advantage has only questionable use value if these first generation products keep failing to impress. Both the smartwatch and the eyeware-based computing models are interesting because OEMs seem to be pursuing them fairly aggressively without any evidence that this is a direction consumers necessarily are interested in. We’ll apparently see in September if Samsung has managed to build a face computer that moves the tech forward, however.Samsung & Ericsson End Long-Running Patent Dispute With New Licensing Deal
Jan 27, 11:37AM
Samsung has secured another front against patent attack by shelling out to renew an IP-licensing deal with Ericsson -- settling pending litigation attached to the long-running dispute.Berlin's CloudPartner Secures $2M To Offer 'USA-free' Cloud Hosting To German SMBs
Jan 27, 10:02AM
In a sign that some Russian investors are spreading their wings, Berlin-based startup CloudPartner - which claims to be Germany´s first Microsoft based White-Label-Cloud - has secured a €1.5 million ($US 2 million) Series A round from Moscow-based Runa Capital. Their angle? Non US-based cloud hosting.Nielsen: Internet Advertising Grew 32% In 2013, But It's Still Only 4.5% Of Spend Vs. TV At 57.6%
Jan 27, 8:55AM
Nielsen put out its latest figures on the state of the advertising market this morning, and Internet advertising continues to be the fastest-growing medium, but it remains a small player. Global advertising across the web, mobile internet and apps collectively grew by 32.4% in 2013 -- by far the biggest leap of any media -- but that still worked out to a 4.5% share of the overall spend in ads. In contrast, television grew only 4.3% but remains the behemoth when it comes to ad spend, taking nearly 58% of the market.How Cryptocurrency, Crowdfunding And A Little Internet Altruism Saved Jamaica's Hopes For Bobsled Gold
Jan 27, 7:45AM
Just in case you missed it, a heart-warming story unfolded this week involving an unlikely combination of bobsled, Jamaica, virtual currency, crowdfunding and generosity. It has all the makings of an inspiring Disney movie — er, an inspiring Disney sequel. Last Sunday, news began trickling out that a two-man bobsled team from the island nation of Jamaica had qualified for the Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. The country’s official Twitter account for the 2014 games announced the news that the team had qualified, including an image that appeared to be a reference to Cool Runnings, the John Candy-led cult film that loosely chronicled Jamaica’s debut in bobsled for the 1988 Olympic Games in Alberta, Canada. The world apparently loves a sequel. In a plot twist seemingly right out of Cool Runnings, despite qualifying for the 2014 Olympics, team captain Winston Watts told the New York Times that the team hadn’t been able to raise the necessary funds to make it to Russia. Watts said that he had essentially been self-funding the team’s efforts thus far, and had even dug into his personal savings to fly the team to the U.S. for the bobsledding qualifiers. Nevertheless, after finding little help from the Jamaican Olympic Association or private investors, the team was forced to turn elsewhere. In the world of bobsled, and perhaps sports in general, there has never been a more quintessential underdog story. First of all, the Jamaican bobsled team is from, well, Jamaica. Second, the team is competing against teams with significant some financial backing (and actually hail from more arctic climes). Not only that, Winston Watts came out of retirement to lead the 2014 bobsled team, and if the team were to compete in Sochi, Watts would be second-oldest bobsled pilot in Olympic history at age 46. Luckily, the citizens of the Internet are sympathetic to an underdog story and were not about to let the team sit this one out due to lack of funding. And that’s when Jamaican bobsledding had its first introduction to the altruistic power of both virtual currency and digital crowdfunding proponents alike. Fittingly, it was a joke currency — or a virtual currency inspired by a dog meme — that came to the rescue. Yes, the very peer-to-peer cryptocurrency loved by Lassie, the world’s pooches and geeks alike, and the very currency that began as a joke but has since been hailedPopular Political Writer Ezra Klein Announces Move From Washington Post To Vox Media
Jan 27, 5:50AM
The political blogosphere lit up earlier today when 29-year-old Ezra Klein announced he was leaving The Washington Post to build his own news site with Vox Media (publishers of The Verge and SB Nation). Klein quickly rose to fame in policy circles with his explainer approach to wonky policy topics and eventually grew his own team on The Post’s “Wonkblog” channel. But, tensions grew into impasse after the The Post’s leadership, including new owner Jeff Bezos, rejected Klein’s plan for a new media venture, which reportedly cost somewhere in the eight-figure range. According to Klein in a post on The Verge, his unnamed media venture will focus on explanatory journalism and somehow be a clearinghouse for information on new topics. The venture’s job-announcement webpage on Vox explains its mission: “We’ll have regular coverage of everything from tax policy to True Detective, but instead of letting that reporting gather dust in an archive, we’ll use it to build and continuously update a comprehensive set of explainers of the topics we cover. We want to create the single best resources for news consumers anywhere.” Klein further explained to The New York Times, “We really wanted to build something from the ground up that helps people understand the news better. We are not just trying to scale Wonkblog, we want to improve the technology of news, and Vox has a vision of how to solve some of that.” The one notable product that Klein built while at the Post was “Know More,” a scrollable, graph-friendly newsfeed that encouraged users to click deeper into explanations and explore their curiosity. Presumably, Klein will be building out more sophisticated versions of this product which allows readers to learn as much as they want about a topic, rather than trying to squeeze all the necessary information into the story itself, or scattered links. It’s also unknown how Klein’s “Project X” will cooperate with Vox media’s other properties, most notable, The Verge. Over the past year, The Verge has quickly expanded from tech to general news, including live coverage of the Grammy’s tonight. If Klein does, indeed, create a successful venture, it will be the second missed opportunity for The Post. The founders of Politico first proposed their hyper-political blog site to the Post before starting what is now essential reading on Capitol Hill. There was hope that when Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post that he would inject so much neededPricePanda Raises $3M From German Retail Group Tengelmann
Jan 27, 3:54AM
PricePanda, the Rocket Internet-backed price comparison site, has raised $3 million in new funding from the German retail major Tengelmann Group. This new funding will be used to expand PricePanda in other South Asian markets, the company said. Rocket Internet and AB Kinnevik are among existing investors of PricePanda. E-commerce is booming in Asia, especially with more first time Internet users shopping on their mobile phones. Many of them are increasingly turning to sites such as PricePanda that helps them compare prices of different products available on the e-commerce sites. Since it was launched in 2012, PricePanda has redirected 1 million users to buy online from other partner sites. Earlier this month, when PricePanda announced redirecting 1 million users to partner sites, the startup’s co-founder Christian Schiller said the growth of mobile commerce in South East Asia was the key. “This year, we can expect to scale rapidly and reach further milestones. And converting 1M people to our partner shops is just the beginning,” Schiller had said. “One and a half years later we can say: we made it. With more than 70,000 products and 1M people redirected to other stores’ websites, we have already gained a strong competitive edge in South East Asia,” Schiller added. PricePanda did not share the total funding received before raising the latest capital from Tengelmann. But according to this story in TechCrunch, PricaPanda was rumored to be backed with $12.8 million when it was launched in 2012.Google Acquires Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind For More Than $500M
Jan 27, 1:20AM
Google will pay $400 million to buy London-based artificial intelligence company DeepMind. The deal, but not the exact price, was confirmed to Re/code by Google. We've emailed Google and DeepMind for comment.Kantar: Android Accounted 70% Of Smartphone Sales In Q4, But Samsung Is Now "Under Real Pressure"
Jan 27, 12:05AM
Android continues to be the most popular mobile platform, with its share of smartphone sales climbing in every major market in Q4 2013, now accounting for 69.5% of all sales across 12 key markets versus 23.7% for number-two Apple, according to figures out today from Kantar Worldpanel, a market research subsidiary of WPP. But the story is shifting when it comes to looking at what the engine is behind that growth.Fly Or Die: Fitbit Force
Jan 26, 11:00PM
Personal fitness trackers and sleep trackers are officially mainstream, but deciding between the various devices out there can be tough. That said, let me direct your attention to the Fitbit Force, the latest and most full-featured product from the quantified self makers.Microsoft's Latest Windows Phone Update Sees Paced Uptake
Jan 26, 10:46PM
This weekend AdDuplex, an advertising platform for Windows applications, announced that according to its tracked data, Windows Phone Update 3 is now installed on 15 percent of Windows Phone 8 handsets.What Games Are: Generation Gygax
Jan 26, 10:00PM
There is probably no single game that has been so influential for a generation as Dungeons and Dragons. On this, its 40th anniversary, I find myself asking whether the long-term legacy of D&D is one that will endure for all time, or whether it's a generational thing. Will the ideas that inspired my generation of designers translate for the next generation, or will they be left behind?Samsung And Google Bury The Apple Hatchet, Sign 10-Year Patent Agreement
Jan 26, 9:21PM
Some breaking news in the patent world. Samsung, the world's biggest handset maker, has announced that it has signed a 10-year patent deal with Google, the maker of Android, the world's biggest mobile operating system, covering all current and future technology patents. The deal will bolster both Samsung and Google's patent positions against Apple, and also makes clear that even if Samsung potentially starts to look at ways of breaking away from Android for more control of a mobile platform of its own, it will continue to coooperate with Google.Read The Sonnet Co-Authored By Shakespeare, An MIT PhD Student & A Machine-Learning Algorithm
Jan 26, 8:00PM
Machine-learning as a technology is, without doubt, the force that will be shaping our digital world for years and years to come, making it smarter and more autonomous, and sometimes taking our breath away in the process with its apparent agency.Imaginism Studios On Building Niko And The Sword Of Light, Reimagining Digital Narrative
Jan 26, 7:00PM
Back in February 2013, Toronto's Imaginism Studios launched an ambitious crowdfunding campaign for a new type of app that combined full-scale animation and comic books for a novel, mobile-device-oriented kind of storytelling. Niko and the Sword of Light is the app that was built using the funds from the successful Kickstarter campaign, and it earned a featured spot on Apple's App Store as well as strong global download numbers on iOS, Android and the Amazon Appstore.Enterprise Mobility: Devices, Security, Design, And Distribution
Jan 26, 6:00PM
Every Sunday for this column, I write on something related to mobile. To date, it's mostly been about consumer-facing apps, device sensors, user interfaces, tactics like push notifications, and a range of other topics. However, I have yet to dig into mobile for more business-facing, enterprise-oriented users and considerations. That's partly because I do not work at a large company nor too closely with others. Yet recently, in some of my conversations, the topic of mobile apps for enterprise environments has resurfaced. In 2013, I also moderated a panel at a mobile event organized by Emergence Capital, a venture capital firm which focuses on SaaS and created this chart on different type of enterprise apps. While much has been written on the topic, I wanted to write this post with few or no assumptions, from first-principles, and share my thought process about what founders and investors could look for in these kinds of mobile products. Mostly, however, I'd like to learn from you all about what it will take to win in these environments, so please comment or tweet or reach out to me with your thoughts.
Funny, I Don't Feel All That Fatigued With Twitter
Jan 26, 5:00PM
Everyone seems to be talking about New York Times reporter Jenna Wortham's piece reflecting on her "newfound fatigue" with Twitter. Basically, Wortham uses the all the Twitter discussion around Justin Bieber's arrest as a springboard for a broader argument about how the service has become less about finding useful, relevant information and more about competing for attention. As you'd expect, the piece saw its share of praise and criticism. The most common critique seems to be some variant of, "Dude, just unfollow people who are annoying" but as Wortham and others have noted, that's easier said than done, because it can be embarrassing or awkward to unfollow someone, even if you're really tired of their tweets.Data As A Company's Secret Weapon
Jan 26, 7:00AM
This year, we're going to see data go from an opaque, untapped, and mystifying asset to a hyper competitive, I-can't-believe-you-don't-use-it weapon for businesses. I don't mean big data; I mean data of any size: big, medium, and small. In fact, it's not about the amount of data, it's about the kind of data you have (and, of course, being smart enough to use it). This is all starting to happen because software is being built specifically to analyze lots of data – and it's no longer cost-prohibitive to use this software, and the insights can fundamentally change the trajectory of your business.The Secrets To Snapchat's Success: Connectivity, Easy Media Creation, And Ephemerality
Jan 26, 2:09AM
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel has been known to be pretty quiet when it comes to sharing secrets about how the company works, but today he provided a little more transparency around its mission and how it thinks about the communications that users send through the app.If at any time you'd like to stop receiving these messages, just send an email to feeds_feedburner_com_techcrunch+unsubscribe-hmdtechnology=gmail.com@mail.feed2email.net.
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