Mediaboss Marketing

Former Facebook senior executive Dave Morin is co-founder of Path. (Joi Ito / April 16, 2012)

April 16, 2012, 4:49 p.m.

Social networking mobile app maker Path said Monday that it raised about $30 million from venture capital firms such as Greylock Partners and Redpoint Ventures and individual investors such as Virgin Groups Richard Branson and DST Globals Yuri Milner.

The investment values the San Francisco company at $250 million.

Path, which had previously raised $11.2 million, is the brainchild of former senior Facebook executive Dave Morin and Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning. Its riding the new wave of tech companies that are building for mobile, not the Web. Path has been compared to Instagram, which Facebook said last week it would buy for $1 billion. Instagram had more than 30 million users but no revenue.

Path, which has nearly 3 million users, is looking to connect people in more intimate ways than Facebook. It limits its users to 150 connections. The average user connects with 40.

The company, which is not profitable, will use the extra dough to double its staff, expand internationally and do more marketing. It plans to sell a premium version of its app.

Path has gotten into a few scrapes. In February it was discovered that Path stored users address books without their permission. The company apologized and changed its software.

Morin rejected a $125-million buyout offer from Google shortly after he launched Path.

"Our 'Path' has only just begun," Morin said.

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Mobile social networking app Path raises $30 million

Recruiters are increasingly turning to social networking sites to find the right job applicants and LinkedIn is leading the way over Twitter and Facebook.

LinkedIn, which is known as the 'professional network', leads the way, but Twitter and Facebook are underused and are expected to make up ground over 2012, says United States-based recruitment-platform provider Bullhorn Reach.

Bullhorn said LinkedIn was adopted much earlier for recruiting, which is why recruiters have smaller networks on Facebook and Twitter.

Bullhorn Reach provides specialist recruiting software that enables agency and corporate recruiters to better use social networking sites to find candidates for jobs.

Bullhorn said that recruiters were likely to increase their activity on social networking sites in 2012 as the world becomes even more connected through the big three social networks.

'Based on current data trends, recruiters could quadruple the size of their Twitter networks by the end of 2012 and potentially add approximately 1,000 connections to their LinkedIn networks,' Bullhorn said in its 2012 Social Recruiting Activity Report, which was published on Wednesday.

'Currently, Facebook has the least amount of network activity among agency and corporate recruiters.

'One would anticipate them to alter their strategies, going forward, to leverage the power of the largest social network - for example, employee referral programs.'

Bullhorn said it also expected that other social networks such as Google Plus would boost their efforts to grab a share of the recruiting space or develop strategies that attract certain segments of the professional population.

The Bullhorn report found that recruiters were connected to all three big social networks but were using LinkedIn and Twitter more than Facebook.

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Recruiters boosting social network use

MAHWAH, New Jersey, April 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Radware (NASDAQ: RDWR - News), a leading provider of application delivery and application security solutions for virtual and cloud data centers, today announced recent agreements with two U.S.-based social networking companies to deploy Radware's award winning Attack Mitigation System (AMS) security solution to address expanding network security needs including improved protection against a range of sophisticated, new-generation cyber threats. The combined agreements represent a multi-million dollar investment in network security.

Radware's AMS is helping these firms put network infrastructure protections in place as they pursue programs to upgrade security policies and to insure network uptime for their users. Social networking companies have been targets of frequent cyber attacks and believe their tightened IT security policies and rapid growth globally will inspire 'hacktivists' to launch more attempts to bring down their networks.

Before purchasing Radware's solution, the companies compared AMS with a variety of security solutions from other vendors. They chose AMS based on performance, attack detection within SSL sessions, and its mitigation capabilities that far exceeded other product offerings. In addition one of the key factors was the proven expertise of Radware's Emergency Response Team (EMS) to help manage a cyber attack in real time with global 24 x 7 availability.

"Data center and network security managers must maneuver through an increasingly difficult and always changing threat landscape; and only Radware's Attack Mitigation System has the proven ability to defend against the new generation of sophisticated, multi-level cyber attacks,"said Carl Herberger, vice president, Security, Radware. "What's more, the combination of Radware's AMS technology and the expertise of Radware's ERT consultants provide probably the most effective cyber security services available today. This level of support while under attack is unique in the industry."

According to a new report by Radware's ERT, cyber attacks have evolved in sophistication with attackers using as many as five different attack vectors in a single "attack campaign." Moreover, denial of service (DoS) and distributed DoS (DDoS) attacks have become more complex to defend against as hackers can probe enterprises for weaknesses and launch multiple types of attacks, according to Radware's "2011 Global Application and Network Security Report."

For example, hackers can bombard networks with data packets to consume a target server's bandwidth, overwhelm networks with remote connections and requests for application transactions, or tie up resources slowly by having a number of attackers target specific system vulnerabilities or design flaws. Radware's AMS solution can detect and mitigate these types of DDoS attacks in seconds with the highest mitigation performance.

About Radware's Attack Mitigation System (AMS)

Radware's AMS is a real-time network and application attack mitigation solution that protects the application infrastructure against network and application downtime, application vulnerability exploitation, malware spread, information theft, Web service attacks and Web defacement. It is built on Radware's award-winning DefensePro network security appliance, AppWall Web application firewall and APSolute Vision application and network security management dashboard.

Radware supplements these capabilities by adding the human factor - the professional security consultants of its ERT who are available around the clock. As literal "first responders" to cyber attacks, Radware's ERT members gained their extensive experience by successfully dealing with some of the industry's most notable hacking episodes, providing the knowledge and expertise to mitigate the kind of attack a business's security team may never have handled.

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Multiple Social Networking Companies Select Radware to Defend Against Cyber Attacks

SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwire -04/18/12)- Social networking sites are a ubiquitous feature in millions of people's daily lives, helping them manage both business and personal relationships, but not without drawbacks. With a few clicks, an individual can potentially ruin another's career, job prospects, educational opportunities and reputation by broadcasting unflattering posts, comments and tags to millions of Internet users, including friends, family and business associates. To try and manage your online reputation in real time is not only a challenge -- but virtually impossible -- until now, with the launch of NetworkClean Beta (www.networkclean.com), which provides a free tool for Facebook social media users to safeguard their online reputation with ease. "NetworkClean solves a critical need for social media members by placing the control back into the users' hands, enabling them to monitor and protect their own social image around the clock," stated NetworkClean Co-Founder, Doug Haustein.

NetworkClean is a simple-to-use tool that provides powerful results and is easy to install without complicated downloads or bloatware. By simply going to NetworkClean.com and giving the program permission to connect with their Facebook account, users can be ready to scan their entire history in seconds. NetworkClean scans users' Facebook pages for thousands of words and phrases commonly considered inappropriate. If these phrases appear in relation to a user's name, the user is immediately alerted and presented with a wide range of solutions. Comments can be deleted or ignored, and users can set up universal commands to control how these instances are handled in the future. With numerous customizable settings and an intuitive dashboard interface, users can even add their own search terms, giving them flexible, complete control to monitor their virtual reputation 24/7, even when they are off-line.

In addition to the features described, NetworkClean houses the tools that make it just that more effective by including the "Reputation Visualization" feature, which allows users to see their reputation and trends by providing a comprehensive overview of their virtual presence. With cutting-edge privacy settings, NetworkClean ensures that passwords and data are safe, and can even provide helpful hints on how to make social networking experiences more secure. The "My Info" feature shows users which of their contacts mention them the most, providing useful insight into their social circle and helping them better manage their virtual footprint. NetworkClean services are available in English, Spanish and other major languages, making it easier than ever for social media users to safeguard their social image on a global scale.

In the coming months, NetworkClean will also launch a specialized tool for businesses and corporations to keep on top of their social media buzz. Social media marketing is rapidly becoming a necessary feature of any business, and a damaging comment can easily ruin a company or brand, resulting in negative press and lost revenue. With NetworkClean's automatic alerts and 24/7 scanning, businesses can learn what customers are saying about them and manage negative comments before they go from bad to worse. NetworkClean will provide businesses with the ultimate control over their virtual presence while providing the same flexibility, customization and free services available to individuals.

Social networking sites have their benefits, but a casual comment or picture can quickly get out of hand. Monitoring every personal mention on the wide range of networking sites can be time-consuming and inefficient, and a single oversight can have wide-spread repercussions for individuals, businesses, schools and organizations. Now, everyone can use their social networks with confidence and be back in the driver's seat with NetworkClean.

ABOUT NETWORKCLEAN

Set for launch in 2012, NetworkClean is a free social network monitoring service which protects and scans both personal and business Facebook pages, providing instant alerts to users regarding inappropriate content, privacy concerns, security issues and more. Users receive alerts based on customized scan settings and are able to remove unwanted content instantly to protect their online reputation. NetworkClean currently supports Facebook and will be expanding soon to many other social networks, including Twitter and LinkedIn. See more at http://www.networkclean.com.

ABOUT NETWORKCLEAN FOUNDERS

NetworkClean was created by passionate entrepreneurs Kishore Mamillapalli and Doug Haustein to help bring peace of mind to the modern social networking experience and seamless online reputation management to the consumer.

ABOUT DEMO

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NetworkClean Launches Free Beta Service to Safeguard Social Networking Reputation for Facebook Users

A bike thief who failed to factor in the power of social networking abandoned his spoils after being chased through the streets of an Australian city by the rider's Facebook friends.

When Akira Takahashi returned from lunch to find someone had cut the lock to his AU$2,000 (US$2,072) bike in Adelaide's central business district on Friday, the quick-thinking restaurant worker immediately posted news of the theft on his Facebook profile rather than going to police.

'I know about 200 Facebook friends who work in the city so I knew it would be more effective than going straight to the police -- I couldn't just sit and wait, I wanted to hunt it down,' Takahashi, 27, said.

The ploy paid immediate dividends, with one friend seeing the distinctive custom-made bike being ridden down a nearby street by a 'scruffy-looking man with a beard.'

'He saw the bike and chased him, yelling out to pedestrians that he was riding a stolen bike, but because of the traffic he lost him,' Takahashi said.

'He must have been thinking, 'Oh, no, I've stolen the wrong bike here.' I think he got scared that all these people were chasing him around the town.'

Another friend, bike courier Phil Portellos, saw the Facebook post and sent a text message to colleagues to keep an eye out for the bicycle.

The exasperated thief gave up and dumped the bike behind a pillar and fled on foot when one of Portellos' friends took up the pursuit.

The bike was eventually returned to Takahashi by Portellos after a fellow courier found it and phoned him.

'Usually when a bike like this gets stolen you assume you're never going to see it again,' Portellos said. 'A lot of people are saying he owes me a beer.'

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Social networking stops thief