Demo ‘10 begins in Boston — calling all awesome startups
It’s been a few weeks since Demo took San Diego by storm, and I posted a few days ago about a few of the cool things that happened to some of the demonstrating companies.
More on that in a sec. But here’s a reminder that we’re gearing up to do it all over again with DEMO ‘10, March 21st-23rd in Palm Desert, CA.
The applications are already rolling in, which means it’s time for myself and other… Continue Reading
DEMO rocked! Now the party starts again
It’s been two weeks since the end of DEMO. I’m awestruck by the experience, both by all of the incredibly talented people that convened there in San Diego, and by the traction 70 entrepreneurs were able to get during those short few days.
Thank you to all of the people who came and make it such a terrific event.
I’ll talk about highlights shortly, but now it’s time to to start it all over again. We’re already… Continue Reading
DEMO: ShareGrove extends Facebook to conversations
Some criticize social networks like Twitter and Facebook for promoting superficiality over depth. When users post hundreds of miniature updates about their lives, what suffers are conversations, say the founders of ShareGrove, a San Mateo-based startup that presented at this week’s DEMOFall 09 conference.
While one of Facebook’s biggest aims is to strengthen the “weak ties” in a person’s social network, like distant acquaintances or friends from the past, most of a user’s online interactions tend… Continue Reading
DEMO: Dotgo browses the web through text messaging
Dotgo is a service that lets you pull information from Web sites through text messages, that launched at DEMOfall 09, an emerging technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat.
Users can text Dotgo’s shortcode, or a special phone number designed to facilitate SMS messages, at 368266 (which is ‘DOTCOM’ on a phone keypad) and the name of whatever service they’re interested in like ‘GOOGLE’ or ‘WEATHER’. In return, they’ll receive a text message with a feed of information back.
For example, you… Continue Reading
DEMO: GuruStorms crowdsources ideas from experts
GuruStorms helps businesses crowdsource ideas and offers rewards of up to $5,000 for responses from highly specialized experts. The company is launching at this week’s DEMOfall 09 conference.
Here’s how it works: A business sets up a challenge, and recognized experts respond, offering their best ideas. The person who created the challenge then picks the best three ideas, allowing their creators to share the reward.
The company faces competitors like InnoCentive, which sets up research and development… Continue Reading
DEMO: Internet spreads sexist tweets faster than ever
It’s no secret that the tech world is one big sausagefest.
There were zero women — none — in Paul Graham’s YCombinator startup class last month. There were maybe two female founders at Facebook’s fbFund Rev and about five women presenters at TechCrunch50 last week. DEMO, the conference VentureBeat co-produces and at which I’m now sitting, seems to have about the same ratio.
There’s been plenty of handwringing over why so few women start companies. Is it… Continue Reading
DEMO: Buy local produce, meat and dairy with Local Dirt
The refrain that the industrial food system is broken gets louder by the day.
With bestsellers like Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” decrying large-scale farms, and organic food now an $18.3 billion industry, LocalDirt wants to tap into demand for local and eco-conscious food. The startup company is launching at the DEMOfall 09 conference in San Diego this week, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat.
It connects buyers and sellers of locally-grown produce and meat and dairy… Continue Reading
DEMO: Gelato makes online dating more authentic with real-time streams
Gelato is a startup that wants to marry the real-time stream with online dating (not to mention maybe real people).
Instead of creating a profile, Gelato pulls in updates from your Facebook profile, Twitter account, Netflix queue, Pandora stations and Flickr photos to create what founder Steve Odom says is a more authentic profile of who you are. Odom says online dating is ripe for change because it involves static profiles that are time-consuming to create… Continue Reading
DEMO: eLearning startup MicroAssist launches program against sexual misconduct
Social networking technologies and cellphones can raise sticky questions for teachers on what sort of contact outside of the classroom is appropriate.
So MicroAssist, an e-learning company based in Austin, is launching a program targeted at preventing sexual misconduct at DEMOfall 09 technology conference in San Diego today.
Called EthicsEd, it’s a course meant for distribution through a district’s e-learning system for teachers. It covers situations like whether it’s OK for a teacher to be text messaging a… Continue Reading
DEMO: Social music player TuneWiki brings lyrics to your phone
Social music player TuneWiki debuted an updated version of its mobile app for Nokia phones that lets you bring lyrics to your music and browse popular songs from friends and around the world.
When you start playing music from your library, it sends the lyrics in sync with the song and can automatically translate them to your native language.
You can follow what your friends are playing or what they’ve played in the last hour or day… Continue Reading
DEMO: Sarithi LocalMart lets small businesses handle e-commerce
Sarithi LocalMart helps local businesses and small retailers build a better e-commerce presence.
The company, which pitched today as part of DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat, created a peer-to-peer platform called Neuro. It says Neuro will help small businesses scale their online reach by letting them collaborate with each other to reach customers.
The Manchester, Connecticut-based company says it will make it easier for shoppers to connect with local businesses even when they’re not… Continue Reading
DEMO: Traackr delivers a who’s who on the web for marketers
Inside social networks, blogs and Twitter is a veritable gold mine of information on who’s influential and how people distribute messages through a community.
Traackr wants to harness that by launching its “A-list” or “Authority List,” which can give you a list of the most influential people online for any given subject. It’s announcing the service today at DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat.
If you’re a marketer or a public relations professional, you enter… Continue Reading
DEMO: Nubli says it can sort your e-mails by importance
Sunnyvale-based Nubli is launching EmailSmarts today, an e-mail assistant that automatically finds the most important e-mails and helps users answer them efficiently.
A plug-in for Microsoft Outlook, EmailSmarts uses machine learning to tease out important messages. Such an idea would be the Holy Grail of all e-mail overload, so we lean toward the skeptical side whenever a company proposes an idea like this. The company didn’t reveal more about its algorithms but we’ll report more as… Continue Reading
DEMO: Whodoyouknowat backs professional social networking
Whodoyouknowat is a social networking service for professionals that allows users to share old and new contact information launching today at DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat.
When you join, you can see your colleague’s contacts and use that to make introductions. Different levels of membership can give you deeper access to professional contact information. It alerts you if the contact information you have is outdated.
The company says it is slightly different from other professional… Continue Reading
DEMO: Enroute Systems launches ShipIt! to manage shipments
Enroute Systems is launching ShipIt! today. The online system tracks shipments across many vendors, to optimize delivery times and lower costs for businesses.
ShipIt!, which is being announced today at DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat, helps businesses pick the best and cheapest carrier. It charges about 10 cents to $1 per shipment. Bellevue, Washington-based Enroute Systems has raised more than $425,000 of funding from angel investor groups including Keiretsu Forum and the Puget Sound Venture Club.
DEMO: Dubzer translates Web sites for business owners
Dubzer, a startup that’s launching today at DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat, makes it easy for business owners to translate their web content for international audiences.
You enter your URL and the startup will aggregate every line of text so you can edit or translate it. Dubzer backs machine translation as well as human translation. (It has a similar aim to NativeTung, another company showing off its technology at the conference today too.) Dubzer is a… Continue Reading
DEMO: Diditz turns Facebook albums into pages that can be indexed on the web
Diditz lets users turn their Facebook photo albums and videos into pages that are indexable by search engines. It uses tags and categories to sorts Facebook content and lets users share it through sites like social bookmarking service Digg, Stumble Upon and Twitter.
It also targets business and brands by letting them create a special Diditz tab on their Facebook fan page where user-generated content from fans can be shared.
The College Park, Maryland-based company has raised… Continue Reading
DEMO: Piryx wants to be a payments platform for politics, non-profits
Piryx says PayPal’s not enough.
The Austin-based startup is a commerce platform for non-profits and political organizations and says there needs to be a company that focuses exclusively on the space. Like PayPal, the website is integrated with online banking software: when users sign up, they’ll enter in their bank account and routing numbers.
But it also provides a layer of services on top of that. The company says candidates, political action committees, donors, voters, and sellers need… Continue Reading
DEMO: RumbaFish sets up social media campaigns for businesses
With eyeballs moving online and away from traditional media properties, it’s no surprise that a number of startups are competing to be go-to company for setting up interactive advertising campaigns.
RumbaFish is another one entering the pack today at DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat. The Palo Alto-based startup says it provides an easy way to set up online campaigns involving contests and user-generated content, then update them with a single click.
The company has a… Continue Reading
More judges for DEMO’s $1M prize: Shervin Pishevar, Johnny Gilmore, Phil Sanderson, Nirav Tolia
Here’s the latest batch of judges who will be at the DEMO conference next month in San Diego. They’ll help award the $1 million media prize (see details) to the best of the 60 companies launching technology products at the event.
We’ve already announced that a list of all-star alumni will also be on hand for the Sept. 21-23 conference as well as the first bunch of judges here, and the second set here. We’ll be… Continue Reading