First Round "New York City Startup Trek"

First Round Capital will hold a "New York City Startup Trek" tomorrow, January 5, between 9:30 am to 7 pm.  A group of First Round VC's will tour 8 different incubators and temporary work spaces around the city, conducting walkthroughs and "meet and greets".  See schedule here .




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Growing AWeber helps small businesses manage their email marketing

When people hear of AWeber Communications, the Huntingdon Valley email marketing firm, they probably envision a gentleman named Weber (presumably Al) busily roaming the premises. But there is no such person; AWeber stands for Automated Web Assistant. The real person behind the business is Tom Kulzer, who founded it in 1998 at the age of 21 while selling modems and studying at York College.

Unlike some other major email marketing firms in the area, such as Listrak of Lititz, AWeber focuses on serving smaller customers. Kulzer has built a business that helps over 70,000 mostly small businesses manage their email marketing programs, the company says. Despite the negative image of some types of email marketing due to spam, the opt-in (permission-based) email marketing business has been growing rapidly, even through the recession. AWeber, which had 5 employees in 2004, now has 50, and moved from a 4,500 square foot space to 24,000 square feet in August.

AWeber provides small businesses with automated tools for running their email marketing programs. The key is the "autoresponder", which automatically delivers a series of followup emails to subscribers after they sign up. Other services include programs which help customers design email newsletters, an analytics package, and subscriber management tools. AWeber also claims to have excellent email deliverability rates do to strong anti-spam monitoring and close communications with ISPs, among other factors. In addition, Aweber has a large affiliate marketing program that many of its own customers are users of. There are a multitude of competitors, but major ones include Constant Contact (NASDAQ: CTCT) and iContact.

AWeber was also honored in December as one of the best places to work (among medium-sized businesses) in Pennsylvania.

AWeber recently acknowledged they were hacked before Christmas; Here is the company's statement on the incident (also see this commentary). I'll keep you updated on further developments.






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Daily Links 1/4/10: Public interest groups call for antitrust probe of TV Everywhere

Public interest groups call for antitrust probe of TV Everywhere (Washington Post)

Thinking of Hiking Up Billable Rates? Here’s Why You Shouldn’t (Wall Street Journal: Law Blog)

Chegg Founder’s New Startup Raises $7.5 Million (paidContent)
Josh Kopelman is apparently an individual investor in the stealth ebook startup.

Thomson Reuters Acquires Discovery Logic, Inc (PR Newswire)

2009 RJMetrics Year In Review (The Metric System)

Invite Media Opens In UK; Discusses European Opportunity (AdExhchanger.com)
Interview with Nat Turner.

Innovation Inspired by Economics: 2010 Health IT Forecast (iHealthBeat)




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People News 1/3/2010

DecisionOne Appoints New SVP, Sales and Marketing (PR Newswire)

MISTRAS Group, Inc. Appoints Michael Keefe as General Counsel
(PR Newswire)

Lucinda Holt, CEO of ClickEquations, has been named an Eisenhower Fellow for 2010, she announced on her blog, Cereal CEO

Janney Investment Banking Continues Expansion
Charles Mather joins Janney to support Capital Markets (Business Wire)

McCarter & English Continues to Expand in Philadelphia With Hiring (LawFuel.com)

Volpe and Koenig Adds New Shareholder (Company Release)

Matt Kesner is now Vice President-Sales for Solution Exchange, LLC of West Chester. He was previously Executive Account Manager at EPIUse. Solution Exchange specializes in marketing SAP- related software.




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Connected, not just online.
Media may be even more social than some think (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Cable TV Standoffs Threaten Viewing Costs, Choices (Associated Press via New York
Times)

Cenero provides link to video-conferencing (Daily Local News)

Forecast for 2010: The Rise of Hybrid Clouds (GigaOM)

Clearwire Stayed Ahead in Big Year for WiMax (PC World)

Updated: Time Warner Cable, Fox Reach Agreement In Principle
Pact Pertains To Stations, Fox Broadcasting, National Cable Nets And RSNs (Multichannel News)

You Don’t Mean Average, You Mean Median (Enterprise Irregulars)



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Frederick Beste III - Program that helped transform Lehigh Valley economy faces challenges (Allentown Morning Call: Opinion)

HHS Defines 'Meaningful Use' for EHRs (Tech Insider)

How to Get $20 Billion for Using Electronic Medical Records (Wall Street Journal: Health Blog)

Donation by Action: The New Social Charity Model (Mashable)

AT&T Tells FCC It's Time to Cut the Cord (PC World)

City's parking kiosks are not working right (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Penn State Latest University Plagued by Data Breaches (eSecurity Planet)

Hands On with Comcast’s Xfinity: TV Everywhere That’s Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be (NewTeeVee)

Adelphia To Pay $133 Million To Claimants As It Closes Motorola Suit (Dow Jones via CNN Money)

CMS will publish 'Meaningful Use' regulation on Dec. 31 (FierceHealthIT)



ICG Commerce: The Evolution of a Successful Procurement BPO (Part 1) (Spend Matters)

FINNISH FIRM OPENING ELECTRONICS SCRAP RECYCLING FACILITY IN PENNSYLVANIA (Recycling Today)

The Top 10 SAP Watch blog posts of 2009 (SearchSAP.com: SAP Watch)




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Broadcasters' Woes Could Spell Trouble for Free TV
Assailed by cable and the Web, broadcast TV looks to build a new business model (Associated Press via ABC News)

NBC, Comcast, and the future of television (Audio: Minnesota Public Radio)

Canoe Pushes Back Interactive Ad Launch Until Spring 2010
MSO Venture Says It Conducted An RFI Trial In Q4 (Multichannel News)

InterDigital Mourns Loss of Harry Campagna, Chairman of the Board of Directors
Long-time Board Member Served as Chairman Since 1996 (Business Wire)



Google Phone Event Scheduled For Jan. 5 (Silicon Alley Insider)

Smoke Halts Trading at Nasdaq’s Philadelphia Exchange (Bloomberg via Business Week)
Trading resumes at Philadelphia Stock Exchange (MarketWatch)


Hacker in card theft to admit guilt today (Boston Globe)

Herley Industries, Inc. Subsidiary, Micro Systems, Inc. Receives $16M Contract to Supply Avionics (PR Newswire)

MyYearbook Speeds Web Responses (Information Week)

SS&C takes another crack at an IPO, looks for $300M (Mass High
Tech)




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AT&T Stops iPhone Sales in NYC (Wired: Gadget Lab)

AT&T Reverses Course: iPhone Available Again in New York City (Mashable)


The Set-Top Files (Part II) (Light Reading: Cable Digital News)

2009 Top Ten: Most Popular Cable Stories (Light Reading: Cable Digital News)

Intelligroup to focus on shared apps outsourcing (Business Standard of India)
Intelligroup is based in Princeton.

Top 10 predictions for cloud financials and accounting for 2010 (SaaS 2.0)

Philadelphia Daily News loses Davies to WHYY radio (Poynter Online: Romenesko)




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