Remove the barriers to giving, and people will give. That seems to be the lesson many charities are learning in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti on Tuesday. Within 36 hours, mobile donations to relief efforts for Haiti have topped $7 million, according to the Mobile Giving Foundation. The organization says it represents a mobile-giving record in terms of funds raised for a single cause. U.S. and Canadian supporters have been texting on behalf of a variety of organizations, as the Mobile Giving Foundation has been activating new short codes. The orgs include: —the Yéle Foundation, the leading contributor…

Transpera, the mobile video delivery tech firm and ad network, has raised $2 million worth of a $5 million third round of funding, per an SEC filing. Transpera has raised over $10.2 million in funding, the bulk of which came in its second round in 2008. Founded in 2007, Transpera’s previous backers include Flybridge Capital Partners, Intel (NSDQ: INTC) Capital and First Round Capital. The company did not respond to a request for confirmation.

Why buy a digital camera when an iPhone or BlackBerry can take relatively decent pics? It’s likely a question that many smartphone owners—aside from pro and amateur photographers—have asked themselves at least once. For Eastman Kodak, the increased use of camera-enabled smartphones could have been a major problem in terms of lost revenue. But the company was proactive—cutting tech licensing deals with many of the big handset manufacturers— so that it could at least make money from their use of its digital imaging technology in their new phones. Problem is, Kodak has never managed to get Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) or…

More details about Cox Communications’ forthcoming wireless service, as the company is trying to build some buzz with a new ad campaign. The service goes live in March, in the three markets it began testing this winter: Hampton Roads, Va., Omaha, Neb. and Orange County, Calif. The first set of TV and video ads will be targeted there. The campaign focuses on common gripes like unforeseen service charges and minutes that go to waste, promising that Cox’s new service will be “unbelievably fair.” To illustrate how “unfair” other service providers can be, Cox created fake kiosks in a mall and…

Questions about whether the video game industry as a whole had a stellar holiday season have essentially been answered this week—with the lowered forecasts of a number of big gaming companies. Ubisoft joins the ranks of Electronic Arts (NSDQ: ERTS), GameStop and Take-Two (NSDQ: TTWO), lowering its fiscal Q3 and full fiscal year guidance because of weaker-than-expected holiday sales. The French game publisher dropped its fiscal Q3 (ended Dec 31) guidance by just over 8 percent, to $718.3 million (€495 million). The company pinned the lowered guidance to weakness of key titles like James Cameron’s Avatar (which clearly hasn’t been…

StudyBlue, a social “studying” network and online community for HS and college students, has raised $626,000 worth of a $1 million second round of funding, per an SEC filing. StudyBlue raised $2.2 million last June. The company did not respond to a request for confirmation; former University of Wisconsin Chancellor John D. Wiley was listed as a new board member as part of StudyBlue’s first round. StudyBlue lets students take text and audio notes, keep track of upcoming quizzes and collaborate with other students in a Facebook-like interface; it also has an iPhone app. Access to the app and other…

*Apple* vet Avie Tevanian has defected to what *Apple* fans might consider the dark side: He’s joining Elevation Partners, the PE firm that counts Palm (NSDQ: PALM) as one of its biggest portfolio companies. Tevanian will serve as a managing director, per DigitalDaily, and he’ll be surrounded by a number of fellow Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) alums, including Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein and board member Fred Anderson. Tevanian spent nearly 10 years with Apple, first serving as SVP of software engineering, and then as the chief software technology officer from 2003 to 2006.

Tech-centric digital media company TopTenReviews has raised $1.5 million in its second round of funding, per an SEC filing. The money came from previous backers Highway 12 Ventures and Village Ventures, and will be used “to propel growth.” TopTenReviews expanded late last year by acquiring the consumer media unit of Imaginova, which included three sites: Space.com, Livescience.com and Newsarama.com. The company bundled the sites and TopTenReviews.com into the TechMediaNetwork, which offers e-commerce, branded content and display options for advertisers.

China’s Shanda (NSDQ: SNDA) Games is on a buying spree. Its latest acquisition is of Flash-based game distribution and monetization platform Mochi Media. The company expects the $80 million deal—$60 million in cash, and $20 million in equity retention agreements—to close in Q1. Founded in 2006, S.F.-based Mochi Media raised $14 million over two rounds of funding from Shasta Ventures and Accel Partners. The company’s MochiAds ad network has grown to include over 15,000 online games; it also offers game development and analytics tools. Shanda Games will use Mochi Media’s platform to better monetize its own roster of MMORPGs and…

First Take-Two, then GameStop, and now EA. Seems like it wasn’t such a happy holiday season for the video game industry, as Electronic Arts (NSDQ: ERTS) has become the latest game company to lower guidance in advance of its Q4 earnings report. The company expects GAAP revenue for the quarter (its fiscal Q3) to be between $1.23 billion and $1.25 billion, or a loss of 24-cents to 32-cents per share. Non-GAAP revs (excluding deferred digital revenue and restructuring charges) should come in between $1.33 billion and $1.35 billion—or an EPS of 29-cents to 33-cents—still below the Street’s expectations of a…

With big game publishers dominating the ranks of the App Store’s best-seller lists, what’s an indie game developer to do to get his or her app noticed? Give it away for free as part of the soon-to-launch FreeAppaDay community. FreeAppaDay is run by a coalition of mobile game developers and tech providers: Joe Bayen, CEO of ICS Mobile, Blacksmith Games, mobile ad tech platform TapJoy, and iPhone game platform OpenFeint. The service officially goes live Jan 18; each day a single paid app will be available for free for 24 hours. Users will be able to sign up for email…

Epix, the premium entertainment JV between Viacom (NYSE: VIA), Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF), has finally added another distribution partner: Cox Communications. Cox has more than 5 million subscribers. The partnership goes live in April, with VOD, online and subscription-based access for Cox’s “movie tier customers” nationwide. The companies didn’t disclose financials, and details on how Cox will roll out the offering to its customers haven’t been disclosed. A source tipped SAI about the deal this weekend; the companies confirmed via press release today.

By many accounts, 2009 was the first year that interactive advertising budgets actually shrank. Stats for display were dismal, and even search struggled to show the kind of growth the industry has become accustomed to. Then there’s in-game advertising. Judging from the layoffs at Microsoft’s Massive and the pending sale of IGA Worldwide, you’d think that the whole industry died last year. And in some ways, the hype and unrealistic expectations around dynamic in-game ads (the specialty ad units that run in console games played on networks like Xbox LIVE) needed to die. Per Matt Story, a director at Publicis’…

Shanda Games’ IPO (and spin-off from parent company *Shanda* Interactive) generated tons of buzz, but not as much revenue as investors had been expecting. Still, the Chinese company is trying to ramp up for a successful 2010 with a few new business deals, including the acquisition of online game developer Goldcool Games. Founded in 2006, Goldcool develops and operates MMORPGs like Hades Realm and Dukes and Lords; the company was backed by an undisclosed amount of funding from IDG. Goldcool previously worked with Shanda (NSDQ: SNDA) Online, the online content and micro-payment services unit of Shanda Interactive, for the launch…

PackLate.com, a travel-focused startup currently in stealth mode, has raised $685,000 worth of a $1 million first round of funding, per an SEC filing. The company declined to comment on the funding. Founded in 2009, Philly-based PackLate.com aims to be a “last-minute travel marketplace focusing on vacation rentals,” according to one of its help wanted ads for a Java developer. Property owners will be able to submit their available rooms and suites into a system that then lets hopeful travelers grab the deals at the last minute. Competition includes indie sites like lastminute.com, and the “last-minute” sections of bigger sites…

Forbes Media has finally sold off its pricey headquarters in New York’s Greenwich Village, in a move to get some much-needed liquidity. New York University (NYU) is the buyer. Forbes will still retain a five-year lease, though other financial terms were not disclosed (via the WSJ). The company has owned the building since 1962, and has been trying to sell it since 2007. It hired commercial real estate broker Cushman & Wakefield to manage the process then—with an asking price of $140 million. Three years and housing market crash later, the NY Post pegs the sale price as closer to…

It’s been just over three years since *ESPN* officially pulled the plug on Mobile ESPN (NYSE: DIS), its MVNO (service shut down on Dec 31, 2006), and it’s clear that the company has learned much about what it takes to sustain a successful mobile presence since then. How successful? Find a rundown of the company’s mobile performance—everything from iPhone apps and games, to mobile video shows—in 2009. —Mobile apps: ESPN launched a slew of paid iPhone apps in 2009. No details on how much revenue the company has brought in, but its ESPN ScoreCenter app ranked as the top free…

This time last year, GameStop was riding high on holiday sales that were up 22 percent year-over-year. Not so for the start of 2010. The game retailer said 2009 holiday sales reached $2.86 billion—meaning no growth vs. 2008. And while it said new stores showed strong performance, same-store sales slumped by 8.6 percent. GameStop lowered its Q409 guidance as a result. It now expects EPS for the quarter to range from $1.25 to $1.29—well below the Q408 EPS of $1.39. Investors hammered its stock as a result, with shares down by more than 15 percent well before market close.

Stylesight, the fashion content aggregation, search and trend-spotting service, has raised $5 million worth of a $10 million second round of funding, per an SEC filing. The company raised $16 million in its first round from Fidelity Ventures in 2008. Stylesight did not immediately respond to a request for info on the source of the new money. Founded in 2003 by former Polo exec Frank Bober, Stylesight offers a variety of subscription-based services for fashion industry professionals, including online image and art galleries, and a customizable repository that lets users save, sort through and package reports and other content. The…