Mediaboss Marketing

PROVIDENCE, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

ShapeUp, the leading global provider of social networking and incentives-based employee wellness solutions, announced that it has raised $7.5 million in new funding. This financing round, comprised of $5 million of equity from venture capital firms Cue Ball Capital and Excel Venture Management and $2.5 million of debt from Silicon Valley Bank, will fund strategic investments in mobile technology and global capabilities to drive member engagement and expand platform accessibility.

ShapeUp is a proven company with a stellar team and a product that continues to lead the next generation of corporate wellness offerings, said Tony Tjan, chairman of the Board of Directors at ShapeUp and managing partner of Cue Ball Capital. This investment underscores our belief that there is incredible opportunity ahead for this company in the rapidly growing social and mobile wellness space.

Excel Venture Management managing director Juan Enriquez said, Very few startup companies have been able to deploy globally across multiple languages and countries. It is a testament to ShapeUps management and product that they are ready to invest this new capital to further grow their Fortune 500 client base and remain global leaders in the wellness market.

ShapeUp will use a significant portion of the investment to build upon its existing mobile capabilities and launch the industry's leading mobile app and device integration infrastructure. This focus will help fill a major market gap by organizing and connecting the hundreds of different wellness-related mobile apps and devices now being used by consumers into a single, engaging, and effective corporate wellness platform. The company is also integrating with smartphone technology including GPS, accelerometers, co-processors such as Apples new M7, and companion smart watches to empower employees to track their fitness, share their progress with others, and receive personalized feedback throughout their daily routine. ShapeUp projects that the majority of participants will access its platform primarily through mobile devices by 2015.

No one in the corporate wellness space has effectively harnessed the power of mobile technology, but thats about to change, said Dr. Rajiv Kumar, founder and CEO of ShapeUp. Adopting lessons from our research in the direct-to-consumer space, were going to bring mobile wellness innovation to our hundreds of enterprise customers and their employees.

ShapeUp will also increase investment in its global wellness offering. The company currently leads the corporate wellness industry in global capabilities, serving the needs of multinational corporations by offering its platform in 23 languages, mastering the logistics of shipping fitness devices to any country, and providing 24/7 translated phone and email technical support to participants around the world. ShapeUp plans to further its offerings by adding global marketing expertise, regional health content, and enhanced localization tools.

ShapeUp is in a growing space, hitting our stride at the right time with an incredible opportunity to be the best wellness company in the world, said Ann Brady, chief financial officer of ShapeUp. We are excited to put this capital to good use as we scale and build out our mobile functionality and global reach.

ShapeUp, which offers a comprehensive software-as-a-service (SaaS) wellness platform to meet the needs of employers and health plans, had previously raised $9 million in funding since its inception. The company, an early pioneer of evidence-based social wellness programs, counts nearly ten percent of the Fortune 500 among its customers. ShapeUp reached profitability in 2013 and currently has 75 employees. The company expects to double its workforce and open satellite offices in Boston, New York, and San Francisco in the next 24 months.

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ShapeUp Raises $7.5 Million to Expand Mobile and Global Employee Wellness Offerings

Social networking is something that teenagers and many other age groups to participate in with regularity. The most popular social network right now is Facebook, which has recently made an effort to expand some of the features available for teens. A new social network specifically made for teens has been announced called Shots of Me.

Shots of Me is set to launch this week and comes from a company that developed social mobile games under the RockLive brand in the past. The company has announced that it has received an investment from Justin Bieber. Beiber has reportedly lead a $1.1 million seed round of financing for the company.

Other investors in the teen social network include boxer Floyd Mayweather, Shervin Pishevar, and Tom McInerney. Biebers investment in the social network is said to be his first venture capital investment independent of his manager.

RockLive says that it became familiar with Bieber when he began to play their social games and tweet about them. Bieber has a massive twitter following that is sure to help land teen users for the new social network. With Biebers investment, the company has now raised $2.7 million. The social network will launch as an app on the App Store this week.

SOURCE: Fortune

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Shots of Me social network for teens lands investment from Justin Bieber

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/zld5v3/enterprise_social) has announced the addition of the "2013 Report on the Enterprise Social Software/Networking Market - with Forecasts to 2018" report to their offering.

The rising need for enterprise internet working amongst employees, partners, distributors, suppliers and others in the business value chain has given way to growing employment of ESS across desktops, laptops and mobile personal devices. While enterprises across the globe are looking forward to incubate ESS into their current work scenarios, ESS providers look forward to gain better competitive advantage in the emerging market by creating new technological features that facilitate the quicker adoption of these.

The need for increasing enterprise productivity, along with cost control measures is playing a pivotal role in shaping the future of enterprise social software. Even though the adoption of these tools is relatively slow due to closed mindsets of the top management ; these solutions are expected to grow steadily and have a pervasive existence across all major verticals, owing to the growing demand of social connectedness', on a real-time basis.

Key Topics Covered:

1 Introduction

2 Executive Summary

3 Market Overview

4 Enterprise Social Software: Market Size And Forecast By Deployment

5 Enterprise Social Software: Market Size And Forecast By Type Of Service Consumer

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Research and Markets: 2013 Report on the Enterprise Social Software/Networking Market - with Forecasts to 2018

Is social media part of your job? Many employees, not just those in marketing, are being asked to use their personal social networking accounts on behalf of their companies.

Social media works best when companies target a social network -- such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Pinterest -- with their marketing message in hopes of reaching and piquing the interest of social media influencers, which, in turn, can lead to a viral buzz with massive exposure. Nearly every employee needs to participate in order to pull it off.

Echoing this sentiment, Xerox's social media policy succinctly states the following: "Individual interactions represent a new model, not mass communications, but masses of communicators."

Social Media Can Be Risky Business

For companies, there's an element of danger in asking employees to spout off on social networks. After all, the public corporate image is at risk. Employees also risk offending the company and losing their jobs. Social media in the enterprise is littered with tales of employees getting sacked.

There needs to be clear communication between employer and employee on how employees should behave on social networks, in the form of a written policy, not just for their safety but also to be more effective. We're still in the heady days of the social revolution where missteps happen all the time.

Xerox, for instance, has a social media policy for employees with social media as part of their formal job description, but it apparently didn't save a call center employee who says she was fired for an Instagram posting. DeMetra "Meech" Christopher claims she never saw the social media policy because social media wasn't officially part of her job.

Nevertheless, Xerox's social media policy, which supplements a general Code of Business Conduct policy, provides a starting point for better communication between employer and employee in the social revolution. It's also worth a closer look, because it helps employees become better social networkers.

The 10-page social media policy opens with general ethical guidelines and goes on to cover best practices in blogging, microblogging (e.g, Twitter), message boards, social networking and video-audio sharing.

Among the general guidelines, Xerox employees are urged to get training in search optimization principles from a local Web expert. When discussing Xerox-related matters that might encourage someone to buy Xerox products or services, employees are required by the Federal Trade Commission to clearly identify themselves.

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Social Media Policy Offers Dos and Don'ts for Employees

Irans government should legalize access to social-networking websites including Twitter and Facebook, Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Ali Jannati said.

Not only Facebook, but other social networks should be accessible and the illegal qualification should be removed, Jannati said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Iran currently blocks access to websites it considers politically sensitive and to social-networking sites, which activists used in 2009 to organize street protests after a disputed presidential vote. President Hassan Rouhani, who was elected in June and has a Twitter account with more than 122,000 followers, has pledged to allow more social and press freedom and reduce state policing of Iranians private lives.

Several Iranian officials including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham have Facebook (FB) or Twitter accounts, or both.

The existing ban has spurred some Iranians to use virtual private networks to circumvent the controls through computers located abroad. About 2 million Iranians have Facebook accounts, half of them in the capital, Tehran, deputy parliamentary speaker Mohammad Hassan Aboutorabi-Fard said in January.

Jannati said he doesnt control Internet bans, which are overseen by a screening committee thats not under his ministrys direct supervision. The Culture Ministry has one representative on that committee, he added, without elaborating.

The presidents conservative rivals say young people can be corrupted by Western-style TV shows, which Iranians also access illegally through satellite channels, or Western websites such as Facebook.

Facebook is a calamity in the life of married couples and may result in their divorce, Irans Khabaronline news website said in an Oct. 21 editorial. Time spent on social networks, where one can interact with people outside the family, can weaken relations and lead to alienation, it said.

Since Rouhanis term began in August, journalists have taken advantage of new freedoms he has backed. Articles appearing in local media in recent weeks have debated subjects once taboo, ranging from the impact of sanctions to the usefulness of the decades-old revolutionary slogan, Death to America.

Newspapers have also published a string of prominent stories about opinion makers from the U.S., long dubbed the Great Satan in Irans official discourse. Interviewees have included Brookings Institute analyst Suzanne Maloney, former White House adviser Gary Sick and Alan Eyre, the Persian-speaking spokesman at the State Department.

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Iran Culture Minister Wants Social Media Ban Lifted