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nFluence Media Closes $3M Series A Funding Round, Reveals First Product — dealBoard App

SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire -02/14/12)- nFluence Media, a Seattle and London based technology startup, today announced the closing of its first external funding round as well as the launch of a range of consumer and white-labeled applications that help consumers create anonymous profiles of themselves to be able to control their digital presence and attract only the deals, ads, messages and media content that they are interested in at that moment.

nFluence's technology is built on the philosophy that consumers should be able to retake control of their digital presence. To accomplish this, nFluence steers clear of the collection of any personal data in favor of an anonymous self-profiling system that protects the consumer from intrusive or unwanted marketing.

"As the four tech giants, Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon fight over who owns the customer, nFluence is built around a simple idea -- the customer owns the customer!" says Brian Roundtree, CTO and founder of nFluence. "Our business partners are blown away when we ask them not to tell us the names, zip codes, phone numbers and email addresses of their clients. We help them build wider, deeper relationships without any personal data. It's good for them because it's what consumers want."

The first showcase of nFluence's technology will be the iPhone app 'dealBoard,' launching later this February. Using nFluence's proprietary and fun "brand sorter," dealBoard users will receive a custom, aggregated selection of daily deals that appeal to their tastes and interests. dealBoard is a free app that aggregates from nearly all daily deal sources to provide a personalized selection to its users, without sending any emails or collecting any personal data.

"People don't like most email and mobile marketing and rightfully so, they are inundated with unwanted, mistargeted or stalker-like ads, offers and messages," said Henry Lawson, CEO, nFluence Media. "With our technology, we're able to return control of a consumer's profile to the person it belongs to, the consumer, not some technology black box. The critical difference in our offering is that we allow the consumer to remain anonymous as they get what they want. The idea that digital marketing requires data exhaust sniffing is wrong. Consumers want control."

Chairman Tom Huseby added: "We have been working in stealth mode for two years on the tide of change around consumer privacy. As we began to show what we are doing to our business partners it became obvious now was the time to break cover and enable consumers to own their own data rather than allow a black box to exploit their clickstream. The team Brian and Henry have assembled have made a fantastic start in changing the way consumers will receive marketing."

The Series A investment in nFluence Media was led by the Alliance of Angels with investments from Voyager Capital and two other VCs as well as the AoA Seed Fund. nFluence Media's first application, dealBoard, will launch on the iTunes App Store later this month.

Dan Rosen, Chairman of the Alliance of Angels (AoA), added: "The AoA is delighted that nFluence is the latest company in our portfolio. They are a phenomenal team. After a great experience with Brian and Tom at SNAPin, it was clear that they would create a great next venture. Adding Henry's unique media and advertising systems background, nFluence has the opportunity to create a new market in the digital marketing space. The nFluence team and plan generated huge excitement at the AoA which responded with a large number of Angels investing quickly."

For more information visit: http://www.nfluence.com

About nFluence Media
Headquartered in both Seattle, Washington and London, England, nFluence Media is a technology startup that allows consumers to create anonymous self-profiles that allow for more relevant targeting of deals, offers, ads and messages. Founded by Henry Lawson, CEO and Brian Roundtree, CTO in 2010, nFluence Media puts power back into consumers' hands when it comes to controlling their digital presence. nFluence Media is venture-backed and will soon launch their first mobile app, dealBoard. Henry Lawson previously spent 20 years running marketing technology companies including Interep and Donovan Data Systems. Brian Roundtree is a successful startup entrepreneur, having previously founded SNAPin Software, which was sold to Nuance Communications for $224m in 2008.

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nFluence Media Closes $3M Series A Funding Round, Reveals First Product -- dealBoard App

Egypt Seeks Full Control of Media Before Elections, Youth Won't Have It

In light of Egypt’s upcoming November parliamentary elections, Egyptian officials have imposed new media restrictions that will effectively put all live broadcasts, including independent television talk shows and news bulletins, under the control of state television. Additionally, state regulators set new rules for companies that send out text message news alerts to mobile phones. Activists say the restrictions will stifle efforts to mobilize voters for November’s parliamentary elections… particularly the efforts of Egyptian youth who have become accustomed to using mobile new media technology (SMS, Facebook, Twitter, etc).

Egyptian Youth Are The Winds of Change

The  resurgent political role of youth directly intertwines with each Egyptian election cycle.  In 2006, Egyptian youth held demonstrations that accompanied judges’ protests. Judges, who had exposed instances of election fraud during the 2005 parliamentary elections, were referred to a disciplinary committee by the High Council of the Judiciary. In response, the Judges Club of Egypt held a sit-in, and various parties and movements staged demonstrations in solidarity with the judges’ sit-in. Youth from movements such as Kifaya and the Muslim Brotherhood were highly visible during these protests. The regime reacted strongly to such activism. Hundreds of activists from the Brotherhood and from Kifaya were arrested and detained for several months.

Another manifestation of youth activism during that period was the emergence of a small but outspoken bloggers movement in Egypt. According to a recent report issued by the Egyptian Cabinet Information and Decision Support Center, by April 2008 there were approximately 160,000 blogs in Egypt. And while only 20% of these blogs were political in nature, they succeeded nonetheless in causing a stir and in attracting popular and official attention.

What’s The Big Deal, You Ask?

Egypt has a large young population that is suffering from various forms of exclusion and a decaying political system that is increasingly unable to meet the demands of this population.  El-Gweini (adviser to Egypt’s Telecommunications Minister) said the recent media restriction decision was not supposed to curb political activity, but rather to protect people from “random” text messages about sensitive issues.  ”We are not making life difficult. We are making life organised, that is all.”

However, most instances of youth activism occurred largely outside pre-existing political structures and both the ruling party and opposition parties and movements failed to appeal to youth who preferred to join some of the newer parties and movements. The regime, with the tacit support of some of the older parties and movements, has successfully eliminated these newer groups and has thus left youth with no one to lead them or represent them. Kifaya is now largely defunct and Ayman Nour the leader of Al Ghad party is serving a five year prison sentence.

The Future: Unnecessary Radicalization

The continued exclusion of Egyptian youth, coupled with the insistence of the regime to bloc all avenues of youth participation, threatens to radicalize youth activism. Thus far, youth activism has been moderate and reformist in tone and has relied exclusively on non-violent tactics. However, continued exclusion might lead to the emergence of more radical and militant groups among youth. The challenge during the coming period for both the ruling party, and for opposition parties and movements is to make room for the emergence of new groups that are better able to represent youth and to articulate their needs. Absent such a development, youth in Egypt, as in much of the Arab world, will remain a ticking time bomb.

[Some information in this story was provided by Al-Masry Al-Youm, Al-Jazeera, AP, ArabReform.net, and Chosun Ilbo.]

 

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Egypt Seeks Full Control of Media Before Elections, Youth Won't Have It

Social Media Now More Popular Than Porn

Euro RSCG Worldwide's annual Valentine's Day survey explores the impact of social networking on romantic relationships and uncovers significant differences in the sex lives and desires of Americans based on politics and social media preferences.

When the Internet first was opened to public use, it was widely assumed that pornography would be its biggest draw. And for years it was. Today, in contrast, social media is the primary reason for having an Internet account -- and social networking is having a significant impact on how we meet people and develop our relationships.

A majority of the 1,000 online Americans Euro RSCG surveyed earlier this month say online dating has become mainstream, and just about half (49 percent) know someone whose relationship started with online interactions. Four in 10 admit to having flirted with someone online; a quarter of the sample say they've experienced strong feelings of attraction for someone on the Internet; and around 1 in 5 (19 percent--and 22 percent of those aged 18-34) say they've actually had a romantic, sexual, or erotic relationship online.

While not everyone actively uses the Internet as a hunting ground for love and lust, the effects of interactions online are beginning to spill over into offline lives as more people spend more time on social media sites:

-- 73 percent of Americans believe having a strongly sexual relationship with someone online counts as cheating.

-- Around a third (32 percent) know someone whose offline relationship ended because of their actions online. The number rises to 39 percent among the 18-34 cohort (millennials).

-- 69 percent say the Internet has made it easier for people to cheat on their partners.

-- 35 percent acknowledge that relationships online can prove too much of a distraction to offline relationships.

-- 11 percent of women and 18 percent of millennials admit to having "stalked" an ex on social media networks.

-- And around a third of men (31 percent) and 14 percent of women say images online have actually influenced how they think about sex. "These numbers show we've passed several milestones in the evolution of the Web," says Norm Yustin, president Euro RSCG Chicago Group. "In the early days of the Internet, lots of people used chat rooms to flirt or engage in what we used to call 'cybersex' -- but it was largely with strangers and without any intention of carrying over the relationship into the real world. What people did online stayed online, for the most part. Now our two worlds are blended, and the people we meet online and how we behave on social networks is affecting us at home and at work--for good or bad. We'll continue tracking this evolution to see just how far millennials and the generations to follow will push it--and to better understand all its implications for society and for marketers."

Are You Too Sexy for Facebook? Our study uncovered some interesting disparities between how active Facebook and Twitter users perceive themselves in the areas of sex and romance.

-- 40 percent of daily Twitter users describe themselves as "sexy," compared with just 28 percent of people who use Facebook every day.

-- 42 percent of active tweeters (vs. 33 percent of active FBers) say they're "sexually adventurous."

-- 33 percent of tweeters (vs. 28 percent of FBers) pride themselves on being "skilled lovers."

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Social Media Now More Popular Than Porn

The second coming of Myspace has Facebook's Open Graph to thank

Myspace has long been the joke of the social media world. Last year the social networking site nearly self-imploded and was victim to massive layoffs, a less than impressive sale, and being written off as a News Corp mistake. Even little victories along the way haven’t been enough to offset the overwhelming failure of the site. Netting Justin Timberlake was gimmicky, and the first mention of Myspace TV sounded like a desperate attempt to grab onto the social TV trend.

To sum up how everyone’s regarded Myspace for the past few years, skip to the one minute mark of this video:

But somehow amidst the wreckage, Myspace managed to accrue one million new subscribers since December 2011, an admirable feat. How did its new company Specific Media save a sinking ship?

Making new friends out of old enemies

November 2010 was something of a turning point for Myspace. The struggling site finally integrated with Facebook, allowing Myspace users to sign on via the Facebook Connect application. While the partnership was definitely a coup for Facebook (and so insignificant to the world’s largest social network that it failed to even acknowledge the move, although Myspace announced the integration), there are some obvious benefits for Myspace.

Chief among them was the ability to access Facebook’s social graph. Being able to leverage the amount of data users pour into Facebook has always been profitable, but Facebook’s Open Graph made this abundantly clearer. Essentially, it’s now an app platform and Myspace is going to go along for the ride.

Of course, a purely social app won’t quite have the pull on the Open Graph that more niche ones do – something that fills a hole. Food, daily deals, games, travel, news. These are all areas Facebook has made available via Timeline apps, which is where the real money and user numbers are at.

Could this have something to do with Myspace’s music player and refocus? Myspace was already on this path, but the Open Graph could have been added impetus. Myspace has no doubt noticed who the early winners of the Open Graph were – music apps.

Your Myspace listening activity already shows up in the Ticker and you can listen-in with friends. So now we’re curious: Will Facebook add Myspace to its official list of Timeline apps? Regardless of where the partnership goes from here, one thing is abundantly clear: Facebook killed Myspace and now it’s bringing it back to life. 

Fighting David instead of Goliath

The story of Myspace’s success is more about Facebook than anything else. The Open Graph has been such a triumph and Facebook’s “we have a platform, someone else can make the content we proliferate it with” concept has been working out splendidly.

Myspace has wisely taken itself out of Facebook’s playing field. Now, it’s the likes of Spotify, MOG, Rdio, and Last.fm that the site will have to contend with. These are considerably smaller beasts, although their momentum (thanks in part to Facebook’s Timeline and new class of apps) shouldn’t be discounted.

And because it integrates with Facebook, it has an edge over streaming services that don’t (we’re looking at you, Google Music).  

The real remaining question seems to be how Myspace TV will fare. At the moment, Myspace is the umbrella under which Myspace Music and soon enough, Myspace TV fall. In this regard, it’s differentiating itself from either exclusive music or video streaming content, but it will still have Hulu, Amazon Instant Play, and Netflix as competition (which should be launching its own Facebook integration soon, right?). 

So is this all enough for a comeback? Only if you limit expectations. Myspace will never again be a full-featured social networking platform and it won’t challenge Facebook or Twitter or even Tumblr. But if comeback means staying on your feet, pushing your newly established brand, and riding Facebook’s coattails for all they’re worth (which there is no shame in), then it seems very likely. 

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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The second coming of Myspace has Facebook's Open Graph to thank

Dread Reckoning: H5N1 Bird Flu May Be Less Deadly to Humans Than Previously Thought–or Not

A simple math problem lies at the heart of a heated debate over whether scientists should be allowed to publish provocative research into the transmissibility of H5N1 flu. Assuming the avian virus could spread easily among people, just how deadly would an H5N1 pandemic be for humans?

Flu scientists tend to shy away from that question, suggesting that it is not possible to predict how lethal the virus would still be after undergoing the necessary changes to adapt to human physiology. But inevitably, people look for clues to what appears to be the best predictor of the virus's future path—its current behavior. And that appears downright terrifying: as many as 59 percent of people known to have contracted the virus have died from the infection.

More specifically, of the 584 people who have tested positive with what the World Health Organization (WHO) confirms is H5N1, 345 have died. (These numbers are current as of February 8, 2012.)

But what if H5N1 isn't as deadly as the official numbers suggest?

Indeed, two researchers have charged into the already fraught H5N1 publication controversy insisting the numbers are wrong, that the true mortality rate is likely to be much, much lower and that bad policy is being driven by the inflated figures.

Peter Palese, a noted influenza virologist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, and Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology at Columbia University Medical Center, also in New York City, are among a vocal group of scientists who vehemently oppose any decision to suppress the details of research conducted by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands.

Fouchier and Kawaoka had—at the request of the National Institutes of Health—figured out whether the H5N1 virus could become more transmissible in non-avian species. Their efforts reportedly revealed that just a few mutations were all that was needed to create a bird flu virus that is easily transmitted between ferrets. In addition, Fouchier said that his strain remained just as deadly to ferrets as it had been to birds, although Kawaoka later declared that his lab strain was not lethal.

Palese suggested in a perspective article co-authored by Taia Wang and published ahead of print on January 25, 2012 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the case fatality rate of H5N1 human was almost certainly "orders of magnitude" too high.

Starting with the current 59 percent rate, if you start pushing the decimal point left, 59 becomes 5.9, which becomes 0.56 or even 0.056. Each adjustment of the decimal corresponds to an order of magnitude. (For comparison's sake, the mortality rate of current seasonal flu is less than 0.1 percent whereas researchers estimate that the mortality rate of the killer 1918 flu pandemic was around 2 percent.)

Racaniello, who did his thesis research under Palese, suggested on his popular Virology Blog in early January that the estimates of H5N1's killing potential were vastly overrated. Citing a recently published study that found what might be H5N1 antibodies in the blood of some villagers in Thailand, he mused that if 9 percent of rural Asians had antibodies to the virus, the perception of how dangerous H5N1 is would change dramatically.

In the flu world, few people would argue that Palese and Racaniello are wrong that the case/fatality rate is too high. It might be difficult, though, to find many who agreed with their conclusion on what that means about the virus.

It is widely accepted that the cases that come to light and get tallied by WHO are only an unknown portion of the total human infections that have occurred. Official case counts are certainly missing some infections—but not enough to morph H5N1 into a benign virus, a number of flu scientists agree in interviews for Scientific American.

"I think all these numbers are flexible, and Peter is undoubtedly right it's not 60 percent. But I don't know what it is. And I don't think he does either," says Robert Krug, chairman of Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Texas at Austin, where his work focuses on the molecular mechanisms at play during influenza infection.

"It's dangerous. How dangerous? I have no idea…. I'm sure it's less than 60 percent but it's still too high for the world to tolerate a (human-to-human) transmissible H5N1 virus," says Krug, who believes both papers should be published in full.

The problem with the case/fatality rate, as Palese pointed out in PNAS, is that human infections with what is still a bird virus generally only come to the attention of medical authorities when someone gets really sick. In fact, in order to count as a case by WHO's definition, a person must have a high fever, known exposure to the virus, and needs to test positive for H5N1. A specimen for a test would generally only be taken at a hospital and that facility would have to have access to a laboratory. If H5N1 is causing mild cases, they are unlikely to come to light under that definition. Is a person living in a remote Cambodian village who feels lousy for a couple of days going to seek that kind of medical care? If there are H5N1 cases like that, the fact they are being missed artificially lowers the denominator.

"If the only cases you know about are the ones who are going to die, then you might believe that the case/fatality rate is very high because you lack surveillance of less symptomatic cases," says John J. Treanor, chief of the Infectious Diseases Division at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York State.

But what of the numerator, or the number of deaths? For the case/fatality rate to plummet, the numerator must be a smaller fraction of the total cases. But it is clear the numerator is off as well, notes Tim Uyeki, an influenza epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control who has spent a lot of time in the field studying human H5N1 cases and outbreaks.

Uyeki points as an example to the first report in the scientific literature of presumed person-to-person spread of H5N1. It was a cluster of three infections that started with an 11-year-old girl who fell ill in September 2004. She lived with an aunt while her mother worked in a distant city. Both the aunt and the mother, who came home to care for the girl, got sick; the mother and daughter died.

All three clearly had H5N1—a throat swab confirmed it in the aunt and virus was found in tissue from the mother. But the hospital had thought the girl had dengue fever. By the time they realized these were H5N1 cases, the girl had died and her body was cremated. Officially that cluster went down on the books as two cases, not three. There are other cases that were designated as probable infections but which never made the official count, Uyeki says.

Given the limitations of the system for finding human cases, researchers have been conducting what are known as sero-surveys—drawing blood samples from groups of people who were likely exposed to the virus to see if they have antibodies specific to it. That would be a sign that they had been infected and survived. More than 20 such studies have been completed since 1997, when the first known cases of H5N1 infection in humans cropped up. Groups that have been tested included workers who culled infected chickens, health care workers who cared for H5N1 patients, people who worked in live animal markets and people who lived in villages where cases have occurred. The studies have been done in China, Indonesia, Nigeria, Cambodia, Thailand and elsewhere, important because different subfamilies of H5N1 viruses circulate in different parts of the world and some—hypothetically—may cause more severe disease than others.

Most of the sero-surveys have been small; few have contained more than 500 people. Whereas one study—among poultry market workers in Hong Kong in 1997—found around 10 per cent had H5N1 antibodies, most reported either no positives or low rates of people with antibodies. Some were under 1 percent, two were in the 3 to 4 percent range.

The study Racaniello drew on to argue H5N1 infection was more prevalent (and thus less lethal) than official numbers suggest looked for evidence of antibodies in 800 Thai adults living in villages where outbreaks of H5N1 had occurred in birds and where at least one human infection had been reported. The researchers found 5.6 percent had elevated antibodies to one H5N1 virus and 3.5 percent to another.

Not everyone agrees, however, that this particular study can be used to support Racaniello's argument. The threshold used in the Thai research as evidence of antibodies is substantially lower than most studies use. With a cutoff that low, says Malik Peiris, chair of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Hong Kong, one cannot be sure whether what is being detected is antibody-specific to H5N1, or antibodies to other flu viruses that happen to cross-react with the H5N1 test. Having low levels of antibodies that react to—and might even protect against—H5N1 does not prove that the person was infected with H5N1, Peiris says.

The senior author of the Thai study, Gregory Gray, chair of the Department of Environmental and Global Health at the University of Florida, says his group used the low threshold because they know antibody levels wane over time. They were looking for "subtle evidence" of infections that might have occurred years previous. But Gray says the results should not be overinterpreted. "It is a stretch to say this is population-based and also a stretch to say these all represented H5N1 infections," he says.

Although Krug, Treanor, Uyeki and Peiris all agree the official 59 percent H5N1 case fatality rate is not the true number, none takes much comfort from the fact. Krug is agitated that the controversy over the studies is drawing attention away from their key message—this virus can adapt to spread in mammals, which may include humans. And Treanor scoffs at the idea that concern over H5N1 is overblown. "If H5 is not dangerous, why are we even bothering to study it at all?" he asks. "I think it is without a doubt the case that it is not as dangerous as it looks from the cases that we have. But it is still without a doubt an extremely dangerous virus—particularly if it gained the ability to spread from person to person."

As for how far off the case/fatality rate is, there is no way of knowing. Uyeki, who has studied the issue at length, gives his estimate: "Are we missing some [cases]? Yeah, probably we're missing some. But are we missing hundreds of thousands? No, I don't think so. Are we missing tens of thousands? Probably not. Are we missing hundreds? Possibly. It's really hard to know."

 

 

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Dread Reckoning: H5N1 Bird Flu May Be Less Deadly to Humans Than Previously Thought--or Not