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Content Tagged SoonR
SoonR Raises $9.5M from Cisco, Bringing Total Funding to $15.5M
SoonR, a backup service focused on enabling access to your files from mobile devices, has raised $9.5M from Cisco Systems in a Series B round of financing. This brings the total funding for this two-year-old company up to $15.5M.
SoonR synchs your files to cloud storage via a downloadable client that runs in the background of both Macs and PCs. When you’re on the go, you can access these files with the web browser in your mobile phone. While the user interface served up will be tailored to the capabilities of your phone, the functionality will always be the same; you can view, print, share, and fax files. You can also a browse backup copies of your emails and talk on Skype.
In September 2006, we wrote about how SoonR had partnered with WebEx (since bought by Cisco for $3.2 billion) so that WebEx conferences could be accessed via SoonR on the mobile. This recent round of funding should help forge even greater connections between SoonR and Cisco’s technologies.
If you’re an American, you would be forgiven for not having heard of SoonR since the company has primarily sought user adoption in Europe. It has partnered with many European carriers such as TeliaSonera of Denmark. CEO Patrick McVeigh says that European carriers are more willing to adopt features like SoonR because there is more competition among them, and issues like coverage - a major topic of advertising here in the states - have already been solved. He expects the United States to reach the point of where Europe is currently at in this respect by around 2009.
You can sign up for a free version of SoonR through its website, but you’ll have to pay a premium through a carrier if you want more than 100mb of storage. McVeigh says that despite SoonR’s focus on the mobile access of files, 60 to 80% of usage is still through the PC browser, suggesting that it serves as a decent all-purpose backup solution as well.
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Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
4 bits from Web 2.0 Expo
There is nothing I can say about the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco that hasn’t already been said before. And if you didn’t read it, then you perhaps watched it live. Here are some news snippets that you might be worth your time, and need further exploration.
- Mixercast is a new service allows you to remix your photos and videos and present them as a hybrid show - that is more than a pure slide show and less than a full blown video. Inspired by the photocasting concept popularized by Apple, it is a lush, rich and attractive service that allows you to mix-and-match photos and videos on your desktop with those on popular web services such as Flickr and YouTube. Trust me - they will make your photos and videos look like a million bucks. A full review when the Web 2.0 Expo madness ends.
- Tomorrow you will get to hear about Gaia Online, which is one of the fastest growing teen hangouts on the web. It is not for readers of this blog, but it has more stickiness than MySpace and is growing at a break neck speed. Its like Second Life, but with many millions of users who are living in this metaverse.
- Tellme is going to offer search via text, voice and data on your mobile phones, starting tomorrow.
- SoonR is now able to offer access to your Mac and PC via the browser on Nokia’s S60 version 3 devices starting tomorrow.
- For everything else, read Steve Rubel’s post.
WebEX to go mobile with SoonR
Web conferencing giant WebEX and mobile/PC connecting startup SoonR announced tonight that they have entered a partnership that will let users access WebEX conferences via mobile devices. WebEX has launched a new platform called WebEX connect which brings together select third party services to be integrated with the company’s web conferencing. Mobile access to WebEX is expected to be available in 3 to 6 months.
The web conferencing space is growing increasingly competitive and the high-end WebEX has got to continue to innovate to compete with the much less expensive GoToMeeting, Adobe’s Breeze and a number of free web conferencing solutions like DimDim that are coming to market.
Unlike Salesforce’s AppExchange, which offers API access to a large number of developers and on occasion leads to an acquisition (see the Kieden deal) WebEX appears to be opening a much more limited platform and hiring select outside partners to integrate their services.
SoonR is a company we’ve profiled here before, it allows users to search and access files on their desktop computers from more than 450 types of mobile phones. This isn’t the first application the company has moved to offer via mobile devices, they offer Skype by phone. SoonR has been making a lot of big announcements lately; last week they released what they call the first mobile AJAX service in conjunction with Opera Mobile and the closed a Series A round of funding with $6 million lead by Clearstone Venture Partners and Intel Capital.
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The Supernova 12
Over 100 startups applied to present their companies at the TechCrunch-sponsored Connected Innovators program at the Supernova conference last week. Twelve were selected and had a chance to launch their new products to an audience of hundreds.
I drafted some real-time notes of the products demo’d and launched at event at CrunchNotes, and my more complete notes are below.
 Attensa |
 Ether |
 lifeio |
 Netvibes |
 PostApp |
 PROTOMOBL |
 Sharpcast |
 SoonR |
 StumbleUpon |
 Vpod.tv |
 Webaroo |
 ZiXXo |
Sharpcast
Palo Alto-based Sharpcast (TechCrunch posts here) has developed a platform to sync application data across your computers and mobile devices. Their first showcase application is Sharpcast Photos, which not only pushes photos from one device/computer to others, it also keeps them synced. Make a change on one and it pushes the changes to the other copies as well. There are lots of new applicaitions coming as well (documents, calendar, contacts). The company, which has raised $16.5 million in capital, will be application-agnostic so you don’t have to switch to using new software. Windows only today, Mac coming soon.
Webaroo
Webaroo, headquartered in Santa Clara is a new service that launched in April that allows PC users (no Mac support yet) users to access cached web content when they are offline. Webaroo offers pre-selected content, called “web packs”, and users can also cache whatever websites they would like to have access to. For more, see the TechCrunch Webaroo review here.
PostApp
PostApp is a new company that allows users to pull web services directly into their blog or other website without having the technical skills to use the API supplied by the service provider. With the explosion of widgets, PostApp may be the right application at the right time. They also secured $1.5 million in funding from Hummer Winblad. See the full profile here.
Vpod.tv
Vpod.tv was one of my favorite companies presenting at a conference in Spain last month. It is a video sharing site, similar to YouTube, but that focuses on transcoding to most video devices (ipod, PSP, etc.) and allowing users to download video to those devices. They also have an innovative approach to monetization. See the full TechCrunch post here, which also discusses their $5.1 million funding.
Ether
Ether officially launched at Supernova. They’ve created an “ebay for services” that allows people who wish to sell their time on the phone to do so. Place an Ether logo on your site - when someone clicks on it they can set up a time to speak with you according to the terms you’ve set (price, time of call, etc.). When your phone rings, there is a person on the other end who has already given their credit card information and is looking for your advice. Ether went into beta in March, and we covered the official launch here.
Lifeio
Bruce Spector from attap gave the Supernova audience a very early look at Lifeio, “the new life organizer”. Lifeio will combine instant messaging, email, calendaring, contacts, to-do lists, etc in a multipage Ajax site (from what I saw it looks like Lifeio is competing with Goowy, Netvibes, Pageflakes, etc.). Lifeio is also opensourcing the platform framework, called jitsu. Look for more details as the September launch date approaches, and sign up for the beta on the Lifeio homepage.
Other attap companies include Riffs, Buzzvote and personal DNA.
GearON
GearON, a mobile service launching this month from ProtoMobl, centers on your phone’s contact list and creates a social network around it to share photos, music, events and venue information. See the flash demo of GearON here to get a better idea of what it’s all about. Their launch will be covered on MobileCrunch as well as here at TechCrunch.
Soonr
Soonr is a new mobile platform that we’ve previously covered at TechCrunch. One of the most useful applications they’ve launched so far is the ability to use Skype on a normal cell phone (all you pay for are the Skype-out charges from Skype to your own cell, and you can then use Skype to call anyone on your Skype list). The Mac version of Soonr was announced at Supernova.
Zixxo
There are a few ways to look at Zixxo. For users they will deliver highly targeted local and national coupons to you based on whatever personal and demographic information you choose to share with them. For businesses, they are a very cost-effective way of reaching consumers who actually want to receive these coupons. For third parties there is a revenue share opportunity for bringing users and/or businesses to the network. Zixxo is still very young, but the core idea is strong. Look for a potential quick acquisition of this company if they start to get traction.
Attensa
Craig Barnes, the CEO of Attensa, talked about how his suite of RSS reader applications (mobile, outlook, online) analyze user behaviors to recommend specific content and help people deal with information overload. They’ve also just released a new version of Attensa for outlook. TechCrunch posts on Attensa are here.
Netvibes
Founder and Co-CEO Tariq Krim gave the audience an overview of London and Paris-based Netvibes, the Ajax home page that has seen tremendous growth and now has millions of passionate users. Netvibes now has an active community of independent developers creating modules for the site. Netvibes is on a roll. TechCrunch posts are here.
StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is a social browsing application. Users download a browser toolbar and can find popular sites in different categories, vote on sites, etc. Stumbleupon has nearly 1 million registered users in 139 countries, who “stumble” 2.2 million sites er day. Advertisers can get their ads in front of a targeted audience for 5 cents an impression. I use this service.
Web2.0
Webaroo
vPod.tv
Sharpcast
Attensa
SoonR
stumbleupon
netvibes
events
Zixxo
Soonr brings Mac desktop to your phone
Soonr, the company that lets you access desktop files and Skype from your mobile phone, has released a version for the Mac. Mike profiled Soonr in May and the lack of Mac support was his one complaint. The new version is integrated with Spotlight and can render Photoshop files from your desktop into jpg for viewing on your phone. Looks cool.
