Notice Technologies, developers of online and social advertising products for local businesses that are marketed through local media companies such as newspapers, television stations, hyperlocal news sites, and radio, today announced its membership with the Austin Technology Incubator, a program of the IC2 Institute and the University of Texas at Austin. Notice Technologies’ products link advertisers and interested consumers through its self-service advertising platform, MinutesNotice, and its consumer portal, Youpons.net. MinutesNotice takes the complexity out [...]

Slacker, which had major operations in Austin, is reported to have raised an additional $9.6M according to a regulatory filing. This brings the total amount raised to $68.7M, according to PaidContent.org. Under new state securities filing laws, companies are no longer required to disclose as much information as they previously were, therefore it is unclear which nine investors accounted for this round of financing. Suspects would point to previous investors such as Rho Ventures, and [...]

Freshtech Friday by Steve Guengerich Sure, it is the new companies with funding that make the headlines in old media.  But, among the many great things about Austin is the amazing group of talented people you run across all of the time.  Frequently, in addition to their “day jobs,” they are also doing fascinating work to fix the minor annoyances many of us face every day in our digital lives. I stumbled across one of [...]

Today’s guest blogger is Michael Feferman who writes the digital marketing blog for C3 Presents, the producer behind Austin City Limits, Lolapalooza, and other festivals. The company is implemeting some neat technologies like Facebook Connect, for their festival websites. The core technology that is using Connect is being developed by DoStuffMedia, which also powers Do512. So, we’re pretty psyched about the way our Facebook Connect integration has gone off so far on our Festival websites. [...]

BuzzStream announced the public availability of BuzzStream for Link Building, the first link building relationship management platform for search engine optimization. The on-demand service not only helps users manage large link building projects, but also eliminates many of the most mundane and repetitive tasks in link building. “I’ve seen lots of SEO tools, but BuzzStream strikes a great balance between automating work and preserving the human touch,” said Eric Ward, CEO of Etilogic and an [...]

Our guest blogger today is Greg Garrison, the president of vrecruting – Recruiting solutions from vcfo. He has over 17 years experience in the recruiting and staffing industry, and is regularly quoted nationally as a thought-leader in employment trends. He can be reached at ggarrison@vcfo.com or 512-450-6569. Chances are you’re not thinking much about recruiting these days. The wavering economy has certainly served as an effective appetite suppressant for most companies. The ravenous need for [...]

It’s been a while since we’ve written about Microsoft’s BizSpark program here on the blog, but remember that AustinStartup is a network partner. The program provides qualifying developers with free tools from Microsoft. You can find out more about BizSpark on the website. If you’re thinking about enrolling, or have recently enrolled, you should think about attending their event in Dallas on June 12th. If you register for the event, you will receive an email [...]

If you came to Austin Tech Happy Hour last Thursday, you may have been able to catch a sneak peak of something pretty cool as part of Technology Spotlight. Whurley was showing the concept for OpenAustin.org in advance of its official launch today. You may remember some of the discussion surrounding the City of Austin giving a contract worth between $700K – $1.5M to a web developer on California for the creation of the city’s [...]

At the Central Texas Funding Forum today you can hear the keynote speech from David Rose, chairman of the board of the New Yorks Angels Inc. With the help of Matt Scherer, the publicist for this event, we were able to get this interview with him. What is the biggest challenge facing the investment community here in Austin as well as in New York? I think the biggest challenge facing the startup and early stage [...]

Canadian-based OpenText is finalizing a deal to acquire Vignette for $310M, slightly below the company’s peak market cap of something like $19B. They say timing is everything. Despite the fact that profitable quarters were as rare as a four leaf clover, this company was basically a “fund maker” for Austin Ventures. Vignette was a leader in the content management market for many years, snagging deals with every major web property that you could imagine. Once [...]