Kinnetix blog

We haven’t heard much from PlayFirst since we covered the San Francisco-based casual gaming startup’s last funding round back in December 2007, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t moving for the venture-backed company.

Earlier this year, the startup inked a major deal with Big Fish Games and today it has announced that social game industry executive Mitali Pattnaik has joined PlayFirst as General Manager, Social Games.

Pattnaik started her career at Microsoft at the beginning of the millennium, and joined Electronic Arts as Marketing Manager after a four-year stint at the software company. She didn’t stick around for long: she was hired by Yahoo in September 2005 to fill the role of Senior Marketing Manager, where she oversaw worldwide marketing for Yahoo! Search.

Most recently, she led the marketing and monetization efforts for social gaming at Electronic Arts, where she returned as Online Marketing Manager and later, Head of Marketing, in April 2008 before leaving the company for the second time around late last year. In her new role at PlayFirst, she will lead all company’s social gaming initiatives, including the development and publishing of games for Facebook and other social platforms.

PlayFirst’s chief executive, on a sidenote, is also a woman. The company is led by Mari Baker, former Executive in Residence at Kleiner Perkins and founding CEO of KPCB/Sequoia-backed Navigenics.

(Photo from Facebook)

There remains an ongoing desktop Twitter application war. Traditionally Tweetdeck and Seesmic have been at loggerheads for the lion share, although Tweetdeck has remained in the lead so far. Increasingly it appears that Seesmic is heading towards trying to be a much more mainstream application, for anyone on any platform, from celebs to your non-tech friends. But for power Twitter users, Tweetdeck seems to be go-to app so far. Of course, all that can change, but that seems to be the landscape at the moment.

Just now Tweetdeck has released the latest version of its desktop Air application, this one is v0.33. It’s available right now as a manual download here. Existing Tweedeck users will get an auto upgrade in the next few days.

For uber-Tweetdeck users (like social media experts, as we know) Tweetdeck can get pretty long as they plug in every search term they can think of to avert that client disaster (Eurostar, we’re looking at you). So there are a bunch of new features which extend the app quite a bit and greatly enhance its speed of access to the Twitter firehouse.

Paypal India, PayPal Suspends Personal Payments to India, PayPal, an eBay company, has suspended personal payments to and from India and transfers to local banks in the country.

Customers can still make commercial payments to India, but merchants cannot withdraw funds in rupees at local Indian banks, it added.

The services have been suspended while the company works with its “business partners and other stakeholders to address questions they have about the service,” according to PayPal’s blog. PayPal did not say what questions have been raised.

PayPal said it is trying to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and that it was sorry for the inconvenience that it may cause its customers in India and around the world. A number of bloggers and Web sites have reported that the company has reversed and returned payments to senders.

PayPal executives in the region were not available for comment on specific reasons why the service was discontinued.

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Paypal India, PayPal Suspends Personal Payments to India was first posted on February 8, 2010 at 10:14 pm.

Nanded, Robbers decamped with 3.5 kg of gold worth around Rs 60 lakh from a jewellery shop here, police said today.

Unidentified burglars broke open the shop V N Saraf in Guru Nanak Market here last night and made away with the precious metal, they said.

The robbery came to light when the owner came to the shop and found its wall and locks broken this morning, police said.

The incident comes a day after a daylight robbery of 1.5 kg of gold in neighbouring Aurangabad district.

A case has been registered and manhunt launched for the burglars, Sub-Divisional Police Officer Laxmikant Patil said. ( PTI )

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Burglars decamp with 3.5 kg gold in Maha was first posted on February 8, 2010 at 10:05 pm.

Ahmedabad, Congress MPs from Gujarat today walked out of a meeting convened here by Chief Minister Narendra Modi to discuss state-related issues pending before the Centre ahead of the Budget session of Parliament.

The BJP government had called a meeting of all MPs and Union Ministers from Gujarat to discuss the state’s issues pending before the various Central departments and ministries.

However, according to a senior Congress MP, Modi tried to set the agenda against the Centre which they opposed.

“When the meeting began, Modi tried to convey the impression that the Centre is neglecting the Gujarat’s issues that are pending for long,” Patan MP Jagdish Thakor said, adding his party’s MPs opposed this move and left the meet.

“Our senior MP and Union Minister Dinsha Patel told CM to discuss specific issues rather than talking vaguely and indulging in bashing the Central government,” Thakor said. ( PTI )

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Cong MPs walk out of meeting convened by Modi was first posted on February 8, 2010 at 10:02 pm.

Former Haryana DGP S.P.S. Rathore was stabbed in the face by a man outside the Chandigarh district courts on Monday.

Rathore was targeted as he stepped out of the court premises along with his lawyers during lunch break after an in-camera hearing in the 1990 Ruchika Girhotra molestation case.

The man, identified as Utsav Sharma from Varanasi, leaped on Rathore and attacked him several times with a sharp weapon. Rathore suffered wounds in the right side of his face and neck and started bleeding.

Sharma, believed to be in his twenties, lost balance in the ensuing scuffle with policemen and was overpowered. He was arrested and taken for interrogation.

Rathore, who has been held guilty in the molestation case, was treated in the ICU of a city hospital.

Police said Sharma had made several court appearances in the Ruchika case. He had claimed before many of being a journalist from Ahmedabad.

Police said Sharma is a dropout from the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. He left the course in 2008. He had been shadowing Rathore since his conviction and had often been found loitering outside his house. He had claimed to be writing a book on the Ruchika case.

Aradhana Gupta, Ruchika’s friend and only eyewitness in the Ruchika case, criticised the attack. “I am shocked. I strongly condemn this. I appeal to everyone to stay within the law and have faith in the judiciary,” she said.

Rathore’s former lawyer Ajay Jain said the former Haryana DGP had been receiving threatening calls.

Court orders in-camera proceedings in Ruchika case

Earlier, the court ordered in-camera proceedings on the petition of the disgraced former Haryana DGP challenging his six months’ imprisonment in the case.

The decision was taken by Additional District and Sessions Judge Raj Shekhar Attri, who had last month fixed three days from Monday for hearing the appeal filed by 68-year-old Rathore against the sentence.

Attri asked media persons present in the court to move out to allow him to commence the in-camera proceedings. The court also put out a board outside the room saying the case hearing was being held in camera.

Rathore has filed an appeal against the sentence awarded to him on December 21 last year by CBI Special Judge J S Sidhu and a fine of Rs 1,000 for molesting the 14-year-old budding tennis player in August 1990.

The CBI, in its plea before the court, has sought the maximum sentence of two years to be awarded to Rathore.

The CBI judge had held the former IPS officer guilty of molesting Ruchika near here in Panchkula.

Rathore, who was held guilty under section 354 IPC (molestation), was granted bail after his appeal against the sentence was admitted on January 13.

The Additional District and Sessions Judge hearing the cross appeals had clubbed the two petitions and posted them for hearing from today.

Rathore and his counsel wife Abha, Anand Parkash, the husband of complainant Madhu Parkash, who is also the mother of the sole eye witness to Ruchika’s molestation, Anuradha, and the Parkash Girhotra family’s counsel Pankaj Bhardwaj were present in the court room.

Rathore, who retired in 2002, was an IGP when he molested Ruchika on August 12, 1990, three years after which she committed suicide.

With PTI

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Rathore stabbed in face outside court was first posted on February 8, 2010 at 9:59 pm.

Almost two years ago The Filter, a startup backed by Peter Gabriel, launched to bring better music and movie recommendations to consumers. The site got lost in the abundance of more popular music and movie sites out there, so about a year ago CEO David Maher Roberts decided to shift gears and start licensing his recommendation engine to other businesses.

It was the right move. Today, the Filter powers recommendations for sites and devices with a combined reach of about 20 million people, with two more large media deals in the final stages of converting from a trail to a full license which will bring its total reach up to 85 million. The startup’s revenues went from $150,000 in 2008 to about $1 million in 2009. “All that money came from licensing,” says Roberts. “I think we get $2,000 from Google for advertising.” Since November, the company has been “borderline breakeven.” And it just added to its board of directors former Google engineering VP Doug Merrill, who left Google to briefly serve as president of EMI for a year.

“Recommendations—from friends, from newspapers, from colleagues—are the most common way to find new content,” says Merrill. “However, there is more information available than there are people to recommend. The Filter analyzes data to provide measurably better, more relevant recommendations, automatically.” The Filter creates personalized music and movie feeds based on user’s activities (rating. listening, saving, sharing) as well as their preferences in other accounts such as iTunes and Last.fm. Roberts claims that in trials, customers have seen a 20 to 40 percent lift in media consumption (video views, dwell time) than using their own recommendation algorithms. Not counting those two big media deals in the wings, the Filter’s recommendation technology is currently being used by Nokia Music, Sony’s MyPlay, DVDPost (a European Netflix), ThePlatform, and We7 (another music site also backed by Gabriel).

The Filter’s own site is still growing steadily, if slowly, with about 800,000 unique visitors per month. “It was a much slower process than we had wished,” says Maher. People liked the technology, he says, but they wanted it on sites where they already consume content. The Filter’s experience shows how tough it is to build a standalone music or movie property. But if its recommendation algorithms really do provide the kind of improvements Roberts claims, more sites will adopt it. You can try out its relevance engine for yourself on The Filter website.

MULTAN: India was threatening to attack Pakistan a year earlier, and now it is offering to recommence bilateral dialogue, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Monday, terming Indian proposal to resume formal talks with Pakistan ‘a victory’.

Addressing a public gathering in Multan, Qureshi said Pakistan’s sovereignty and integrity will not be compromised at any cost.

The Foreign Minister further said that Pakistan is a victim of terrorism, however, militants will be forced to surrender.

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FM Qureshi terms Indian proposal for dialogue ‘a victory’ was first posted on February 8, 2010 at 9:52 pm.

With the Super Bowl yesterday came the time-honored Super Bowl commercials, each costing $2.5 million for a 30-second spot.  Even Google got in on the game with its first ever spot receiving rave reviews (although the commercial wasn’t new). But which commercials went beyond TV to score on the Web?  Reprise Media released a report that ranks Super Bowl advertisers based on the level of integration between their television commercials and presence on the web in terms of search and social media. According to Reprise’s scorecard, Boost Mobile, HomeAway, E*Trade and Google were the marketing standouts out of last night’s commercials.

Reprise decreed that Boost Mobile and HomeAway, which were both first-time Super Bowl advertisers, had the best cross-channel promotion from the tube to the web. E*Trade and Google followed with compelling ad spots that encouraged users to look to the web for more information. Who fumbled?  The Pop Secret/Emerald Nuts, Prudential, Dodge Charger and all movie commercials had the least amount of cross-channel integration.

Interestingly, Turbo Tax, Mazda and Pepsi didn’t have ads in the Super Bowl but they attracted traffic online by running paid search ads on keywords related to other Super Bowl advertisers. Unsurprisingly, millions of consumers turned to social networks including Twitter to discuss their favorite ads. According to social media monitoring service Trendrr, the four top gaining Super Bowl ad brands on Twitter within the last 24 hours were Dockers (+307%), Boost Mobile (+161%), Emerald Nuts (+150) and Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (+120%). Out of all of the car commercials, Audi’s A3 Green Police advertisement received the most buzz on Trendrr.  But was that because it was humorous (showing people getting arrested for using foam cups and incandescent bulbs) or too smug?

Social media measurement company Radian 6 and ad agency Mullen have released stats on which brand was most effective according to sentiment and volume of Tweets on Twitter. The report says that Doritos was the most effective brand to advertise on the Super Bowl telecast on CBS this year. Budweiser Select55 was the least effective brand. And Google and Focus on the Family followed Doritos is becoming the most discussed commercials on Twitter. Of course, it should be noted that Doritos had several commercials in the Super Bowl, which could have contributed to the volume of tweets. On the other hand, Google had a higher percentage of positive tweets.

Social music player TuneWiki has raised an undisclosed amount of additional funding in a Series B round led by Motorola Ventures and joined by Intellect Capital Ventures, HillsVen Capital, Novel TMT and prior investor Benchmark Israel.

Update: The Marker (in Hebrew) says the investment totals $7 million.

TuneWiki says it will use the investment to expand its product offerings for mobile platforms and the Web.

The company will continue to focus on the use of song lyrics in new ways that connect music fans with new products, including an upcoming mobile game.

TuneWiki boasts apps for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Nokia handsets.

This is the second funding announcement for Motorola’s venture arm in a week – on Feb 2 the investor announced that it had injected extra capital into mobile barcode company Scanbuy.