Monday, March 25, 2013


Nirvanix Steals Away Zynga CIO
San Diego-based Nirvanix, the cloud storage service operator, has snagged the current CIO of Zynga as its new CEO, according to the company Monday. Debra Chrapaty, who formerly was CIO of Zynga, also served at Cisco as SVP of its Collaboration Software Group, in addition to working at Microsoft and E*TRADE Technologies. Current CEO Dru Borden will become Senior Vice President Planning and Development, and will remain on the company's board of directors. Nirvanix is venture backed by Khosla Ventu (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 25, 2013(Full story)

BuzzMedia Becomes SpinMedia
Los Angeles-based online entertainment, music, and advertising firm BuzzMedia is no more: it's just rebranded itself SpinMedia. The publisher, which owns such brands as Celebuzz, Sterogeom, Idolator, JustJared, and many other music-related sites, acquired longtime music magazine Spin back in July of last year. BuzzMedia started its life as BuzzNet. The firm is venture backed by Anthem Ventures, Focus Ventures, Interscope, New Enterprise Associates, Redpoint Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, and Un (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 25, 2013(Full story)

Amazon Studios Greenlights Pilot From Sony Pictures Television
Amazon Studios, the original content development arm of e-commerce giant Amazon, said today that it has greenlighted a new pilot series, from Sony Pictures Television. Amazon--which has been getting into the business of content in a big way, with its own, Los Angeles production studio and multiple efforts to develop its own content and series--said that the cult film Zombieland has gone into pilot production, which will be made available for free on Amazon Instant Video and LOVEFiLM UK. Amazon s (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 25, 2013(Full story)

Tekelec Acquired By Oracle
Tekelec, a developer of telecommunications switching equipment which had its roots in Southern California, has been acquired by Oracle, Oracle announced this morning. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Tekelec had started in Southern California back in 1978, and had been a onetime technology darling when it had its IPO back in 1986. The firm, which was then based in Calabasas, moved out of the area in 2005, taking with it hundreds of jobs. The firm has since been in Morrisville, Nort (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 25, 2013(Full story)

Sky Dayton Scores Exit At WiFiSlam
Sky Dayton, the founder of Boingo Wireless, has just scored an exit at one of his angel investments--WiFiSlam, which was just acquired by Apple on Friday. Apple confirmed the acquisition of WiFiSlam, a developer of indoor, geo-location technology for smartphones, this morning. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed, but the acquisition of WiFiSlam has been reported to be worth $20M by a number of sources. Sky Dayton is an advisor to WiFiSlam, and one of the initial seed investors in the f (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 25, 2013(Full story)

Brand Affinity Technologies Ties With Los Angeles Angels
Irvine-based Brand Affinity Technologies announced last week that it is in a partnership with the Los Angeles Angels. According to Brand Affinity Technologies, it will provide a "fan photography service" for the angels and fans. Brand Affinity Technologies says the deal involves placing its photographers on-site to capture photos of attendees, and allowing those attendees to view, download, and share photos of themselves after the game from a website. Financial details of the deal were not discl (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 25, 2013(Full story)

Webalo Links With Consulting Firm
Los Angeles-based enterprise mobility software developer Webalo said last week that it has linked with ProConversions Corporation, a Connecticut-based management consulting firm. According to Webalo, ProConversions will offer up its cloud-based, self-service enterprise mobility platform to its customers. ProCOnversions serves customers in the Northeast U.S. Webalo said it service will help ProConversions offer its customers a way to create and deploy mobile, bi-directional access to enterprise a (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 25, 2013(Full story)

Warner Bros. Sets Up Videogame Studio In San Francisco
Burbank-based Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment said Friday that it has set up shop in San Francisco, and has created a new, digital video game studio there called WB Games San Francisco. Warner said the new studio will focus on free-to-play, mobile, social, and browser-based gmaes. Warner explained that the new studio will be led by Greg Ballard. The new studio will oversee publishing of all of the mobile games developed by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and will be colocated with (More info...)
posted on Monday, March 25, 2013(Full story)

Infinitely Virtual Completes Data Center Move
Santa Monica-based virtual server and cloud computing provider Infinitely Virtual announced this morning that it has completes its move of its backup data center from San Diego to Boston. The firm had announced the move in January. The company also said it will begin building a primary hosting facility in Boston, which it says will support customers in mid-summer. Infinitely Virtual provides virtual servers for the small and midsize business market.
posted on Monday, March 25, 2013(Full story)