A big endorsement today for mobile advertising from eMarketer: their analysts today said they were revising up their forecasts for U.S. mobile ad spend to $2.61 billion, from their previous estimates of $1.8 billion. Why the rise? Google’s “exceptional” mobile advertising performance in mobile search advertising, and more reliable market…

Some revealing numbers out from the analysts at Rutberg & Co. that point to how big mobile is in terms of tech investments today, and how consumer applications are the source of the most action at the moment.

Polar Mobile—the Canadian startup that develops apps for big-name publishers like CBS Interactive (NYSE: CBS), Conde Nast, Sports Illustrated (NYSE: TWX), Shanghai Daily, Future Publishing (LSE: FUTR) and the WSJ—today announced two steps up in its growth: it has picked up an additional $6 million in funding and has launched…

News Corp-controlled pay-TV firm BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) is buying itself a foothold in the looming social TV field by acquiring 10 percent of the startup Zeebox for a sum that is “double-digit millions” in both pounds and dollars.

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud of Saudi Arabia, an investor in media titans News Corp. (NSDQ: NWS) and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), is turning his attention now to social media: he and his investment group, Kingdom Holding Company, today became the latest investors in Twitter, putting up $300…

If print book costs major on distributing boxes of dead trees, what price the e-book fulfilment sector?

A mobile wave of touchscreen devices has changed the way we interact with computers, but we still do an awful lot of traditional typing on those very small screens. One company that is working on improving the speed and accuracy of our mobile typing, TouchType, is getting additional investment in…

If the Kinect and the Wii popularized the idea of gestures controlling machines, the rise of startups working in the area will take the technology to a wider base of platforms and users. One of these, Israel-based eyeSight Mobile Technologies, today picked up a round of $4.2 million in funding…

Big funding round for the digital content subscription and billing specialist Zuora: the company has raised $36 million in a Series D round that it will use to expand internationally and commercialize new products.

Intel (NSDQ: INTC) has had trouble getting its chips into the types of mobile devices that are transforming the computing experience, and it’s ready to turn to an old-fashioned method: bribery. Intel announced the creation of the $100 million AppUp Fund Monday through its Intel Capital arm, which will make…

Irish developer Ideal Binary has raised €750k (around £642k) to fuel its ambitions in the increasingly competitive book-apps market. The funding includes €500k from the AIB Seed Capital Fund, managed by Enterprise Equity Venture Capital, and €250k from Enterprise Ireland.

Richard Branson is no stranger to investing in mobile media: among his more notable moves have been establishing *Virgin Mobile* years ago, and more recently moving into iPad publishing with Project magazine. Today comes news of his latest foray into the wireless world: an investment in the mobile payments startup…

What will be the most-used medium for consuming mobile content in the future: the web or apps? It’s a question that gets hotly debated, and a pair of funding deals underscores the fact that people are continuing to back both horses. Urban Airship, which adds functionality to apps, has picked…

Masabi, the London-based mobile ticketing startup that has nearly cornered the market for train services in the UK, has raised more funding to the tune of $4 million to expand into the U.S. and make its service work with NFC.

The growth of mobile apps—there are well over one million on the market already—shows no sign of slowing down, and Appcelerator, which offers a platform to create mobile apps, is capitalizing on that trend. The company today has announced that it has raised a third round of funding of $15…

More VC money getting invested into one more independent mobile ad network: 4INFO has raised $14 million in funding in a round led by Paul Allen’s firm Vulcan Capital and Mitsui Global. The money will mainly be used to spin off and develop the company’s AdHaven mobile audience platform division.

Hyperlocal startups in a crowded marketplace are testing new ways to stand out, and they discussed their strategies at the Street Fight Summit in New York City this week. Here are some lessons learned.

Remember the days when GPS satellite navigation apps were one of the most expensive categories of mobile apps? Some still have premium prices: apps from TomTom, Garmin, CoPilot and Navigon still sell for between £29.99 and £39.99, although these companies have experimented with lower prices too.

LocalResponse, the “check-in” ad network formerly known as Buzzd, has raised $5 million to build up its sales team as it tries to attract agencies and marketers to its offerings.