Infotrieve, Inc., a provider of outsourced document delivery and information services to corporations, academic institutions, and individuals, announced the completion of a $21.8 million round of financing. Leading the round of financing was new investor Trident Capital with a $12 million investment. Signal Equity Partners, who led the Series A round of financing, again participated in the Series B round with an investment of $5.3 million. New investor, Boston Millennia Partners, participated in the round contributing $4 million, along with other existing company shareholders. Wes Crews, Infotrieve's President and CEO, stated that the funding will be used for both acquisitions and next generation product development.

(http://www.infotrieve.com)

Salon Media Group, Inc., has announced that during December 2003 it secured new financing totaling $800,000 from two investors: Wenner Media Inc. chairman and Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner and Salon board member and co-chairman of Adobe Systems John Warnock. Wenner will also join Salon's board of directors and it has been reported that as part of the alliance with Wenner, Salon and Rolling Stone plan to collaborate on a series of presidential election-related articles. Founded in 1995, Salon Media Group produces an Internet site, Salon.com, as well as two subscription-based online communities, The Well and Table Talk.

(http://www.salon.com)

UIEvolution, Inc., a wireless software company, has closed $6 million in the first round of a committed $10 million extension Series B financing led by Square Enix U.S.A., a developer, publisher, and distributor of entertainment content. Other participating investors include Inspire Corporation and existing preferred investor Ignition Partners. UIEvolution expects to complete the Series B extension by March, making the total amount raised by UIEvolution $20 million since it was founded in August 2000. The funds are slated for increased sales and marketing efforts in North America, Europe, and Asia as well as further development of UIEvolution's software suite.

UIEvolution is a privately held Bellevue, Washington-based software company that delivers software technology, development tools, and core applications to simplify the wireless application development and deployment process. UIEvolution's software approach to cross-platform, cross-device client-sever application development and deployment is intended to enable customers to deliver a data-rich, dynamic, interactive user experience across BREW, J2ME/MIDP, J2ME/DOJA, MS Smart Phone, MS Pocket PC, PalmOS, MS Windows, i-Tron, VxWorks, Symbian, SPOT, Danger, and Gameboy platforms used by OEMs. The complete UIEngine client-server solution includes the light UIE Player; the scalable UIE Server; and the intuitive UIE SDK.

(http://www.ignitionpartners.com), (http://www.square-enix-usa.com), (http://www.uievolution.com)

Accelerize New Media announced the launch of EDGAR Index, a subscription-based service providing notification of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) EDGAR Filings via customizable RSS feeds. EDGAR Index offers a set of online tools for creating RSS feeds, allowing users to customize SEC Filing Alerts by Company, Industry, and Open Text Search Terms. These feeds can then be retrieved using any news aggregator software. Users can create an unlimited number of feeds for personal use.

EDGAR Index feeds include the name of the filing company, the form type that was filed, the date the filing was accepted by the SEC, and a link to the actual filing stored on the SEC server. SEC Filings contain information about the financial and organizational well-being of an organization. Institutional and private investors, day-traders, journalists, competitive intelligence researchers, students, and anyone who needs to stay on top of current financial information can benefit from timely notification of SEC Filings via EDGAR Index feeds.  

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an XML format standard for content syndication. A news aggregator is a software program that periodically retrieves RSS feeds and displays the feed contents on a single page.

The EDGAR Index subscription service is available immediately; pricing is $4.95/month per user for unlimited custom feeds.

(http://www.accelerize.com), (http://www.edgarindex.com)

Obinary has announced the immediate availability of Magnolia 1.1, a free Java-based enterprise-content management system (CMS). Features include caching and new example templates including server side image resizing. Magnolia installers and updaters for all major operating systems are available for download online. Magnolia 1.1 includes an improved caching mechanism that is designed to automatically deliver the best possible performance for dynamically created Web pages, while maintaining full authentication mechanisms. New sample templates demonstrate the use of server side image resizing, which allows storing images independently of their display dimensions. The same source image can thus be displayed in several sizes, for example to have thumbnails and "show detail" functionality. Numerous small interface improvements and a streamlined and renamed core API have also been added to Magnolia. All documentation has been updated to reflect the new API.

(http://www.magnolia.info), (http://www.obinary.com)

The UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and Elsevier, part of the Reed Elsevier Group, announced the conclusion of a new agreement as part of NESLi2, the national electronic journals initiative for the higher education and research communities in the United Kingdom.

The new two-year agreement, which started in January 2004, provides the framework under which the UK's universities and research communities will have electronic access to Elsevier's scientific, technical, and medical journals through the ScienceDirect platform. The new agreement has been expanded to cover access to the Academic Press and Harcourt Health Sciences journals acquired by Elsevier in 2001.

(http://www.contentcomplete.com), (http://www.elsevier.com), (http://www.jisc.ac.uk), (http://www.mdconsult.com), (http://www.sciencedirect.com)

A joint task force of the publishing and library communities has developed and published a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) scheme aimed at the identification of information assets. The task force is working under the National Information Standards Organization (NISO). Led by four NISO members and associates, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), Elsevier, and Manifest Solutions, the initiative builds on earlier consultations with representatives from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). An Internet-Draft for the INFO URI scheme was first published Sept. 25th, 2003 and a revision published Dec. 5th, 2003.

The INFO URI scheme is intended as a consistent and reliable way to represent and reference such standard identifiers as Dewey Decimal Classifications on the Web so that these identifiers can be "read" and understood by Web applications. This Registry contains the information needed by Web applications to make use of INFO namespaces. Each Registry entry defines the namespace, the syntax, and normalization rules for the representing INFO identifiers as URIs, and gives full contact information for the namespace authority for that entry.

NISO, a non-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), identifies, develops, maintains, and publishes technical standards to manage information. NISO standards are intended to apply both traditional and new technologies to the range of information-related needs, including retrieval, re-purposing, storage, metadata, and preservation.

(http://info-uri.info), (http://www.niso.org)

Belus Technology has announced the release of a new version of "Xstandard." XStandard is an ActiveX control that is typically integrated into Web- or Windows-based content management systems where it creates a WYSIWYG editing area that allows business users to author and format rich, multilingual content without programming. The new version of XStandard (Version 1.2) includes a spell checker, support for more CSS properties and XHTML tags, a customizable tool bar, and a choice of 6 product interface languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, and Dutch).

XStandard is designed to support standard editing features including tables, lists, and hyperlinks, plus advanced features such as the ability to wrap text around images. XStandard's use of Web Services (SOAP) enables drag-&-dropping of files into the editor from the desktop and, in shared environments, permits multiple users to reference common files located on remote servers. The editor's use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for formatting enables the clean separation of data from presentation and generates semantically rich markup. XStandard also permits business users to apply custom tags to words, phrases, or objects such as images. XStandard is available in "Lite" and "Pro" versions. The Lite version is free.

(http://xstandard.com), (http://www.belus.com)

Project CMS, a site where content management professionals can gather to interact with peers, launched last week. The site was created for CM professionals--a niche group that, other than occasional conferences--rarely has an opportunity to gather as a community. Along with a weblog focused on CMS news and best practices, there's a discussion board where people can discuss topics that relate to the kind of work they do. Registration is free and, as a special incentive for people that register, the site includes a section packed with sample deliverables to help content managers develop these requirements within the context of a given business project.

(http://www.projectcms.com)

Entopia, Inc., a provider of information solutions, has named Eric Miles CEO of the company effective immediately. Miles assumes the role from Lionel Baraban, Entopia's co-founder, who has served as CEO for the past four years. Baraban will remain at Entopia as president and board member. Prior to joining Entopia, Miles was senior vice president and general manager of Business Intelligence at Sybase.

(http://www.entopia.com)

Nexidia, provider of the NEXminer Product Line solutions for audio-video search, intelligent mining, and productivity enhancement, has announced a partnership with NEC Corporation, a provider of Internet, broadband network, and enterprise business solutions. Under the terms of the agreement, NEC will serve as a partner and distributor of the NEXminer Product Line and will integrate the technology into its Call Center applications. In addition, Nexidia secured its first sale of the NEXminer Product Line in Japan, in which Nexidia will support NEC's introduction of its technology into the Japanese market using NEXminer's new Japanese language capabilities. NEXminer is designed to offer productivity enhancements through enabling the automation and optimization of major call center functions, such as: quality monitoring and compliance; agent evaluation, training and elearning; workflow management; marketing surveys and valuable market data generation; and transaction validation and processing.

Nexidia offers IT solutions in productivity that are intended to transform audio-video content into information and knowledge valuable to government agencies and commercial businesses such as call centers, financial services, regulated industries, media companies and portal service providers. Nexidia's open system, IT-compatible products index, search, mine, extract knowledge and manage audio-video contents. Available as either a turnkey or OEM products (or integrated with content management, enterprise portal, and digital asset management systems), Nexidia's solutions are engineered to meet the needs of government agencies and a number of vertical markets.

(http://www.nec.com), (http://www.nexidia.com)

TACODA Systems, a company that helps online publishers target online advertising by combining affinity, demographic, and behavioral data, has partnered with Quova, Inc., a provider and developer of Web geography services and technologies, to enhance the targeting of its flagship Audience Management System (AMS). AMS is a strategic data integration platform designed to help online publishers profile and targeting advertising.

Starting with February installations and upgrades, TACODA customers will have the option to integrate Quova's SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) data and GeoPoint into AMS 3.1, enabling them to create targetable audience segments that place site visitors into appropriate SIC categories, further refined by each user's online behavior and geolocation, such as country, region, state, city or zip codes.

Quova's GeoPoint service is an enterprise-class geolocation solution that determines the real-world location of a Web site visitor. GeoPoint performs by mapping the 1.4 billion IP addresses on the Internet using proprietary algorithms, a worldwide network of servers and staff-performed hand mapping.

(http://www.quova.com), (http://www.tacoda.com)

FinancialContent, Inc., a provider of financial data and business applications to online media and financial services companies, has announced that AreaGuides.net has renewed its licensing agreement with the company for a third consecutive year. FinancialContent deploys a suite of stock market data and tools across AreaGuides.net and its network of online city guides and web resources for the travel industry. AreaGuides.net receives over 1 million visitors each month to its network of 39,000 destination sites while providing cost-effective marketing and advertising solutions to online businesses.

AreaGuides.Net is an Application Service Provider (ASP), which specializes in platform development and content aggregation for the creation of local area guides and portals. Covering over 39,000 cities worldwide, AreaGuides.Net is a network of community portals with access to localized content.

FinancialContent is a content solution provider specializing in the integration and delivery of financial data and business applications into Web sites, corporate intranets, and print media. The company's mission is to deliver cost-effective, high-reliability solutions combined with excellent customer service. FinancialContent's client base includes banks, brokerages, credit unions, and application service providers, as well as media businesses and Fortune 500 companies.

(http://www.areaguides.net), (http://www.financialcontent.com)

MarketWatch.com, Inc. and Pinnacor Inc. have announced the closing of the merger of the two companies through the formation of a new holding company that will continue to be named MarketWatch.com, Inc. and will continue to trade on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol "MKTW." The combined company will be a provider of online business news and financial tools to organizations in numerous sectors, including banking, brokerage, and media. Stockholders of both companies approved the merger at their respective stockholder meetings on January 15, 2004.

The combined company brings MarketWatch's news, tools, and charting capabilities together with Pinnacor's extensive suite of financial applications and customization capabilities. The combined company is positioned to address a range of needs in the financial services, business information, media and wireless markets.

Effective immediately, the business activities of Pinnacor have been combined with MarketWatch's existing licensing operations to form a new unit, MarketWatch Information Services. Jeffrey G. Davis has been named Executive Vice President and General Manager of the new business line. He will be based in New York City.

(http://www.marketwatch.com)

FileNet Corporation has announced that, in conjunction with its major initiative to offer an expanded range of ECM solutions for asset and plant lifecycle management, the company will distribute these solutions to initial target markets via selected ValueNet partners. McLaren Software Ltd. has joined FileNet's Independent Software Vendor (ISV) program and will make available McLaren's Enterprise Engineer integrated software solution suite on the FileNet P8 platform. This ISV agreement incorporates product development, marketing, channel development and support, and includes exchange of technical information and product roadmaps, ensuring that McLaren and FileNet are aligned at both the technical and marketing levels  

McLaren Enterprise Engineer, powered by FileNet ECM, will be delivered to customers by FileNet's ValueNet partners. This high quality set of integrators and resellers have existing practices, domain expertise and a marketing and sales focus on Asset and Plant Lifecycle Management solutions for market sectors such as process manufacturing, power generation and distribution, and facility management.

The ValueNet partners include Soluziona, a division of Union Fenosa, Madrid, Spain; Crowe Chizek and Company LLC, Indianapolis, Ind.; and CorDax, Inc., Irvine, Calif. An expanded group of global and multinational partners is expected to be announced later this year.

(http://www.filenet.com), (http://www.mclarensoftware.com)