PBWiki too likes SMBs

By Vivek | August 30th, 2007 at 03:50 pm ET         

Collaboration startups launched last year are finally cutting down the steam on targeting individual users. Instead SMBs are getting more focus, since they will more likely pay for the services that are totally painless to better utilize their small resource set. To that effect, PBWiki is the second startup(can’t mention the other one as yet) that I heard about today offering targeted services for SMB users.

The Small Business Edition from PBWiki launched today includes 10GB of storage space. In future, this edition will get individual user accounts with full edit accountability, group management, page-level access, and template support. This bound go wean away few companies from going the Mediawiki route for the need of  more control over their collaboration space.

Earlier:
peanuts+butter for Numsum
PBwiki snaps up Schtuff.com
Like I said, pbWiki raises $2 million
pbWiki traffic climbs; Launches plugin support

ThoughtFarmer - Another Enterprise Wiki App

By Vivek | August 30th, 2007 at 03:17 pm ET         

ThoughtFarmer is another behind-the-firewall Wiki software, just in case you or your company was looking for more options. Companies already offering similar download able wiki software include Blogtronix, SocialText, Atlassian, JiveSoftware(review), MindTouch(review), Dokuwiki, and most used of all - MediaWiki.

Feature list looks pretty comprehensive with ability to have conversations, tagging, upload photos, create comprehensive PDFs, integrate RSS feeds, and much more. The software is designed to easily support 100 or more users. However the ThoughtFarmer is resorting to old sales techniques by requiring customers to call and get price quotes. Besides that, the system requirement of Windows Server 2000 or Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or 2005 is the first I have come across in the recent history.

DoctorsDirect.com becomes Xoova

By Vivek | August 30th, 2007 at 02:47 pm ET     1 Comment »    

Although I haven’t gotten around the reason for the name change, but DoctorsDirect.com that had launched last year and had been written about at StartupSquad.com is now Xoova. For those not following the startup, Xoova is led by Tommy McGloin who had previously headed MapQuest and had raised Series A from Spark Capital worth $2.5 million last year.

Just like bunch of sites coming up quickly out there in the healthcare space, Xoova offers a social+search experience for doctors and patients. Doctors get to post their profiles, while consumers get to search across this information. Xoova claims to have a database of 500k physicians out of which 20K have been updated by doctors till date.

CarePilot(review), FindYourDoc(review), PatientsLikeMe(review), Sermo(review), Vimo, HealthCare, RevolutionHealth are just some of the other startups in this space.

Finam invests in Alawar - in the far side of world

By Vivek | August 30th, 2007 at 02:30 pm ET         

We just heard that Finam Investment Holding, an investment firm in Russia, has acquired a minority stake in Alawar Entertainment, Inc. Alawar play is in one of the fastest emerging markets - casual gaming. The rumored pre-money value of Alawar was $8 million.

With the money in it’s coffers, Alawar will be looking to acquire core assets to create high-quality casual games, better distribution and like everyone else out there, implement in-game advertising. In the past year, Alawar has added two external casual game developers, now Alawar DreamDale and Alawar Stargaze, to its portfolio.

Related:
Knibble = Casual gaming + Wii Internet channel

GCN- delivers personalization to Grocery Shopping

By Vivek | August 30th, 2007 at 12:39 pm ET     1 Comment »    

With audio+video markets getting saturated with more than what we can consumer Personalization and recommendation options, entrepreneurs are hitting new market areas now. Early today Grocery Shopping Network disclosed that it has raised close to $7 million in funding. The funding round was led by VantagePoint Venture Partners.

GSN enabled personalization comes via the retailers utilizing the proprietary technology integrated into their online shopping sites. Once setup, consumers will “get to review all items on sale,  access and save recipes for the items they plan to purchase, and utilize the many discount offers made available by brand manufacturers.”

While the application of personalization might be new to this space, but who really does grocery shopping online? With all the promises of online e-commerce reaching out to all parts of our shopping list having come and gone in the past 10 years, and all along never really touched grocery side of things ’cause of obvious reasons, it makes me doubt about their strategy. As compared to this, GlobalRoads is heading in a much more lucrative direction.