What is Prairie Moves?

Published Tuesdays and Fridays, Prairie Moves is a roundup of career changes, media coverage, product development and other updates from the companies and individuals regularly covered by Silicon Prairie News.

If you or your company would like to submit an item for our next Prairie Moves post, please email editor@siliconprairienews.com or use the form below.

Lead Read

"Ready to Move to Kansas City? Think Again" - The Wall Street Journal (above) says the Kansas City area is still missing a key ingredient in most startup hotbeds: ample early-stage venture financing.

Quotable

"Actually, Twitter doesn't offer many of the now seemingly obvious features that Slices has." - PandoDaily's Hamish McKenzie gives positve overview of One Louder's new Twitter app. - PandoDaily

Fundings

• AgLocal closed on an additional $500,000 in seed funding, with investment from Dundee Venture Capital, Artists & Instigators, Serious Change Investments, and Pat LaFrieda - SPN

Career Moves

• Brian Ardinger, formerly chief marketing officer at Nanonation, joined NUtech Ventures as entrepreneur in residence - DailyDOOH
• David Compton, formerly with Perceptive Software, joined Lantern (a startup he co-founded) full-time as COO - Lantern blog

New Tech

• OneLouder launched Slices for Twitter, an app that aims to help both beginner and advanced Twitter users more easily discover content and better manage their Twitter stream - Press Release, PandoDaily, SPN, Kansas City Star and The Guardian
• M Krell launched I Got Jesus, an Android app that acts as a prayer journal - Google Play and igotjesus.com

New Creative

• Bright Plane developed a new community volunteer website for Des Moines YMCA - join365.org

Product & Business Updates

• Book'd announced its upcoming re-launch - Press Release and Agency Post
• Goodsmiths hit the $1 million in inventory mark and launched its group buying option - SPN, Des Moines Register and Goodsmiths blog
• Zapier launched its Developer Platform - Zapier blog, TechCrunch and The Next Web
• Banno announced that all of the websites it develops are now driven by a responsive design format - Press Release and Bank Technology News
• PocketHealth released updates for its app - Cognovant blog
• Hudl now offers its basic editing tools online - Hudl blog
• Pongr is powering Arby's Snap and Rock promotion - snapandrock.com

Mentions

• Divshot - Tips to Win $25k in Startup Contest Funding - The Crowdfunding Revolution
• Shoplr - Local mobile app hopes to connect businesses and customers - Iowa State Daily
• Dwolla - Des Moines Meets Wall Street: A Conversation with Ben Milne - Fin Technology
• Michael DeKay of Grain & Mortar - Meet Michael DeKay, Creative Director behind the Barcamp Omaha event site - One Page Love
• IdeaMensch Des Moines - Milne, Stoll, Dhawan featured at IdeaMensch’s Des Moines stop - Des Moines Register

Gig Bits

Gig Bits is an occasional feature keeping our readers up to speed on Google Fiber. Read Gig Bits.

Google

• Fiber for more communities - Google Fiber Blog

Local

• Report questions Kansas City tech financing; see Google’s Fiber Space - Kansas City Business Journal

National

• Google Fiber: Why Meaningful Broadband Competition Is So Hard - Slate
• Google Fiber: Check out the in-home set up and equipment - GigaOm
• Entrepreneurs Dream of Jumping on Super-Fast Network - Wall Street Journal
• Ready to Move to Kansas City? Think Again - Wall Street Journal
• Challenges And Opportunities For Google's Fiber Project: A Reality And Sanity Check - Seeking Alpha
• The Economics Of The Google Gigabit - CIO Network
• Google Fiber and the community broadband ripple - GigaOm
• Google Fiberhoods: Better Than Tupperware Parties - Fast Company

Blogged

• Alignment - Christian Renaud
• Champions - Christian Renaud
• In-depth with the i-Team: Mike Thompson - Think Big Partners
• Fundle Changes - Fundle

Misc.

• Dr. Peter Revesz, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln CSE Department professor, was awarded the AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship for September 2012 through August 2013 - University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Tim Neugent joins StartupCity Des Moines as mentor - StartupCity Des Moines

Credits: Screenshot from wsj.com