All over the world, runners and athletes are turning to Boston for expert coaching. And it’s the efforts of Boston’s software developers, not its pro sports franchises, that are drawing the eyes of a new generation of champions. Boston is becoming a hub for information technology and games that help people achieve fitness goals. AWare Technologies Inc., FitnessKeeper Inc. and Read more
Category: AWare Technologies, FitnessKeeper, Mass High Tech, MolecularGov. Deval Patrick announced the formation of a business plan competition for entrepreneurs, called the MassChallenge Venture Funds Competition, Wednesday at the IT Collaborative Workshop at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center in Cambridge. MassChallenge’s three founders, all recent business school graduates, aim to raise $25 million Read more
Category: Mass High Tech, MassChallengeGov. Deval Patrick announced Wednesday a plan to provide up to $1 million in funding for early-stage IT ventures. Dubbed the MassChallenge Venture Funds Competition, the state and private industry will solicit business proposals from entrepreneurs nationally. The teams will receive mentoring and coaching from local entrepreneurs and compete against one another Read more
Category: Boston Business Journal, MassChallengeGreen Mountain Power—the Colchester, VT-based electrical utility that serves approximately one-quarter of Vermont residents—said today that it has joined the New England demand-response pool managed by Boston-based EnerNOC (NASDAQ: ENOC). Green Mountain customers who are already registered through the utility to receive payments or rate reductions in Read more
Category: EnerNOC, XconomyWhere does technological innovation happen around Boston? What are the sources of new software and hardware creations? You’ve probably heard about Google and Microsoft moving to Cambridge in the past couple of years—but did you know Microsoft has two labs in Cambridge, not one? Or that another Silicon Valley company has a research lab just upstairs from Google Read more
Category: Conduit Labs, Google, IBM, Microsoft, XconomyLiving Proof, a Cambridge, MA-based startup that applies advanced material science to the beauty industry, has adopted interactive online shopping software developed by fellow venture-backed Cambridge firm Allurent, according to a press release. Living Proof, which has been well chronicled for its products that combat frizzy hair, will use Allurent’s software and widgets Read more
Category: Allurent, eCommerce, Retail, XconomySince cable TV operators coined the term “hyperlocal” in the late 1980s, waves of media pundits have preached opportunity in targeting micro-level cities, towns and neighborhoods. So far, traditional media successes have been few and far between. Gatehouse Media, a newspaper publisher that bet heavily on the hyperlocal model with leveraged acquisitions of regional chains, Read more
Category: CitySquares, Consumer Web, Mass High Tech, Squaredy Cat MediaCambridge, MA-based data warehousing appliance maker Dataupia has laid off nearly two-thirds of its staff and scaled back its operations while it seeks new funders, Xconomy has learned. We contacted Dataupia today after hearing a rumor that the four-year-old startup had shut down—a rumor that turns out to be exaggerated but not wholly unfounded. “Dataupia is very Read more
Category: Data Management, Dataupia, XconomyEven as an undergraduate and graduate student at Boston University, Hilmi Ozguc wanted to be an entrepreneur. The creativity and flexibility of a small, lean company always appealed to him, but he felt he needed to experience the other side first — to learn as much about the business world, and the real world, as he could. That path landed him near Read more
Category: Hilmi Ozguc, Mass High Tech, Maven Networks, Online VideoAt a meeting in 1999, Gwyn Jones pitched what he thought was a winning idea to the CEO of his Internet printing company: Why not offer first-time customers a box of 250 business cards, custom-printed just for them? And what if the business cards were free? Jones and Robert Keane, CEO of Lexington-based VistaPrint Ltd., thought that if the deal Read more
Category: Consumer Web, eCommerce, The Boston Globe, VistaPrint