Garena Software is a gaming-platform company that was founded by another Standford GSB graduate and has grown to over 25-million registered users across 200 countries — making Garena one of the largest international-gaming communities in the world. The company has a strong foothold in cybercafes across Asia, Europe and South America, and they’re beginning to move up the value chain by partnering with companies like MTV to build rich entertainment experiences for users. As Chief Product Officer, Ulf will be based in Singapore and will be responsible for extending the product into new feature areas and countries.

Based on what we see from the company’s worldwide user distribution map, it looks like he’ll be earning quite a few frequent-flier miles. Best of luck to you Ulf!

More about the company here.

Garena's worldwide user distribution

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Tomorrow’s Pitch the Angel’s competition includes two panels, a keynote speech about entrepreneurship, and pitches from 12 new companies that have been selected from among 100 applications. Each of the companies will have 90 seconds to pitch their company to a panel of judges which includes Tech Coast Angels members, venture capitalists and industry experts. The event kicks off at 3pm at UCLA Anderson School of Management. More information here.

TrendSlate is a media sponsor for the event.

The keynote speaker for this year’s event is Steve Streit, CEO of Green Dot, a TCA-funded company that was also funded by Sequoia Capital.

The program will also include two panels:

* Getting Funded In Today’s Market — Angel investors & Venture Capitalists will discuss the current funding environment for start-up companies
* 2010 Start Up Business Climate — Several CEOs from TCA portfolio companies will talk about how early-stage funding has evolved over the last few years

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Refollow is obviously unhappy about this. In the message posted on their website, they remarked that , “Twitter decided to suspend Refollow…for enabling you to follow/unfollow too many people. Apparently that’s not what Twitter’s all about“. They also tweeted that “Twitter has suspended Refollow (via OAuth)…They could have at least returned an email!”

Refollow was a great product because it allowed users to build a large, quality following in just a few days. This has been helpful since Twitter made it a rule that users have 2,000 followers before they can follow over 2,000 accounts. Even when you cross this threshold, it is nearly impossible to continue to follow large numbers of people without clicking a button hundreds of times and scanning individual accounts to see if they’re legit. Refollow made this process extremely easy by allowing you to select large numbers of users you found interesting (e.g. following someone you like), and then curate those users with a series of helpful filters. For example, if I wanted to follow everyone who follows my favorite celebrity, entrepreneur, or investor, but I also want to filter out those users who haven’t tweeted in the last 90 days and/or have small followings (usually spam accounts anyway), I can do it within seconds using Refollow. And since many of those users will follow me back, I can quickly build a large and active following in just a few days.

To be fair, a service like Refollow’s could be abused, so it is understandable why Twitter would respond. But Twitter also wants users to build quality followings, which is very hard to do with Twitter’s native features, so Refollow is somewhat aligned to Twitter’s goals. Even more disturbing, however, is how quickly Twitter cut off the lifeblood of a company built on their platform. When Refollow opened their doors last year, the rules on API usage and follow counts were less evolved than they are now, but Refollow seems to have been treated as if they just started up yesterday and began helping people build massive followings (which, afterall, Ashton Kutcher taught everyone to do in the first place).

The rashness of this decision could also shine some light on how Twitter views certain services & businesses built on their platform. These products are quickly becoming a primary destination to consume the firehose of Twitter data (over even Twitter itself). This trend was the basis for our Seesmic prediction last month. Investors and entrepreneurs who are affiliated with innovative companies like Brizzly should take notice. Refollow was shut down without any major warning. Hopefully, Twitter will soon release a process that helps other companies avoid a similar fate.

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We also spoke with Sanjay about Gravity.com (formerly Blue Rover Labs), an LA-based startup that received $10M in VC funding last year and is entering a space that CrowdGather has been monetizing for years (we wrote about both companies a few months ago).

Here’s our interview with Sanjay:

There’s been a lot of interest in your company lately, so much so that Internet Review recently listed you as a company to watch in 2010. What is generating all the buzz?

I am not sure what has really happened in terms of the increased following for our company and the stock, but I would guess that it is part of a renewed investor interest in Internet companies as the engine to drive the future economy. When we first became a public company in April 2008 there was little to no interest in small companies in our sector among public investors.

Can you put some metrics behind this interest? Exactly how much have the indicators spiked lately?
Our stock (OTCBB: CRWG) has hit $2.00 today on over a million shares of volume. This is compared to $0.70 in May of last year when we raised our last financing. At that time our average volume was less than 10,000 shares per day.

For those who aren’t familiar with CrowdGather, how would you describe your business model?
We are focused on building a robust content network around forums. These are message-board communities that exist on every conceivable topic under the sun. We acquire them outright and then create vertical channels in order to achieve critical mass for advertisers and ad rep firms that do business with us. In essence we are as much a real estate driven model as we are a technology one. We buy assets with the potential for generating recurring cash-flows and we keep working towards getting higher payouts until we pay off the properties. Once we have done that the cash-flow becomes ours in perpetuity as long as we maintain and grow the communities.

Many tech companies are pursuing VC funding these days, but you’ve taken a different path. Can you explain it for us?
As a long time executive at small public companies and as a former member of the securities industry, I know the public markets quite well. I didn’t have much of a relationship with the VC and angel investment communities so my decision to go public via a reverse merger was a trade-off of doing business with the “devil you know” versus the one you don’t. Basically an entrepreneur is taking the risk that it will be easier to find capital as a public company- even a small, illiquid one in the beginning.

How did this approach work out for you in the early days?
My confidence was tested when the markets began to collapse in the summer of 2008, a few months after we became public, but we have hung in there and managed to keep raising small amounts of capital to drive our growth.

For entrepreneurs who are curious about this approach, would you say it is better than approaching VCs? How does it affect exit prospects?
It is not necessarily a better approach. As I mentioned, it is a function of comfort and access to capital. I felt my prospects were better among investors who look for growth companies that are public. As far as exit prospects, the irony is that by being public you are already at the finish line because you have a market available for your shares to be bought and sold. The problem can arise when you have insufficient trading liquidity in your shares, or if your market capitalization drops below what you believe your company should be worth in a financing or exit round.

How about the regulatory process? Is it still difficult and expensive to navigate?
There are higher costs to being public- that is for certain. As far as difficulty, the key is to surround yourself with team members that know what they are doing. I have been fortunate in finding the right Board members and advisers in order to reduce the cost of outside consultants.

Let’s talk about competitors. What do you think about Gravity.com? They seem to be entering a market that you’ve been working in for a couple years now.
Gravity.com is exciting for us because they demonstrate that VC’s believe that there is value in conversations that reside on forums. Gravity has been blessed with a $10 million first round and a sharp team of ex-Myspace executives, but they are in private beta right now so I am not in a position to comment on what they intend to do exactly. If they are a standalone offering then they will be limited, but if they are focused on helping the owners of existing communities, as we do, then the sky is the limit.

Raising over $10M from several blue-chip VC firms is impressive. Knowing the industry as you do, why were they able to raise so much?
$10 Million for a first round is an impressive amount considering the economy. It is more than twice as much as we have procured in financing even though we have been around for longer than they have. I believe that the excitement in Gravity.com stems from the caliber of their management team coupled with the simple logic of the fact that forums predate the Internet and they are not going anywhere any time soon. Facebook and Twitter have tremendous value for real-time, surface discourse, but if you want to dive deep into a subject and really ‘geek out’ — you will find yourself on a forum seeking the wisdom of the experts in the crowd. Your FB buddies will not help you come up with an alternative methodology for balancing the ecosystem on your nano-planted tank, but a visit to a site like our aquaticplantcentral.com will almost overwhelm you with depth of knowledge. When people are ready to take the training wheels off their Internet experience they will end up on forums. We are the help desk of the Internet.

Since you are both operating in a similar space, has the recent interest in Gravity benefited CrowdGather in any way?
I joined my first message board in the 90’s; I acquired my first forum in 2002; I created an LLC around that site in 2003; I started building a network of sites in 2007, and I finally made it my full time focus in 2008. The only place I have seen us mentioned in the same context is on TrendSlate.com. I do point their existence out to our shareholders as proof that there is professional investor interest in their sector, but I am not sure of any other crossover. Their approach could be fundamentally different and based more on technology and analytics rather than old fashioned community building.

Any plans to reach out to Amit, Jim, Steve and the rest of the Gravity team to talk about the industry?
I would welcome a conversation, especially since it is interesting that both CrowdGather and Gravity have Indian CEO’s and are both are based in Southern California. I believe that a discussion is more likely to occur after they launch since they are probably in a private beta for strategic purposes.

Follow Sanjay on Twitter @crowdgather

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Tech Zulu will be holding velvet-roped interviews with local start-ups, the first discussion session begins at 7:15pm, and of course, there will be a discounted cash bar and plenty of heat lamps.

Tickets are only $15 and the proceeds go to charity. You can purchase them here. There’s also more information on the event’s facebook page.

We hope to see you there! And yes, we’d definitely recommend this event over the Yahoo party at ‘The Yard’.Tweet

The hacker left a message that reads:

WHAT A FUCKING USELESS HACK ISN’T IT? BLEH.

http://dupedb.com/

Other pages of the site read:

We’ll be back shortly.

MG Siegler tweeted a link to the new post and shortly thereafter several users around the world reported that the site had been hacked.

We’ve reached out to a few contacts to get more details. If you have any information please post in the comments below.

screenshot:

(Update: As of 11:35pm PST, all other pages revert between the two messages above, the word “hi”, and a 404-error page)Tweet

What: Media Leaders LA
When: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 | 7:00pm – 10:00pm (PST)
Where: The Other Room 1201 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice, CA
Register: here

Bring your business cards to take part in a cutting edge junction of leaders in PR, media, marketing, advertising and tech while discussing current events and new ideas. We are a group of influencers that come together to exchange and thrive on meeting new people and making lasting connections.Tweet

Unique online shopping experiences have been popping up all over the place in this down economy, but for the avid deal shoppers who are looking for the ultimate experience, Bidzilla might be just what they’ve been waiting for. We’ve heard reports that the company, which has been flying under the radar these last few months, is now growing fast and “profitable”.

The surge in timed penny-auction websites over the last year has been nothing short of mesmerizing, and the combination of gaming, urgency, and huge discounts on expensive products have made this a hot space for investors and entrepreneurs. Swoopo has emerged as the #1 player, but not without certain flaws in their bidding model — flaws that Bidzilla claims to have addressed as it now surges forward.

While Bidzilla’s basic auction type is the same one we’ve seen on other sites such as Swoopo, they’ve added other features that make the experience more enjoyable and fair for everyone.

First, they’ve added a rewards program that gives away items for free just for participating, so users can still get the items of their choosing even if they don’t actually win an auction (Swoopo has been criticized for this). The program works by giving credits for bidding, which can be spent on Bidzilla’s rewards store. The more users bid, the higher the reward level, and higher reward levels allow users to earn points faster. Bidzilla also provides a leaderboard that recognizes and gives bonuses to the users who save the most each month.

Next, the company has made changes to the Auto Bidder that makes it completely fair to those who use it. On Swoopo, “BidButler” has been famously criticized for overbidding and driving up prices through so-called BidButler “duels”. A duel occurs whenever two users activate Swoopo’s BidButler tool in the same auction. The result is that the two BidButlers instantly place all of their bids until one of the two reaches a stopping criteria. Since other users cannot contribute any bids during that time, the users with BidButlers carry all the weight of bringing the price up when there is a duel. Bidzilla has completely eliminated this situation with their “Auto Bidder”, which is designed to act like a human. It selects a time randomly (below 10 seconds) every time a bid is placed. Then if the timer hits its time before a bid is placed, it will bid. This way a user who activates Auto Bidder is not forced to bid every single time another bid is made, even if other users have Auto Bidder on as well. Just like a human, most of the time the Auto Bidder will not bid, but rather allow others to bid up the price (thus conserving bids and not draining all of them in a matter of seconds).

Finally, Bidzilla has created an in-auction chat and the ability to take notes on other players. These features contribute to the amount of strategy that goes into bidding because they allow you to get to know the other users and learn their behavior. Users who can really figure out what strategies other bidders are using, can use that information to save tons of bids and therefore be very successful.

This is all on top of a really innovative website design with multi-window capability within a single browser page and customizable features that make the user experience much better.

The company still considers itself to be in a learning phase, and they’re soliciting lots of feedback from users. If you have any good suggestions, be sure to post them in the comments below. One of the co-founders will be reviewing these and potentially offering free bidding credits to anyone who is especially helpful.

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The campaign actually launched a few weeks ago, but it appears to be an effort led by the MySpace UK office, which explains the minimized publicity here in the US (and the spelling of the word “favourite”). UK-based design blog h-oo-k.me has some screenshots and additional details.

Users login with either MySpace ID or Facebook Connect, and then the technology does the rest. The experience is terrific, and in the example of the 50-cent video, the size of the picture frame even changes based on the shape of your photo (see how our TrendSlate logo rendered in the screenshot below).

You can also set one up for a friend and send it to them, or create one for yourself and share it. The result looks incredibly realistic, although we’ve heard that this version featuring Sean Percival is actually the real thing.

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This is a banner week for MySpace. In addition to this ongoing competition, the MySpace Developer Challenge launched earlier today with $50k in prizes and a suite of APIs that should lead to some of the most creative applications ever created for a social network. Its also a huge blue-ocean opportunity for developers.

This year, the MySpace Journal the competition is open to users in both the US and the UK, making it a truly international competition.

Judges for the competition include:
- Robert Thomson (Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal)
- Owen Van Natta (CEO of MySpace)
- Rebekah Brooks (CEO of News International)
- Adrian Monck (Managing Director and Head of Communications of the World Economic Forum)
- Rebecca McQuigg (2009 winner of “MySpace Journal” contest)

Here’s the full press release:

MYSPACE, WALL STREET JOURNAL AND THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM TO SEND ONE MYSPACE USER TO DAVOS AS ‘CITIZEN JOURNALIST’

The Winner of the “MySpace Citizen Journalist” Competition to Report Back from Davos for the Global MySpace Community

LOS ANGELES – December 18, 2009 – MySpace today announced its second annual “MySpace Citizen Journalist” program in partnership with The Wall Street Journal and the World Economic Forum giving one MySpace user the opportunity to become a special correspondent at the world’s most prestigious conference, the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2010 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. The “MySpace Citizen Journalist” winner, chosen by a panel of experts, will join the Davos press corps and leverage the MySpace platform to report on conference news and interview world leaders about issues relevant to the global MySpace community. This year MySpace will expand the contestant pool and accept entries from users in the United States and the United Kingdom.

“We’re pleased to offer one MySpace user the assignment of a lifetime,” said Owen Van Natta, CEO of MySpace. “MySpace, the Wall Street Journal and the World Economic Forum are providing the unique opportunity to allow one user to experience one of the world’s most thought provoking events from the front row. The bar was set incredibly high last year and we’re thrilled to see what exceptional entries we receive this year.”

The “MySpace Citizen Journalist” competition encourages users in the US and the UK to upload a video at http://www.myspace.com/myspacejournal explaining why they should be chosen to travel to Davos and represent the global MySpace community as the special correspondent. A panel of expert judges including Robert Thomson (Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal), Adrian Monck (Managing Director and Head of Communications of the World Economic Forum), Owen Van Natta (CEO of MySpace), Rebekah Brooks (CEO of News International) and Rebecca McQuigg (2009 winner of “MySpace Journal” contest) will select the winner while the MySpace community rates their favorite submissions.

Applicants must explain why they deserve to report from the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos as well as answer one of the below questions:

· Name two issues – one global and one local – in which you’ve been actively engaged over the past year. What have they taught you about your impact in the world?

· Which country caught your attention most this year? What are the primary issues facing its citizens and how would you resolve them?

· What pressing global issue has been underreported? Why is the international community neglecting the topic? How would you draw attention to mobilize support?

“Recognizing the continued influence of social media, the World Economic Forum has extended a call to action to our online community at MySpace. This year’s theme, ‘Improve the State of the World: Rethink, Redesign, and Rebuild,’ represents the diversity of voices at Davos, and we are thrilled that MySpace users can play such a large part,” said Adrian Monck, Head of Communications of the World Economic Forum.

“MySpace Citizen Journalist” winner will receive:

· All expenses paid travel to/from Davos, Switzerland

· Invitations to the Young Global Leaders opening conference and various media events

· Attendance at private meetings with editors from the Wall Street Journal and News Corp executives

· The opportunity to document the experience in written and video blogs on MySpace and the Wall Street Journal online

· Syndication of their MySpace blog via WSJ.com

“MySpace Citizen Journalist” winner will submit daily blogs and video logs documenting their Davos experience via http://www.myspace.com/myspacejournal. The winner will upload conference pictures and interact with other reporters on-site including top Wall Street Journal reporters and the hundreds of global leaders attending the event.

For more information on the “MySpace Citizen Journalist” competition please visit http://www.myspace.com/myspacejournal.

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About MySpace

MySpace is a technology company connecting people through personal expression, content, and culture. MySpace empowers its global community to experience the Internet through a social lens by integrating personal profiles, photos, videos, mobile, messaging, games, and the world’s largest music community. MySpace is a division of News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV). For more information, visit our press room.

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