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The five days long 1800 band auction completed on October 17th.
There were three bidders in stage one: TeliaSonera, Net4Mobility and Hi3G. After stage one, both TeliaSonera and Net4Mobility owned 2x35MHz of the 1800 band each. Net4Mobility is a joint venture of Telenor Sweden and Tele2 Sweden, there each owns half of the joined company.
The total auction revenue was SEK 1,35 billion.
The startup OVIA founded in 2010 wants to change the traditional way of recruitment.
The goal is to replace the first step of recruitment process, the phone interviews with time shifted video interviews, and maybe even the first in-person interviews.
The company just funded $2.5 million in its first round from DCM.
Here is how it works:
The recruiter sends an interview invitation to all the candidates she or he would like to know more about. Once the candidate receives the invitation, she or he can click on a link that takes him/her to OVIA platform. Then the candidate will be able to see questions that the interviewer has listed and can start to answer each question within a certain amount of time with no chance for do-overs. The
last step is to send the recorded video to the recruiter.
Advantages of a video interview compare to phone interview is that the recruiter will be able to see the candidate’s communication skills and get a better understanding of his/her personality and a general feel for the candidate’s fit in the organization.
Some of OVIA’s customers are DHL, BestBuy and Manpower group.
According to OVIA, companies can see time and cost saving up to 80% against traditional phone interviews.
Another startup with competing solution is Sonru (founded in 2009) based in Ireland. The company funded €1 million in 2010. Johnson & Johnson, Volvo and CERN in Geneva are some of the clients.
Well, everything else is moving towards digitized communication, why not job interviews??
Yesterday, October 11th, PST (Swedish Post and Telecom Agency) has started 1800 MHz spectrum auction. The estimated time for auction is between 2 to 10 days.
The auction includes two stages. In stage 1, bidders (new ones and the existing license holders in 1800 band) can participate with no limitation on the amount of spectrum they can buy. In stage 2, PST will decide for placement of the winners’ spectrum in the band.
So far there have been 13 rounds and price per frequency block has come up to SEK 86 million. As there are totally 7 frequency blocks, the total bid sum has reached SEK 602 million so far.
The total of 2x35 MHz in 1800 MHz frequency band will be split between the bidders. Existing license holders within 1800 band are TeliaSonera, Telenor and Tele2. Together they hold a total of 2x35MHz.
PST has announced that winners have no obligation to use the spectrum for LTE services.
Licenses are valid from January 1st 2013 with a term of 25 years.
PST will publish the name of bidders at the end of stage 1.
Lolapps is another social gaming startup based in California. Founded in 2008 the company has successfully integrated its games on Facebook.
Some of the games developed by Lolapps are Ravenwood Fair, Ravenstone Mine and soon coming Ravenskye City.
In July 2011, Hong Kong based company, 6waves and Lolapps merged together to create a larger network of social gaming applications on the web and Facebook.
6waves is a gaming application publisher with many games on Facebook platform.
The combined company will be branded as 6Waves Lolapps however the two companies will function independently.
Lolapps is one of the gaming developers that has focused on the better graphic on social games and as a result, the company has required Sean Cooper Games recently.
Sean Cooper has developed Fliso graphics engine which allows designers to create games on Adobe’s Flash. Flash is a slow medium for games and Fliso improves its ability and makes it possible to develop advanced games.
By acquiring Sean Cooper Games, Lolapps enters licensing business and licenses Lolapps Fliso to other companies.
