For GROW2010 press coverage and videos, go to www.growconf.com/media
Grow2010 was amazing, but now what?
Its been about 2 weeks since Grow and you may be thinking to yourself, “Where can I find a big group of great people, similar to the ones I met at Grow?”. Well, we are here to help.
Check out this list of UPCOMING EVENTS:
1. DFAIT Entrepreneur Bootcamps
September 8-14 | Western Canada
2. IN Exchange
September 12 – 14, 2010 | Toronto
3. AJAX Pub Night
September 13, 2010 | Toronto
4. TechForum – Building our Future
September 15, 2010 | Vancouver, BC
5. DigiBC Kickoff for MomoVan
September 20, 2010 | Vancouver, BC
6. CVCA’s Annual General Meeting, Reception, Dinner,
Awards Presentation, Keynote Speaker
September 21, 2010 | Toronto
7. New Ventures BC Competition
September 23, 2010 | Vancouver, BC
8. Banff Venture Forum 2010
September 23-24, 2010 | Banff, AB
9. Toronto Startup Weekend
Sept 24 – 25, 2010 | Toronto
10. HackTO
September 25, 2010 | Toronto
11. Connect
October 12, 2010 | Vancouver
12. Quebec City Conference 2010
October 25, 2010 | Quebec City
13. 48 Hours in the Valley: Fall Edition
Apply Here
October 27-28, 2010 | Silicon Valley
***Always check Techvibes for other local events:
**PREMIER SPONSOR: Rogers Ventures
**GOLD SPONSORS: Alberta Enterprise, BCIC, Fraser Milner Casgrain, Gunderson Dettmer, Microsoft, Nokia, Vancouver Economic Development, Western Economic Diversification Canada
**SILVER SPONSORS: BDC, Bridgescale Partners, Extreme Venture Partners, Greycroft Partners, GrowthWorks, Real Ventures, RBC, Teralys Capital
**PARTNERS: Bootup, C100, BCTIA, DigiBC, CVCA
**MEDIA PARTNERS: TechVibes, StartupNorth, StartupDigest
DealMakerMedia follow us on Twitter at @dealmakermedia
I have a friend who is always the first to find and post obscure and hilarious videos to her Facebook page. The videos she posts inevitably go viral and get things like UrbanDictionary words named after them: i.e. Double Rainbow. My question to her is always, “Where could you possibly have found this video of… (example: Mariah Carey’s ‘Touch My Body,’ turned into the endlessly amusing: ‘Tuts my Barreh?’) Well, today, I think I may have figured out her secret: BuzzFeed.
BuzzFeed is a ‘trends’ aggregator that uses a web crawler and human editors to find and link to popular stories around the web. In other words, they find what’s cool first and let us check it out first. Very VIP don’t you think? When you go to BuzzFeed, you will see a variety of priceless content on its way to going viral.
In their own words:
We feature the kind of things you’d want to pass along to your friends: an outrageous video that’s about to go viral, an obscure subculture breaking into the mainstream, a juicy bit of gossip that everyone at the office will be talking about tomorrow, or an ordinary guy having his glorious 15-minutes of fame. And when you read BuzzFeed, you’ll always know the movies, music, and products that are on the rise and worth your time.
(BuzzFeed was launched in 2008 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson and is based in New York. They have received nearly $12 million dollars in funding from RRE Ventures, Founder Collective, Ron Conway, and others.)
So… go check it out, have a few good laughs, vote for what you think is going to go viral, and for the first time, be proud of being ahead of the viral video curve.
DealMakerMedia follow us on Twitter at @dealmakermedia
“God, they need it! You’ve NO idea the guilt trips these seemingly innocuous little Grandma’s are capable of when you get lax on your calls or visits.”
-(Comment referring to Social Networking for Senior Citizens)
Below are some excerpts from Joshua Brockman’s article,
“Social Networking Surges For Seniors”
More and more people ages 50 and older are joining social networks, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. The study found that social networking has almost doubled among this population — growing from 22 percent to 42 percent over the past year.
According to comScore, a digital measurement company, 27.4 million people age 55 and over engaged in social networking in July, up from 16 million one year ago.
Most older adults have been introduced to social networking by their children, and this has the potential for strengthening family ties across generations.
The Pew report also found that social networking users are much more likely to reconnect with people from their past. These contacts can build and enhance support networks as people begin a second career or near retirement.
The appeal of social networking for older Americans may also be related to managing health issues. Blogging and contributing to online health forums or listservs are popular activities for some people coping with a serious illness. The Pew report found that people living with a chronic disease are more likely to reach out for support online.
AARP says the top four online activities for people over 60 are Google, Facebook, Yahoo and YouTube.
Tammy Gordon, AARP’s senior adviser for social communications, says a quarter of the organization’s members are using Facebook, and the number is rising quickly.
Nearly 19 million people ages 55 and over used Facebook in July, up from about 9 million one year ago, according to comScore.
Twitter use has also grown. Ten percent of Internet users over 50 say they’re using Twitter or other status update services, according to Pew.
Despite the rise in social networking activities, Pew’s research found that seniors over 65 are among those least likely to have high-speed Internet access at home — less than one-third of them have broadband. And many in this population are less likely to see the lack of broadband as a disadvantage.
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Alcatel-Lucent is a global telecommunications corporation, headquartered in Paris, France. They provide telecommunication solutions to service providers, enterprises and governments around the world, enabling customers to deliver voice, data and video services. The company focuses on fixed, mobile, and converged broadband networking hardware, IP technologies, software, and services.
The company is positioning itself to be in a very sweet position as mobile development progresses in the future. Today, they acquired their second company in three months: OpenPlug.
With OpenPlug, Alcatel-Lucent “will provide tools enabling developers to create and easily deploy mobile apps across multiple platforms. OpenPlug’s solutions allow developers to write apps once and then convert them into native software, compatible with various mobile operating systems – including iOs, Android, Symbian, Windows Phone and Linux.
Apparently, OpenPlug’s software can reduce go to market time by as much as 80 percent, according to a statement made in the press release by Alcatel-Lucent’s VP of global developer strategy, Laura Merling. Applications previously only available on sophisticated smartphones will now be available on any mobile device. In addition, the technology can be extended to other areas of application development: IPTV, game consoles, etc.”
OpenPlug is the inventor of the Flexibleware™ patented technology, the first component-based technology for embedded devices. The Flexibleware™ technology is at the heart of OpenPlug’s products and dramatically simplifies each phase of development and deployment of any mobile software.
Today, OpenPlug provides a unique set of products and services, aiming to facilitate the development of new mobile handsets and the next generation of mobile applications. Their products are used by well-established players such as Intel and SonyEricsson as well as young and innovative companies and independent developers.
Keep an eye on Alcatel-Lucent and their acquisitions… it’s the future!
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APPLY TO PRESENT at the NEXT Under the Radar on November 12, 2010.
Under the Radar has been recognized as the most important showcase of innovation and deal-making forum in Silicon Valley. In the past three years, 58% of our presenters have gone on to raise funding and/or be acquired by Google, Yahoo, Cisco, BT, Microsoft, Twitter, Fox Interactive, and others. Now it’s your turn!
Categories we’re interested in as it relates to Mobile, Devices, Social, and Real-time:
Advertising/Marketing | Platforms | Location/GEO | Enabling | Payments | Analytics | Content/Publishing | Search | Social Sharing | Real-time | e-Commerce | Business Apps
Criteria for Company Selection:
* Unique value proposition
* Ability to monetize product/business
* Large market opportunity
* Must still be considered “under the radar”
* Company must be an actual startup – not a new product offering from a large company
Are you “OVER THE RADAR” but still have something cool to share?
Apply for the Graduate Circle.
Due to the volume of nominations that we receive, we are not able to respond to your nomination unless we have an opportunity available.
APPLY HERE TODAY!
DealMakerMedia follow us on Twitter at @dealmakermedia
At Dealmaker Media, we’re seeing a lot of companies popping up that are using barcode scanning technology to get customers more active in their shopping/retail experience. Stickybits, RedLaser, shopkick, BarcodeHero, and Barcoo are just a few in a long list of companies offering customer interaction with barcodes. We think they’re awesome… do you?
Here’s a brief look into 5-options out there today:
1. Barcode Hero: Barcode Hero is a social barcode scanner that works with Facebook. Users share their purchases with friends, scan barcodes to compare prices, follow other shoppers to see their scans & recommendations in real-time, and share tips to help others discover new stuff. There is also a game aspect of Barcode Hero where the most active scanners in various categories are crowned “King” and “Queen.”
BASIC INFO: Founded in January, 2010 as Kima Labs, Inc, by Amazon.com veterans Blake Scholl and Jason Crawford. Funders include: Naval Ravikant, SV Angel (Ron Conway), and Owen Van Natta. Based in San Francisco, CA.
2. barcoo: barcoo links products in stores with independent consumer information. Mobile phones become barcode scanners and show you consumer information. barcoo provides: price comparisons, test reports, health guides, and green/sustainability information. There is also a game aspect of barcoo called “ScanHero.”
BASIC INFO: barcoo was founded in 2008 and is currently run by CEO Benjamin Thym. The company has received Seed Funding, and is based in Berlin, Germany.
3. RedLaser: RedLaser is a barcode-scanning application for comparison shopping and finding product information using a mobile device.
BASIC INFO: RedLaser was acquired by eBay in June of 2010. It was founded by startup Occipital, a TechStars incubated company that launched in 2008.
4. shopkick: shopkick lets you scan an item, check into the store with the item and then tap on it. Your phone will switch to camera mode and you should hold it in front of the barcode of the product. After a few seconds, the barcode should be recognized. It will give you information about the product, as well as potential coupons, special offers, and vouchers related to the product or the store.
BASIC INFO: shopkick was founded in June 2009 by Cyriac Roeding, Jeff Sellinger, and Aaron Emigh. It has received $20 million dollars in funding from investors including: Greylock Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, SV Angel, Citi Growth Ventures & Innovation Group. The company is based in Palo Alto, California.
5. stickybits: stickybits brings the physical and digital worlds together with barcode stickers which trigger audio, video, photo, and text messages when scanned. The product is a mobile app for the iPhone and Android phones which lets users scan barcodes, attach messages, and keep track of the stickybits left by their friends.
BASIC INFO: stickybits was founded in 2009 by Billy Chasen and Seth Goldstein. It has received early $2 million in funding from investors including: First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, and Polaris Venture Partners. The company is based in New York, New York.
Have more ideas for us? Do you prefer on of these over the other? Cool, eh?
DealMakerMedia follow us on Twitter at @dealmakermedia
Congratulations to 2009 Under the Radar company socialDeck for being acquired by Google!! What an amazing accomplishment for this fantastic team.
Google is it’s way to building “the most powerful gaming platform on the web” and socialDeck will be an integral part of that process, we’re sure!
Here’s a video of socialDeck’s presentation, as well as their presentation slides:
Some company information:
socialDeck
Launched 2008, San Francisco, CA and Toronto, Canada
Twitter: @socialdeck
Company Description | socialDeck is building a cross-platform gaming technology that enables social gaming on smart phones. Focused on bringing distribution and monetization opportunities that already exist on web social games to the phone, the socialDeck platform allows players to compete against one another on various devices (eg. iPhone vs. Blackberry vs. Web players). Games distributed on the platform all have integrated social networking and community features such as friend discovery, invites, leaderboards, chat, new feeds, plus virtual goods exchanges.
Competitors | Playfish, Zynga, ng:moco
Investors | BlackBerry Partner’s Fund
Presenter | Anish Acharya | CEO
Prior to co-founding socialDeck, Anish spent several years at Amazon.com working as an engineer in the distributed messaging space. Additionally, Anish worked with senior management to develop an internal incubation program at Amazon and bring disruptive new ideas to market. Anish is a graduate of the Computer Engineering program at the University of Waterloo.
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Great write-up in The Wall Street Journal about 2009 Under the Radar Company CardStar getting 400K from Verizon!
Congrats to the CardStar team on being recognized as the next big thing in mobile!
A $400,000 investment by Verizon Communications Inc. in start-up CardStar Inc. may not sound like much, but it’s a hint that wireless carriers are realizing that commerce is going increasingly mobile, and that there are various ways for operators to get in on the revenue earned by enabling such transactions.
CardStar is the creator of a mobile-phone application that enables users to consolidate all of their membership cards and loyalty programs – be they frequent flier miles or buy-one-get-one free offers from a local merchant – in one place.
“The carriers have long been looking at the mobile wallet idea, especially mobile payments,” said Andy Miller, CardStar’s chief executive. “But mobile payment is not here yet. So, what else is in someone’s wallet? A lot of different cards, and the common thread is loyalty cards.”
Mobile-payment technology has moved slowly because not enough merchants have proper point-of-sale technology to process payments from phones. Verizon is reportedly teaming up with AT&T and T-Mobile USA to test a mobile-payment service that would allow consumers to pay with their smartphones at cash registers or taxis. In the meantime, Verizon’s investment – made through its venture capital arm Verizon Ventures – suggests that major operators are keenly interested in other methods of mobile commerce too.
CardStar is just one of many companies with an app to organize membership and loyalty cards. But the company differentiates by also offering a back-end system that functions like a portal for merchants. Merchants, no matter small, can launch their own promotions, discounts and loyalty programs with CardStar, alerting users to the deals via the application.
CardStar has 2,000 merchants – from major airlines and chain stores to mom-and-pop operations – signed on to use the system. Some of these merchants have point-of-sale scanners that can read bar codes, and others don’t. The merchant portal offers various other options for merchants with low-tech point-of-sale systems.
“We have about 30 competitors out there, but all 30 put together don’t have the numbers [of users] that we have,” Miller said. “A lot of those other companies are just apps.”
The Boston-based start-up has released apps for Android, BlackBerry and iPhone, and has logged 700,000 unique users, the CEO said. It previously raised a $1 million Series A investment in March from Amplifier Ventures, Acta Wireless and LaunchCapital.
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Do you have friends that take photos of their food at restaurants? You know, the friends that pull out their iPhones, Androids, or digital cameras when the food arrives at the table and say, “Wait, wait, wait! Let me get a shot of that French toast before you touch it.” Sometimes these photos are posted to Twitter or Facebook, and sometimes they just disappear into the abyss. Today, I am happy to announce, there just may be something these compulsive photo snapping friends can do with their photos: Foodspotting.
Foodspotting is a San Francisco based startup founded in 2009 and backed by Dan Martell, Dave McClure’s 500 Startups, and Felicis Ventures.
Foodspotting has a variety of features to keep users interested and involved, but at it’s most basic, it’s a way for users to share information about good food, and where it can be found. Foodspotting allows users to take a picture of their food, say what it is, and pin it with geolocation to the restaurant where they got it.
It’s a great way to find foods you want to try and look for new and exciting eateries in your city. After all, a picture is worth 1000 words, right?
Here’s an example of how I could use Foodspotter:
In San Francisco, Humphry Slocombe makes an ice cream called “Secret Breakfast” that is out of this world delicious. It’s Bourbon, Corn Flakes, and Sweet Cream yumminess. So, when I get to Humphry Slocombe, I snap a photo of my scoop, load it onto Foodspotter using my free App, and post a little something about the dessert. I see that there are already a dozen other photos, 70 sightings, 81 people who have “Nom-ed” it (meaning they really love it), and 82-people who “Want-It.” Guess the secret’s out on this place! I can also see nearby eateries in the neighborhood and flip through options of potential feasts.
This is an amazing tool for tourists traveling in new cities because it allows them to “see” what food is around them in a whole new way. Foodspotter has created a system of points and incentives for users that post consistently and accurately.
To become a Foodspotter you first have to sign-up for the free service. Then, according to the website, here are a few of your options:
1. Find a food and “Want it!” by zooming in to see your neighborhood or out to see sightings around the world.
2. Spot something you’ve eaten lately by adding a sighting or emailing a photo to food@foodspotting.com.
3. “Nom” a food you’ve tried and loved by finding it or adding it.
4. Earn tips whenever someone Compliments (+10), Wants (+20), or Noms (+25) a food you’ve spotted.
5. Check back often because more ways to spot foods are coming soon!
They are also partnering with Anthony Bourdain which is bound to be a hoot!
We’re loving this service… Are you?
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