SOMEWHAT FRANK

Video: MyDropCard SMS Business Cards

I have previously questioned if technology will replace business cards as well as explored some printers taking fresh approaches to keep business cards alive. Recently a couple of text or sms message business card providers like  TextMarks and a few others have emerged to help you ping your information to anyone by text message. Just this week a new product emerged called MyDropCard which offers users the ability to send a nicely formatted email of your contact information all with a simple text message as the initiator. It just takes about 30 seconds to create an account online and then you can start sending dropcards to new contacts you meet. It also keeps track of all your contacts for you too.

MyDropCard was a product of the most recent incubator DreamIt Ventures which had its investor and demo day this week in Philadelphia. Check out video episode 43 on SOMEWHAT FRANK as I explain MyDropCard.

Video: Visiting The Mixx HQ Mixxing Bowl

Mixx, a social news aggregator startup based in the Washington, DC area, launched a year ago to offer a very granular social news site. Its use of tags and groups enables users to find and track content that has been recommended leveraging the wisdom of the crowds. I recently visited the Mixx office and met with founder and CEO Chris McGill and we chatted about the past year and the future of the social news site Mixx.com.

Chris describes Mixx as:

"The face and body of a site like My Yahoo, Netvibes or PageFlakes, a social media heart like a Digg or Reddit and LinkedIn limbs so you can hold hands if you like. And inspired by Marvin Gaye because we are all sensitive people with so much to give."

I have attempted to diagram the anatomy of Mixx. Also check out the video which is episode 42 of SOMEWHAT FRANK TV as I explore and get personal with Mixx at the "mixxing bowl" headquarters in McLean, Virginia.

AngelSoft: Aggregates 400 Angel Investors

If you are an entrepreneur looking for a little funding to get your startup going there are a number of incubator programs that I have covered previously like Y Combinator, TechStars and LaunchBox Digital that could help get you started. But if you have already participated in an incubator or you are looking for a little more than what an incubator can offer you might want to look for an angel investor. If you do not know an angel investor you might be out of luck but there is a new company looking to help connect angel investors with startups and visa versa. Angelsoft, a New York-based company, looks to aggregate angel investors into one site that can then browsed by entreprenuers in need. With Angelsoft entrepreneurs are able to browse over 400 angel investment groups and early-stage venture capital funds and apply for financing using a single common application.