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Roundup: Escapia, CoolSpotters, Melodeo, etc.

It's been a little busy around here the past couple of days with Clearwire's merger and RealNetworks' decision to spin off its games business into a separate company.

Because of those two breaking stories, I've missed some of the smaller tidbits. Here's a quick look:

  • Bellevue's T-Mobile USA has surpassed 30 million customers, with first quarter service revenue growing 18 percent to $4.57 billion.

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  • Melodeo, the Seattle online music startup backed by Ignition Partners and Voyager Capital, has joined the parade of companies rolling out Facebook applications. The company says its nuTsie service allows Facebook users to feature favorite musicians, listen to friend's iTunes playlists and highlight their favorite playlists.

  • Smartsheet.com's Mark Mader offers his insights on the productivity losses associated with messaging service Twitter. "Add Twitter to the list of tools that has the ability to interfere with the forward progress of work," he writes.

  • CultureMob, the Seattle online event service, has added new features (event editing, Facebook application, etc.)and expanded its listings to Portland and Denver.

  • Keller Williams Realty has agreed to provide for sale listings from its 73,000 real estate professionals to Zillow.com, bringing the total listings to about 2.1 million on the Web site.

  • Seattle-based Escapia said that its online consumer vacation rental service, ClearStay.com, now has ratings and reviews on more than 12,000 properties.

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  • CoolSpotters.com, has unveiled an online service that allows people to find and purchase the clothes or accessories worn by celebrities. The Connecticut company, known as Fanzter, is backed by Seattle's Second Avenue Partners, Curious Office Partners, Zillow's Rich Barton and others. More from TechCrunch, which points out possible competition with SeenOn and Like.com.

  • Seattle's AdReady says it is now an authorized reseller of Google AdWords, with AdReady co-founder Aaron Finn saying they are the first company to earn that distinction for online display ads. More coverage on "do-it-yourself" display ads -- a hot topic at last week's Kelsey Group conference -- from The Wall Street Journal.

  • Vancouver, Wash.-based Iterasi, which has created a way for people to save Web pages, has launched its public beta with the ability for users to share saved Web pages and for bloggers to embed pages. More from VentureBeat.

  • Don't forget that there are two big events going on tomorrow in the Seattle tech community. Google's Vint Cerf is speaking at the Technology Alliance's annual luncheon and dozens of entrepreneurs will present at the Northwest Entrepreneur Network's Early Stage Investment Forum.

    • Posted by at May 8, 2008 2:42 p.m.
    Comments
    #126826

    Posted by unregistered user at 5/8/08 6:09 p.m.

    John,

    Thanks for the mention of Escapia's launch of 12,000+ authentic Consumer Reviews for our vacation rental reservation website, ClearStay.com.

    Of particular note is not just that there are 12,000 reviews, but that ClearStay.com now has more traveler reviews from verified past guests than any other place on the Internet. (That includes reviews mega-site TripAdvisor, the online travel agencies, and various vacation rental directories.)

    This is possible because Escapia is the leading web-based "software as a service" used by vacation rental property managers. Every day, property managers use Escapia software to run their business, and book reservations, whether they are booked via the Web or by telephone. Unique to Escapia is that we can verify when a review is written that it really is from a past guest, and when they stayed. ClearStay.com is the first and only vacation rental site to do this in this way.

    We're excited about the many possibilities of making vacation rentals as easy to book as flights and hotels.

    - Steve Murch
    Chairman, Escapia Inc.

    Report violation
    #126847

    Posted by unregistered user at 5/8/08 7:16 p.m.

    will you be live blogging from ESIF?

    Report violation
    #127021

    Posted by unregistered user at 5/9/08 10:06 a.m.

    "Every day, property managers use Escapia software to run their business, and book..."

    Did Murch copy and paste that right from the site? Good effort.

    Report violation
    #127149

    Posted by unregistered user at 5/9/08 5:09 p.m.

    Nope, "Murch" didn't. He simply typed the paragraph to clarify why the 12,000+ reviews were significant -- that they come from real, authenticated past guests. Cheers!

    :-)

    Sincerely,
    Murch.

    Report violation

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