Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
From the “better late than never” files… I wanted to remind you—especially if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur—that Mobile Portland has a great presentation tonight on lessons learned from running a mobile startup. Read More
Portland-based FreeRange—one of the leaders of the Portland mobile scene with customers like the Blazers, paidContent, and The Wall Street Journal—has been acquired by Handmark, a mobile entertainment company headquartered in Kansas City, MO.
Last year, I wrote:
If any company is the “founding father” of the burgeoning Portland mobile scene, FreeRange is it. With customers like the Wall Street Journal and the Portland Trail Blazers—and one of the most impressive mobile feed readers on the market—FreeRange is sure to keep Portland associated with mobile apps for a long time to come.
Oopie. Allow me to rephrase that. “Handmark is sure to keep Portland….”
According to the release, FreeRange is a “strategic addition” for Handmark, which has been recognized for its “mobile development expertise and management of a variety of desktop and on-device mobile stores full of the industry’s best games, applications and ringtones.”
“This is an exciting turning point for our company and we are proud to become part of the Handmark organization,” said Jon Maroney, FreeRange CEO. “Handmark has built a large network of happy customers across a wide range of mobile devices. This offers a great opportunity for FreeRange partners to expand their reach, adding tremendous value to content delivered via our publishing platform.”
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
For more information on the acquisition, see the FreeRange blog.
(Hat tip Jason Grigsby)
Portland-based FreeRange Communications has announced a partnership with ContentNext Media that will have FreeRange designing and delivering mobile versions of paidContent and mocoNews, currently the 439th and 4,146th most authoritative blogs in the world according to Technorati.
Justifiably classified as “must reads” by FreeRange CEO Jon Maroney, the mobile content for paidContent and mocoNews will be available at http://paid.mwap.at and http://moco.mwap.at, respectively.
Why FreeRange?
“The FreeRange platform gives our readers the latest breaking news with an attractive interface and quick load time,” said Ted Rupp, Director of Business Development at ContentNext. “FreeRange app’s vastly improve the mobile web experience, and provide an excellent outlet for sponsors as well.”
ContentNext chose FreeRange for two specific reasons. First, the FreeRange system updates feeds and content in the background, ensuring that the content is always updated and accessible—even if the phone is out of tower range. Second—and perhaps more importantly—the FreeRange mobile widgets are designed to run on practically all mobile systems, ensuring the widest reader base possible for the ContentNext sites.
And straight from the paidContent post:
The key benefits: all four feeds from our four sites are in one place, and are updated in real time so you get the freshest news. You can view the feeds at your leisure, even when you’re offline. Also, it can serve as your default mobile RSS reader, as you can add your own feeds and even your local weather. The app works on the majority of mobile devices with a data connection besides BlackBerry.
For more information on the ContentNext partnership, see the FreeRange release.
FreeRange Communications enables media companies and consumer brands to deliver their content and advertising to mobile phones in a way that is fast and easy to read. The FreeRange Mobile Publishing Platform allows publishers to have mobile widgets that work on nearly all mobile phones, extending their business models and content to mobile phone screens around the world. For more information on FreeRange and its mobile services, visit FreeRange.