Earlier this afternoon, six startups had five minutes each to present their wares onstage to a panel of VCs and an audience at the Web 2.0 Expo Launch Pad. Panelists gave feedback to the companies in real-time, and depending on how well they did, had the option to “offer these applicants non-binding term sheets for financing”. In the end, Triggit was named as the people’s choice for best startup of Launch Pad. You can read about each contender below. Acquia – Acquia intends to provide products that improve on the open source Drupal social publishing system. Projects in development include Spokes, a notification system, and Caliper, a spam and content monitoring service. Chirp – Chirp’s flagship product, chirpscreen, streams media and information from top social networking and media sites to your desktop. Information can be presented as part of either a desktop application or a screensaver, and content is aggregated from top sites including Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and eBay. Oortle – We covered Oortle’s upcoming new product videophlow earlier today, but here’s a recap: Oortle provides products that bring the community aspect back to sharing media. Their current release is photophlow (currently in invite-only beta), which provides an interactive flickr experience. JobScore – The job hunt can be just as tough on employers as it is on prospective applicants. JobScore aims to provide a comprehensive solution to help facilitate the process. Employers can easily publish ads to all of the top career sites, and JobScore rates candidates by relevant criteria. Employers can also refer candidates to other members of the site (for a price, if they wish), further expediting the process. TradeVibes – This site provides a community for people interested in startups, allowing users to share opinions, ratings, and discussions about them. Its profiles include brief overviews and other relevant information about companies. (Disclaimer: This site is a direct rip-off of CrunchBase). Triggit – With a single line of JavaScript, Triggit lets website publishers easily add advertising to their sites with a simple WYSIWYG editor. Ads can be pulled from sites including Shopping.com and the Amazon affiliate program. Users can also easily add content from YouTube and Flickr. The software is especially appealing to publishers in the long tail who might not otherwise have the savvy to monetize their sites. Today Trigit announced support for integration with Google AdSense to widespread applause. CrunchBase Information Acquia Chirp Oortle JobScore TradeVibes → Read More
Imagine: you’ve found the next hit video on the web. Having just laughed yourself to tears, you regain your composure long enough to send a link of the video to your best friend, expecting to be praised for your extraordinary sense of humor. Then you wait. Five minutes go by, and still nothing. Did they like it? Did they even watch it? Finally, your efforts are rewarded with a hollow “LOL”. It’s happened to all of us. The internet does a great job when it comes to sharing media, but it removes the human element from the viewing experience. Oortle is trying to change that. In late 2007 they launched a webapp called Photophlow, currently in private beta, which at its core is a group chat centered around photographs (though it includes a number of other features as well). Users can browse through a Flickr photo album, and everyone will see the same thing at the same time, allowing for real-time reactions and discussion. Now, they’re taking the next step with Videophlow, which takes the same dynamic community experience and applies it to YouTube. Groups of friends watch the same videos simultaneously as they interact with chat, emoticons, and gestures – viewers can even throw virtual tomatoes at the screen, complete with an animated splat. All users will see the same portion of a video at the same time, even if they skip to a different scene. And best of all, groups can seamlessly transition to new videos. This has the chance to be a big hit – I can easily imagine groups of friends swapping (and watching) their favorite videos during late night viewing marathons. Oortle is showing Videophlow to the public for the first time this afternoon at the Web 2.0 Launchpad, and will be opening in private beta in two weeks. We’ll let you know when that happens, and will have at least 100 invites to give out when the time comes. We should note that a very similar application is available from SeeToo, which allows for simultaneous viewing of video content from a user’s computer rather than YouTube. CrunchBase Information SeeToo Oortle Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
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