According to a press release from the Knight Foundation, the funding will help Wikimedia develop "features to improve the mobile experience regardless of how feature-rich the device is—including new ways to access Wikipedia via text; increasing the number of languages that can access Wikipedia on mobile; and improving the way feature phones access the platform."

Wikimedia wasn't the only winner in the contest, which shelled out $2.4 million to reward projects that harness mobile to inform and engage communities, often in developing economies. Three New York-based organizations also shared in the Knight Foundation riches.

The human rights organization WITNESS got $320,000 for an app, called InformaCam, that helps authenticate photo, video and audio files, stamping the work with metadata that make news organizations more likely to use the work of citizen journalists.

Digital Democracy, meanwhile, will get $200,000 to arm indigenous people with tools to report on the oil and mining companies that operate in the Peruvian Amazon.

And TKOH will get $330,000 for its project, Thread, which its easier to record audio- and video-rich oral histories without being hindered by the need for high technical expertise.

via Huffington Post

Thre.ad, a New York City-based social network that lets users share street style through "threads" of photos, is in the process of raising a $760,000 debt round, according to the startup's amended Form D filing on FormDs.com.

As Thre.ad co-founder and CEO Mimi Nguyen explained to Betabeat by email, the social network lets users spot and tag photos with brands and styles and share it with the rest of the Thre.ad community.  "If Twitter and Instagram had a baby, it would be thre.ad!" Ms. Nguyen told the Huffington Post when the company launched in private beta in November.  Sounds more like democratizing The Sartorialist to us, with the idea of turning anyone with a smartphone into a style spotter.

When Thre.ad first filed a Form D in November, the company said it raised $450,000 out of  a $500,000 debt round from three investors. But the amended Form D points to increased interest from backers, with $560,000 raised from five investors so far toward that $760,000 round. Ms. Nguyen declined to name those five investors, but she did promise "major releases" from the company next week.

Thre.ad, which appears to still be in private beta, has two other co-founders: CTO Jonathan Rainey (a veteran of both Electronic Arts and Bookish) and Fashion Director Kristin Ming. The startup was also one of the co-sponsors of Raise Cache, a fashion show and event that raised more than $100,000 for hackNY.

A rather glowing review on the blog HyperVocal says "Thre.ad was founded upon the idea that individuals should feel free to express themselves without being judged."

Mimi and her team launched themselves miles ahead of competition the moment they ruled out the possibility of negative judgments or reactions in their product, subsequently broadening their base of potential users who will feel comfortable sharing. Instead, Thre.ad uses 9 positive and quirky “Fashion Reactions.” Based on the idea that each photo tells a story and each person interprets the story differently, viewers are allowed to choose up to three reactions per photo on how they feel about what is being expressed: “Cool!” “Want it!” and “Bananas,” are just a few!

To be fair to, say, Fashism, another New York fashion-tech startup that lets users get a "love it"/"hate it" judgment on photographs of outfits they voluntarily upload, honest feedback has a place in fashion too. Speaking of, can someone swing by The Observer offices and tell us if pearl earrings work with motorcycle boots?