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Consumer security software company AVG Technologies this morning announced it has entered into a new credit agreement with a syndicate arranged by J.P Morgan and Morgan Stanley. The company has secured a five-year term lean for $235 million in its first-ever capital markets transaction. AVG says the financing deal provides the company with “the resources to realize strategic growth opportunities”. The company will also pay a dividend to its shareholders. AVG CEO J.R. Smith commented on the financing thusly: “It also was compelling to offer our first ever public capital markets transaction mainly to U.S. investors, given the majority of our revenues are derived from the U.S., and the extensive interest in our sector from the U.S. market.” AVG was originally founded back in 1991. The company says it currently protects more than 110 million consumers and small businesses in 170 countries from viruses, spam, cyber-scams and hackers on the Internet.

  This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum , where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. More and more businesses have been getting hip to social blogging platform Tumblr lately — specifically those involved in the fashion industry — which may have you wondering, “Should I be on Tumblr, too? Will the denizens of Hunting Knives R Us dig this blogging platform? Or should I just stick to ads in the local paper and — dare to dream — a Facebook Page?” Well, if you’re a small business owner with your finger currently hovering over the “Start posting!” button, there are a few questions to consider first. Is Simple Always Better? Compared to platforms like WordPress, Tumblr is dead simple. It’s easy to set up and customize, and you can start posting within minutes. “Tumblr is one of the most visually appealing and user-friendly platforms out there, so it was an effective way to build our com...

  This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum , where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. You’ve seen videos of people doing ridiculous things on the Internet. But you probably haven’t seen too many videos of small businesses sharing their good work. Web video is more or less the domain of the ridiculous — whether that means something cute or something painful. Even top ads and commercials have a touch of the absurd ( Old Spice , Dos Equis , I’m looking at you). So how does a small business compete with disturbingly low attention spans and a whole Internet of viral videos? Read on for five ways that small businesses can take advantage of web video without blowing their budgets and let us know your own success stories in the comments below. 1. Request User Submissions “Going viral” is a frustrating term both for its elusiveness and effectiveness. Viral videos can quickly get your p...

  At a board meeting in Silicon Valley on Friday, ICANN approved a new top-level domain for porn sites. URLs ending in .xxx will contain sexually oriented adult entertainment content that is verified to be neither fraudulent nor illegal. Advocates have been attempting to get this approval since 2003, but the movement for the .xxx TLD has bred controversy, as do most conversations around the porn industry. The new domain names will be registered through the ICM Registry . Already, nearly 230,000 URLs have been reserved. ICM expects the URLs to sell wholesale for around $60 each. Porn site owners won’t have to relinquish their .com or other URLs, and .xxx domains won’t be mandatory for sites with adult content. Sales of .xxx domains should begin soon in Q2 2011. In addition to promising consumers of Internet porn safety from online fraud (including e-mail spoofing, phishing and spam) and child pornography, ICM is also telling webmasters they will see more traffic and hi...

AT&T's deal to buy T-Mobile USA has already caused plenty of discussion. But is there a simple secret at the heart of the deal? Is this really all about the iPhone 4G in 2012? AT&T's definitive agreement , for just shy of $40 billion in cash and stocks, has the entire tech world talking. There's speculation about what the alliance may achieve--and one big bonus may be better cellphone coverage for users in the key New York and San Francisco areas, since the linked cellphone network will contain more towers per square mile than before. Very soon after the news arrived, there was hot speculation that the deal was largely prompted by Apple's iPhone 4, and specifically by AT&T's desire to boost its network to compete with the new Verizon iPhone 4. This of course would enable many millions more U.S. consumers (folks tied to T-Mobile, or who prefer that network) to buy Apple's wonderphone. Those hopes were quickly quashed when T-Mobile...

1. StumbleUpon The granddaddy of discovering random cool stuff online, StumbleUpon will celebrate its 10th anniversary later this year — but its mobile app is less than a year old. On the web, its eight million users have spent the last decade recommending (or disliking) millions of webpages with a thumbs up / thumbs down system on a specially installed browser bar. The StumbleUpon engine then passes on recommendations from users whose interests seem similar to yours. Hit the Stumble button and you’ll get a random page that the engine thinks you’ll like. The more you like or dislike its recommendations, the more these random pages will surprise and delight. Device : iPhone , iPad , Android 2. iReddit Reddit is a self-described social news website where users vote for their favorite stories, pictures or posts from other users, then argue vehemently over their meaning in the comments section. In recent years, it has gained readers as its competitor Digg has lost them. ...

  Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. We’re keeping our eyes on three particular stories of interest today. AT&T Acquires T-Mobile for $39 Billion AT&T reached a definitive agreement with Deutsche Telekom to acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 billion in cash and stock, the companies announced over the weekend. T-Mobile will not begin offering the iPhone on its network in the immediate future, however. Google Announces Nexus S 4G for Sprint Google has added Nexus S 4G, available first on the Sprint network, to its line of Android 2.3-running smartphones. In addition, Google announced that existing Sprint customers will be able to use their Sprint mobile numbers as their Google Voice numbers going forward. France Fines Google 100,000 Euros for Street View Data France has fined Google 100,000 euros ($142,000) for collecting private information without authorization while com...

  A burning question among users following AT&T’s $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA was: Will T-Mobile start offering the iPhone? The answer is no. In its Q&A on the AT&T acquisition, T-Mobile states this very clearly but leaves the possibility that things might change in a year. “T-Mobile USA remains an independent company. The acquisition is expected to be completed in approximately 12 months. We do not offer the iPhone. We offer cutting edge devices like the Samsung Galaxy S 4G and coming soon our new Sidekick 4G,” states the document. Of course, it’s not just a matter of getting regulatory approval and completing the acquisition: AT&T and T-Mobile operate on different 3G bands, and AT&T must cut a new deal with Apple if it wants to transfer the rights to sell the iPhone to another company, even if it owns it. T-Mobile might eventually get the iPhone, but it will probably be the iPhone 5 or (more likely) the model that comes after that one. T...

  AT&T, criticized and even despised for its inability to keep up with growing mobile data usage, thinks it has found the solution to its network woes. And all it will cost the telecom giant is $39 billion and months (or even years) of regulatory hurdles. In a stunning move, AT&T has acquired T-Mobile USA for a whopping $39 billion from Deutsche Telekom. Along with acquiring approximately 8% of AT&T, Deutsche Telekom will also be gaining a seat on AT&T’s board of directors. The new combined entity, if it can garner regulatory approval, will be the largest carrier in the U.S. by leaps and bounds. AT&T and T-Mobile USA combined have over 25% more subscribers now than Verizon (125+ million vs. 93+ million). This acquisition isn’t about subscriber bases, though; it’s about improving AT&T’s reliability and preparing it for the 4G era of wireless communication. The Spectrum Problem AT&T’s press release tells a very clear story of why AT&...

  Google has launched a 4G variant of its Nexus S smartphone on Sprint’s network, the company announced Monday in a blog post. The Nexus S features a 4-inch touchscreen display, 1 GHz Hummingbird CPU, 16 GB of storage memory, two cameras and near-field communication capabilities. Of course, its most interesting feature is its WiMAX chip, which enables fast data transfer on the move (theoretically, up to 40 Mbit/s ). The device will be available this spring online and in Sprint retail stores, as well as Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile stores in the U.S. for $199.99. Google also announced it has partnered with Sprint to enable seamless integration of Google Voice with users’ mobile phones. That means customers will be able to use their existing Sprint number as their Google Voice number, as well as replace their Sprint number with their Google Voice number when calling or texting from their Sprint phone. Furthermore, international calls made from Google Voice-enabled Sprint...