NYC-based financial services startup for families, Tykoon, is exiting its private beta and is launching its first mobile app for iPhone. The company, which aims to change the ways kids think about and use money, is more that your typical allowance tracker application – it’s a platform for earning, saving, giving and spending, the latter which includes kid-friendly access to a curated and controlled Amazon store.

The company was co-founded by two experts in the payments and financial services business, Mark Bruinooge and Doug Lebda. Bruinooge spent 10 years in the industry, including time served as the head of e-commerce strategy as well as digital marketing at Bank of America. Co-founder and Chairman Doug Lebda, meanwhile, founded LendingTree.com, and served as its COO for several years following its acquisition by IAC in 2003.

Bruinooge explains Tykoon’s goal as “improving financial literacy by giving kids a real platform that allows them to learn through real experiences.” What that means is kids can earn cash and rewards by performing tasks or chores, or by meeting certain goals set by parents (e.g., make honor roll). Parents also learn about finances, too, in a way, because they use the service to set up what these tasks and goals should be, then dole out the money and rewards upon completion.

While that aspect of the service is similar to some other allowance-tracking programs, one interesting thing that Tykoon is offering is the curated shopping experience it provides for kids. The service includes access to a customized version of the Amazon store which has been curated for “kid friendliness.” (There’s nothing inappropriate or impractical there.) Parents can also further customize the shop by enabling or disabling the categories their kids can see.

As kids earn money, they can then choose to spend it in the online store, or can request a cash-based payout from mom or dad. Currently, the app is targeted towards 8 to 12-year olds, but the addition of a bank-issued, preloaded debit card is planned for Q1 2013, which will extend the platform to teens. Bruinooge says the company is already in talks with MasterCard, Visa and banking partners on this, and the result will be something similar to the Visa Buxx card.

During the beta period, which began in August of last year with around 650 families participating, the company refined the Tykoon’s visual experience from that a virtual, customizable room (kids picked out wallpaper and a pet!) to that of a utility with a dashboard and app tray for access to the platform’s various features, including the Wishlist, Tasks, Badges, Friends, Store, Savings and Goals, and more.

In addition to learning about earning, saving and spending, Tykoon also helps teach children about giving through a donations feature, which allows them to give money to charities like World Wildlife Foundation or Habitat for Humanity, powered by Network for Good.

The iOS app, launched last night, now allows both parents and kids to log in via password and PIN-protected accounts, and includes a nifty feature for snapping photos of kids’ wants (i.e.,”buy me that!!”) for adding items to the wishlist.

The company also plans to introduce an Android app around September, and will add more social sharing options, primarily for wishlist sharing, early this summer.

The web service and application are free, as Tykoon earns affiliate income from the Amazon purchases. In the future, Tykoon is looking into corporate sponsorships and a value-added premium model as additional sources of revenue.

Interested parents and kids can sign up here, and the mobile app is available in iTunes here. Tykoon previously raised $1.4 million in funding last fall from Doug Lebda, RRE Ventures, Rick Thompson, Chamath Palihapitiya, David Bach, and G. Kennedy Thompson.

San Francisco-based Fingerprint Digital, a startup building educational apps for kids as well as a parent-child communication system for iOS apps, is doubling the size of its network today with the addition of a series of six new apps from French developer Happy Blue Fish Studio. The developer has chosen Fingerprint’s in-app “Mom-Comm” system (as the company calls it) to enhance its “The Deskplorers” story-telling apps designed for ages 6 through 9. The newly added apps are focused on reading comprehension, problem solving, and foreign languages, while also taking kids through adventures in history.

Fingerprint, in case you’re not up on the “what’s hot with kids” front, is a young startup which first introduced its educational-focused apps into the iTunes App Store on December 1st of last year. A few weeks later, Fingerprint was reporting having seen over 270,000 game-playing sessions for a total of over 2 million minutes played.

Today, the company is reporting they’re up to 14 million minutes of play time, and the average session time has climbed up to 9 minutes. Fingerprint says the most popular time of time for gaming is between 7 AM and 9 AM then after school (4 PM to 6 PM), but the most popular days to play are Saturday and Sunday.

The kids seems to have their favorite apps from Fingerprint’s collection, which includes self-developed titles like Big Kid Life Fairy Princess, Big Kid Life Veterinarian, Big Kid Life Fire Fighter (the most popular), Play Maker, and Whole Wide World. 40% of kids playing Fingeprint apps have played one of the apps more than 25 times in their first 4 weeks.

For what it’s worth, my kid launches that princess app almost daily. (Don’t worry, despite the name, it’s not teaching her how to wait for some random dude to kiss her to make her life complete.)

The apps, however, aren’t the most interesting thing Fingerprint is developing – it’s the built-in sharing platform (available to select third parties via an SDK) that is. This system allows kids to share their in-game progress with parents, and the adults get a news feed detailing their child’s activity. They can then leave supportive messages via audio and text for their children to receive in the game.

With the newly added Deskplorers series, Fingerprint’s small collection of apps will double in size with half a dozen new apps introducing kids to knights, pirates, Egyptians, cavemen, and more. Dominique Busso, founder and CEO of Happy Blue Fish Studio, the maker of the apps, says the company was in search of a partner that could help intro the apps to the U.S. market, and selected Fingerprint because its mission aligned with their own: “to bring happiness and learning through gameplay to kids worldwide.”

Fingerprint is backed by a solid team. The company was founded by Nancy MacIntyre, formerly the EVP of Products and Marketing at LeapFrog, and Brad Edelman who co-founded social gaming company PlayFirst. It also has Heather Regan, the former COO of Everloop, as VP of Product Management and Learning, and former game marketing lead at 2K Games (a division of Take Two Interactive) Phil Shpilberg as its VP of Marketing. The company has $1.4 million in venture funding.

Online ticketing platform Eventbrite is debuting a new vertical today, called Endurance, which focuses specifically on selling tickets for races and walks, including marathons, triathlons, races, fundraising walks, and more. As you may know, Eventbrite, which has sold 57 million tickets and hosted over 500,000 events in the past year, has been used as a registration and ticketing platform for a broad range of events, from large fundraisers, festivals, tech conferences, and concerts to cooking classes and HTML workshops. But this first time the company has launched a dedicated, industry-specific ticketing manager for a vertical.

The company says they realized there are a couple of key markets that have more advanced feature requirements, and in take advantage of more opportunities in these markets, the company is building an expertise in select verticals.

Endurance is similar in some ways to the standard ticketing platform but has been customized based on feedback from endurance organizers and participants. This includes the ability for race organizers to sell merchandise along with registration prior to the event, and allows for easier team registration sign up and management. Race organizers can also automatically assign bib numbers as participants register for their event.

Organizers can also create custom branded registration pages, access data and analytics on attendees and sales, and even accept payments at the event via Eventbrite’s new ‘At The Door,’ iPad app and credit card reader.

What verticals could be next for Eventbrite? Conferences, concerts and classes are obvious choices.

Expanding to vertical-specific ticketing solutions makes sense for the company to offer for compelling ticketing options, as it looks to increase sales and users. Eventbrite has making a big push towards reaching $1 billion in gross ticket sales in 2012; after doubling both the number of events on platform in 2011. We know the company is eyeing an IPO. Last year, Hartz said that Eventbrite could file to go public as early as late 2012. Eventbrite has also expanded internationally last year, opening an office in London.

Intuit has just acquired marketing SaaS company Demandforce for $423.5 million in cash.

Demandforce’s SaaS application automates internet marketing and communications, so customers can focus on running their day-to-day operations. The startup, which is profitable, has thousands of customers across service verticals that include dental care, automotive repair, spas, salons, chiropractors, and others.

The SaaS was designed to help customers to grow revenue, retain clients, maintain online reputation, and manage operations more effectively. Demandforce focuses primarily on small to medium sized businesses, offering email, mobile and social tools to help SMBs communicate with their customers and drive higher retention and growth in their businesses.

“Demandforce sits at the sweet spot of Intuit’s SMB customer base and is consistent with our goal to help our customers save time and make money,” said Kiran Patel, executive vice president and general manager, Intuit Small Business Group. “With a compelling customer value proposition, SaaS model and high growth profile, Demandforce will provide opportunities to grow Intuit’s customer base and revenue per customer over time.”

Demandforce was backed by Mike Maples, Palo Alto Ventures, and Benchmark Capital.

Becnhmark partner Bill Gurley wrote an interesting note about the acquisition today, revealing that the firm didn’t even announce Benchmark’s funding of the company, which he says is unprecedented. The Demandforce team always felt that the attention should be focused on the customer rather than the company., he writes.

As with Instagram, Benchmark Capital is the largest institutional investor in Demandforce. Unlike Instagram, which is a consumer application and is extremely well known, Demandforce focuses on local professional businesses and has chosen to keep an intentionally low profile – a strategy that has served them well, Gurley explains.

So why did Intuit buy Demandforce? Intuit sees Demandforce as a way to boost its own SMB focused business. More than 60% of Intuit’s revenue is coming from online and mobile services, which is fueled by products like TurboTax online and GoPayment.

Once the transaction closes, Demandforce will become a division in Intuit’s Small Business Group.

Today at the TNW Conference, Hojoki launched its mobile application, and a new tool that it calls ‘Workspaces,’ which will help facilitate discussions among its users.

The mobile app that the company launched is designed, as you might expect, to make the product available on the go. The company described it in the following way to TNW: “[the app] allows you to take your newsfeed with you everywhere.” The app functions with all 16 integrated apps that Hojoki works with.

Workspaces is designed to make the process of using Hojoki more social, by allowing for “easily start discussions with your collaborators inside” of the application. The company, I presume, is hoping to boost engagement across the app, by providing a more full-service experience.

Now, what is Hojoki? When the company launched at LeWeb, we called it a “Facebook-style newsfeed for enterprise cloud apps,” which is a good way to think about it. Essentially, it brings together activity by yourself and coworkers on a number of cloud-based apps, into a single feed. This makes keeping track of where everyone on a team is, simple.

And now, you can take it with you on the go, so that you never have to be behind.

As a final note, the company told TNW that the average user of Hojoki has some “65 people connected to them in their Work Graph,” meaning that people who use the service probably need it; keeping track of that many people all at once would be nigh impossible without a centralized feed. Which, of course, Hojoki exactly is.

In case you want a bit more, the company’s video below is well worth watching.

➤ Hojoki

Follow all of our coverage of The Next Web Conference here.

We first covered Six3, a cross-platform video service for mobile and desktop, back in February, and today at TNW 2012 conference in Amsterdam, the startup is announcing the end of its beta, and the launch of its full service with a number of new features timed to mark its launch.

Just to recap, Six3 allows users to send short, private video messages between smartphones and computers. The video messages can be created (and viewed) on iPhones, PCs & Macs, but only viewed on other video-capable smartphones and feature phones.

Six3 messages are optimized to transfer quickly over 3G and even 2.5G connections, with a cloud-based approach meaning that messages and contact lists are  accessible from any compatible device – be it desktop or mobile, and it also supports group conversations.

As part of today’s full launch, the company has announced two main new features demanded by beta users, one of which is integration with Facebook & Twitter. This means you can now opt to share videos to friends and followers through these social channels too.

The next update is filters – yup, Six3 is reeling in colour filters to video messages to enhance videos created in different light conditions and environments.

The company was founded in July 2011, and the service was built from the ground up in six months. The company’s CTO, Simon Frost, was previously Technical Architect for BBC iPlayer, while co-founder and CEO Tim Grimsditch is the former global head of entertainment product marketing at Nokia.

But why video messaging? Well three main reasons. Firstly, Skype calls need to be pre-arranged and they don’t always work well on mobile phones. Secondly it’s easy to send videos by email from smartphones, but it’s not quite so simple for PC or Mac users to reply with video. And thirdly, MMS only works on devices with SIM cards, and is expensive, especially internationally.

“So, we decided to create a service that makes it incredibly ease to send beautiful video messages using smartphones, PCs and other connected devices,” says Grimsditch. “That service is Six3.”

Meanwhile, you can monitor all our coverage from The Next Web’s 2012 conference here.

➤ Six3

So, in case you haven’t heard, Apple is doing pretty well. Things are different now without Steve at the helm, but change isn’t always bad. Although George Colony, taking the contrarian approach, would like to disagree.

Today, we’ve gotten word that Apple Senior Art Director Sharon Hwang, who headed the graphics design team, has left Apple to join Facebook’s product design team. Though it looks like Hwang joined Facebook last month, the Facebook Design Team officially announced her hiring today on their Facebook page.

Prior to joining Facebook and Apple, the designer was the Art Director at Stockholm Design Lab for two and a half years, and prior to that was a graphic designer at Pentagram.

We’ve also learned today that Benjamin Fay, Apple’s Senior Director of Retail Real Estate, Design and Development has left the company and will be headed to J.C. Penney. Fay has been at Apple for eight years, working as the head of retail store design and planning. The former senior director is the second senior Apple executive for leave for J.C. Penney in the last 6 months.

Fay will report to J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson, who it just so happens left Apple for J.C. Penney in November. Johnson was the former Senior VP of Retail Operations at Apple, and both he and Fay had a lot to do with making the Apple Store, well, the Apple Store.

Fay will join J.C. Penney as the EVP of real estate, store design and development. According to a statement released by J.C. Penney, Fay will be leading the design of the company’s new retail stores, assisting Johnson as part of an initiative in which the company will “create an entirely new interface for retail.” Obviously big things to come for J.C. Penney retail, with their new look being led by two of the guys most closely behind the design and expansion of Apple Stores across the world.

Amazon just reported earnings for the first quarter of 2012. Net sales increased 34% to $13.18 billion in the first quarter, compared with $9.86 billion in first quarter 2011. Net income decreased 35% to $130 million in the first quarter, or $0.28 per diluted share, compared with net income of $201 million, or $0.44 per diluted share, in first quarter 2011. The company beat Wall Street expectations; analysts expected a profit of $0.07 per share on revenue of $12.9 billion for the quarter.

“I’m excited to announce that we now have more than 130,000 new, in-copyright books that are exclusive to the Kindle Store – you won’t find them anywhere else. They include many of our top bestsellers – in fact, 16 of our top 100 bestselling titles are exclusive to our store,” said CEO and founder Jeff Bezos.

“If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you don’t even need to buy these titles – you can borrow them for free – with no due dates – from our revolutionary Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library is heavily used by Kindle owners, and it has extremely unusual features that both authors and customers love. Every time you borrow a book, the author gets paid – and we have an inexhaustible supply of each title so you never have to wait in a queue for the book you want. Kindle is the bestselling e-reader in the world by far, and I assure you we’ll keep working hard so that the Kindle Store remains yet another reason to buy a Kindle!”

Unsurprisingly, we didn’t see any concrete number when it comes to Kindle sales. Amazon says that the Kindle Fire remains the best selling, most gifted, and most wished for product on the site. In the first quarter, 9 out of 10 of the top sellers on Amazon.com were digital products – Kindle, Kindle books, movies, music and apps.

Operating cash flow increased 1% to $3.05 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $3.03 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2011. Operating income was $192 million in the first quarter, compared with $322 million in first quarter 2011.

North America segment sales were $7.43 billion, up 36% from first quarter 2011. International segment sales, representing the Company’s U.K., German, Japanese, French, Chinese, Italian and Spanish sites, were $5.76 billion, up 31% from first quarter 2011. Worldwide Media sales grew 19% to $4.71 billion.

Worldwide Electronics and Other General Merchandise sales grew 43% to $7.97 billion.

Q2 2012 net sales are expected to be between $11.9 billion and $13.3 billion, or to grow between 20% and 34% compared with second quarter 2011.

After missing Q4 financial expectations, the company has been focusing on adding content to Amazon Instant Video, and expanding the Kindle Touch to new markets. Amazon also acquired order fulfillment company Kiva Systems for $775 million in cash.

Twitter co-founder, and Square CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey sat down with Charlie Rose yesterday to talk about the two companies he’s developed as well as Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram and the “digital revolution.” The entire interview is just under 18 minutes, and is worth a watch, but here are some of the highlights:

Square

As Square revealed yesterday, the payments company is now processing $5 billion in annual payments (or around $416 million in payments per month), which is up from $4 billion in annual payments in March. Dorsey says that Square is moving fast, and this year will be expanding internationally, both to local shops and larger merchants. “We want to be the point of sale for every merchant,” he tells Rose.

He says that the best technologies disappear, and are relevant when you use them but get out of the way when you don’t. He believes Square falls into that category, especially with Pay With Square’s hands free payments experience.

Rose asked Dorsey which company has the biggest upside potential, Twitter or Square? Dorsey diplomatically answered that both companies did because of Twitter’s role in transforming communications and Square’s place in the exchange of value. “These are two foundational, essential things,” he added.

Twitter

Dorsey says that COO Dick Costolo “is an amazing leader,” and doesn’t get enough credit for Twitter’s revenue products that were developed and driven very quickly. And he adds that the company’s revenue products (i.e. advertising) beat all of their goals last year. Dorsey also believes that Twitter can monetize and says that the company is seeing 3-5 percent engagement on promoted products.

“Twitter is more than where I wanted it to be…truly great companies reinvent themselves…our users are helping reinvent Twitter…,” he explains. As for how will Twitter change, Dorsey explains that the service will be more focused on discovery.

Instagram

Rose pointed out that Dorsey was an early investor in Instagram. Dorsey explains that co-founder Kevin Systrom was an intern at Odeo, where Dorsey initially developed Twitter. Dorsey, who says he taught Systrom javascript, recalls that even then, Systrom impressed him with his love for photography. Dorsey explains that it was this passion and pride in the craft to do it the right way that helped sell him on investing in Instagram. “Kevin is an amazing craftsman and I knew would build a company of craftspeople.”

On the whole Facebook acquisition, Dorsey said it made sense for Facebook to pick it up. In his opinion, this is because Facebook’s core competency is in photos. But Facebook is known for being in the past tense, he says. Instagram represented the present, the now, which are a lot of the ideas that Twitter brought into the world. His remarks are interesting, of course, considering the recent report that Dorsey and Twitter were interested in buying Instagram.

Dorsey is always a fascinating interview, so the video is worth a watch if you have the time.

CEO Garrett Camp tells me that content discovery service StumbleUpon hit 25 million registered users earlier this week, and that those users are pretty damn active — the service is now seeing 1.2 billion Stumbles a month.

For someone like me, who sees the impressive traffic that StumbleUpon can drive to an article, the growth isn’t a big surprise, but it’s worth remembering that StumbleUpon had some, uh, stumbles of its own, having been acquired by eBay and then spun out again as a separate company in April 2009. At the time, Camp says the site had about 5.5 million registered users, so that’s almost 5x growth in three years.

“If we continue at this rate, we could see hundreds of millions of users,” he says.

Last December, StumbleUpon unveiled a redesign intended to make the service more friendly to new users and to brands. Then earlier this month, it released an app that integrated with Facebook Timeline. Both changes are starting to make a difference in the company’s growth and usage, Camp says.

Looking forward, Camp tells me that StumbleUpon has three big priorities for the rest of the year. First, there’s mobile. Mobile Stumbles grew 800 percent in the past year, and the company plans to launch new, faster versions of its mobile apps soon.

Second, there’s international growth. Right now, 85 percent of StumbleUpon’s traffic comes from North America, but the company is working to translate the site, and it plans to launch in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, with further European launches lined up after that.

Third, Camp wants to help other services access StumbleUpon’s data through an API. If you’re a content site, for example, it could be useful for your readers to see related articles that are highly recommended by StumbleUpon users. Partners beta testing the API include QQ International, VICE, and Grooveshark.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about that 25 millionth user, here’s the first page they saw through StumbleUpon.