Today I am headed to the first LaunchBoxDigital demo day for the Washington, D.C. based startup incubator program. The program is similar to TechStars which I visited in Boulder, Colorado in March. The following nine portfolio companies received funding as part of the program and will be demoing at the event. This article will offer you a preview.
Social or community powered search has been attempted a number of different ways but Delver, an Israel based startup, looks to leverage users' social graph to create relevant social search results. I got a preview of Delver at DEMO08 and again at the 2008 IsraelWeb Tour. Delver recently launched its open alpha product for all the World to use. Delver offers web, media and people search function. My first impression: Interesting.
Continue reading "Delver Social Profile Powered Search Engine" »
hi5, a fast growing social networking site, has just landed a new director of communications in Adriana Gascoigne. hi5 is a social networking site for Tweens, users in their teens and 30's, and is among the top-10 global social networks. Based on the June comScore Media Metrix worldwide figures released in June, hi5 grew 79% in the first half of 2008. Adriana made her plans to move to hi5 public via her blog yesterday as she decided she wanted to:
"to build castles in, make new playmates, dig to discover new treasures – most importantly, as Frank Gruber has stated several times, “Have fun!”
You are exactly right Adriana. You have to have fun in life because life is too short, because we die. I am happy you realize that and are taking action. Congrats to Adriana on the new gig with hi5. The social networking space is definitely an interesting and exploding territory and I am sure Adriana's expertise will make a positive impact on hi5's direction which already appears to be up.
There is so much news content being produced by both mainstream and social media outlets these days that it harder than ever to get through all of it. Taking an academic approach to productivity and literacy Spreed News recently launched to try and help you read through your news faster, thus saving you time.
For the last month or so I have been working on a little project at AOL as part of the AIM group called the BuddyUpdates. BuddyUpdates, offers a way for AIM users to share their actions with the rest of their buddy list. This product has been available since 2005 within the AIM client. Note this was well before the Facebook news feed was unveiled and Twitter or number of other lifestreaming services existed. The web-based BuddyUpdates interface launched publicly on July 9th and we have been sharing it with a small group as we continue to update it.
So if you use AIM you can pull in all you favorite services like Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Viddler, Digg, Mixx, StumbleUpon and so on and share them with the rest of the folks that have you on your buddy list. If you are on the AIM client you will see a little orange icon next to a buddy screen name that has BuddyUpdates. Upon clicking the orange icon you can view their updates. BuddyUpdates offers a Web interface for setting up and viewing these updates.
Do you have 12 seconds? 12seconds, a Santa Cruz, California based startup, launched recently to offer users the ability to record short format video messages (12 seconds to be exact) and distributes them directly to a Twitter account. The site functions as a community destination as it also offers users the ability to follow others users on the site itself in a video stream format similar to twitter stream.
The site offers a simple layout and appears to be built on a drupal content management system framework. It also offers users simple recording and email video uploading features to enable users to input content. Videos can be embedded in other sites though a custom 12seconds player. Currently the player does not offer snaggable code.
I was on the road last week and weekend for TECH cocktail Boston 2 so down time and internet access were sparse, preventing me from wishing myAOL, the personalized startpage product I moved to the east coast to work on for AOL, a proper one year birthday.
Happy birthday myAOL - my oh my, you are looking good at one!
I must first note, I am no longer part of the myAOL team as I have been reassigned to the People Network which includes Bebo, AIM, ICQ, Yedda and Goowy. But I wanted to take a moment to check in with the lovable startpage product that I spent over a year and half working on to see just how it has evolved since launching myAOL in July 2007.
Continue reading "myAOL Turns One As Other AOL Products Sunset" »
There have been a number of startups that have launched with Google in its sites and most have failed miserably as it is very much like the story of David and Goliath. But I love to see the competitive spirited startup that is up to taking on the challenge. Cuil, pronounced "cool," launched today looking to take the Google challenge. I took a look at the new search service and reported my findings in this article.
There is something nice about being able to flip through and feel the pages of a good magazine. I subscribe to such titles as Wired, GOOD and a few others but I often see them piling up on my coffee table. Mygazines might offer a solution to help me get to read magazines while I am online with its community approach to magazine sharing. Mygazines enables its users to upload and share magazines with the rest of the community like the YouTube for magazine publishing.
Continue reading "Mygazines: An Online Magazine Community" »
I headed to Boston yesterday and after a long day of hectic travel due to some nasty summer storms I co-hosted TECH cocktail Boston 2. The event attracted a couple hundred dedicated Boston TECH cocktailers. Thank you to everyone that made their way out through the rain. Six Boston area startups demoed at TECH cocktail Boston 2 and they are highlighted in this article.
Continue reading "Six Boston Startups Demo at TECH cocktail" »
If you are a constant traveler for either business or pleasure you might find DOPPLR to be helpful as it makes it easy to broadcast your travel plans. DOPPLR, like radar for frequent travelers, finds intersections with your travel itineraries and your friends thus facilitating potential meetups while on the go. I have been using DOPPLR for awhile now and it appears the service has continued to improve. Today DOPPLR rolled out the ability to make your traveling profile public in a release (codenamed "Copenhagen").
Continue reading "DOPPLR Profiles Make Sharing Travels Easy" »
Though servers and hosting is a necessity for any Web business I have to admit the topic really does not excite me at all. I don't wake up in the morning thinking about how I am going to access my hosting. But I may need to eat those words at some point. Imagine if your blog, site or web product is down at 3 a.m. and aside from a call to support, all you have is the tools provided by your hosting company to try and save it. While I know there are lots of hosting options out there, SingleHop, is a Chicago-based hosting company I have grown familiar with that is trying to provide fresh and helpful tools to help its users manage their hosting with ease. SingleHop has just launched a new Ajax-based environment for managing your servers called LEAP.
Where do you usually find out about a new book to read, a new song to listen for or even a game to play? I think most of us would say we find new things through our friends and social interactions. LivingSocial, a DC-based startup created by the Ruby on Rails development shop Hungry Machine, is looking to help with similar social recommendations. Started as a Facebook application, LivingSocial offers a handful of vertical recommendation sites (books, food, music, movies, beer, and games). Leveraging the Facebook social graph LivingSocial claims to have 6.4 million beta users, who have collectively reviewed nearly
80 million items since February.
Continue reading "LivingSocial Offers Recommendations Galore" »
Last week, I sat on a panel with Sarah Lacy and we discussed an array of topics from Web 2.0 startups to AOL acquisitions. We also discussed starting a company in Silicon Valley vs. everywhere else. This is something we actually debated about towards the end of the panel. Though I love the Valley, I don't think you need to be in Silicon Valley to start and run a successful business. I think it can help to be in the Valley but we have been proving through our TECH cocktail efforts that there are strong technology communities in a number of places and you can startup in any one of them. Sarah has since posted about it here and even challenges a smart DC company to prove her wrong.
Continue reading "Video: Web 2.0 Startups & the Valley Discussed" »
Startup Mixology: Tech Cocktail's Guide To Building, Growing & Celebrating Startup Success by Frank Gruber
