Venture capital dollars going to startups in the U.S. stabilized in the second quarter at $3.7 billion, according to the latest MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. The venture money invested in the quarter is still only about half of what it was a year ago (when it was $7.2 billion in the second quarter of 2008 ), but is 15 percent above the low point in the first quarter of 2009 (when it was $3.5 billion). All in all, VC investments are trending at mid-1990s levels, which isn’t such a bad thing. The average deal size came up a little bit to $6 million, from $5.3 million last quarter. Seed and early stage investing picked up after venture capitalists fled to the perceived safety of later-stage investments in recent previous quarters. The rebound, if you want to call it that, hasn’t hit the Internet sector yet. Internet deals brought in only $524 million in the quarter, down from $593 million the quarter before and $1.7 billion a year ago. Clean tech isn’t doing so hot either, with only $274 million invested during the second quarter compared to $911 million a year ago. Most of the action came from biotech and medical devices, which saw bigger jumps in funding during the quarter to $88 million and $628 million, respectively. Remember, this is only one source of data (most of it from Thomson Reuters).  We actually measured nearly twice the dollar amount of venture deals during the quarter on CrunchBase , which we’ll share more fully soon. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

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Venture Capital Dollars Stabilize in Second Quarter at Mid-1990s Levels

Venture capital dollars going to startups in the U.S. stabilized in the second quarter at $3.7 billion, according to the latest MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. The venture money invested in the quarter is still only about half of what it was a year ago (when it was $7.2 billion in the second quarter of 2008 ), but is 15 percent above the low point in the first quarter of 2009 (when it was $3.5 billion). All in all, VC investments are trending at mid-1990s levels, which isn’t such a bad thing. The average deal size came up a little bit to $6 million, from $5.3 million last quarter. Seed and early stage investing picked up after venture capitalists fled to the perceived safety of later-stage investments in recent previous quarters. The rebound, if you want to call it that, hasn’t hit the Internet sector yet. Internet deals brought in only $524 million in the quarter, down from $593 million the quarter before and $1.7 billion a year ago. Clean tech isn’t doing so hot either, with only $274 million invested during the second quarter compared to $911 million a year ago. Most of the action came from biotech and medical devices, which saw bigger jumps in funding during the quarter to $88 million and $628 million, respectively. Remember, this is only one source of data (most of it from Thomson Reuters).  We actually measured nearly twice the dollar amount of venture deals during the quarter on CrunchBase , which we’ll share more fully soon. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

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Venture Capital Dollars Stabilize in Second Quarter at Mid-1990s Levels

A TechCrunch reader submits the screenshot above showing a user voted Digg advertisement for IHOP . As far as we know, this is the first time this has been seen in the wild. The ads were first announced last month as a new type of advertising platform. The more users who digg on the ad, the less the advertiser has to pay. The more it is buried, the more the advertiser has to pay, eventually pricing it out of the system. Here’s the interesting thing. Digg says they are internally testing Digg Ads and confirm that IHOP is one of the ads Digg employees see. But no one outside of Digg’s offices are supposed to see them yet. They give no explanation as to why this person sees the ad, but do confirm it is an accurate screenshot. They’ve been working on this product for a long time – we first reported rumors of it in late 2008. Anyone else see these? Send a screenshot to tips@techcrunch. Thanks, Mohamoud , for sending this. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

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Digg User Voted Ads In The Wild. Mmmmm, IHOP

A TechCrunch reader submits the screenshot above showing a user voted Digg advertisement for IHOP . As far as we know, this is the first time this has been seen in the wild. The ads were first announced last month as a new type of advertising platform. The more users who digg on the ad, the less the advertiser has to pay. The more it is buried, the more the advertiser has to pay, eventually pricing it out of the system. Here’s the interesting thing. Digg says they are internally testing Digg Ads and confirm that IHOP is one of the ads Digg employees see. But no one outside of Digg’s offices are supposed to see them yet. They give no explanation as to why this person sees the ad, but do confirm it is an accurate screenshot. They’ve been working on this product for a long time – we first reported rumors of it in late 2008. Anyone else see these? Send a screenshot to tips@techcrunch. Thanks, Mohamoud , for sending this. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

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Digg User Voted Ads In The Wild. Mmmmm, IHOP

Adobe has rolled out two new open source initiatives aimed specifically towards developers for media companies and publishers. Adobe’s Open Source Media Framework lets developers build more robust, feature-rich media players optimized specifically for the Adobe Flash Platform. The second initiative, the Text Layout Framework (TLF), will help developers create sophisticated typography capabilities to Web applications. OSMF basically lets developers easily build media players for the Adobe Flash Platform. Adobe says the structure of OSMF lets developers leverage plug-ins for advertising, reporting metrics and content delivery along with standard video player features such as playback controls, video navigation, buffering and Dynamic Streaming. The OSMF source code and software components are available under the Mozilla Public License. Adobe is also partnering with content delivery service Akamai to create a cohesive standard to support Adobe media players that support Flash. TLF lets developers layout text on web applications with support for complex languages, bidirectional text, multi-columns and other advanced typographical features and controls. TLF is an ActionScript library built on top of the text engine in Adobe Flash Player 10 and Adobe AIR 1.5 software. Similar to OSMF, TLF is available as open source under the Mozilla Public License. Adobe’s product manager for Flash, Tom Barclay, says that these new initiatives are mainly targeted towards media companies who want to leverage typography technologies and rich media players off of the Flash and Adobe AIR platforms. The New York Times TimesReader 2.0 and The Boston Globe’s GlobeReader are both powered by TLF, and leverage the typography features of the open source code. Barclay says that Adobe saw an opportunity to open code to Flash applications that could prove to make interactive rich media applications. In the past, Adobe has also opened up the Flex Platform and launched the Open Screen Project. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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Adobe Unveils New Open Source Initiatives Targeted Towards Media Companies

Adobe has rolled out two new open source initiatives aimed specifically towards developers for media companies and publishers. Adobe’s Open Source Media Framework lets developers build more robust, feature-rich media players optimized specifically for the Adobe Flash Platform. The second initiative, the Text Layout Framework (TLF), will help developers create sophisticated typography capabilities to Web applications. OSMF basically lets developers easily build media players for the Adobe Flash Platform. Adobe says the structure of OSMF lets developers leverage plug-ins for advertising, reporting metrics and content delivery along with standard video player features such as playback controls, video navigation, buffering and Dynamic Streaming. The OSMF source code and software components are available under the Mozilla Public License. Adobe is also partnering with content delivery service Akamai to create a cohesive standard to support Adobe media players that support Flash. TLF lets developers layout text on web applications with support for complex languages, bidirectional text, multi-columns and other advanced typographical features and controls. TLF is an ActionScript library built on top of the text engine in Adobe Flash Player 10 and Adobe AIR 1.5 software. Similar to OSMF, TLF is available as open source under the Mozilla Public License. Adobe’s product manager for Flash, Tom Barclay, says that these new initiatives are mainly targeted towards media companies who want to leverage typography technologies and rich media players off of the Flash and Adobe AIR platforms. The New York Times TimesReader 2.0 and The Boston Globe’s GlobeReader are both powered by TLF, and leverage the typography features of the open source code. Barclay says that Adobe saw an opportunity to open code to Flash applications that could prove to make interactive rich media applications. In the past, Adobe has also opened up the Flex Platform and launched the Open Screen Project. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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Adobe Unveils New Open Source Initiatives Targeted Towards Media Companies

SlideRocket, a startup that helps create online presentations, has raised $5 million in Series B funding led by Azure Capital Partners with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners participating. This new round of funding brings SlideRocket’s total funding to $7 million. The company also announced that Chuck Dietrich, former General Manager and Vice President at Salesforce.com, has joined the company as CEO. SlideRocket is an online presentation application that produces media rich slideshows that rival PowerPoint presentations. SlideRocket says it will use the funding to grow the company by adding more hires and help continue innovation of the product. SlideRocket took the beta label off last fall and added collaboration tools to let users share slides and other assets between presentations and turn on a conference mode similar to WebEx, allowing users on different computers to view the same presentation simultaneously. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

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SlideRocket Raises $5 Million For Online Presentation Platform

SlideRocket, a startup that helps create online presentations, has raised $5 million in Series B funding led by Azure Capital Partners with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners participating. This new round of funding brings SlideRocket’s total funding to $7 million. The company also announced that Chuck Dietrich, former General Manager and Vice President at Salesforce.com, has joined the company as CEO. SlideRocket is an online presentation application that produces media rich slideshows that rival PowerPoint presentations. SlideRocket says it will use the funding to grow the company by adding more hires and help continue innovation of the product. SlideRocket took the beta label off last fall and added collaboration tools to let users share slides and other assets between presentations and turn on a conference mode similar to WebEx, allowing users on different computers to view the same presentation simultaneously. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

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SlideRocket Raises $5 Million For Online Presentation Platform

Yahoo showed off a couple of new upcoming features during my briefing today on the new home page to launch tomorrow . The first is a tool, called Customizable Content for now, to dial how “fun” or “serious” you like your news. Want hard core serious stuff? Pull the slider to the right. Fluffy fun stuff to the left. Leave it in the middle for a mix. User testing for this product begins in August, says Yahoo: Yahoo will also begin integrating the new home page experience into Yahoo search. Users will be able to filter searches by type (via third parties like eHow) by clicking on apps in the left sidebar. Users can also change search type (video, etc.) via links on the left sidebar. Compare a current search for “How To Kayak” to this: Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

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What’s Up Next For Yahoo? Better Search, Customizable Content (How Fluffy Do You Want Your News?)

Yahoo isn’t the only site that is undergoing a homepage change . The URL-shortening service Bit.ly did a slight reworking of its main site today as well. And not surprisingly, it’s very Twitter-focused. The new design is called “Bento Box,” according to a post on the Bit.ly blog . This is named after the containers that Japanese food is often served in. The reason is that Bit.ly is now more obviously broken up into sections, for the different core functionalities: Shortening links, custom URLs, posting to Twitter and shortening other links. On the homepage, there remains a big URL input box for shortening, and below that, a list of the links you’ve already shortened (if you’re signed in). But when you enter a URL to shorten now (or do so via the handy bookmarklet), you get a nicer-looking set of options for what you can do with your new Bit.ly URL. This includes easy access to copy that URL as-is, get stats, but also a way to more obviously change the URL to a custom one. So, for example, if you want your URL to be http://bit.ly/thisismylink, you can do that (assuming it’s not taken). You could do this previously, but it was a bit buried in the UI. Also much nicer is the ability to easily post to different Twitter accounts. Many people have multiple Twitter accounts for multiple purposes now, and before you had to sign out of one and sign in with the other if you wanted to tweet from each with Bit.ly. Now, there’s a drop-down menu which allows you to add another account seamlessly. Bit.ly has seen an explosion in usage since Twitter decided to make it the default URL shortener for the service . Many third-party Twitter apps use it as the default as well. The service is getting ready to roll out what sounds to be an ambitious project called Bit.ly Now , which sounds like it will take on Digg in finding out what’s popular on the web right now. It has also been shoring up its core business by adding features such as checking for malicious URLs . [photo: flickr/ miheco ] Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

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Inspired By Japanese Food, Bit.ly Gets A Slight Redesign