Comments Off on Boston Startup: SlideShark Solves The iPad/PowerPoint Problem0LikeLike 2,694
Although we love our Apple products around here, sometimes getting Apple to play nice with others requires a little work around. In this case we’re talking about the fact that PowerPoint slide shows never show up right on an iPad. This problem had thousands and thousands of startup founders in a frenzy trying to find the best way to get their pitch decks onto their iPads.
Sure a KeyNote presentation will play well on an iPad, after all it’s an Apple product, but what about those 30 million presentations created daily using Power Point (according to Microsoft)?
Power Point can be a vital business tool and with more and more people taking to Power Point out of the board room, it can be frustrating trying to get your slides to fit and play right on your iPad. Well worry no more, as Boston Startup Slideshark has you covered.
Slideshark is available for all iOS devices. They recently launched their iPhone version and according to the company, it plays well with iPhone 5 too. Slideshark covers three main Power Points (you see what we did there). Of course it’s a viewer that allows slides to be seen with fonts, graphics and charts in tact. Secondly, SlideShark allows users to share, track and manage their presentations in the cloud. And now, with the iOS version available, you can show your pitch deck during your elevator pitch, on the elevator, on your iPhone.
We got a chance to talk with the folks at SlideShark, check out the interview below:
Comments Off on Going On A Cruise? Make Sure You Bring Along UCLA Startup Ship Mate0LikeLike 4,523
Ship Mate, a startup incubated at UCLA’s startup incubator program, wants to be your cruise companion. Over half a million people have already downloaded the app that gives you all the information that you need to know before, during and after your cruise.
Jan and Mike Jirout, the two brothers behind Ship Mate have stocked their app to the hilt. It’s literally a one stop mobile destination for everything involving a cruise.
They’ve found that most users are downloading the app about a month before their cruise sets sail. In the pre cruise period Ship Mate is great for checking out rendezvous points and finding activities to participate in while on the cruise. You can also plan out your dining and see in advance ship maps and other resources that you didn’t even think of.
When it’s time to board your cruise ship Ship Mate has ship maps, ship information and even access to deck cams so you can see the action going on around you. There’s also photo galleries and social aspects like cruise chat that will allow you to chat with other users on and off your ship.
The Ship Mate app doesn’t stop after the cruise stops though. You can add more photos to the photo galleries, rate your cruise experience, rate locations and continue chatting about your cruise with others who have gone on cruises. People seem to love Ship Mate as they’ve already done over half a billion cross platform downloads and they’re seeing over 70,000 daily users.
We got a chance to talk with Mike Jirout about Ship Mate, check out the interview below:
In this day and age personal safety is a very important issue to many people. There are a million different factors that play into a persons personal safety. Did you just get attacked by someone? Are you feeling unsafe because someone is following you? Are you diabetic and feeling light headed? Are you allergic to bees and just got stung?
Any of these situations, and countless others, could result in the need to make a distress call to someone, and time is almost always of the essence. Well Robb Monkman and Grant Wallace, two Seattle based entrepreneurs with backgrounds in safety and communication have created a startup called React Mobile. React Mobile functions as a distress or SOS signal right in your pocket.
With React Mobile both Monkman and Wallace figured out that the best safety device, and distress signal device was already in most people’s pockets. Of course that device is their smartphone. React Mobile is an iOS and Android app with three distinct safety abilities; alerting via email, text and social networks; GPS location sharing; and emergency reporting.
We got a chance to talk with Monkman. Check out our interview below:
A lot of startups have tried to attack the event space. Some are concentrating on ticketing, others are concentrating on sharing the experience. Moment.me wants to be the destination for capturing the overall experience through media, in one big hub. Moment.me is looking for everyone who attends an event to have one centralized place for photos, videos and tweets of an event.
As an example, say you were attending the iHeartRadio festival in Las Vegas this weekend. If you were part of the moment.me community you could share every photo, video and tweet from the iHeartRadio festival with everyone else who was at the festival and a member of moment.me. Then, the public has one big place to see all the content that everyone has created.
“People want to see more points-of-view from their experiences and love to share because in essence, we’re social creatures,” said Ronny Elkayam, CEO and Co-Founder of Moment.me. “When we share photos, what we really intend to share are experiences, but traditional photo sharing only captures one piece of a larger puzzle. Moment.me’s mission is to enhance shared experiences with context, social connection and real-time viewing to become a window to the world’s trending moments.”
Moment.me is taking this beta launch to Singapore for the SingTel 2012 Formula 1™ Singapore Grand Prix. In addition to moments being uploaded onto the moment.me platform, they have teamed up with SingTel to show all the moments on gigantic screens in the paddock area of the race. This will be a great way to show off the platform and app and also show brands the power of such a platform.
“The mobile app will transform the way people experience popular events all over the world like the Singtel Formula 1™ Singapore Grand Prix, as well as concerts, parties and political rallies by providing simultaneous multiple perspectives of the dozens, hundreds and even thousands of others in the crowd who are tweeting, taking pictures and shooting videos. It will also allow users to find personally relevant, interesting and trending moments materializing nearby, bringing an element of social discovery to the app and a new way for marketers to connect with fans and followers.” Elkayam added.
“At Singtel, we have a constant finger on the pulse of emerging consumer technologies and understand how mobile broadband, smart phones and tablets continue to transform the way people connect with each other and the world around them,” said Mr. Loo Cheng Chuan, Head of Local L!fe, Group Digital L!fe at SingTel. “We are interested in finding a platform that could automatically fetch, match and present multiple points-of-view of this exciting event in real time. Our partnership with Moment.me will provide Formula 1™ enthusiasts a new way to view the experience that was never possible before.”
Signing up for moment.me is a breeze anyone with a valid Facebook, Google+ or Twitter account can sign up and use the service right away.
Comments Off on New York Startup: Sonar Officially Goes Android0LikeLike 3,491
One of our favorite startups in New York is Sonar. It may have to do with the fact that Founder and CEO Brett Martin and I grew up in the same area, or it may just happen to be that Sonar is an amazing startup. We’ve covered Sonar since their finalist appearance at TechCrunch Disrtupt 2011 and then caught up with Martin for a pretty lengthy interview a year later at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2012.
During our interview back in June Martin told us off the record that they were really close to an Android app that he was happy with and feature packed. He promised us we’d see it before the end of the summer, and low and behold he made it.
If you’re not aware of Sonar, it’s a people discovery app that helps you find and organize your people locally. They added some great functionality to the app this year which helps folks automagically do some amazing things. For instance Martin explained that with the newest iteration of their iPhone (and now Android) app Martin checks in on Sonar after he gets off of the subway. When he passes the Sonar office for the coffee shop his co-workers are alerted and they can put together their coffee order for Martin without texting or calling. Pretty magnificent huh.
Of course it’s not all about coffee. Sonar comes in really handy when you’re at a conference or convention with colleagues. We use it all the time and through Sonar we can tell when our press colleagues are near by at events.
Android has been part of the plan since Sonar’s inception however Martin and the Sonar team wanted to make sure that the app was just right. They began beta testing it in the spring and our old site was part of that beta test.
On the news of the Android release into the Google Play store Martin told nibletz:
“Launching in Google Play is a huge milestone and an amazing opportunity, with the 500M total Android activations and 1.3M more that are added daily. Sonar is the best way to connect and share with friends and interesting people nearby. We combine proprietary and third-party data to give you the best, most relevant results. By launching in Google Play and localizing in so many new countries, we’re enabling a huge new audience to spend more time connecting with their friends face-to-face.”
Now if you’re an iPhone or an Android user you can experience Sonar.
Comments Off on Share Your Predictions For The Future With Syracuse Startup: PsyQic0LikeLike 1,617
It’s not everyday that you find a startup that wants to help you predict the future and share your predictions. That’s of course as long as you throw all the “weather” startups to the wayside. PsyQic a startup from Syracuse New York, does just that.
PsyQic is an iOS app that makes it easy to proclaim and than share your predictions. Do you have a prediction for next week’s NFL football games? Do you see something in the future that not everyone else sees? This may be just the app for you.
PsyQic goes beyond the predictions themselves and gamifies the process by giving you points when your predictions comes true. The points are called Qi’s which is actually a Chinese word for “spiritual energy”. Founders Gabrielle Gosselin and Keisuke Inoue wanted to design something different and fun. PsyQic fulfills just that.
Inoue and Gosselin are currently incubating their startup in upstate New York at the Syracuse Tech Garden after graduating from the Syracuse Student Sandbox this summer.
We got a chance to talk with the team behind PsyQic in the interview below:
Comments Off on NQ Mobile Vault For iPhone Is The Ultimate For Privacy And Security0LikeLike 4,209
NQ Mobile, the leader in mobile security, announced today via their US headquarters in Dallas Texas that they’ve launched the NQ Mobile Vault for iPhone. This privacy locker app for iOS devices is also available for Android smartphones and provides the ultimate amount of security and protection for files that you want to keep away from prying eyes.
The addition of the iPhone version of NQ Mobile’s Mobile Vault, comes on the heels of 3 million downloads for Android and a rating in the Google play store of 4.5 out of 5 stars.
While some might jump to the conclusion that this app is for people who have things they shouldn’t have stored on their phone, on the contrary there are hundreds of legitimate reasons to keep your photos secure and private. First of all, if you’re a startup or working on something involving intellectual property you wouldn’t want those photos to leak into the wrong hands.
You may also be hesitant about having your personal family photos resting on your phone to see, whether you let a friend borrow your phone to make a phone call or you leave your phone on your desk all day. NQ Mobile’s Mobile Vault will give you an extra piece of mind.
Heck if you’re married or in a relationship and travel a lot you may want to protect some photos that some may think are inappropriate out of your general gallery.
Mobile Vault is the most robust app of its kind and includes:
Private Album: Easily transfer photos and videos from the iPhone album to Vault’s secure and password protected album.
Vault Camera: Helps to eliminate any possibility of leaving private content out in the open with its built-in camera, which will automatically secure any photo and video it takes behind Vault’s password protected album.
Break-In Attempts Monitor (premium feature): Catch intruders in the act! Automatically photographs anyone who enters the wrong password into Vault (requires a front facing camera).
SecureCam Login (premium feature): SecureCam login is an innovative security tool that uses the main camera of the iPhone to unlock and access NQ Mobile Vault content. To anyone attempting to snoop, when NQ Mobile Vault is first opened, it will simply open up to what appears to be a simple camera app. But when the camera is pointed at a solid background (like a hand or desk surface), a numeric keypad will appear, allowing users to login.
“Our smartphones have become portable picture frames that we put into the hands of our friends, family members and colleagues every day,” says Gavin Kim, Chief Product Officer, NQ Mobile. “To date, it’s been an all or nothing proposition — either you choose to share your phone and expose all your content or you keep it to yourself. NQ Mobile Vault offers the best of both worlds, allowing consumers the ability to create two distinct albums on their iPhones — one for openly sharing and another, more private album, that is kept safely behind a password.
NQ Mobile is known for their widely used security products and Mobile Vault was developed with the same attention to details and features that the NQ Mobile team has been known for, even before they were at NQ Mobile. Kim, along with co-CEO Omar Khan and PR Executive Kim Titus were all part of the Samsung Mobile team when Samsung was burning up the charts with Android devices.
Comments Off on Chicago Startup: WalkJogRun Keeps Track When You Walk, Jog Or Run INTERVIEW0LikeLike 1,879
Fitness startups are always great. Everyone wants to get fit, stay fit and monitor their fitness regimen. A startup in Chicago called WalkJogRun has a website and app that helps anyone who runs, walks, jogs, hikes and cycles, monitor their exercise, map their routes and track their progress.
As a compliment to their web and mobile app platform WalkJogRun also has a blog and podcast that provides inspiration to those using their platform. They also offer tips, as well as healthy recipes.
Whether you are a casual jogger, mall walker or you’re training for a marathon, WalkJogRun’s robust platform can cover your workout and be your walking, jogging and running companion.
The precursor to what WalkJogRun has become was originally created by co-founder Adam Howitt. Howitt was living in Atlanta and training for the PeachTree 10k when he got fed up with just doing quarter miles in the parking garage. He tells us in an interview below, that he created the first iteration of WalkJogRun in 2002.
Howitt’s co-founder Jeff Kenny redesigned Howitt’s original website as a surprise back in 2003 and then they realized that WalkJogRun could be beneficial to many running enthusiasts. This was of course, way before the fitness app boom, and GPS tracking boom that we’re currently experiencing.
The Chicago based startup has made plenty of refinements over the last 10 years to what the website and app have become today.
We got a chance to interview WalkJogRun. Check out the interview below:
Comments Off on Cincinnati Startup ChoreMonster Makes Chores Fun For The Whole Family VIDEO INTERVIEW0LikeLike 2,912
Cincinnati startup ChoreMonster makes chores fun for the whole family. The Cincinnati based startup, founded by Chris Bergman and Paul Armstrong was one of the standout startups in the 2011 class at the Brandery Accelerator in Cincinnati’s Over-The-Rhine neighborhood. The startup was designed around monsters that Paul Armstrong had created and shown to Bergman. The two decided that they really needed to do something fun, positive and profitable with the monsters.
Bergman tells us in the video interview below that he didn’t have the best home life as a kid. He didn’t delve deep into that but you can tell that he is very passionate not just about starting a tech company,but the good that ChoreMonster is going to do for families and kids. He loves the idea behind incentivizing chores and of course the gamification of them as well.
So how does it work?
Parents sign up at ChoreMonster.com. While it’s in beta right now Bergman tells us that all you have to do is share it with your Facebook friends, through a one-click process and you’re into the beta. He also tells us you can find beta invite codes everywhere. At this point the beta is more about putting the finishing touches on the product rather than limiting users at this stage in the game.
After you sign up, you create a profile for your child (children) no worries though the parent controls everything that the child sees.
From there you start setting up chores. You can pick from the list of chores or make up your own. Once you’ve selected a chore you fill out the chore form which asks you to assign it a point value.
The next step is to set up rewards which your child can redeem for points. The parents create the rewards themselves. For my daughter we created a chore “pick up toys and books” we assigned it a value of 5 points and that it needs to be done every day. At 50 points our four year old daughter can redeem it for a new My Little Pony. We added a variety of other chores along with a bunch of awards including things like movie night where we will go see a movie in the theater, after school ice cream trip, and after school trip to the park.
There is an app that we downloaded for her on her ipod touch which tells us she’s completed a chore. Once we verify the chore she gets the points in her point bucket.
The best part may be when the monsters come into play though. Armstrong has designed a great group of monsters that each kid can redeem. They plan on adding a virtual market so the kids can add virtual items to their monsters, buy premium monsters and interact with other kids and other monsters.
Original ChoreMonster artwork like this fills the 3rd floor at the Brandery where ChoreMonster works. It's referred to as the "Alumni Penthouse" (photo: nibletz LLC)
Sure ChoreMonster isn’t going to last forever in a kids life. The average family will probably get great use out of ChoreMonster from the time their child is four to about 12 or 13. They may grow out of it by then, but heck it’s around that age that the chore chart comes down as well.
From a startup business standpoint, with their core set of users theres barely any attrition. After the family has the big family meeting about ChoreMonster, and once the kids start using it, it’s not something that can be easily tossed to the wayside like an app or game you may have gotten bored with.
Bergman tells us the next step is to add an app for the parents so that they can verify chores, track chores, and check up on their child’s progress from their own app.
The two co-founders are filled with heart, soul and laughter and of course creativity. They work out of the top floor of the Brandery which has been dubbed the “Alumni Penthouse” from some of the companies that work out of the space. From the middle of the top floor of the Brandery Bergman and Armstrong can see all the way down to the bullpen where the current class is working hard on their startups.
Both co-founders can often be found mentoring the new startups as well. You can also find them very active in the social, community parts of the Brandery whether it be a Reds game, basketball, beer pong or one of the Brandery’s social gatherings. They’re both as committed to the Brandery community as they were when they were going through the same rigorous program.
Check out the video below where Bergman talks more about what drove him and Armstrong to create ChoreMonster and you can just tell from the discussion this is something he believes in. Investor’s believe in them as well. In 2011 they took the $25,000 top prize in the Cincinnati Innovates competition. They also closed a round of funding at the beginning of the year for $350,000 dollars from private investors and CincyTech.
A gang of young twenty somethings from Florida have started a new startup to eliminate the business card. CEO, Aidan Augustin, along with cohorts Neal Ormsbee and Gabriel Busto are in the process of launching an app called Feathr.
Augustin says that while he was interning in Silicon Valley he attended a networking mixer with young entrepreneurs. Admittedly the attendance was the top echelon of future entrepreneurs, millionaires, Stanford students, graduates and drop outs. Augustin said in an interview that none of these young professionals had a traditional business card. By the end of the evening they were trying to take each others information down by downloading bump, passing phones around to input information and any other means that they could. It seemed ridiculous that there was no app to handle this process, so they created it.
Feathr allows the user to create an interactive virtual business card, that can link to a persons website, portfolio,email address, phone number, social networking channels and more. Then, through a graphically pleasing UI, users can share all or as much of the information they want with someone new.
The real benefit to Feathr lies in the fact that both parties don’t have to have the Feathr app installed in order to exchange Feathr cards. Augustin explains that if the receiver doesn’t have the Feathr app they get a text message with a link to where the virtual business card resides in the cloud. This is one of the big differentiators between Feathr and other similar apps in the space.
Another big difference between Feathr and their competitors is that most other apps in the business card, and networking space are about input and intake of information. Feathr is focused on sharing.
On the user side, once you’ve got someone’s Feathr card in your Feathr contact list, you have one click access to whatever means you want to communicate with that person. If you want to Tweet to them you can. If you want to send a text message you can. If you want to call you can. You can even view their portfolio and flip through their work. It’s that robust and at the same time that easy.
Feathr is still in private beta. You can follow the link below to request early beta access.
With millions and millions of apps available between the iTunes App Store, Google Play Store, Windows Market and AppWorld there is an app for everything. In fact, it was apple who coined the phrase “there’s an app for that”.
Now apps are starting to incorporate with things in the real world and thanks to Beam Technologies, A Louisville Kentucky Startup, your toothbrush is one of those things.
Ok possibly not really your toothbrush but there is now such thing as the Beam Toothbrush, Beam Technologies first product combining a real life physical item that we use everyday with an app.
Just how appified is it? Will it turn on your electronic toothbrush? Will it remind you to brush your teeth? Will it let you know that you’ve been brushing long enough. Well at least some of those features are part of the Beam Toothbrush created by Alex Frommeyer, Dan Dykes and Alex Curry.
We got a chance to interview the Beam Technologies team about their startup and of course the appified tooth brush. Check out the interview below:
Comments Off on Win! Alcohol Discovery From New York Startup Drynk.me0LikeLike 2,095
This story doesn’t really need any fancy dressing up. You go out. You like to drink occasionally or perhaps more than occasionally. You try great drinks, but maybe you’re too tired (read drunk) to remember what drink it was you tried, or what was in it.
New York startup Drynk.me is here to help.
Whether you’re a beer connoisseur (or beer snob), or a purveyor of fine wines, or you just like a great new cocktail, you want to remember it right? Drynk.me allows you to do all that, share it with friends, crowdsource new drink ideas, take pictures of your favorite drinks all on your smartphone. You can even geo-tag your drink so you can remember where you were when you had that wonderful concoction. Yes, drinkers, this is your app!
Who has made such a great idea a reality? Well the co-founders behind Drynk.me are Fernando Garza, Chevon Christie and Preston Hall. They took a break from their extensive customer validation and market research to talk to nibletz.com, check out the interview below:
Impulcity is one of the standout startups at The Brandery in Cincinnati. We finally got a chance to talk with Hunter Hammonds and Austin Cameron face to face about the disruptive mobile app they’re building.
When someone who does what I do hears the words “location” and “discovery’ we automatically think FourSquare, Google Places, and checking in. We think the space is crowded. We think “sure you’ve got something different”. Well with Impulcity, Hammonds and Cameron have something different. As soon as we arrived at the Brandery Hammonds immediately set up the private beta on my phone and for the rest of the evening I got a guided tour on Impulcity right from the co-founders.
After a night on the town, Hammonds challenged me and our co-founder Cameron Wright to name one event discovery mobile app, that served up local events, allows you to check into them, invite friends, and had a great UI. We couldn’t even name one, not like this.
As you can see they have a great visual user experience. From the main screen you see a highlighted event in visual form and then a grid of similar pictures promoting events around you. The top featured event can be swiped from left to right so that you can see all the highlighted events.
Once you’re in the event you can do a number of things which are all explained in easy detail. There are big inviting buttons for sharing, and what network you want to share with. There is a timeline feature for each event where people can chime in on their experience at the event and share pictures and text.
While Impulcity is from Louisville and building at the Brandery in Cincinnati they’ve already got over a million events in their database that will populate in the same beautiful visual way.
Impulcity says they help you discover, attend and interact with events around you and that’s certainly true. But you can bet on our road trip that we will continue to test and use Impulcity.
Comments Off on Interview With New Jersey Startup: Clipix, Pinterest For Everything0LikeLike 3,123
Bookmarklets are nothing new, however Pinterest turned the concept of bookmarkletting into a world wide phenomenon. Pinterest has turned itself into a company with an astronomical valuation and no direct revenue, by simply bookmarkletting “Pinning” photos on interest boards. Heck even President Obama and Mitt Romney are doing it.
But what if you wanted to go beyond just pictures. What if you wanted to pin websites, articles, heck even word documents and pdfs? Well you would turn to Fort Lee, NJ based startup Clipix. The company, founded earlier this year has already attracted the attention of both TechCrunch and Mashable and now we’ve had the chance to interview them.
For starters they’re very very feature rich and the features don’t just sound great they work great. One of their most popular features is “Price Drop”. Clipix knows when you’ve clipped something that’s from a retail website and notifies you at set variables when they price either drops by percentage or to a certain dollar amount. Sure there are other services that do this but it’s all in one.
The other big feature is the ability to clip things from documents and pdf’s which can come in handy later on. Then you can view the items you’ve clipped via mobile device. It’s actually rather amazing.
You’ll see in the interview below, why Clipix is considered the “Pinterest for the real world”.
Kyle
Although we love our Apple products around here, sometimes getting Apple to play nice with others requires a little work around. In this case we’re talking about the fact that PowerPoint slide shows never show up right on an iPad. This problem had thousands and thousands of startup founders in a frenzy trying to find the best way to get their pitch decks onto their iPads.
Guest
