Skinkers, the UK-based providers of branded RSS/desktop applications, has raised about $4 million more in funding. The new round was led by in majority (about $3.4 million) by previous investors NewMedia SPARK, and others joining in. The money will be used to roll out the Skinkers Live Delivery Network, a…

What has the BBC  learned about interactivity? That it’s very expensive, for starters. This week it launched a new local blogging initiative that cunningly bypasses the expense and legal complexities of running bespoke content management systems. The BBC Manchester Blog is a community site that will foster a local blogging…

This is probably among the largest fundings in this category, and definitely in bubble territory: Netvibes, a personalized homepage/RSS reader service based out of Paris, has received $15 million in first round of funding. The round was led by existing investor Index Ventures and the new investor Accel. It received…

Microsoft has made its first two European investments as part of its intellectual-property licensing program called Microsoft IP Ventures that begun last May.—The first one, in London-based Skinkers, a branded RSS/desktop applications firm.  Skinkers will acquire a collaborative agent technology developed by Microsoft Research Cambridge as part of the agreement.…

German startup Pageflakes, which allows for personalized homepage (using Ajax etc…somewhat similar to Netvibes), has received its first round of funding, from Benchmark. It is competing with the likes of MSFT’s Live.com, MyYahoo and others…some more features and competitors here.

Netvibes, an online/Ajax-based newsreader/personalized homepage (MyYahoo-ish, so to speak), has received seed funding from a group of high-profile investors: European venture fund Index Ventures; Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape; Pierre Chappaz, founder of Kelkoo and Wikio; and Martin Varsavsky founder of Jazztel, Ya.com and Fon. The amount of funding wasn’t…

Skinkers, the UK-based providers of branded RSS/desktop applications, has raised about $3.5 million in funding. The investment is the company’s first institutional funding since its 2002 launch and was received from NewMediaSpark. The funding will be used to promote existing services, such as its recently launched branded RSS readers, and…

This is the first such joint industry-wide effort I’ve heard of: About 15 French media/online media companies have joined together, under the umbrella of GESTE, the Online Publishers Organisation in France, to launch a branded RSS newsreader called AlertInfo. The reader is built on the open-source Feedreader. The free newsreader…