Santa Monica-based DogVacay , the online marketplace which helps dog owners connect with pet lovers to help watch their dogs, has some new competition today: Rover.com. According to Seattle-based Rover.com, it has just scored $3.4M from Madrona Ventures and CrunchFund for its own, pet sitting marketplace. DogVacay, which is led by Aaron Hirschhorn, has the backing of such firms as First Round Capital, Science Inc., MORE

By popular acclaim, San Diego-based Echo Laboratories founder Eugene Cho claimed top honors, and a $15,000 check, for his two-minute presentation last week in the 10th annual “Quick Pitch” competition, hosted by San Diego’s Tech Coast Angels. MORE

Beat The Competition. Business Culture Entertainment Gadgets Marketing Amazon Amazon Prime Benefit christmas Commerce competition Discounts eCommerce Game holiday investment Prime Day retail rewards MORE

San Diego-based MP3Tunes , the cloud music storage service startup headed by Michael Robertson, has some stiff new competition today. Amazon.com said last night that it has launched its own, cloud music and storage service called Amazon Cloud Drive , along with corresponding web and Android music players. Amazon.com said it will offer up 5 GB of cloud storage for music and other files for free, with upgrade to 20GB for users who purchase MP3 albums from Amazon. MORE

Two, Southern California companies have made the semi-finalist list for the much-watch Cisco Innovation Grand Challenge competition, which promises to give out $150,000 to a company developing the "next best thing" in the Internet-of-Things area. Cisco said Thursday that San Diego-based CyberFlow Analytics and Los Angeles-based Inston are one of fifteen semifinalists that were selected out of 3,000 participants from 100 countries entering the competition. MORE

Computers and the Internet have now brought in a new era that relies on data to make profitable business decisions in the competitive environment. Below is a full explanation of how small businesses can leverage technology to earn a competitive advantage in the marketplace. MORE

The quarterly competition is being sponsored right now by Wacom. artwork competition showcase photography pxldustHollywood-based Pxldust.com , a new web site focused on allowing artists and photographers to showcase their work, said this week that it is looking to let artists to compete for prizes and show off their artwork to others through its site. MORE

San Diego-based Qualcomm has launched its third annual QPrize competition, the competition where the firm looks to vet and fund early stage technology companies from around the world. Qualcomm said it has increased its total prize pool to $1M for the year, and also added Brazil and Eastern Europe as regions covered by the competition. qualcomm qprize competition business plan compete wireless MORE

In order to support all of these teams, there are several on-campus startup competitions every year, from the Silicon Beach USC competition to the New Venture Seed Competition, with prize funds to help build the companies. MORE

wpromote scholarship digital marketing high school student education contest competitionLos Angeles-based digital marketing agency Wpromote said on Monday that it has launched a new set of scholsrships, which will go to students interested in digital marketing. According to Wpromote, the new scholarships--which will be awarded bi-annually--will total $3,000, with the first award in December of this year. MORE

VIMBY , the Los Angeles-based, online production studio created by Mark Burnett, is powering a new entrepreneurship competition from Walmart, the Get On The Shelf crowdsourcing competition. According to Walmart, via its Silicon Valley-based @WalmartLabs unit, it is running the contest to let entrepreneurs get their products noticed and sold on its website and potentially, the Walmart store chain. MORE

One of Santa Barbara-based RightSignature , a provider of software-as-a-service, electronic signature services, has been acquired by software giant Adobe. Adobe said Monday morning that it has acquired EchoSign , an electronic signature competitor of RightSignature. Financial details of that acquisition were not disclosed. READ MORE>>. rightsignature echosign adobe merger acquisition electronic signature saas software MORE

Los Angeles-based CapLinked , the developer of an online platform for managing fundraising and investors, said this morning that it has launched a new pitch competition. The firm said that judges for the competition come form Idealab, Rincon, Rapidfire, and Actarus, including Idealab's Alex Maleki and Rincon's Jim Andelman. caplinked pitch business entrepreneur startup competition fundraising MORE

He wants to compete to be the lead drummer in the competitive ensemble and study under Terence, an obsessive instructor who is hell bent on winning competitions for the school. But the film has my brain buzzing all week about obsessive and competitive people. Obsession. MORE

Six companies started by students at the University of Southern California's Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at USC Marshall have been awarded a total of $50,000 in seed funding, after competing in the center's New Venture Seed Competition held this week. MORE

Santa Monica-based videogame publisher Activision Blizzard announced this morning that it has launched a brand new, Esports division, which will focus on competitive gaming and growth of esports. gaming games videogame sports espn competition esports blizzard activision activisionblizzard MORE

The IBM Watson AI XPRIZE , the $5M competition being run by Los Angeles-based XPRIZE , has opened up registrations to teams, and has published guidelines for the artificial intelligence competition. The new competition is seeking to spur teams to create artificial intelligence technology, to challenge some of humanity's most pressing challenges. watson xprize competition registration nonprofit challenge artificial intelligence software MORE

Professional investors laugh when they hear an entrepreneur state, “We have no competition.” That statement has killed more investment deals than almost any other. It is a failed litmus test for the entrepreneur, even if the plan is for a totally new device or service that could take the world by storm. Well, come to think of it, this is especially true in such an instance. The statement shows a lack of research or previous thinking that is a red flag for investors. MORE

Among the participants that applied for the online competitions, only a progressed into the semi-finals. Tech.Co: What was the road like leading up to your initial pitch for the competition? Manubay: Leading up to the initial, local pitch competition we were pitching to family and friends for practice and for possible investment opportunity. MORE

I brought up the fact that I find many larger companies abusing the patent system to slow down smaller competitors which is actually anti competitive. Last night I had the great privilege to interview Bill Gross , one of the Internet’s true pioneers. MORE

From apps to hardware, to KickStarter successes and international startups, we’re inching closer to finding out who will take home the title of Startup of the Year competition at our annual Celebrate Conference in October. Among the dozens of participants that applied for the online competitions, only a few progressed into the semifinals. Co: What was the road like leading up to your initial pitch for the competition? MORE

Crowdfunder , an online site offering up a platform to help startups raise money for their firms via crowd funding, is dangling $25,000 in a contest open to Los Angeles companies. The firm, headed by Chance Barnett, said that its new crowdsourced startup contest, called CROWDSTART LA , will award $25,000 in funding for the company judged the most popular via votes on the site. MORE

Late last year we announced that local Southern California startup Caplinked was launching a worldwide pitch competition for entrepreneurs to present their business ideas to a panel of all-star judges from Idealab, Rincon, and Chris Yeh. Company founders and aspiring entrepreneurs of all-stripes were welcome to submit their plans for a chance at fame and glory, as well as international exposure for their company. MORE

A new competition--part of the Startup America effort launched by the Obama Administration, and spearheaded locally by Caltech, USC, and UCLA--said today that it is looking to award $200,000 in prize money to university students with clean energy business ideas. First Look West said that the first place team will win $100,000, the second place team $60,000, and third place $40,000; the competition wlil be held April 30th and May 1st. MORE

When you’re in a competition and on the spot, answering questions to industry experts can be a nerve-wrecking process. This competition required the team to answer “…questions on a Food and Nutrition data set that contained 28 features and 30,000+ rows. MORE

We deeply feel that competition of this sort is a good thing. We love this! If you've not been watching the ASP.NET team's community standups , you have missed some surprisingly transparent, interesting, and oftentimes funny updates from a major web application framework development team. Every time I watch one I marvel, this is Microsoft? Clearly we're seeing a new Microsoft. If you're not watching, you would have also missed how much emphasis the ASP.NET team is putting on performance. MORE

In an interesting application of a live, streaming video site, Santa Monica-based Vokle , the online, interactive live events service headed by Robert Kiraz, announced today that it is hosting a live singing competition on its site. The competition will be streamed live via webcam to Vokle's viewers. The company said the competition is open to anyone with a webcam, with online auditions on October 1st. vokle live video event singing competition MORE

A student team from the University of Southern California is one of forty two teams heading to the 2011 Rice University Business Plan Competition in April. The competition--which is one of the largest in the world--also includes a new $100,000 prize from venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, focused on clean technology. MORE

Los Angeles-based FlowTab , the developer of a smartphone application which allows users to order food and drink from their smartphone, has scored the top position in a competition hosted by Glendale-based startup incubator/office space Voivoda Labs. MORE

San Diego-based Qualcomm Ventures , the venture investment arm of Qualcomm, has kicked off its annual venture competition, the QPrize , dangling seven $100,000 regional prizes and a $150,000 grand prize. Qualcomm said the deadline for the startup competition this year is April 18th. MORE

A new technology "pitch competition", Techgladiatr , said it is giving away "beer, BBQ, and cupcakes" as part of a pitch event tonight which will give startups 30 minutes to pitch "a business inspired by a random idea". pitch dating competition startup improbable comedian joke april1st april MORE

Last week, the University of Southern California 's Viterbi School of Engineering announced that it had established a new, business plan competition, the Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition ([link] specifically aimed at students in the engineering school. MORE

Chick Launcher , the local effort to help bolster women led startups, has named the five finalists for its Fast Pitch Competition, the group said this week. The entrants to the competition had to have a woman co-founder, president or CEO, or be majority owned by women, but can be in any industry. chicklauncher women startups competition fast pitch MORE

Tracy DiNunzio, Founder and CEO of Tradesy , recently shared her insights regarding the best approach for entrepreneurs to address competition. competition''s a really interesting thing. Competition Is A Lie. A version of this article previously appeared on Forbes. MORE

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) says it will be running the final competition for $3.5M competition event disaster robotics darpa challenge robot MORE

Just like backpacking through the mountains, startup competitions such as Startup Weekend can be difficult without some guidance. The team at talkTECH put together this infographic to give you the added edge of how to be a winner in any startup competitions. MORE