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Widevine Technologies, the only provider of multiformat and multiplatform DRM and the recognized “Switzerland of DRM”, has announced it is actively securing the distribution of Flash-based content from Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures Television for Gaia Online. One of the fastest-growing hangout sites on the web, Gaia Online is geared towards teens who want to play games, make friends and participate in social networking. Widevine, which secures premium content during delivery and consumption, was a critical enabler of Gaia’s licensing deal.

Gaia’s monthly visitors number more than 2.5 million a month with tens of millions of views. It currently offers movies and television shows available for community members to watch within the Gaia Cinemas. Designed to entertain and enable interactivity, Gaia Online streams Flash-based titles to members using Windows® PCs or Mac® computers. Widevine secures the content during streaming and after decryption to further prevent against piracy tools such as screen scrapers and stream recorders.

Widevine investors include: Charter Ventures, Constellation Ventures, Macrovision, Pacesetter Capital Group, The Phoenix Partners, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Cisco Systems, Telos Venture Partners.

www.widevine.com, www.gaiaonline.com

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Tags: Charter Ventures, Cisco Systems, Constellation Ventures, Gaia Online, Macrovision, Pacesetter Capital Group, Sony Pictures, Telos Venture Partners, The Phoenix Partners, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Warner Bros, Widevine Technologies

Plaxo, the social network cum contact manager site, is reportedly on the market for $100million. The Californian company founded mid 2001 has raised around $30million of investment to date but has been eclipsed by Facebook and LinkedIn. Claiming 15million users, although just how many of these are active is questionable, it will no doubt reignite the debate on ‘new-media tech’ valuations. Yet again, the ‘profit’ appears to come from exit strategies relying on fools with a high concentration of greed genes operating in an overhyped market generating oversized valuations. Does the tech market solely revolve around expectations and exits or can anyone turn Web2.0 into a real business?

Revolution Partners are managing the sale. Current Plaxo Investors include Globespan Capital Partners, Sequoia Capital, Cisco Systems, Duff Ackerman & Goodrich.

http://www.plaxo.com/

Tags: Cisco Systems, Duff Ackerman & Goodrich, Facebook, Globespan Capital Partners, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Revolution Partners, Sequoia Capital