This week BostInno is spotlighting a more recent, younger company for tech-mafia Monday – Mobicious, a mobile content and services company that got into the now booming geolocation and photo sharing game early. While the company may not have made a triple digit exit, it was acquired this summer and several key players are leaders in Massachusetts’ innovation economy today.

According to Xconomy, Mobicious began in late 2006 as a company which published a directory of mobile-phone applications and resources. After landing a $4 million Series A in June 2007 from North Bridge Venture Partners and Israeli-based Carmel Ventures, Mobicious set live their flagship product for pre-launch testing in December. The product, called SnapMyLife, was a mobile-optimized online photo sharing community described most simply as “flickr for phones.” Fast forward three months later to February and SnapMyLife was boasting 3 million monthly page views, 300,000 monthly uniques, and 1,000 new registrants each day.

SnapMyLife launched to the public in April 2008 with a team of fifteen (check out this archived screen shot of the web-based portion of the service), and quickly launched an iPhone app three months later. The application allowed users to upload photos taken on their phone to albums and see the locations where they were taken on a map. Users could also browse and comment on photos uploaded by friends or taken by other community members at a nearby locations.

In December 2008, after surpassing 500,000 registered users and 1.5 million visitors a month, SnapMyLife brought in an additional $5 million in funding to further its growth.  SnapMyLife made revenues through ads placed on the photo pages, as the platform offered high quality content and targeted location information around that content. Mobicious went on to expand and launch Snap2Twitter in 2009, an application that enabled users to tweet photos and videos from their phones. And as the company matured in 2009 with 1 million registered users in a still nascent mobile ad market, Mobicious brought in VP of Mobile Entertainment from Playboy, Inc. as CEO to help form strategic content partnerships for the product with media like CNN and MTV. A year later the company was acquired by Exclaim Mobility for an undisclosed amount.

Several of Mobicious, Inc.’s visionary executives went on to build some of Boston’s current leading companies, including WHERE, Backupify, and oneforty:

George Grey

Then: Chairman & COO (CEO until July 2009), August 2006 – January 2010
Now: Grey went on to found NetRC Systems in January, which develops remote power control and monitoring products for the home energy market. More recently Grey was named CEO of Linaro, a non profit that works to bring together the open source community and the electronics industry.
LinkedIn | Twitter: @gcgrey

David Chang

Then: Co-founder & VP of Marketing, January 2007 – July 2009
Now: VP Product at WHERE, Inc., a location-based mobile service that recently served up $50 million ads and announced partnering with Constant Contact on local commerce and group buying.
LinkedIn | Twitter: @changds
Note: Prior to Mobicious, Chang was the Senior Product Manager for edocs, Inc. and Director of Product Marketing at m-Qube, two other Boston tech-mafias.

Matt Conway

Then: VP Engineering, June 2007 – June 2010
Now: Conway is VP Engineering at Backupify, a cloud-based storage solution, which recently announced a product expansion into Facebook fan page data.
LinkedIn | Twitter: @mattconway

Jason Haruska

Then: Senior Software Engineer, June 2007 – September 2009
Now: Haruska is now the Director of Web Development at WHERE, Inc., working again with David Chang.
Along the Way: Haruska went on to be President of NimbleShip, Inc., a web app development firm that catered to startups and small companies.
LinkedIn | Twitter: @haruska

Kevin Braun

Then: Senior Web Designer, July 2007 – August 2009
Now: Menard left Mobicious to be a web designer at Vermont Teddy Bear Company.
LinkedIn | Twitter: @humanforum

Aimee Catton Anderson

Then: Director of Marketing, July 2007 – July 2009
LinkedIn
Note: Prior to Mobicious, Catton Anderson worked as a Product Marketing Manager as part of the m-Qube team, continuing on with Verisign when it was acquired.

Kevin Menard

Then: Senior Software Engineer, March 2008 – December 2009
Now: Menard recently co-founded Mogotest, which aims to make web testing sites across browsers and platforms easier.
Along the Way: Menard left Mobicious to become Project Management Committee Member for Apache Cayenne and Apache Tapestry, two Java-based frameworks – where he continues to hold his position.
LinkedIn | Twitter: @nirvdrum

Mike Champion

Then: Senior Software Engineer, April 2008 – July 2009
Now: VP Engineering at Cambridge-based oneforty, an app store and community for Twitter you can read more about here.
Along the Way: Champion Co-Developed WhoShouldiFollow, a recommendation engine for Twitter users to find new people based on their current network, location and other criteria. It was acquired by Flowtown, a social media marketing agency just this month for an undisclosed amount.
LinkedIn | Twitter: @graysky

Edward Lang

Then: CEO, June 2009 – February 2010
Now: Strategic Advisor at DuneBuggy Media, which he formed with other digital colleagues to consult for several media companies and brands on their digital and social networking strategies.
LinkedIn