Twitter Acquires Social Summary Tool Summify

Twitter has acquired Summify, a small start-up that smartly aggregates links shared by users’ friends on social networks.
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Meet Qwilt, Creator of Smart Video-Caching Gear, and New Member of the Flash Madness Club

Coming out of stealth today with $24 million from Redpoint Ventures, Accel and other investors, Qwilt stores copies of the videos that are popular in your neighborhood to help make the network run faster. And? It uses flash memory to do it! Flash Madness continues.
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RealNetworks CEO Resigns; Hunt Underway for Replacement

That was quick. Bob Kimball has resigned as president and CEO of RealNetworks after being promoted to the position a year ago in January.

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RealNetworks Lays Off 10 Percent

In its third round of layoffs under a restructuring by CEO Bob Kimball, RealNetworks cut 130 jobs, equal to 10 percent of its workforce. Kimball took over from CEO Rob Glaser last year. In an announcement today, the company stated that it has “completed the restructuring required to create a more efficient and focused company.”

News Byte

RealNetworks Names Bob Kimball President and CEO

RealNetworks announced today that effective immediately, Bob Kimball has been named President and CEO of the company. Kimball has been serving as President and Acting CEO since January of this year, after Founder Rob Glaser stepped down as CEO. Kimball formerly served as the company’s senior legal executive. He joined Real in 1999.

RealNetworks Reorganizes…Again, Including the Standard Layoffs and Rejiggering

This is just hitting the wires: Yet another restructuring of RealNetworks, complete with layoffs, office closures and a new organizational look. The company is cutting 85 jobs, including a good chunk of its exec team, along with dumping some global offices. This means about $10 million in restructuring charges said RealNetworks in a statement.
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RealNetworks Founder Glaser Becomes a VC at Accel–The Venture Firm That Backed Him 15 Years Ago

Rob Glaser, the founder of RealNetworks, is joining Accel Partners as a part-time venture partner. Ironically, it was Accel that first funded the digital media pioneer, leading a critical $5.7 million round for RealNetworks in 1995. Glaser said in an interview this afternoon with BoomTown that he will focus on digital media, as well as social and mobile start-ups, especially in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest area where he lives and where he founded RealNetworks.
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Viacom, Real Networks Spin Off Rhapsody Music Service

Real Networks and Viacom are reorganizing Rhapsody, their joint-venture music service, and will be spinning it off into an independent company, they told the Securities and Exchange Commission today. Rhapsody, along with Best Buy’s Napster, sell music via monthly subscription, as opposed to Apple’s a la carte download offering. But neither service has been able to gain much traction, despite years of effort. More shortly.

Weekend Update 01.16.10–One *%#@ing Year Later Edition, with Carol Bartz

The whole AllThingsD team was shaking off the Consumer Electronic Show haze this week and getting back to business as usual. Just when we thought we’d left the craziness behind, we found ourselves knee-deep in a week of international espionage, network TV nastiness and a certain semiconductor manufacturer makin’ a heap-o-cash, but more on that later.
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RealNetworks' Rob Glaser Talks About Giving the Internet a Voice and, Yes, Woolly Mammoths!

Rob Glaser called BoomTown when he landed in Washington, D.C., only a few hours after he announced Wednesday he was stepping down as longtime CEO of RealNetworks…Although execs come and go in various and sundry ways–you simply have to give Glaser credit for his pioneering work in bringing both audio and video to the Web.
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Rob Glaser Eased Out as RealNetworks CEO

Google vs. China

RealNetworks’s Internal Layoff Memo