What is Prairie Moves?

Published Tuesdays and Fridays, Prairie Moves keeps our readers informed about career moves, media coverage, product development and more from the companies and individuals we cover on Silicon Prairie News.

If you or your company would like to submit one of the items below for our next Prairie Moves post, please email editor@siliconprairienews.com. And if you have suggestions on how we could improve these posts or any of our coverage, please contact danny@siliconprairienews.com.

Fundings

• T8 Webware (Cedar Falls) was awarded $45,000 in direct assistance from the Iowa Economic Development Authority – Press Release
• MeNetwork (Boulder, Colo.) closed an angel round of about $500k from Omaha investors – SPN

New Tech

• Newsy (Columbia, Mo.) launched a new app for the Kindle Fire and unveiled an iPad app – Press Release, The Next Web, PCMag, AppAdvice, Tablet Crunch and Pad Gadget, 

New Creative

• QA Graphics (Ankeny, Iowa) created an interactive nutritional kiosk for Jonathan Chan, owner and operator of a McDonald’s franchise in Richardson, Texas – Press Release

Product/Business Development and Milestones

• Locusic (Des Moines) rolled out several new updates, including song counts and the ability to block explicit music – Locusic blog 
• Hatchlings (Panora, Iowa) closed its Hatchlings 2 third beta which had 964 premium members collect 7.7 million eggs, and launched its fourth beta – @BradDwyer

Mentions

• Pikuzone (Des Moines) – Des Moines Register: “Tech Spotlight: Safe, ad-free email for children available through Pikuzone“
• Iowa State University Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship (Ames, Iowa) – Iowa State Daily: “Pappajohn business competition connects students with entrepreneurship“
• University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Drone Journalism Lab (Lincoln, Neb.) – KETV: “Drones Could Soon Be In Skies In Iowa, Nebraska” and ABC Australia: “Drone journalism takes off“
• Hudl (Lincoln, Neb.), Uppward (Des Moines) and Dwolla (Des Moines) – Right On: “Coolest Startups in America“
• Dwolla (Des Moines) – Pando Daily: “Don’t mess with credit: Why the future of payments is already in your pocket.“, Credit Union Times: “P2P Breakout Awaits“, Corridor Business Journal: “Dwolla extends reach in the Corridor” and CNN: “Suits, Spooks and Cyber Space“
• SelectOut (Lincoln, Neb.) – Nebraska Entrepreneur: “SelectOut promoting greater online privacy for all“
• Steve Kiene of Nebraska Global (Lincoln, Neb.) – Search Business Analytics: “Collaborative decision making software: The future of BI?“
• Des Moines Business Record: “Industry Report: Technology“
• Des Moines Register: “Shrinking numbers, growing need for women in technology jobs“

Gig Bits

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

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• Techmeme: “Google Seeks To Plant Antenna Farm in Iowa” via Data Center Knowledge

Blogged

• ActiveGrade (Iowa City, Iowa): “February Updates“
• AgLocal (Overland Park, Kan.): “AgLocal’s first day at NewMe Accelerator” (Video)

Misc.

• “New trustees named to Kauffman Foundation board” – Kansas City Star
•  Think Big Partners (Kansas City) launched a podcast: “001 Think Big Radio: Introduction“

Credits: Photo by Nadia via Flickr