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News Start-up Daylife Raises First Round; NYTCO Leads Investors

By Staci D. Kramer - Wed 01 Nov 2006 01:15 AM PST

You’re reading it here first ... After a year of mostly veiled references and speculation fueled by the involvement of Jeff Jarvis as an adviser and Craig Newmark as an investor, Daylife, the distributed news platform founded by Upendra Shardanand, is about to see the light of day—funded by roughly twice as many investors as it has employees. The New York Times Company is leading the round of more than two dozen investors and is putting up nearly half the amount; the company isn’t planning to release a number when the formal announcement is made in the next few days but it’s likely in the low-mid millions range.
Other investors include Doug Chertok and Rich LeFurgy through Archer Martin; Ken Lerer, the Huffington Post; Azeem Azhar; Andy Sack, Judy’s Book; Mike Yavonditte, Quigo; and Scott Heiferman, co-founder, Meetup. Several investors—among them Craig Newmark, Mike Arrington, Dave Winer, John Borthwick -- have made their involvement public in recent months. A number of first-round participants also were angel investors including Newmark, Borthwick and Mika Salmi, CEO, Atom Entertainment. 
I saw an early demo of Daylife last month but a number of changes have been made since then so I’m not sure what made the final cut. The mission is to gather and organize news in ways that are most relevant to the user. That could be by event, topic, author, geography or other factors. Source pages that show what a journalist writes about or who is quoted are part of the mix.  RSS plays an important role. In an interview, Shardanand said the distributed platform—designed for use across multiple sites—will be open “to a degree” with options for revenue sharing and licensing for those doing a heavy volume. “Anyone can take what we’re building and add it to their own site … Obviously, we have to make some revenue.” He also hopes to attract more media investors.
-- Daylife is to some degree a relevancy engine, which fits in with Shardanand’s earlier work as co-founder of Firefly, an early recommendation system sold to Microsoft in 1998. Firefly became the base for Microsoft Passport. Shardanand has also been at AOL and Time Warner. He sees opportunities in news because it hasn’t evolved as much technologically as areas like e-commerce.
-- Beyond the main page, the site is automated. No edit staff although Shardanand describes it as “not strictly engineering driven.” Photos are being licensed.
-- The site is slated for a very soft launch Monday while Daylife seeks initial feedback from a relatively small group.
Related: Newmark Among Angel Investors In Stealth Online J Start-up

Posted in: Advertising, Money, Social Media, Nanopublishing, Technologies/Formats, RSS Etc., VC+M&A

Related Research from Alacrastore.com

2 Responses:
  • From Aleksandar Skocajic Tue 28 Nov 2006 03:28 AM

    Dear Mr.  ,

    From the reason of pure copyright infringement and plagiarism,I
    have sued FOX, UNIVERSAL and 7 film companies more, by the District Court here in my country.

    I was approaching to the start of the trial at December 26,
    2002, by the court here, where I have filed both lawsuit at Spring 2000.
    The Court have sent the summons for the trial to all nine defendants : 
    TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX, FOX 2000, ORIGINAL FILM,DONNER/SHULER/DONNER PRODUCTIONS, UNIVERSAL PICTURES, JOSEPH M. SINGER ENTERTAINMENT (now : SINGER/JENSEN
    ENTERTAINMENT), PACIFIC WESTERN (now :WALHALLA MOTION
    PICTURES), MCA (VIDEO), and UNITED INTERNATIONAL PICTURES. 
    in the begining of December 2001 over Foreign Offices of Yugoslavia,
    who have sent the official back letter to the court here in August 2002,
    reporting that Yugoslav Embassy in the USA, in Washington, was informed them, that Embassy have officially delivered all nine summons and lawsuits v. all nine defendants to the US State Department for handling all those material to all defendants. Eight defendants, all from the USA didn’t approaching to the court in the date of trial, - December 26,2002, and State Department didn’t send any back information, did they and when they have handled the summons to the defendants. Only distribution film company UIP from London, England, was approaching to the court through their represented attorney.

    Because those 8 defendants from the USA
    didn’t appear in the court and didn’t send any answer, I assume that
    they try to avoid their appearance to the court and I want to offer to
    you your possible representation v. all 8 defendants by appropriate US
    Federal court, and moving the case from here to the USA.  For your
    information I have finally found 242 identical or similar scenes from my
    screenpaly MAGMA TOWN with FOX’s film VOLCANO and about 80 scenes with UNIVERSAL’s film DANTE’S PEAK.

    I put in the lawsuits my request of $28 million for recovery sum to me from all 9 defendants for total gross of both
    movies in the wide world for the year 1997. I have intention to give to
    handling additional request to the court for about additional $20
    million more for their earning from 1997 till 2002 for DVD and video sales.

    Also, I have recently discovered that HarperCollins Publishers Inc. from New York published two books VOLCANO using also my screenplay MAGMA TOWN.

    Here, regarding both paperbacks, I give to you the next notices :

    - V O L C A N O - L.A. erupts in 1997
    (writen from Jerome Armstrong and story by)
    Novelization by Richard Woodley, published
    through HarperPaperbacks in May 1997,
    ISBN :0-06-101165-7 and,

    web site :
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061011657/qid=1016519085/sr=
    1-50/ref=sr_1_50/102-3065626-7943349

    - V O L C A N O - The Coast Is Toast !
    (writen from Jerome Armstrong and story by)
    Novelization by Cathy East Dubowski,
    published through HarperTrophy in 1997,
    ISBN :0-06-440690-3

    web site :
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0064406903/qid=1016449622/sr=
    12-50/002-8880209-3996827

    Also, publishing company W H Smith from London, United Kingdom,
    also has published book VOLCANO.

    I have found new information about 3 books VOLCANO printed in
    England :

    ISBN : 0708940676
    ISBN : 0006510485
    ISBN : 0061011657

    You can also find it if you go on web site
    http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/books/n9/n45027.htm?authorid=8091
    and open it with ENTER.

    Trully, both books are little different written
    than film VOLCANO, and also they are in some way different, regarding
    each other.I have found that in film VOLCANO are about 140 identical
    or very similar scenes with my script and that is the base of my
    lawsuit v. FOX. In both your paperbacks it is less identical scenes with my screenplay than it is in film VOLCANO (probably J.Armstrong and both novelizators : R. Woodley and C.E. Dubowski have changed parts of plots and some scenes), but it stayed pretty much.

    If you are interested about possible legal representation of this law case, please let me know. 

    I look forward to hearing from you !

    Very truly yours,

    Aleksandar Skocajic

    My address :

    SKOCAJIC ALEKSANDAR
    11O5O B E O G R A D 22
    GRCICA MILENKA 4 A, STAN 41
    S E R B I A

    PHONE NUMBER : 011- 381 -11- 2836 - 304

    Best calling about 1,00 PM.

    E-mail address :

  • From Vasil Ijas Thu 05 Apr 2007 12:50 AM

    This is really one extraordinary situation. I found that some finance company from the USA could gives the support that man and provide him with suitable condition and possibility that he could fight against FOX and UNIVERSAL and HarperCollins, like companies who worth over $30 billion for sure, and opposite them is he, alone with no sources. I invite such a companies to help him, and possible get significant amounts when he got the case by the proper US court in the close future.

    Regards, Vasil Ijas

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