Lutebox Announces Seed Funding/BETA Launch from Le Web London

MaintainPR client Lutebox, a new and pioneering social mall where you can shop together with family and friends while videochatting, announced their seed round and a major strategy pivot today from Le Web London.

Starting today, people can browse for top brands at leading retailers such as M&S, Bhs, Boots, Sainsbury’s and Debenhams, view content together, get instant feedback and have live discussions, all while socializing with friends at the same time. It's all done through a proprietary video chat within the Lutebox platform, and coverage on this new methodology for shopping online certainly got people talking.

Bobbie Johnson from GigaOm posted his thoughts in between curating on stage at the event, and BetaKit has also weighed in, stating "merchants are obviously excited about the idea, since it provides another opportunity for them to market their wares without any real risk."

Congrats on the successful BETA guys!

ViewsOnYou in About.com Job Searching

ViewsOnYou have an exciting product proposition for our times -- where social media has truly reached its tipping point, and Facebook continues to dominate all facets of life online.

The site and Facebook app allow you to set up a 360 review and profile from crowdsourcing your peers. You can then match your "soft skills" against the growing database of companies to see your best fit in the workplace.

Alison Doyle, career expert for About.com, took the site for a spin and did this write up, stating: "by matching you personality with that of other companies, you can more easily decide which jobs to apply for -- and which don't seem to be a good fit for you."

Click here to see the full article.

Ethical Community in Metro UK

MaintainPR client Ethical Community (think Etsy, but with a green market stall type feel) are featured in the Metro UK today, proof their concept of an eco-friendly, online marketplace is taking off!

For more views and news (including all the great press coverage the guys have achieved to date) click here to head over to the Ethical Community press page.

Gruvi's Social Film Marketing Expertise Featured in The Hollywood Reporter

A great quote from MaintainPR client Gruvi appears in this piece by Georg Szalai of The Hollywood Reporter on Facebook and it's impact for film marketing post IPO.

Gruvi's new Wave suit of Facebook apps is an investment for film marketers seeking augmentation of Facebook ad and marketing strategy with earned media. To put it simply, Gruvi creates buzz around a movie like Spotify does for a tune.

Gruvi's James Hobbis goes on to say in the piece, “The smart marketer with a small budget can box above their weight thanks to Facebook and social media,” then explains the rationale why.

Read more on The Hollywood Reporter.

Ryan

MaintainPR Clients Teamly and Bluefields Set to Make it Big in 500 Startups (Silicon Valley Incubator)

Today's Evening Standard carried great news from Silicon Valley, with lead Science and Tech Editor Mark Prigg writing on two of London's most promising startups (and MaintainPR clients:) who just announced their "accelerator" period!

Teamly for reinventing the performance review, and Bluefields for sports team organization have been accepted into Dave McClure's prestigious 500 Startups incubator, where they will take their concepts to the next level through coaching and an undisclosed (at this time anyway) investment!

Here is to both founders sticking to their guns, Scott Allison of Teamly, and Andrew Crump of Bluefields! Nice going guys.

Ryan

colourDNA Launches iPhone App to Multiple Glowing Write-Ups

MaintainPR client colourDNA, who are slowly and steadily building an alternative social network and recommendation platform for sharing your loves online have today announced the introduction of their much anticipated iPhone app for sharing loves on the go and getting recommendations based on your current whereabouts.

Techcrunch covered the launch asking their readers whether this is "Pinterest for colour?," and both SiliconANGLE and Appolicious have standalone thought-provoking reviews at launch as well.

To top things off, Shiny Shiny, one of our favourite UK technology review sites made the colourDNA iPhone app "App of the Day" on launch day and AG Beat chimed in to cover the news as well.

Congrats to colourDNA and their developer on an app well done!

Scott Allison Techcrunch Guest Post: The Trouble with Non-tech Cofounders

Teamly's Scott Allison has been impressing folks on both sides of the Atlantic lately, and his recent interactions/experience in Silicon Valley, has brought us this great guest post for Techcrunch's Europe Channel.

The Trouble with Non-tech Cofounders gets to the point of why so many startups fail.

Here's an excerpt:

"I’ve seen the problem with non-tech founders a few times now, different people, different ages and backgrounds, with different levels of skill, but all with the same thing in common: having to rely on someone else to bring an idea from paper to screen."

A great read and getting lots of comments, so click through to check it out!

Teamly's Scott Allison on 30 Second Mentor

MaintainPR client Teamly is all about getting work done right. The simple web interface lets individuals and small business stay on top of their to-do list by focusing on a users top five priorities for Day/Week/Month.

Recently Teamly's founder, Scott Allison, who blogs about lean startups, entrepreneurialism and business management here was asked about how to do financing right for The Financial Post's 30-Second Mentor Series

Check it out!

30-Second Mentor delivers quick advice via an innovative video-only format and exemplifies the National Post's and Postmedia Network's dedication to a digital-first strategy in a smart and entertaining manner.

Congrats Scott!

Calling All Data Hungry Journos -- Duedil Wants You!

Duedil (www.duedil.com) is a showstopper. A beautiful and easy-to-master UI you access from your browser, wrapped around sought after information on public (currently UK) companies, and the men and women that run them.

That's why founder Damian Kimmelman and his team walked off with this year's award at the Techcrunch EU Geek N Rolla's and why technology and business reporters that are in the know are signing on to help in the next steps of the company: making Duedil the #1 place for business intelligence on the web.

If you are a data hungry journalist, covering business in this always-on world, where services like Duedil can now present a wealth of information that previously would have eaten away hours of your life in research, then Duedil wants to hear from you.

Drop a line to press@duedil.com for access, and to be a part of a feedback program beautifully outlined here by GigaOm's Bobbie Johnson.

Gruvi Launches in UK Film Market Finding Fans with Sony Picture's Bad Teacher

Some of the largest marketing and advertising budgets for Facebook "engagement" campaigns come from entertainment companies seeking to promote commercial film and DVD releases. Enter MaintainPR client Gruvi.tv, a Scandinavian-based fan finding service for brands on Facebook.

Last week Gruvi announced their entry into the UK film marketing industry, through a partnership promoting Bad Teacher, a new comedy film starring Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, and my personal hero and doppelganger, Jason Segel.

The news and unique approach of Gruvi (several different engagement mechanisms are tied together in one simple app) has resonated with those tracking new social marketing (see Michael Girard's of Radian6's comment on GigaOm) and has been covered on NewTeeVee, Artic Startup, The New York Times and more!

For more info on Gruvi and their next steps check out founder Ben Johnson's blog where you can have a look over a recently completed whitepaper on market value and ROI Gruvi's customers have been seeing.

Teamly 100,000 Priority Milestone on Techcrunch Europe

Teamly's Scott Allison has just announced the company's formal launch with a nice milestone of 100,000 "priorities," (or tasks) now set by Teamly users!

Techcrunch EU has the story including some of the funding now closing in for Scott and team here

If you haven't tried Teamly, we can't recommend it enough for easy task management within either SMB or Enterprise because of the simplest of reporting structures: your dashboard presents ToDos by day/week/month.

There is currently a free trial for the Professional Account too! Check it out here

Update* Teamly's milestone and new Professional Plan were covered on The Next Web, WebWorkerDaily, and Social Times in addition to Techcrunch Europe!