App Archives - Page 3 of 9 - Serious Startups

Vancouver Startup: iWishfor Is Making Gift Giving Easier

With the holidays behind us, gift giving isn’t on the minds of many. However when we go back to work next week there’s going to be some people undoubtedly worried whether they got someone the wrong gift. Typically you can read the fake smile but sometimes you can go all year, or at least until someone’s next birthday, to find out that they didn’t really like the last gift you got for them.

There are startups trying to solve this problem and Vancouver startup iWishfor is one of them.

The idea behind iWishfor is pretty easy. People can take their smartphone and scan the barcode of any item they may want to receive as a gift. From there they can sign up their friends and family members to see the list of the things they want. All of those people become the list follower.

As a follower you can see the list your friend created and you can cross the item off the list if you pick it up. You can also add your own suggestions to the list which the other followers can see but your gift recipient cannot. This way, not only are you getting a gift that your friend or relative really wants but your also getting a gift no one else is getting for that person.

Everyone has heard of a wedding registry or a baby registry, apps like iWishfor allow people to create virtual registries for any occassion.

We got a chance to talk with the team behind iWishfor. Check out the interview below.

Seattle Startup: XSync A Safer Way To Share Files On Mobile Devices?

Imagine if you were at a park or another public place and you snapped a shot of your child playing with another child. Perhaps you befriended the parents for just a few minutes but you don’t know them well enough to share phone numbers or email addresses. A new Seattle Startup called XSync has a solution that could work for you.

Xsync uses a QR code technology to securely link two smartphones for file transfer. Since the technology is using the QR code to establish the secured bridge, there’s no need to swap email addresses, phone numbers or Facebook accounts. Any kind of file can be sent using Xsync’s technology.

Right now there are several ways to send files between two phones, there’s NFC “bumping” like on the Galaxy Nexus phones, there’s email, SMS, Facebook, Drop Box, the bump app, and others. Is there even room for Xsync?

According to Xsync co-founder Bryan Leeds the company is already in negotiations with OEM’s and carriers to have the Xsync system pre-installed on future mobile devices. While Xsync exists in an app today, if it does go the pre-install route it would be a feature instead of an app. It would also give the startup a significant boost as they try to build scale.

Being based in Seattle could prove fruitful for this mobile centric startup. In addition to the obvious, like Microsoft, Samsung, HTC, Clearwire and T-Mobile all have significant presence in the city.

We got a chance to talk with Leeds about Xsync and growing a startup in Seattle. Check out the interview below.

Philly Startup SnipSnap Reaches 350K Users For Mobile Couponing App That Works

We started using Philadelphia startup SnipSnap’s mobile couponing app after we saw it at TechCrunch Disrupt NY back in May.Just prior to Black Friday, we had saved over $500 using the app.

SnipSnap app allows you to clip actual printed coupons, take pictures of them and then save them, share them, or both within the app. You can find deals from just about every major retailer, food chain and even several regional businesses within the app. Perhaps the best thing we like about SnipSnap app is that you see coupons from all over the country. As you may know, sometimes a coupon for a retailer may be different in one part of the country than it is in another.

While it’s explicitly explained to app users that these photographed mobile coupons may not work every time, there is a rating system that allows users to share how successful they were. As more and more retailers embrace mobile, more and more businesses are accepting coupons on smartphones. We rarely get turned down these days and we’ve used SnipSnap at ToysRUs, Old Navy, Best Buy, PetCo, Burger King, and Sephora just to name a few.

We first reported on SnipSnap back in May at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC. We were so excited about it that we published this story from TechCrunch Disrupt before founder Ted Mann has even had a chance to finish his onstage pitch. We also immediately got this interview with Mann, when he made it back to his startup alley booth.

By June 2012 the app had reported 150k users and most recently, Betakit has reported that SnipSnap has over 350k loyal users.

“We grew pretty quickly and we’re just now trying to get everything to the place where it can turn from an app with a few hundred thousand users to a few million users,” Mann said in an interview.

In addition to the apps clipped by the user community, SnipSnap has partnered with seven major retailers including; Sears, Aeropastle and KMart which allows SnipSnap to display their store coupons. The app doesn’t currently cover manufacturers coupons but Mann is reportedly working on that feature.

One of the other main features of the app is that it serves up coupons that are relevant to you and it also uses your geolocation to remind you that you have coupons clipped for stores nearby.

Since launching last spring SnipSnap 4.5 million coupons have been saved in the app. 470,000 coupons are original coupons uploaded by the apps user base. They’ve raised $1M in seed funding and plan on a Series A round early this year.

Linkage:

Download Snip Snap here

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Brooklyn Startup Kapture Turns You Into A Brand Ambassador

A startup in Brooklyn New York, called Kapture is turning people everywhere into brand ambassadors based on the photos they take with their smartphone cameras. Everyone loves sharing pictures over social media, now, when you’re snapping away, and you catch a brand, you could be rewarded. Kapture is allowing new ways for retail brands, consumer goods, and other businesses to capitalize on pictures being taken of their products, services and businesses already.

When a user shares a Kapture moment with a social network like Facebook, or Twitter they can be instantly rewarded with items that range from discounts to physical goods. Rewards can be redeemed immediately or stock piled for a later date.

Michael Szewcyk, the co-founder and President of Kapture is no stranger to startups. In fact, he was working for a Silicon Valley based startup, Qwiki when he had the idea for Kapture. He quickly moved back to New York and began the launch process.

Kapture started last December with 25 businesses on board in the greater New York area. Rewards including things like a free glass of champagne for users who took a picture at Gansevoort Park’s rooftop Bar. Legendary ping pong club spin, offered a free drink to people who posted pictures of their game.

Kapture also makes it easy for people to find opportunities to earn rewards, which the startup conveniently calls “Photo Ops”. Within the iPhone app, users can find photo ops and then partake in the ones they want to get the prizes for.

We got a chance to talk with the Kapture team. Check out the interview below.

Life Is A Story, Tell It With Seattle Startup Jumyo

Everyday millions of people around the globe are using their smartphones, cameras, and apps to tell stories. They’re telling stories through pictures, video and of course text. Seattle startup Jumyo is helping people connect the dots and tell the stories of their lives through their social community and their iPhone app.

There are a few startups out there that are addressing the issue “if pictures could talk” by simply adding voice clips to photos sent to social networks. Jumyo knows that there is more to a story than just the picture, with or without context. Perhaps you’re at your daughters birthday party. Maybe you’re on a vacation to Mexico. What happened before these key events, what happened after? How did you get there in the first place. These are all questions that can be answered when the story is woven together.

As we put more and more pictures and videos on our phone, the ability to recall each event gets harder and harder. I travel all the time. When I visit a city I’ve been to before I often try new places but also go back to the places I really like. So at the end of the day (well actually at the end of several months) when I comb through Facebook albums, Google Plus instant upload albums and iPhoto I find pictures from the same places at different times. Sometimes it’s hard to remember why in the world I took some random photos, or videos, which at the time probably weren’t random at all.

Hopefully Jumyo can solve that problem for me and for you.

We got a chance to talk with Joe Egan, co-founder and CEO at Jumyo. Check out the interview below.

St. Louis Startup LockerDome Announces First Game Built On LockerDome Platform

We’ve been continually covering St. Louis startup LockerDome since April of this year. LockerDome is a venture backed sports social network that allows players of any age and any level to engage throughout their entire career. LockerDome was founded by Gabe Lozano who’s the son of online payment software pioneer Bob Lozano. The elder Lozano helped launch cloud solutions and development firm Appistry as well as PayLinx.

LockerDome is backed by Cultivation Capital as well as Square co-founder and local St.Louis entrepreneur Jim McKelvey.

We’ve had the privilege of talking with Lozano quite a bit over the last six months. In fact he served as an impromptu, remote mentor for one of the teams that participated in Memphis’ Startup Weekend over the summer.

On our last trip to St. Louis Lozano was very excited when he was telling us that they had started to open up the LockerDome platform to developers and some of the ideas that may come out of that. Today they’re announcing the first game/app that has been built on top of the LockerDome platform, “Basketball Memory App by Dime Magazine”.

Dime Magazine is the the basketball lifestyle magazine that’s been around since 2001. The Memory App by Dime Magazine will live on the Dime Magazine Network on LockerDome and leverage LockerDome’s over 2.5 million monthly unique visitors. Users will match the popular basketball lifestyle magazine’s covers featuring the biggest names in basketball as quickly as possible and win cool basketball related prizes. The first of these prizes is a pair of the recently launched “Polarizing Pink” Nike Air Foamposite One shoes provided by Foot Locker.

“We are pleased to be partnering with Dime Magazine and IDC Projects to deliver the first game to LockerDome’s rapidly growing and highly engaged sports audience,” said Gabe Lozano, co-founder and CEO of LockerDome. “This exciting new game featuring the stunning artwork from previous Dime covers and the wonderfully addictive Memory Matches technology represents the next step in the evolution of LockerDome as a sports media platform.”

“We’re excited to use our expertise in mobile games to be part of this synergistic approach to encourage interaction between basketball fans and brands.” said Michael Orlando, CEO of IDC Projects.

“Over the past decade, Dime Magazine’s covers have featured the best basketball players in the word. We’re excited to bring Dime to a robust mobile platform like LockerDome, and to give our fans a fun, new experience through this innovative and wonderfully addictive new game,” Dime Magazine’s CEO and co-founder Josh Gotthelf said in a statement.

Since re-launching in January, LockerDome has been one of the fastest growing sports-specific websites in the world. Many top sports agencies are leveraging LockerDome as a means to maximize their client’s social media efforts on Facebook and Twitter and to better engage their fanbases. The official brands and networks the St. Louis-based company represents includes NBA superstars Blake Griffin, Rudy Gay, David Lee and Stephen Curry, NFL superstars Troy Polamalu, Larry Fitzgerald, Maurice Jones-Drew and Marshawn Lynch, and MLB Legends Pete Rose and Wade Boggs, among others.

Linkage:

Download the game for your iOS device today, here

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With The Animated Gif Back, DC Startup MyFaceWhen Is Ready

Way back in the 90’s (saying that is so wrong), animated gifs were typically banners that someone who was building a website would use to attract attention to something or another. The more popular animated gifs were dancing bears, christmas lights, and even cars driving along in the middle of the web page.

Nowadays banner ads are fading fast and the animated gif is actually coming back.

Thanks to mobile usage and social networks animated gifs are almost, if not more popular than meme’s. If you want to get your point across in a cute, happy, or even angry way, you can say it with an animated gif. Technology has vastly improved over the past two decades as well, which means better animated gifs.

Of course there are places that are stockpiling cute, one off animated gifs that you can use to send to your friends and family but just like meme’s witty people want to create their own. That’s where Rodney Curl and his startup MyFaceWhen come into the picture.

The Howard University graduate has gotten the creation of animated gifs down to a science. In fact from start to finish you can get an original animated gif ready to send out in under 10 seconds. Curl also tells us if you want to use a stock gif MyFaceWhen will take you out to Reddit where gifs are a plenty.

We’ve seen a vast variety of startups come out of Washington DC. Cur’s MyFaceWhen is a fun mobile app and a nice break from the traditional tech startup.

We got a chance to talk to Curl. Check out our interview below.

Swedish Startup Foap Raises $500M From Asian Investors

You know we love startups with silly names. Obviously Foap is one of those startups. The Swedish startup is creating a stock photography market place where the photographers can be anyone in the world with a smartphone or a connected camera.

The premise is simple. The user registers with the Foap platform. They upload pictures of whatever they want to and Foap sells the pictures for $10 a piece to news outlets, bloggers, and other users. You sell the rights to the photo away but heck most smartphone pics happen by accident and even if they aren’t by accident, they don’t take but a second to shoot.

Foap splits the $10 right down the middle and the photographer gets paid. Funny name, easy startup right?

To date Foap has nearly 1 million images for sale on their platform. They’ve seen over $150,000 downloads of their app and 1.4 million photos uploaded since launch.

That was enough to land $500,000 from Asian investment firm Jade Global Investments.

“We always knew we had something pretty special to offer iPhone users but the success we’ve experienced so far is unbelievable and the interest in investors from Asia has been overwhelming”, said co-founder, David Los. “We’re fully focused on growing our market of iPhone images and establishing ourselves as one of the major players in the stock imagery industry.”

“We are delighted to announcement our investment in Foap, a company that we’ve been monitoring closely over the past six months,” said Jacky Lu, CEO of Jade Global Investments based in Asia. “We believe Foap can be extremely successful and as one of the first in this space to go to market, it stands a great chance of success. The company is perfectly positioned to make a big impact on the stock photography industry and that’s something we want to be a part of.”

“We are very excited to have such an experienced investor on board. It’s not just the funding that will benefit the company, but the knowledge and expertise Jacky and the team will be able to offer”, commented Los. “The success we’ve experienced so far has been unbelievable and this round of funding means we can continue to drive forward towards reaching the ambitious goals we have set for the company

Linkage:

Check out Foap here

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Connecticut Startup Deets: Create And Interact Groups From The Best Place Possible

Everyone likes groups. Whether you’re old enough to remember the days of MMC groups on AOL or you came along at Yahoo Groups or even Google Groups, groups make it easy to keep like minded people together to share important information, and nowadays photos, events and content.

I love what you can do with the groups that are automatically built around Facebook events. You can communicate with those people going to an event, plan the event, interact with people at the event and then after the event. You can share videos and photos with these people and share your important contact information with the entire group or individually.

A startup in Connecticut with a great entrepreneurial/startup pedigree has set out to build a mobile platform that lets you take those same qualities that make Facebook groups and events so great and productive, and applied it to the most important list of people that you have, your contacts.

Deets was founded by Linda Miller who was the first in at Priceline and Hotwire where she was instrumental in building the foundation that we all use today to book hotels. The other co-founder is Luke Scott who has a creative background with top clients like Kraft, Bob Greene and HobNob Wines.

When you put the two together you get a very robust, but aesthetically appealing app and web based platform that is intuitive, and easy to use.

Deets breathes the same life and functionality you get from Facebook groups and other popular social sites right into your list of contacts. It basically gives your contact list/address book a new life, a new purpose and a new meaning.

Now you can set up groups of family members, friends, colleagues or event attendees. If you’re getting married and want to set up a group for the bridal party, go for it. If you’re releasing a record and want to set up a list of fans and promoters, done. Not only are these groups set up for sharing the same way you can socially, but it’s done from the privacy of your computer or smartphone and from there you can set up your degrees of privacy. It’s one of the most robust platforms for sharing we’ve ever seen.

Forget about the 850 friends you have on Facebook, we’re going to go out on a limb and say that you actually know the contacts in your contact list and now you know your deets.

We got a chance to talk with Scott about deets. Check out the interview below.

Boston Startup: BRIGHTdriver Has Mobile Games Even The Driver Can Play

Do you get bored in the car? Sure you do,everybody does. Now in a lot of states, it’s illegal to do anything on your smartphone that requires you to actually hold the phone. Playing Angry Birds at a stop light is a little too risky, you don’t want to get a ticket, or cause an accident.

Well there’s got to be a way to play games in the car without actually holding the phone. A Boston startup incubating at Dog Patch Labs, called BRIGHTdriver has the answer, audio games.

BRIGHTdrivers unique and fun games are audio based and don’t require you to actually hold the phone to play. BRIGHTdrivers audio games are as safe as talking hands free on your mobile phone or yelling out the answers to the dj’s trivia question on the radio.

Currently BRIGHTdriver offers three titles. Volley, is their pub style trivia game. Careoke is BRIGHTdriver’s sing-a-long Karaoke game and Best Mile is a game that challenges you to drive your best (and safest) mile. They have plans to introduce more games as the platform gets off the ground.

BRIGHTdriver’s platform is set up to allow you to play by yourself or against others on the BRIGHTdriver network.

The BRIGHTdriver team has taken to Kickstarter to help fund their official launch. You can donate to their Kickstarter campaign here and get cool perks like early access to this exciting new platform

We got a chance to talk with BRIGHTdriver founder Matt Albrecht about his unique new spin on mobile gaming. Check out the interview below.

New Louisville Startup To Tackle App Discovery (AGAIN), Check Out Appszito

App discovery is a beast. I remember two years ago at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York there were three app discovery startups. A few months later at TechCrunch Disrupt SF (2011) there were another three app discovery startups. The problem that all these startups are tackling is how to discover apps across multiple app stores and markets and finding apps in a somewhat logical way.

Louisville Kentucky startup Appszito is working on a search product that will allow smartphone users to easily find applications for iOS, Android and Windows Phone devices.

Appszito uses a proprietary relational algorithm that matches smarpthone users with the best and most cost effective app solutions for whatever it is they’re looking for.

When you enter a specific type of app or need, like CAD for instance, into the Appszito engine it combs the iTunes app store, Windows Market Place and multiple Android app stores to find the most relevant search results. Appszito provides pricing information, platform and a brief description of the application that’s met the search criteria. In true search fashion it serves up the most relevant matches first, but the list of apps can be plentiful.

Users are directly linked to the download site for each particular app.

Appszito is hoping to solve the pain of searching multiple places with less than stellar results for the smartphone user. They are also looking to provide a resource for app developers to drive downloads based on relevancy.

We got a chance to talk to Appszito co-founder Rahul Ahir about his startup and the Louisville startup scene. Check out the interview below.

Seattle Startup Bibo Launches Social Drinking Beta App

There are very few areas where the phrase “There’s an app for that” doesn’t apply. The social drinking space is starting to produce a whole new crop of apps. On nibletz.com alone we’ve featured Wisconsin based startup Trinker, New York startup Drynk.me, Pittsburgh startup Grail, Baltimore startup BeerGivr, and Oklahoma startup Drink Easy.

Each one of these startups addresses social drinking in a different way. A few of them are about buying a buddy a drink either in person and charging it to your phone, or from afar. Some are about taking pictures of drinks and sharing them, while others are more like mobile based wine lists.

Seattle startup Bibo is hoping to become the social discovery platform for drinks. Their new iPhone app allows users to rate, and share beverages socially. It also allows you to search for drinks based on your physical location. Now you don’t have to walk into a strange bar or restaurant just to find out if they have your favorite craft beer or mixed drink. Bibo solves that for you in the palm of your hand.

Similarly to Drynk.me, Bibo wants to become the largest location based picture database of drinks in the world. The platform works in reverse as well. Say you go into a bar that you like for ambience and atmosphere but the bartender there doesn’t do your favorite cocktail. Well with Bibo you can show the bartender how to make that drink that will keep you coming back.

The co-founders of Bibo are no strangers to discovery. Natan Antolin, Mac McClian, Steve Jacobson met in late 2011 while working for a job search platform.

Bibo works with local bars, lounges, night clubs and restaurants to procure all of their drink data. From there restaurants and bars can be featured based on the drinks they serve.

At this point in time the drink space is anyones game. We’ll see if Bibo can bring it.

Linkage:

Check out Bibo here

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Cuban Backed Boston Startup Apptopia Heating Up, Sells First $25,000 App

Back in march we reported on Boston area startup Apptopia. They’re making a name for themselves as a second hand market for app developers. They essentially do what Flippa does for websites, except for mobile apps.

Mobile app developers may find that they’ve built an app that’s picked up a bit of traction, but they’re ready to move onto something else. Rather than abandon the original app idea or it’s user base, an app developer can turn to Apptopia and sell the app and the accompanying intellectual property to someone else.

Many mobile app developers are incredibly good at coding and design but they may fall short in the marketing or sales department. For some developers the thrill in itself is the development process. Apptopia is the perfect place for those developers who may not necessarily have the skill set or drive to push their app to an actual business model. In some cases Apptopia may actually save some really great apps and get them out to market, in the hands of a more business savvy owner.

Apptopia is also a great place for multi title app publishers to increase their portfolio size.

Apps can sell on Apptopia, with the business plan, intellectual property and user base in tact, from anywhere to a few hundred dollars, upwards to tens of thousands of dollars.

Such is the case with an app that modeled itself after humor site 9GAG. The Android based app, which in some opinions was better than the official iOS 9GAG app, (and had more downloads than the official app) recently sold on Apptopia for $25,000.00.

On the sale of the 9GAG app, Apptopia founder and CEO Jonathan Kay told nibletz.com

“The 9GAG app that sold for $25k on Apptopia boasts stats that include over 855,000 downloads & 37,000 ratings. This is great to see as this app (built by an independant developer) is far out performing 9GAG’s offical iPhone app (which has less than 10% of the stats). 9GAG plans to enter the Android Market “later this year,” but i would be quite shocked if they built something from scratch versus acquiring the best available option (and customizing it to fit their brand/API). In my opinion this is what makes the acquisiton so interesting – there is a massive opportunity to then flip this back to 9GAG when they are ready. Just remember it’s about the users, not the technology.”

That’s definitely not chump change, especially for developers that may not have as much skin in the game.

To date Apptopia has facilitated the same of 83 different apps from the original developer to a new buyer. Sure with the hundreds of thousands of apps available today 83 doesn’t sound like very many, however Apptopia has been growing exponentially since their launch earlier this year.

Why does this work?

“Probably 80% of people who want to get involved in mobile either don’t know how to code an app or don’t know an app developer,” Kay said. “So there’s this massive demand, but kind of a little bit of a barrier to entry.”

The model alone has attracted an investment from Dallas Maverick’s owner, entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban. The secondary app market will naturally continue to grow. As the word spreads about Apptopia people will start utilizing the service as a go to spot for app developers to sell their apps outright.

Kay also pointed out that there are some developers out there who are developing directly for Apptopia.

Linkage:

Check out Apptopia here

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Boulder Startup Orbotix Hits Target With Sphero Ball

We’ve covered Boulder startup Orbotix since the beginning. We began covering them at our previous Android website when we saw the Sphero ball at a Show Stoppers event during CES 2011. We also covered their Techstars pivot, which came about when working with their mentor Brad Feld, and we covered their biggest fan, President Barack Obama.

Orbotix is the startup behind the Sphero ball. Sphero is a smartphone controlled ball. The concept in itself can bring tons of fun, maneuvering the ball throughout the house, teasing the dog and cat can be hours of fun. However, Sphero isn’t just about the ball. They’ve built some great interactive apps (games) like golf. The control the user has with their Android phone or iPhone, over the ball, is world’s apart from other smartphone controlled toys.

While the company launched in 2011 after going through the TechStars program in Boulder, Chief Executive Paul Berberian feels like this distribution deal with Target is their big consumer launch.

“The name of the game in consumer electronics and gaming is getting in front of customers,” Berberian said to the Boulder County Business Report. “We feel like we’ve been out there for a long time telling our story, but most people have never seen a Sphero. This is essentially our launch.”

The Sphero ball has limited distribution in some Apple stores as well as some Brookstone stores but of course Target means they’ll reach the masses. It’s also a great time to get into a retail stores shelves as Americans prepare for the busy holiday shopping season.

Target already has a good selection of interactive smartphone accessories. Their toy section is filled with iPhone and iPad games that have a physical component like fishing, and even an Angry Birds game where you move the bird across the screen. Target’s smartphone accessories section, located within their electronics department, stocks the iCade mini arcade machine accessory as well as some of the “cooler” music accessories.

Sphero will be stocked among the smartphone app accessories section and available online at Target.com as well.

Linkage:

Check out Sphero here

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