Exclusive – SeatGeek, one of the finalists of TechCrunch50 2009, has raised $1 million in Series A funding led by Founder Collective and joined by NYC Seed.
The funding brings SeatGeek’s total investment to over $1.5 million, and it intends to use the new capital to hire more engineers and business developers. → Read More
If you liked the Animoto video at TechCrunch50, just wait until you see what French startup and winner of Seedcamp 2008 Stupeflix has just launched. Can’t keep up with the flood of tweets and pictures about you, your blog, your event or your company? Stupeflix.TV will mash them up on-the-fly into a live TV channel. The results are stunning, and they’re not limited to your own events or… → Read More
To all those startups who made it to TechCrunch50 this year, whether it was on stage or in the DemoPit, congratulations and thank you. We wouldn’t be here if there weren’t so many creative entrepreneurs out there trying to build something worthwhile out of nothing but ideas, sweat, and a little risk capital. A little risk can go a long why. And while it is true that this year’s crop brought … → Read More
I did interviews with most of the TechCrunch50 experts backstage and there was a common gripe about the companies launching there: Not enough passion, not enough swinging for the fences, not enough trying to change the world. There were too many people building safe businesses, too many companies just trying to make existing things slightly better, and too many people wanting to be the next… → Read More
Nearly 130 million people use the web in Japan and Korea combined, with Japan itself boasting the world’s third biggest Internet population (94 million users). But getting exposure on an international scale is a big problem for globally positioned web startups in these (and many other Asian) markets.
TechCrunch50 has always been very welcoming towards companies from countries other than the US. → Read More
The conference is over, the winner has been announced (RedBeacon), and the drinking has begun. Thank you so much to all of the companies (both the finalists and in the Demopit), the sponsors, and the attendees who made this year’s TechCrunch50 possible.
We’ve put up more than a hundred posts in the past two days, covering every single launch, and then some. So there’s a lot to absorb. But for… → Read More
Here’s the thing I love about Reid Hoffman. There’s no “We-don’t-comment-on-rumors-and-speculation” BS with him. You ask him a question and he gives you an answer.
So you don’t need a bunch of words from me, just go to the jump and watch our final backstage interview of the conference where Hoffman talks about whether LinkedIn will buy Xing and whether it’ll file to go public this year.
Also… → Read More
It’s 5 p.m. and we’re in the homestretch! The experts and the Twitterers seem to be less impressed with the companies this afternoon than the ones this morning. That or we’re all just getting tired after 40-something demos.
So lucky for us that some of the most influential and interesting judges were left for the final panel. I caught up with one of my favorites, Dick Costolo, who most people… → Read More
We’ve all been there: the classic group photo, with twelve friends side by side doing their best to look as happy as humanly possible. The first shot is easy — but wait, the guy next to you has their own camera, so it’s time for another one. And then another. Soon muscle fatigue kicks in, and those happy smiles fade into grimaces as everyone wonders why isn’t an easier way to share their… → Read More
The idea of adding a social network to any site is a compelling one. Currently, most sites do this by creating their own networks using service like Facebook Groups and Ning. But those obviously aren’t actually your own site, they are other sites set up under your site’s name. Stribe’s goal is to move the network back onto your site.
The service, opening to the public today at Techcrunch50… → Read More
While Facebook continues to grow, and some companies are getting more comfortable with using it for things like Pages, LinkedIn still fills the gap for users who want a more professional setting for social networking. A new service launching in public beta today at TechCrunch50, Radiusly, wants to take the idea of Twitter and put it in more of a professional setting, as well.
But unlike Facebook… → Read More
A lot of people use Twitter to have conversations with others, but that’s not really what it was built for. Initially, Twitter was just supposed to be a place to update what you are doing; the @reply only came around because people started using it to direct a conversation at another user. Now conversations are one of the most interesting things about Twitter, and a new startup launching in… → Read More
Email. Twitter. Instant Messaging. Facebook. Those are just four of the most popular ways to communicate online. And actually, the average 23-year-old has 6 different accounts that they check for messages each day. Maintaining and keeping up with that is either basically impossible, or flat-out impossible. That’s where Threadsy comes in.
Launching its large beta today at TechCrunch50 as a free… → Read More
Hark, a new startup that’s launching today at TechCrunch50, is looking to help friends share media and webpages with each other with as little friction as possible. The company offers a browser plugin that makes it easy to share links with friends, as well as interact though an integrated chat room.
The company says that there are plenty of link sharing apps, but when it comes to sharing a link… → Read More
Darth Vader’s fatherly coming out. Tinanic’s King of the World moment. There Will Be Blood’s sobering lecture on milkshakes.
Whether you want to poke fun at something, embellish a love note, or just prove a point, there’s probably a movie scene out there that can help you do it. People reference scenes all the time in their daily lives, and on the web it’s not uncommon for a blogger to… → Read More
Conference organizer, publisher and investor Tim O’Reilly doesn’t mince words. In this video he talks candidly about what he hated at TechCrunch50 today, what he loved and what excites him about the Web right now.
O’Reilly is a consummate thought leader in the Valley so the interview is interesting for anyone. But if you’re planning on actually pitching O’Reilly on anything this is required… → Read More
One of the best things about the web — its constantly evolving, easily modifiable nature — can also be one of its most frustrating faults. Because usually when a website modifies its content, any changes overwrite what came before it, sometimes without leaving a trace of the old content. Perpetually.com, a new site launching today at TechCrunch50, is looking to solve this problem by offering… → Read More
Twitter has established itself as the best place to find real time information, but anyone who has tried using its native search engine at search.twitter.com has probably found that it leaves a lot to be desired — aside from the day’s ‘top trends’, Twitter does very little to help surface results that are worthwhile. TC50 finalist Instattant may have the answer. The startup has built a new… → Read More
By now TechCrunch50 judges and companies know there’s no safety zone here at the conference, least of all backstage. The smart ones just run, but Google’s Bradley Horowitz is too polite for that. In this behind-the-scenes clip we talk about what exactly this Internet man of mystery does at Google, his thoughts on the cultural difference between Google and Yahoo, and how big companies can still… → Read More
I chatted with Kevin Rose backstage in between TechCrunch50 judging. For those who think he’s still the wacky Diggnation party boy, I want to point out he beat most of the TechCrunch staff to the conference this morning.
This video is longer than most of our behind-the-scenes glimpses, but we covered a lot of territory. Rose tells us the single most important product move Digg has made in the… → Read More
The online medical records space is growing fast; with Microsoft, Google and others trying their hand at products that could eventually become the go-to platform for accessing health records online. TechCrunch50 startup Glide Health, which was spun off from Transmedia, is hoping to give these tech giants a run for their money with its web, desktop and mobile apps that provide a centralized… → Read More
Mental illness is a more common affliction in society than most people think. But, many people are embarrassed to admit and confront their mental illness. According to TechCrunch50 startup BreakThrough, one in four American adults have a mental illness but two-thirds of Americans don’t get proper treatment. BreakThrough hopes to provide an easy and private way to connect mental health providers… → Read More
Now more than ever, personal finance education and help is crucial to anyone’s financial health. Mint.com, a former TechCrunch 40 company who won the top prize at the conference, has grown incredibly since its launch and was recently acquired by Intuit for $170 million. TechCrunch50 startup LearnVest is serving a different purpose when it comes to online finances; the startup focuses on helping… → Read More
Online event planning and invitation platform Evite was on the forefront of innovation—ten years ago. TechCrunch50 startup Cocodot is hoping to be the Evite of this generation of web technology, serving a style-conscious, eco-friendly event platform that people and brands can use to create an online presence for celebrations.
Cocodot’s platform, which is targeted towards women, is a… → Read More
Per Michael Arrington’s request I ran backstage and shoved a camera in CitySourced’s founders’ faces just after they completed what was one of the more compelling presentations of the day.
Question one: Palm is really paying companies to write apps for the Pre? Yes. How much? All I got despite truly obnoxious questioning was “under $500,000.”
We also talked about the biggest execution risk… → Read More
For any business, from a startup to a large company, mundane, yet time-intensive tasks like transcribing video or removing spam comments from blogs, can be a waste of employee time. TechCrunch50 startup CrowdFlower CrowdFlower provides Labor as a Service (LaaS) by letting clients access an always-on, scalable workforce.
Unlike traditional methods of outsourcing and hiring, CrowdFlower’s web… → Read More
Coding is a highly competitive industry where programmers are often pitted against each other based on level of skill and ability. TechCrunch50 startup Trollim has created a competition platform and social network for programmers that assesses their coding skills through coding battles.
Users are identified as “trolls” on the platform and once a user signs up, he or she fills out a profile that… → Read More
Ever seen a nasty pot hole or a wall full of graffiti and wished you could report the problem on the go instead of writing a letter or email to your city bureaucracy? TechCrunch 50 startup CitySourced is launching an a slew of smartphone applications that let you file an issue to your city from your phone, aiming to crowdsource this information for cities.
It’s pretty simple. The app on your… → Read More
Sentiment detection is fast becoming a popular method of deciphering Tweets, news stories and other content on the web. TechCrunch50 startup Affective Interfaces, which launched at the Business Applications session today, has built emotion sensing technology that detects a web user’s facial expressions via a webcam.
Affective Interfaces’s SaaS uses a webcam to monitor facial expressions such as… → Read More
For any web-based small business or startup, there is a plethora of online real-time business data, such as page views, ad impressions, financial information, that need to be tracked frequently. TechCrunch50 startup Metricly, which launched at the Business Applications session, helps online businesses create easy-to-use dashboards to track their key metrics and better understand their… → Read More
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
Berlin, Germany
San Francisco
