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In the midst of massive headcount cuts, another AOL exec is departing the newly-independent company. Ralph Rivera, previously the Vice President of AOL Games and AOL Latino, where he was responsible for AOL’s portfolio of online casual games and helped expand its international reach, is leaving to become President of Major League Gaming, Online. MLG is a small but growing professional competitive video game league. Rivera will be tasked to lead digital strategy and online product development for the growing company.

Major League Gaming has shown strong growth in the past few years. The company claims 10 million unique visitors per month, more than double from a year ago, and 6 million video streams. The company has taken $46 Million in funding since inception and have recently landed Doritos and Hot Pockets as advertising partners.

Rivera believes MLG is at an “inflection point” and hopes to help it scale into a larger property. He joins a growing list of long-time executives to jump ship as AOL begins to purge 1/3 of its workforce. As the churn continues, many AOL vets are starting somewhere else instead of building up the ‘New AOL’.

Tomorrow is a big day. Apple will be revealing a brand new product to the masses. While we don't know what it will be called, we're quite certain Jobs will be unveiling the much-anticipated Apple Tablet. While the Apple Tablet may very well revolutionize the tablet industry--as their previous products have done many times before--it wouldn't be where it is without those that came before it. Below you will find a list of what we believe to be the top slates.

As companies mature from fledgling startups into small and medium-sized businesses, it becomes harder to capture and analyze ideas coming from within an organization. Email and spreadsheets are the usual tools used to deal with internal collaboration, but these modes have no way of bringing the best ideas to the top: many times they are lost in the shuffle. Spigit, creators of an enterprise collaboration platform, has come out with a new SaaS product, WE by Spigit, aimed at addressing the collaboration problems small businesses face.

Often times when an enterprise software company moves downstream, they simply strip down many core functions of their enterprise product in order to make it affordable for SMB’s. WE by Spigit has additional features in their enterprise model, such as prediction and idea trading markets, but the main functions at the heart of their service remain unchanged.

When a company purchases WE by Spigit, they are able to create an “innovation community” where their employees (up to 500), are able to contribute and collaborate on projects immediately. Spigit employs constantly evolving algorithms in their system, which, when added to a thumbs up/down feedback system, creates a reputation value for a user. These values are useful because administrators will see topics and ideas which have the highest reputation rise to the top. Each community is hosted on Spigit’s servers.

Another feature is the inclusion of incentives and rewards in order to increase contribution from the communities. Users gain both points and virtual currency for the parts they play in the community; which can then be redeemed for real goods. Spigit hopes that by providing rewards, users will collaborate more, and thus more ideas from within companies can come to fruition.

BrightIdea offers services which are similar to those of Spigit, but they, like most other collaboration platforms, cater to larger enterprises.

WE by Spigit is pay-as-you-go. The product starts at $500 per month for 50 users, and reaches $2500 a month for 500 users. Spigit received $10M in funding from Warburg Pincus in October of 2009, bringing their total funding amount to $14M since their launch in 2007. They have been cash-flow positive for the past 10 months.

People are continually looking for new pieces of information. We go to school, read articles on a variety of subjects, have free websites such as Wikipedia, and use search answer engines such as Aardvark and Quora for the sole purpose of quenching our never-ending thirst for knowledge. But how do you find and access wanted information which people are unwilling to divulge, at least for free, except to their closest confidants? Enter GenApple, an information brokerage company who hopes that their website will help to facilitate the exchange of such knowledge. By creating a marketplace for information, GenApple, just entering public beta, hopes that those who would normally withhold certain privy information will be less reticent to disclose it when monetarily incentivized.

Those with information to sell can create a listing similar to one you would find on any classifieds page. Postings are listed on the website immediately after submission. When creating a listing, the seller has the ability to hide any or all of his personal information which he used during sign-up: all that will show is the username. Conversely, he can show all of his information if he thinks it will aid in the process of a buyer purchasing his information. Potential buyers are able to post listings as well in the “I want to know” section. Here, buyers can state the kind of information they want, along with how much they are willing to pay for said information. GenApple also allows people to create free listings, where users can give away specialized knowledge for free. The knowledge is entered into an information vault for future use and can be any type of text entry or data file. GenApple creates their revenue by taking a commission on the final sale price.

The anonymity of sellers, coupled with the fear of fraud may be an issue for some, and as such, GenApple provides a slew of buyer protection features. They have a standard feedback system where users can rate a seller, and also have a feature where sellers can put forth a veracity statement. GenApple operates under a brokerage business model (they host the listings and process payments) in order to instill trust in the listings being offered. In doing so, GenApple has the ability to hold payment to the seller if the buyer is not satisfied. If a buyer is not fully satisfied with the purchase, they can submit a ticket to GenApple who will then make a final decision as to whether fraud was committed or not and will act accordingly.

Given the nature of this idea, GenApple will surely run into a couple of roadblocks down the road. The most obvious one, is that of insider trading. GenApple explicitly states in the terms of service that the exchange of insider information is illegal, but when has that stopped anybody? To counter this, GenApple has the authority to delete any suspicious postings and will cooperate fully with any government officials if the problem does come about. Additionally, only two employees at GenApple monitor listings. As they reach critical mass, they may find that personally overlooking the listings will be too great a burden for humans to do no matter the number of staff. To help with this, users are able to flag postings, but they will surely need a better system when they grow.

GenApple’s idea is novel and shows promise. If they are able to continually protect buyers as the company grows then they could be successful. We’d give them some more pointers, but why give away such valuable information for free?

The company is self-funded and operates out of an office in Minnesota.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Every day I troll SEC Form D Filings to discover new startups, fundings and investments. I put everything I find into CrunchBase. For everyone else I give you the daily digest, a quick hit of the latest and greatest SEC Form D filings in the TechCrunch sphere: Wisair - UWB and Wireless USB Products Sunlight Photonics - Solar Power Technologies Carbonite - Data Backup Provider packlate.com- Last-minute Vacation Rentals

California-based Zero Motorcycles has taken $5.56M in a Series A add-on according to an SEC filing, filed today. Investors in this round were not disclosed. The company previously raised $5M in April of 2008, bringing their total funding to just over $10.6M. Formerly Electricross, Zero Motorcycles specializes in high performance electric street and dirt bikes–the Tesla of the motorcycle industry so to speak.

CEO Gene Banman tells us the purpose of the funding is to “expand the business.” He declined to expand upon that statement. Given the emerging sector and the influx of competitors, it seems Zero is simply trying to stay ahead of the curve.

The bikes build by Zero are quite impressive. They are zero emissions vehicles, completely non-toxic, silent, almost 100% recyclable, and get the equivalent of 455 miles per gallon. Due to these accolades, Zero bikes are eligible for a 10% Federal tax credit thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Unfortunately, The range (60 miles) and top speed (60 MPH) on a complete four hour charge, leave much to be desired.

While the bikes themselves are reportedly silent, Zero has been making quite the roar in the press as of late. They stated their intention to be a part of the 2010 TTXGP, a grand prix for electric vehicles, with a motorcycle based off of their street bike, the Model S (pictured above). In October of last year, Zero voluntarily recalled 200 of their dirt bikes due to a safety hazard arising when the throttle of the bike would stick, causing unexpected acceleration.

It will be interesting to see how these bikes continue to do in comparison to traditional bikes given that gas powered motorcycles are capable of much higher speeds and distance. However, if Tesla’s recent profitability is any indication of the high performance electric-vehicle sector in general, then Zero could well be on its way to success. Continued investment in the company can’t hurt either.

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