The young actress and singer Selena Gomez has helped fund an app called Postcard on the Run, which helps users print and send postcards of photos from their iOS and Android devices.

Gomez found Postcard on the Run while fiddling with her iPhone on tour, she told AllThingsD on Wednesday. She “fell in love with it, and told all my friends about it.” Then she emailed the company and told them she wanted to help.

Gomez, the star of the Disney Channel series “Wizards of Waverly Place,” has now participated in a $750,000 funding round for the start-up — its first outside investment, and her first-ever tech investment.

People in Silicon Valley like to talk smack about celebrity tech investors, but with the power of social media, they’re not quite as much of a vanity move for all involved anymore. Gomez has more than eight million Twitter followers and nearly 25 million Facebook “Like”-ers.

A little light promotion by Gomez has already been really effective, said Postcard on the Run founder and CEO Josh Brooks. A single post on her Facebook page led to 20,000 app downloads in 24 hours.

And she’s been using the app herself, Gomez added. She said she has sent at least 12 postcards to her grandmother, and she’s sending cards to fans, as well — 25,000 of them signed up for the chance during a recent promotion.

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In-image ad network GumGum has raised $7 million in new funding from NEA with GRP and First Round Capital participating in the round. This brings GumGum’s total funding to $11 million.

GumGum’s in-image ad platform reaches 110 million unique visitors and serves billions of in-image ads per month. Co-Founded in 2007 by Ophir Tanz, GumGum works with online publishers like Time Warner, Hearst Corporation, Tribune, TMZ, Gannett and Glam Network to turn photographs into interactive experiences by overlaying text, banner or Flash ad units on top of the images.

For advertisers, GumGum’s proprietary image recognition and targeting technology aims to garner engagement through highly targeted campaigns. GumGum says that its campaigns yield 20 times the click-through rates than traditional ad networks. And the company has been profitable since early 2011.

The new funding will be used to grow the ad sales infrastructure and team, towards the development of proprietary image recognition, ad serving, and ad matching technologies and for the expansion into additional territories.

GumGum faces competition from Luminate and Image Space Media.

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Oct. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — GraphEffect, the leading social ad management and analytics platform for agencies and Fortune 500 brands, today announced that Stephano Kim, former President and COO of [x+1], has joined its executive team as President. In addition to a variety of responsibilities across operations, sales, and marketing, Mr. Kim will also serve as the general manager of GraphEffect’s newly-opened New York and Chicago offices.

The GraphEffect platform is built on top of Facebook’s marketing APIs, including the Facebook Ads API, which allows developers to integrate into the Facebook Ads system and provide marketers with new solutions to manage Facebook Ads.

GraphEffect is the leading social ad management and analytics platform for agencies and Fortune 500 brands. The GraphEffect platform optimizes content, creative, and audience to find the perfect audience at massive scale on behalf of brands such as American Express, General Electric, Microsoft, and Clinique.

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Photography by David Johnson

When he was 13, Ophir Tanz decided he’d never be able to work for anyone else. By 15, he had started his first company, an interactive branding agency called Fluidesign, which he sold before heading off to college. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon in 2004 with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees, a brief 10-month stint at the Bridgewater Associates hedge fund confirmed what he had long known: “It was a great salary, I learned a lot, but I just couldn’t help myself,” he says of his entrepreneurial leanings.

Now 29, Tanz runs Santa Monica, Calif.-based GumGum, a digital network that places targeted advertisements over pictures online. “Basically, we pioneered a way for publishers to make money through ads on images,” he says.

GumGum claims to reach 110 million unique visitors per month and says its smoothly integrated, in-image ads are clicked on as much as 20 times more than traditional online spots. This has enticed premium publishers like Gannett, Time Warner, TMZ and Hearst to sign on with the network, which hosts big-name advertisers such as Sony, Jack in the Box and Curves.

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by Leena Rao, Published on TechCrunch

Facebook advertising is exploding, with ad spend on the network expected to hit $4 billion in 2011. Clearly, brands and companies are flocking to Facebook to reach users. And startups like GraphEffect are trying to help advertisers serve in more-highly targeted advertising on network. Today, GraphEffect, which is backed by Founder Collective, Lerer Ventures, and others, is launching its intelligent targeting system to the public.

GraphEffect’s platform allows advertisers to target Facebook ads using behavioral characteristics that are not explicitly expressed on the platform. So the company mines performance data and allows companies to hyper-target users in a way that Facebook doesn’t offer through its advertising platform. For example, based on likes and interests, GraphEffect can identify the type of user who would by virtual currency and target those users.

The key to GraphEffect us that it identifies certain traits of Facebook users, including likes, interests and demographics, and creates what the startup calls ‘lookalike’ models. Brands can then target to ‘lookalikes’ based on this data.

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Local Mobile Ad Spends Grew 82% in the 1st Quarter

San Diego, CA and Washington DC – June 27, 2011 – Verve Wireless, Inc. the leading mobile advertising platform for local media, released their quarterly Local Mobile Index report today which shows a significant increase in overall local advertising spending in mobile from the previous quarter.

Some key findings include:

- Automotive was the top category with 28% of local mobile ad spends
- St. Louis was the leading emerging metro area for local campaigns
- Wednesday is the biggest day for local content consumption on mobile
- Local display ads on Android platforms performed 52% better than on Apple’s iPhone®

Verve defines local advertising spends as small and medium businesses purchasing mobile media within their respective markets. It does not include national advertisers spending in specific local markets, which Verve instead classifies as national advertising.

“Even we were surprised by the substantial increase in local ad spend,” states Greg Hallinan, Chief Marketing Officer for Verve, “we expected growth, but an 82% increase really demonstrates how fast local ad dollars are shifting to mobile. In some respects, ‘Main St.’ is moving faster than ‘Madison Ave.’ into mobile advertising.”

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LAUNCHES SWEEPSTAKES WITH 101 WAYS TO WIN TO SAY “THANKS A MILLION” TO MEMBERS

Santa Monica, CA (May 27, 2011) – ShoeDazzle, the largest online-only fashion brand, announced today a sweepstakes to thank its loyal clients for helping them reach one million fans on Facebook in record time. The “THANKS A MILLION” sweepstakes includes 101 ShoeDazzle prizes, including a fashionable Los Angeles getaway for two.

Over one million fashionistas continuously contribute to the ShoeDazzle Facebook page to create a lively, style-centric community. ShoeDazzle recently launched a shop-with-friends feature which allows clients to engage with their Facebook friends within their ShoeDazzle accounts, thereby creating a unique social-shopping experience.

Commemorating its millionth fan, ShoeDazzle is asking fans and members to “connect” on the site with their Facebook friends to enter the “THANKS A MILLION” giveaway which offers 101 ways to win amazing ShoeDazzle prizes!!

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LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)– ShoeDazzle, the leading personalized fashion ecommerce site, announced today it has secured $40 million in Series D funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. In conjunction with its investment in the company, Andreessen Horowitz General Partner John O’Farrell will join the ShoeDazzle board of directors.

The $40 million in funding, which brings ShoeDazzle’s total investment to date to $60 million, will allow the company to further advance its innovative, industry-leading model and provide existing and prospective members with greater high fashion choices while continuing to deliver the high touch service and affordability customers have grown accustomed to receiving. The latest round of funding will permit the company to expand its market share with new categories and continue to dominate the category it pioneered with new product launches both within and outside the US.

“Andreessen Horowitz seeks out investments in market leaders,” said Brian Lee, Founder of ShoeDazzle. “This significant investment is a strong endorsement of our business model, strategy and management team and gives us the capital to continue to grow and innovate in the social shopping arena.”

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by Michael Grothaus May 12th 2011 at 6:30PM

Docstoc is a document sharing site that offers users free and premium business documents. Though its main target is small business, the site can be a godsend to freelance professionals as well. Today the site has launched its official iPad app, which puts over 10,000 business and professional documents at your fingertips.

Document categories include everything from Career Development to various legal documents and financial planning forms, plus many more. The app also lets you search and download over 20 million library documents. Of the 10,000 documents included in the app, about 2,000 are free, with access to the other 8,000 (and all of the site’s other downloadable premium documents) costing only US$19.95 per month or $119.95 for an annual subscription.

Docstoc for iPad is a free download.

Berkeley, CA – According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the Hispanic population rose to 50.5 million over the last decade. Hispanics now account for 16% of the total domestic population, and 11% of the total online population. Several online media companies serve this vital market. Among them, Pulpo Media has become a clear leader in terms of ranking, technology innovation, and market growth.

“Pulpo Media had the strategic vision to create new technology and offer online media to a remarkably under-served yet booming segment. Advertisers interested in driving greater ROI by communicating efficiently and with hyper-relevance to online Hispanics now have a clear choice.” said CEO and Founder Justin Kuykendall. “We can communicate to individual Hispanics via: language preference, demographics, geography, and online behavioral knowledge. Waste is minimized and return is maximized.”

Online media entrepreneur Kuykendall saw the potential for advertisers to communicate with what he believed was an under-represented internet audience segment. In 2008, he convinced top Silicon Valley Internet investors of the need for a media and technology services company to serve the fast-growing Hispanic internet user audience.

Today, according to comScore Media Metrix Hispanic Ad-Focus, Pulpo Media is ranked No. 1 as the Spanish language dominant media services provider, and No. 2 as the English language dominant media services provider, online. Major Hispanic advertisers such as McDonald’s, Toyota, Comcast, Verizon, Metro PCS, and Universal Pictures are partnering with Pulpo Media.

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