NY-based Wix has announced that they have raised a Series B round of funding in the amount of $3.5 million. This is in addition to the previously raised $3.5 million Series A round and $1.2 million angel round. The company notes that this new round of funding came from Mangrove Venture Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners.  Wix also notes that the funding will go towards marketing and product development.

Wix allows people to easily create Flash-based Websites. The company self-reports that over 1,500 Wix sites are created every day. I’d love to hear about their active numbers. A newly released premium version costs $10/month which removes advertising and offers other features like domain name accessibility.

The Deal spoke with Allon Bloch, co-founder of Wix who said that, "the startup got in just under the wire", as venture capitalists grow risk-averse amid the deepening financial crisis."We were fairly lucky," he says, noting that the funding environment "over the past three or four weeks has deteriorated fairly quickly. We definitely felt a change." Bloch also notes that they will probably head back fro more funding in about 18 months looking for another $5 million. 

Check out our interview with co-CEO Allon Bloch from earlier this year.

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NY-based collegiate information resource CollegeWikis has announced that they have raised $2 million in venture capital today. From the announcement, The funding round led by HighBAR Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm founded by Bill Joy, Andreas Bechtolsheim, and Roy Thiele-Sardiña. Richmond Management, eCoast Angel Network, and Boston Harbor Angels also participated. Thiele-Sardiña will join CollegeWikis Board of Directors as part of this financing.

They are quick to note that CollegeWikis is not a social network. To actually read any of the content on CollegeWikis you need to register. You can register with any email address but the site notes that .edu accounts will receive additional benefits.

I see more "message board" than "wiki" when I browse the site. While you can edit the question, it isn’t as topical based as Wikipedia is. From my browsing, it’s question-based, "Where’s the best eats at Harvard?" Not that there’s anything wrong with a cross-university message board.

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Yesterday at the BootStrapperSummit, Owen Davis from NYC Seed discussed startup and investment opportunities in NYC. He begins by saying that "funding is alive and well in NYC." He goes on to say that while there isn’t 1999 money, there is money for a good plan and good set of founders.

At about the 3 minute mark Owen provides his thoughts on good startup opportunities. Check out the video for all of his suggestions.

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We initially covered Muxtape back in April and provided a video from founder Justin Ouellette. Muxtape is a MP3 sharing application that allows you to put together playlists and then share them with your friends. Last month Muxtape closed and everyone wondered if the RIAA was behind the closing.

This afternoon Ouellette has posted a lengthy article explaining the background of Muxtape, where the idea came from, the technology, his dealings with the major record labels, the RIAA, Amazon S3 and where Muxtape goes from here. Ouellette notes that they had 100,000 registered users in the first month and over a million unique visitors in that first month.

If you are considering creating any business related to music, you need to read the entire post. Ouellette concludes with the info on the next version of Muxtape:

"Muxtape is relaunching as a service exclusively for bands, offering an extremely powerful platform with unheard-of simplicity for artists to thrive on the internet. Musicians in 2008 without access to a full time web developer have few options when it comes to establishing themselves online, but their needs often revolve around a common set of problems. The new Muxtape will allow bands to upload their own music and offer an embeddable player that works anywhere on the web, in addition to the original muxtape format. Bands will be able to assemble an attractive profile with simple modules that enable optional functionality such as a calendar, photos, comments, downloads and sales, or anything else they need. The system has been built from the ground up to be extended infinitely and is wrapped in a template system that will be open to CSS designers. There will be more details soon. The beta is still private at the moment, but that will change in the coming weeks."

I think a partnership between NY-based Muxtape and NY-based AmieStreet could be a good win for both companies.

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The NYSIA monthly meeting for September consisted of a boot camp for startups. I was able to capture each of the segments on video and this session discussed tips for a technology plan for a new business. Topics include: SaaS as a business model, the realization that you may need to do things again in the beginning to find the perfect model, the importance of staying focused, and a number of pitfalls to avoid. The pitfalls slide is a must-read for any new startup (about 13 minutes in). The pitfalls include: not documenting your work, doing it the second/third time before finishing the first time, staying away from consultants, deadend architecture and finding the right balance of equity for employees. Also discussed is management and when/how to split out all of the tasks when you are a founder.

I’d suggest hitting the “fullscreen” button to view the slides clearly.

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Apple has claimed that the iPhone does not do background processing because supporting it would hurt the performance of the phone. Jobs has said Apple’s concern is that because the processor is limited, loading up the phone with background apps is likely to crash the machine or bring it to its knees.

I have discussed this issue in the past. I have also discussed Apple’s response to the issue, which is an improved way of handling notification of inbound events like instant messages, which would normally be implemented through a background task.

I understand Apple’s concern about background processing, but I personally think its pretty lame. As I have written, there are ways to handle Apple’s concern. But the interesting thing is that the first Android phone, The T-Mobile G1 has been announced and will be out in the wild available on October 22nd. Android has no restrictions at all on background processing, and the first Android handset, the G1 is pretty similar to the iPhone hardware.

The question is, will Android demonstrate that Steve was somehow disingenuous about this whole background processing thing, or will the Android team be shown to be foolhardy about this critical performance issue? Nokia’s Symbian-based phones seem to handle background tasks just fine, but admittedly I don’t think many people are motivated to load up a Nokia smartphone with software in the same way that people are doing with the iPhone. But Android is really a true test. There will be lots of software, an easy to use app exchange, and a sense of openness that will encourage experimentation.

I am personally very curious to see what happens in the Petri dish.

This article was authored by Hank Williams who is a New York-based entrepreneur who explores the tech marketplace from 10,000 feet at Why Does Everything Suck?.

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NY-based KickApps has announced the launch of a new video player product that allows Web publishers to inject advertising into the video stream. The "KickApps Widget & Video Player Studio" takes your videos from anywhere on the Web, packages them with an ad and generates a widget that can be embedded anywhere. The widgets can be used on sites powered by KickApps or any other hosting provider.

KickApps Marketing SVP Michael Chin took me through a variety of examples yesterday and it’s a very impressive system. Basically you create a design for your video player. Next you select the content for the video player, either a search, premade combination or add in any RSS 2.0 feed. Next you select the type of ads you’d like to display including Google AdSense for Video, ScanScout, adap.tv or 24/7 Real Media. There’s also an option to include your own pre-roll or post-roll ads.

For example, I could take the RSS feed generated by Viddler for CN videos, insert it into the KickApps video player and then ads will be displayed as I select. I’ve been asking Viddler for this type of revenue customization for a long time. The video players that you create can be syndicated to other sites allowing you to generate revenue no matter where the player is viewed.

Chin tells me that KickApps will generate revenue by displaying their own Google AdSense for Video ads randomly. For customers that use the ad buyout option, KickApps won’t display any ads. Last month KickApps partnered with Akamai for video hosting.

Note: KickApps is a sponsor of our sister site HTMLCenter.

Google has announced that their Google Maps product now supports public transit directions. This is very exciting news for me as a person who loves public transit. In my testing this morning, I give the system a grade of C. It’s a good first start and will get you to your destination but they have a lot of work to do. For example, there are many places where multiple trains share the same tracks but Google Maps only pushes you to one train. This could cost tourists 10+ minutes waiting for the train that Google suggested. There are also times where hopping on a local if it arrives first makes sense but Google also misses that. This is a project I’d love to be involved with.

The problem is that Google Maps is missing a real human expert who would say "take the 4 OR 5". It will be interesting to see how today’s Google Maps launch will affect HopStop. Google has apparently been working on this system for a year notes ReadWriteWeb.

Here’s a demo video that the Google Maps team put together. Be careful if you follow their directions from the Met to the Mets. It takes you through 2 extra transfers and a bit of walking that’s not needed. The best way is to take the 4/5 at 86th and transfer to the 7 at 42nd and if it’s in the afternoon, take the 7 Express. Any NY’er knows that

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The NYSIA monthly meeting for September consisted of a boot camp for startups. I was able to capture each of the segments on video and this session was around the accounting aspects of starting a business. Mike Lopez, from Amper Politziner, and Mattia begins by explaining the importance of looking at the eventual exit and making sure that the transactions throughout the business are completed correctly.

Mike looks at the tax implications of the different business entity types and a variety of accounting issues including revenue recognition, software development costs and stock-based compensation. As a former accountant myself, I agree with Mike’s comments about keeping a good set of books. It will help you throughout your business and will keep the overall accounting costs down.

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Last October we interviewed MyPRGenie CEO Miranda Tan at her office in NYC. MyPRGenie offers a way for companies to distribute their press releases for free or low cost depending on the selected options. Today MyPRGenie is launching the 2.0 version of their platform.

Miranda notes that the updated service is a, "social media communication platform and publicity engine". When you create an account on MyPRGenie, you can search a database of 550,000 press contacts for distribution. The contacts come from a new partnership with PR Newswire. The goal of the new version is to allow PR professionals and companies can use our platform to connect, manage and track all their PR outreach. 

MyPRGenie will also allow companies to upload media/text files into a company news portal which journalists and writers can pick up when needed for a story.

Perhaps this new version of MyPRGenie could be exactly what I’ve suggested regarding conferences. Create a conference portal where all companies post their information and journalists/bloggers can login and select the information and companies they are interested in meeting and/or learning more about.

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