Pluck Corporation, which was acquired by Demand Media in March, announced today that it is now powering social media capabilities at Film.com and RollingStone.com. Attracting combined monthly audiences of more than 10 million, Film.com and RollingStone.com will use Pluck’s SiteLife social media capabilities.

“Our primary focus is delivering the very best in high quality social entertainment and editorial content to millions of viewers online,” said Elizabeth Coppinger, vice president of video services for RealNetworks®. “The integration of the Pluck social media tools throughout RollingStone.com and Film.com expands how people engage with our content, our brand and one another.”

“Film.com and RollingStone.com are two of the most popular entertainment sites on the web, providing multi-media experiences to millions of film and music enthusiasts,” said Dave Panos, president of Pluck. “We’re excited to be working with them as they deliver new socially-oriented experiences to a variety of audiences.”

Technorati Tags: Austin, demand media, film.com, pluck, rolling stone, Startup

Stacey Higginbotham is breaking the news over at GigaOM property Earth2Tech that Joel Serface, director of the Clean Energy Incubator, will be leaving to become an Entrepreneur in Residence at Kleiner Perkins Department of Energy Program, which is an effort to commercialize clean technology coming out of the national laboratories.

Maybe he will favor us with a comment, and let us know if Kleiner is going to make him move to the valley.

http://earth2tech.com/2008/05/14/austin-cleantech-guru-to-be-kleiner-eir/

Technorati Tags: CleanTech

N-trig, the provider of DuoSense™ technology combining pen and zero-pressure touch for mobile and fixed computers into a single device, announced today that it is meeting environmental Green requirements in compliance with international standards. All articles, including materials, parts, assembly, and packaging that N-trig and its affiliates directly or indirectly supply have been designed and manufactured to meet the latest environmental standards for controlling substances which impact the environment. N-trig has now moved from being RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) compliant to being a “Green” company.

“We have a commitment to protecting the environment and reducing waste, and we’re demonstrating that through the materials and processes that we use,” said Amihai Ben-David, CEO of N-trig. “While our technology improves how we live, we want to improve where we live as well by operating in an environmentally responsible way. We hope other companies around the world will join us as we develop tomorrow’s technology while making the world a cleaner place for all of us today.”

Because N-trig has now gone “Green,” its supply chain is using new, environmentally friendly products as well. N-trig and its supply chain are actively involved in waste reduction and meet Green product requirements that restrict the use of 36 family materials in manufacturing, parts, assembly, and packaging. As an environmentally conscious company, N-trig strives to improve human health by ensuring that all of its processes and products are in compliance with the latest international environmental standards.

Technorati Tags: Austin, green, n-trig, Startup

Asuragen announced today the CE-mark and European launch of RNARetain™ Pre-Analytical RNA Stabilization Solution, the company’s clinically validated and cGMP manufactured sample collection and RNA stabilization solution. Based upon patented technology, RNARetain is labeled for the collection, storage, and transport of clinical human cellular and solid tissue specimens and stabilization of intracellular RNA within these specimens for subsequent extraction and molecular analysis.

RNARetain was cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in conjunction with Agendia BV’s MammaPrint® breast cancer test in June 2007. “RNARetain will become a valuable tool in molecular diagnostics and future personalized medicine applications by allowing shipment of fresh tumor biopsies at ambient temperature, thus greatly facilitating the logistical process of sample handling,” said Matt Winkler, CEO/CSO, Asuragen, Inc.

RNARetain infiltrates tissues and cells, precipitating nucleic acids and proteins in situ providing powerful protection of cellular RNA from both intracellular and extracellular ribonucleases, which would otherwise rapidly degrade the RNA in the specimen. Ribonucleases are ubiquitous in freshly acquired samples and need to be inactivated in order to effectively analyze the RNA composition of a specimen. The collection of human cellular and solid tissue specimens in RNARetain eliminates the need to immediately process these specimens, allowing RNA extraction and molecular analysis at a later time and/or different location. It also eliminates the need to flash-freeze specimens, a process that involves manipulation of potentially hazardous agents, and to keep specimens frozen throughout storage and transport. Formalin fixation, the most common method of clinical biopsy preservation, is both hazardous to work with and is known to degrade RNA.

Technorati Tags: asuragen, Austin, Startup

Mashable.com, the leading blog for social networking, announced their US Summer Tour dates today. Cities include Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Boston, New York City, and yes of course Austin, Texas! Previous Mashable events have been incredibly popular, and we lobbied to make sure that Austin was one stop on the tour. Let’s make it the best stop!

Austin Tech Happy Hour is teaming up with Mashable to throw this July 30th event at Buffalo Billiards. Information on how to register will be released in the next few weeks, but for now put it on your calendar!

If you’re interested in being a local sponsor, you can email the editor here at austinstartup and we’ll get the information to you. We also need a couple people who would like to work registration (we will even pay you).

Stay tuned for more details!

Technorati Tags: athh, Austin, event, happy hour, mashable.com, tour

Yes, it’s that time of the year again when Ernst & Young recognizes Austin entrepreneurs. We always have a soft spot for the technology entrepreneurs, but the industry doesn’t matter. So here’s our recap of the finalists this year. Congratulations to all of you!

Entrepreneur Finalists

• Mark Adams, Advocate MD
• Tim Costello, Builder Homesite
• Sam Goodner, Catapult Systems
• Craig Malloy, LifesSize Communications
• Satin Mirchandani and Mike Rosenfelt, MessageOne
• Kirk Rudy, Chris Ellis, et al, Endeavor Real Estate Group
• Ed Sattar, 360 Training

MessageOne is nominated again, and they say you have to be nominated a few times before you win. Given that they just got bought by Dell, and are probably not really eligible next year, I would wager that they take home a trophy this year. Sam Goodner at Catapult Systems is an incredible entrepreneur, and his company has been around for over 10 years. The powers that be typically don’t reward services companies with this honor (if history is any indication). Craig Malloy at LifeSize has guided the company to tremendous growth and success. This may be the first year they have been nominated, but despite that we’re predicting an award. Endeavor Real Estate is certainly the major powerhouse in Austin, and that whole industry generates significant cash flow to many, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see them win either.

Social EOY Finalists

• Alan Graham, Mobile Loaves and Fishes
• Richard Halpin, American Youthworks
• Karen Langley, Family Eldercare
• Rachel Muir, Girlstart

Alan Graham is up for this award again, and we’d really like to see him win it this year. We know he would put the prize money to good use. He’s a truly genuine guy. American Youthworks has been nominated before, and has a great chance at winning this year. Rachel Muir has done an amazing job at Girlstart, and she is an incredible marketer and advovate for her charity. This will be the toughest decision the judges will have to make, because these charities are all so deserving.

Technorati Tags: Austin, entrepreneur, EOY

HelioVolt, the well-funded Austin startup lead by Dr. B.J. Stanbery, is rumored to be announcing a breakthrough in CIGS efficiency with its CIGS cells. According to the company, it’s proprietary FASST reactive transfer printing process can produce cells with a 12.2% conversion efficiency in a mere 6 minutes. The announcement is expected come today at the IEEE Photovoltaics Specialists Conference, where Stanbery is expected to disclose the efficiency threshold which HelioVolt has reached in its labs. We will bring you more information after his speech - in the meantime, if you are interested in reading more, VentureBeat has a great article about the state of the CIGS industry.

UPDATE: Here is a statement from Stanbery about the achievement: “In the lab, CIGS is already achieving the highest efficiencies of any thin film solar material. The challenge of course is transferring that efficiency to a high throughput, high yield, low cost process capable of delivering gigawatts worth of quality commercial product. We view these high-performance results as an indicator of FASST’s potential to meet that need. We’re already producing CIGS devices that are comparable with the highest efficiency thin film products on the market today, and we still see plenty of room to improve from here.”

Technorati Tags: Austin, CIGS, FASST, heliovolt, Stanbery, Startup

There are some great things happening at the Chamber of Commerce, and with Opportunity Austin 2.0. One of the key messages that I took away from Gary Farmer was that attracting top talent to Austin is a top priority for everyone. With that in mind, the chamber is working on a major redesign of the AustinHumanCapital web portal for information technology jobs.

We’re proud to announce that the tech news portion of the website is from AustinStartup.

The jobs portal just launched, and it’s already got probably 50 tech companies listed, with more coming. We’re going to be linking to chamber’s jobs portal from our Indeed-powered jobs section, and finding other synergies with the website.

To many people, the Chamber of Commerce is a little building you see on the main road when you pull into town. In Austin the chamber is powered by a vast network of Austin businesses that are committed to growing the cities economic base while preserving the quality of life that we all enjoy.

Put the new AustinHumanCapital website on your radar, and share it with friends!

Technorati Tags: Austin, chamber of commerce, Jobs, Startup, technology

The Austin American Statesman is reporting that Debix has raised $9.3M from Trellis Partners and Merus Capital. This is the only place that we’ve seen the news, and financial sources that usually report on regulartory filings have no information on the funding. Maybe The Statesman’s Bob Elder got the scoop on this one before regulatory filings?

The article also went on to report that seed funding came from Gideon Yu, the CFO of Facebook and Launny Steffens, a former vice chairman at Merrill Lynch. The company’s offerings must have hit a sore spot with Gideon, as he had his identity stolen a few years ago by someone who charged thousands in his name.

Congratulations to Bo Holland and the folks at Debix on the fundraising, and for being named to the Austin Emerging 100.

Technorati Tags: Austin, debix, Startup

Today we are launching a new website at www.austinemerging100.com. It represents the combined effort of many people over a 6 month time period to create a list of the top 100 emerging technology companies in Austin, with links to their website, news pages, and jobs pages. This will be especially useful for people looking to move back to Austin. Many thanks to Bryan Jones for starting the list, and for the feedback of the many reviewers who gave us feedback as we narrowed it down.

If you’re on the list, congratulations! Brag about it, put one of the buttons on your website. Link back to it to increase our search rankings!

At first we thought it would be difficult to even name 100 technology companies in Austin. After about 170 and still counting, the new challenge became getting the list down to the 100 most promising emerging companies. If you are still two guys in a garage, you’re probably not on the list. We would consider you to be in seed stage. Companies like Zilliant, Motion Computing, and NetQoS will wonder why they are not on the list. We would consider them to be past emerging, and well into the growth phase. Companies that have been around for 5 years or more are generally not on the list. If you’ve filed for an IPO, you’re not on the list either. For companies that have a large services component to their business, you are probably not listed. The list is probably not perfect, but we just had to finally get it out.

So how can we make the list better? To start with, what about some sort of Austin technology company database (from seed stage to public)? Kind of like CrunchBase.

The comments section is open.

Technorati Tags: Austin, emerging, list, Startup, technology, top companies