500 Startups-Backed Skipola Cuts out Middleman with White-Label Apps for Restaurants

WHAT: Restaurants can launch their own white-label mobile apps for food ordering, loyalty programs, email and SMS marketing. Platform will eventually be rolled out for other types of small businesses.

LAUNCHERS: Igor Lebovic, CEO, [ @ilebovic, LinkedIn ]. Jeff Zellner, CTO [ LinkedIn ]. Jack Moffitt, engineer, [ @metajack, LinkedIn ]. Jason Bertsche, engineer.

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500 Startups-Backed Kibin Has Nearly 2K Editors Ready to Edit Your Writing for Free

Editor's note: This is the first 500 Startups summer '11 company we are covering. Profiles of the other 20+ companies will be published in the coming days, and we will live blog Demo Day on Aug. 16.

WHAT: Writers upload their work for free proofreading and feedback from a community of editors in under 24 hours. Kibin automatically converts the file into HTML on its proprietary platform so editors can easily add suggestions, corrections and edits. High-ranked reviewers can get paid for editing. When the paper is ready, Kibin emails the author to review it.

LAUNCHERS: Travis Biziorek, CEO [ @tbizi ]. Jim Nguyen, CTO [ @jimnguyen77 ].

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Google+ Giving Four Days' Grace Period to Potential Name Policy Violators

After heated discussions about Google's name policy -- which requires people on Google+ to use their real name and not a pseudonym -- Google will now give potential violators four days to comply before suspending their account.

Saurabh Sharma, a product manager on the Google+ team, says in a YouTube video that those notified about a name-policy violation will be able to use their Google+ account during the grace period "as usual" adding, "We're hoping that most affected users will able to quickly fix their profile name while enjoying all that Google+ has to offer." [ Note that the creepy giraffe is back in the video.]

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LinkedIn Apologizes for Photos in Social Ads--But Not Customer Service

LinkedIn users have had plenty to complain about recently, including customer service and its opt-out social advertising. Ryan Roslansky, director of product management, has apologized for the latter and said LinkedIn will no longer feature members' names or photographs in ads products and services they have recommended.

“Since the launch, we’ve also been gathering feedback from our users and we hear you loud and clear,” Roslansky wrote on the LinkedIn blog. “Our core guiding value is Members First. And, with regard to the social ads we’ve been testing, we’re listening to our members.”

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Chill Kills Facebook Autoposting after Zuckerberg Complains

Just-launched video-sharing startup Chill has removed the option of posting your registration to Facebook in response to comments Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made during what was supposed to be a private discussion with Path founder and CEO Dave Morin.

“I’ve already messaged Mark and let him know about the changes. He was actually really cool about the whole issue, which I appreciate," Chill co-founder Brian Norgard wrote on the company blog today.

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