Startup Roundup: The Invite Media edition

Introducing Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup. Here, we’ll parse out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. Follow along with the Startup Roundup’s dedicated RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

DEFINITE READS

After it was announced that Invite Media was acquired by Google, there’s certainly been some reverberations. Forbes caught up with Google VP of Product Management Neal Mohan about the deal. GigaOM notes that the Invite buy raises a conflict of interest since Invite CEO Nat Turner said in February that a demand-side platform must “remain neutral and have zero allegiances to any publishers, exchanges, data providers or other vendors.” Thing is, there’s Google’s pesky DoubleClick ad network right down the block. Indeed there are other concerned parties as well. Consumer Watchdog and the Center for Digital Democracy have both asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate privacy and antitrust issues, MediaPost reports.

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME

NearVerse‘s mobile proximity-based social networking app LoKast, which lets users share media, is reducing network strain per user by 2 percent per month. It’s an obvious play to get interest from carriers, but we’ll be watching this one closely.
Philadelphia Business Journal reports that new virtual workplace software developer VCopious has inked a deal with SAP AG to provide a virtual platform for its online Sapphire Now conference.
Proton Media has partnered with IBM Business Services, according to a company blog post. The companies will work together to create virtual biz environments for life sciences companies.
We must be fortune-tellers. myYearbook has released its iPhone app, which gives users the ability to add real-time, location-based updates to the company’s Twitter-like Stream service. Kids sharing their location seems a little shaky, but we’ll assume security is a top priority for the high school network. But back to fortune-telling: How’d we know? Oh yes, the company sought an iPhone developer a few weeks back. Duh.
Exton’s Scala, makers of digital signage, announced that it will show-off its new e2Campus messaging system, designed for college campuses looking for new ways to deliver emergency information.

GIVE A GLANCE

Web studio P’unk Ave has announced that its open-source content management system Apostrophe is now delivering a blog plugin that seamlessly provides publishers with a blogging platform that can be retrofitted to multiple content layouts within a single site.
Jersey-based call-unmasker TrapCall is now accepting PayPal, the company reports. Hrm, seems like it coulda been a great match for those two mobile payment platforms based in Philly.
Social media tracker ListenLogic founder Vincent Schiavone gets the video treatment at Social Media Explorer.
Startup Roundup will post weekly on Wednesdays until there’s not a Philly startup story left to link to on the Internet. See others here.