Quixey raises US $ 3.8 million, for functional search engine for your applications

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Quixey, on the basis of the Palo Alto startup that builds functional search engine for your applications, today announced that it closed the US $ 3.8 million series a funding round. Investment venture partners led the WI Harper group and the United States, with the participation of Webb investment network, along with subsequent investments, Eric Schmidt innovation. Series round adds to Quixey $ 400 K, grew in April from innovation endeavours to attract investment to $ 4.2 million.

We've all heard (and maybe even prototyping) quip "there is an app for that." It's really excellent quality of the Mobile revolution: there really is an app for just about everything you can think of, from call taxis for managing schedule scan for cancer or heart murmors skin. But it's also overwhelming, and find the application you want is not easy. There are a lot of noise and a lot of flawed approaches to app engine.

Quixey entered the game with the intent to build a new type of search, molded specifically for the unique features of the search for these everywhere, but sometimes elusive apps. Their decision came up with "functional search", which not only scans the major App stores, but blogging crawls, review sites, forums and social media sites to create a truly comprehensive picture of what the application can be done through reviews, Word of mouth and demos.

Quixey for search engine enables the user to enter queries like "baseball report and get a list of applications that provide only that (which they can then filter by platform). And the best part search Zarins Windows and Mac apps, iGoogle, extensions, and much more. It's not just the iOS and Android.

Although the Quixey seemingly to compete with the likes of Chomp and other, startup also has added value offers in the nutritional status of the search for other App stores, search engines and Web sites — just like Google — to facilitate the diffusion of its search engine for third-party sites throughout the Internet.

So it comes as no surprise then that Eric Schmidt innovation Ventures invests in search a great application. Attraction of external information and data from blogs, review sites and beyond, really adds an additional level of depth search applications (especially in being independent of the platform), as well as nutrition search through Web sites gives Quixey the ability to scale and be mixed with the very place it scans. Startup will use its new investment to continue achieving partnership with App stores and other app a great third party resources, and teammate Quixey, there are more than 25 potential partnerships in the pipeline. More partners, the more effective it becomes search engine.

This is an interesting new approach this "functional search, and from my experience so far, works as advertised. Chimes to let us know what you think. More about Quixey here.

Quixey is a functional search engine for your applications. Use the applications in your daily life. You are using Google apps on your phone, in your browser, social networking and ...

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Native or Web site? Bizness application adds HTML5 platform for small and medium-sized businesses create their own applications — to both

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Bizness Apps launch, which gives small businesses the means to quickly and easily create a mobile application that launched in October 2010, and is growing like gangbusters, reaching more than 1000 applications that 10 languages and more than 20 countries in less than 9 months. She also recently teamed with WuFoo to give small and medium-sized businesses the ability to create and seamlessly add contact forms, online surveys and invitations for their applications. Startup also has interesting founding story that provides useful lessons for your business. Check out our April coverage here.

Bizness Apps value proposition is simple: run wants to make mobile applications available, customizable and easy-to-small business owner. Thus starting offers DIY iPhone, iPad and Android application platform that enables SMB to create, edit, and manage mobile applications without any programming experience required. You start with a template, customize them to meet your business and then Bizness Apps makes them native apps and distributes them on iTunes and the Android market.

Run is not without competitors in this space as iSites, SwebApps and mobile Roadie are targeting similar endpoint. But real Apps Bizness advantage that this product is easy to use, well designed, yet remains accessible. Price for use iOS or Android platform-$ 39, while those who want to create Android applications and iOS are paying $ 59. This accessibility is very appealing for small business, wants to take advantage of the mobile business without having to fork over thousands of dollars to do so.

Native apps are great and all, you could say, but what about this should HTML5 revolution? Where is my Web applications? Accelerated, the fact that heated debate whether the app developers should go to HTML5 or native apps (as evidenced by mg on the post titled back in February), the Bizness Apps founder and Executive Director Andrew Gazdecki said that he thinks that the best approach is to place a bet on mobile as a whole — not one or the other.

That is why the launch today announces the launch of HTML5 version of the platform for their DIY mobile applications for small businesses. With this new Web feature service, users now have the ability to create almost identical mobile experience for every mobile platform, including iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and so on — they can go native HTML5, or both. For an additional $ 10 per month.

Within the framework of the launch platform for HTML5 Bizness Apps built QR code enabled mobile marketing template to provide a simple and affordable way to market their mobile applications for clients small and medium-sized businesses. Image template, as shown above, is automatically generated (with the possibility of printing) with one click from within the platform for HTML5.

The idea here, said Gazdecki, is to help direct business customers for the relevant applications based on what type of mobile device they are using. For example, if a user has an Android phone, they scan the Android themed QR code assigned to business Android app.

Another important piece of the puzzle in the establishment of a development tool agnostic application platform for small and medium business is the existence in the mother and HTML5 and accessibility and the new possibilities of mobile marketing, Bizness Apps became an interesting platform and is well-positioned to weather the native vs. web apps debate.

Startup offers a coupon code for 25 free apps for readers, TC, which you can check by signing up here. Coupon code "techcrunch".

For more check the video below:

Bizness Apps makes iPhone and Android applications, accessible and simple for small businesses. We have DIY iPhone app platform that allows small businesses to easily create, edit and manage ...

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Placecast brings location-based retail trade signals Smartphone applications

Leena Rao is currently working as a writer for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school of the Medill School of journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007 she helped lead efforts for advocacy and community relationships Congressman Carloyn Maloney in New York. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003 where it was ... ? Read More

Placecast's ShopAlerts service that provides retail and commercial offers and discounts to consumers via their mobile phones, today announces the new functionality, integration with Mobile Smartphone apps.

As we wrote in the past, ShopAlerts is a white-label geofencing platform for businesses that want to deliver the GEO work offers to its customers on their mobile phones. Consumers can sign up to receive text messages in different ways — in-store, online, via text message, mobile Web sites, or on Facebook. Geofences virtual cause around physical location; When the user selected in the geofenced area, it receives a message from the business, including discount, sale, shop or other content.

With the new feature, retailers have deployed mobile applications can allow users to obtain from the nearest store, retailer or other appropriate location, location-based communication without the app being open in the same way as ShopAlerts programs work on any phone, this new feature works on any Smartphone platform.

Once a retailer integrates with ShopAlerts, clients (who are in receipt of alerts) will have location-based push notifications when they are in the area of geofenced. Retailers can also use the preferences expressed by the consumer, such as loyalty or past purchase data to improve the relevance of the message or transaction. Time of day and weather can also be taken into account for the creation of added value, and brands could also enable location-based notification when a particular product is available in a nearby store.

Placecast says that he will work directly with retailers to integrate ShopAlerts into their applications, helping them to develop a programme and a messaging strategy, choose the number and size of geofences and activate the field.

Integration with retail Smartphone applications makes a lot of sense for Placecast. With the increase in offline and online commerce Placecast gives retailers another way for consumers and offer relevant transactions and information. The aim is to bring the user in the repository, and messages sent via the Smartphone app can help do that.

Placecast is already used by a number of high-profile brands such as North face and even AT&T.

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