Comments Off on Virginia Startup: SynkMonkey Keep Your Friends, & Your Plans In Sync INTERVIEW0LikeLike 2,076
We are all very aware of how difficult it is to keep plans in sync when it comes to life on the go running through a smartphone. Whether you’re a group of high school students, fraternity brothers or even golfing buddies, keeping your entire group “in sync” can be a challenge.
Now there’s of course Facebook and Facebook events but one of the huge disadvantages to Facebook is how hard it is to get distracted. I couldn’t tell you the number of times I needed an events address or to ping a friend for somewhere to go and then got sidetracked from my other notifications or even my wall. On the iPhone, iPad or Android phone this can be a wreck.
Enter Charlottesvile Virginia startup SyncMonkey. They combine three very key and important elements in events, activities and staying in sync. Those elements are calendars, mapping and friends. Using this app over traditional event apps keeps you in close contact with everyone that’s supposed to be there.
We got a chance to talk with Hunter Murchison of SyncMonkey about their excited startup, application and some big news, that they’re finally ready for Android. Check out the interview after the break and check out these great interviews, after this one.
Comments Off on Toronto Startup: Angel Tracking Gives Parents A Piece Of Mind INTERVIEW0LikeLike 2,058
AngelTracking is a new app startup out of Toronto Canada. The app is the latest from app development startup Berobo, who’ve already produced a lot of apps for Android, and Blackberry. This newest app, AngelTracking, allows parents to monitor their children’s smart phones in a variety of ways. Theres casual monitoring and then full blown, we’ll send you every text and email monitoring, which me hit a nerve with the privacy advocates.
AngelTracking offers real time stats, real time location and even “surveillance”. If you just want to keep up with your kids whereabouts because you’re concerned about their safety, AngelTracking may be for you. If you also want to see all their photos, messages and emails and get alerts as they travel throughout the city, AngelTracking can do that too.
While the verdict is still out on how well “privacy” nuts will adopt to this kind of surveillance tracking, we got a chance to interview the team behind the app. The interview is below the break:
Citizen Journalism startup Rawporter has reported some very exciting news themselves. The Charlotte based startup has announced that they’ve teamed up with freedom fighter and journalist Matthew VanDyke, who will provide 1st person perspective of the newly liberated Libya, for Rawporter users around the world to use for footage.
“Weʼre excited to participate in this incredibly unique opportunity, Matt is genuinely trying to make a
difference and weʼre extremely proud to assist in his efforts to bring more visibility to Libya while it
undergoes a massive transition,” said Kevin Davis, co-founder. “Weʼve been building a powerful
platform to help people share their stories and this is a great example of our vision being put into
practice.”
Rawporter will have a page (http://rawporter.com/pm/matthewvandyke) dedicated to Mr. VanDykeʼs videos and photos that anyone can view or purchase. Any proceeds from video and photo sales will be donated to a fund for the family of a journalist killed while reporting in a conflict zone. Additionally, Rawporter will be subsidizing a portion of Mr. VanDykeʼs expenses so that he can focus on his mission and worry less about logistics. Mr. VanDyke will attempt to make himself available to respond to assignments if possible but wants to reinforce that there will be significant limitations on his time.
“Citizen journalism played a key role in the Libyan civil war. The videos captured by Libyans in the early days of the revolution were broadcast through the internet and helped mobilize international support for the war. I believe that Rawporter is an innovative company that will facilitate the dissemination of Arab Spring footage from Libya, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain and elsewhere. Their technology will also assist in the broadcast of revolutionary footage from beyond the Arab world that is essential to attracting the attention of the international community to support struggles for freedom worldwide. My partnership with Rawporter is another opportunity for me to contribute to the cause of freedom, as well as another cause I care deeply about – journalism and freedom of the press. I hope that my participation can help expand Rawporterʼs market and give another way for the voices of the oppressed to be heard,” said Matt VanDyke.
Rawporter offers a unique app for both iOS and Android phones that allows users to participate in the action and supply “citizen journalistic” videos and photos for news outlets, media sites, blogs and more to use across the Rawporter network.
Adding this partnership with VanDyke solidifies Rawporter’s commitment to full fledged journalism in addition to their innovative platform.
Here’s a story that’s just screaming “everywhere else”. Two students who actually hail from Arkansas, Brandon Lee and Chris Thibault are two ambitious young entrepreneurs who have built a startup app studio with a twist. Their startup is working out of an incubator at USC where Thibault was a student.
Their development company, called 52apps, is set out to produce 52 high quality apps over the next year. They hope to produce each app in just five days, presumably cheating the startup culture and taking weekends off, which is ok considering they are also students.
While the 52apps concept isn’t entirely new, the way they’ve set out to find app ideas has an interesting twist. The startup held almost a “pitch” event Friday evening. At the event they took app suggestions from all walks of life at an event with a stage, pitches and brainstorming.
Lee and Tthibault heard a ton of great app ideas at their “Idea Day” that was held immediately following a launch and kick off event for their University of South Carolina, Columbia, based company,
These two aren’t guys who just decided to become app developers in College. Both Lee and Thibault are BFFs from high school, who developed their first app while they were till in high school, with the ambitious idea to make math homework easier and more automated. They were able to achieve that as part of a goal to stop taking backpacks to school.
52apps is just one of 32 resident startup companies at a fairly new incubator at UNC.
“These are two- to three-month projects,” said Steve Leicht, who serves as 52apps’ chief executive and part of the management team put together by the incubator and Columbia venture capitalist Don Tomlin, said Tomthe statee.com. “These folks pull it off in a week.”
The duo has already put out their first iOS app under the 52apps umbrella. The app, called Tap Notes, sells for $2.99 in the iTunes app store and helps students, and business professionals take notes, and record conversations for the notes that can be accessed at specific points rather than having to listen to an entire conversation and then pulling what you need.
Lee and Thibault report that they’ve received over 30 great ideas so far and will start developing straight away.
Comments Off on Auburn Alabama Startup: GolfJoust The Perfect FREE Father’s Day Gift0LikeLike 2,386
Auburn Alabama is known for their Auburn Tigers championship football team, Bo Jackson, Cam Netwon and being the alma mater of Apple CEO Tim Cook. It’s not known (yet) for it’s thriving startup scene.
There’s a startup in Auburn hoping to change that, and they are Verge Pipe Media. Verge Pipe Media is a media engagement, social, app developer who’s signature product Golf Joust is turning heads on the golf course because it’s easy, different and a lot more fun than just a boring old score keeping app.
The Verge Pipe team is headed by CEO and founder Don Crow and COO Meredith Singer. Crow had a seasoned career at America Online and has a firm background in media. Singer also has a background in media having worked in television and interactive media throughout their career. They came together last year to work on both Verge Pipe Media and their first major project GolfJoust.
Their office in downtown Auburn is screaming startup culture despite the fact that they’re just a smidgeon older than the 20 something sect of startup founders springing up across the country. That doesn’t matter though, when you walk in there’s of course orange and blue accents, but high top wooden desks, macs everywhere and the classic big ass table in the middle of the office for brainstorming sessions, meetings and lunch. It’s here next to Auburn’s oldest used bookstore and a stone throws away from campus that the magic happens.
You may be asking yourself just how magic can a golf app be. After all Golf Joust is their first signature product. Well Crow and Singer along with their developers have come up with a golf app that combines golf, scoring, daily deals, social networking and gamification into one complete package.
With Golf Joust you keep your score and as you play more rounds you move up through knighthood. You stay social within your golf group (typically of four) and also golfers near you and the entire network.
There’s challenges, badges (for good and bad) and even the ability to get deals from clubhouses and golf courses.
They’re even working on an element of Fantasy golf where you can play against your favorite PGA players at your favorite PGA courses. I really hate paraphrasing EA sports but Golf Joust really lets you get in the game.
Crow and Singer are constantly brainstorming more and more things that they can add to Golf Joust and they aren’t afraid to get out in the trenches. They regularly spend days out on the golf course promoting Golf Joust. Crow admits that while he expected easy adoption from golfers 18-25 their next biggest segment is in their early 40’s like himself.
Crow explained that many people love the game of golf but know their limits and levels so utilizing Golf Joust and then adding the ability to play against their favorite players makes it even more fun. But the social element makes it ripe for “crap talking” against golfing buddies. You can even give badges to your fellow knights when they hit the double bogey.
So while we would never advocate giving someone a free gift for Father’s Day, introducing your dad, or the golfer in your family to Golf Joust for Father’s day may get a thank you for many years to come.
Comments Off on Toronto Startup: Kytephone Is A New Android UI Just For Kids0LikeLike 2,226
A Toronto startup, that was also a member of the winter Y-Combinator class, is hoping to lure parents who are equipping their children with Android powered smartphones. The startup is called Kytephone and it provides a new “launcher” or “UI” to Android phones that it is installed on, with parental controls, great kid friendly graphics and access to apps and functions that children of any age could use.
The best part about Kytephone is it’s customization ability. What Kytephone does, is it allows parents to lockdown certain things on their children’s Android phones. In some cases it could be for younger children so they don’t go off and dial 900 numbers by accident and in other cases it can be customized for tweens or teens to restrict access to features that could get them in trouble.
Kytephone allows the parent to customize access to just about every function of an Android phone. For instance Kytephone could be set up for a younger child, say 4-7 who could use the Kytephone UI to make calls to mom, grandma and brothers and sisters. They could also have access to the phones camera for taking pictures, and maybe a few games.
For tweens and teens, Kytephone allows the parents to set parameters for texting times, and even game playing times. When time is up, the child could be restricted to just texting mom and dad, and they may have to wait until the next day to finish that level on that game they played for an hour.
Kytephone has also found that some of their users are installing the Android app onto phones of senior citizens and elderly folks who may not want the bells and whistles of a full fledged Android smartphone.
There are all kinds of companies out there that are offering some sort of software, similar to Kytephone however it seems that in customization and design Kytephone may have a leg up. In fact one of the competitors, Play Safe, has very similar functionality to Kytephone because their founder, Beakit.com reports, was in the Y-Combinator class with Kytephone co-founder Renat Gautaullin.
Kytephone has since graduated out of Y-Combinator and moved back home to Canada where they are part of the RyersonDMZ Incubator.
Overall Kytephone seems a little more customizable and a lot more robust than competing products. It’s also not tied exclusively to a carrier which means down the road if a user got a new Android phone on a different carrier they could just download Kytephone again and reuse it.
Kytephone is available free in the Google Play store. Gautaullin reports that they are working on some premium features, like timers to close off certain types of apps like games, and other things in the pipeline.
Comments Off on Silicon Beach Fest What To Look Forward To On The 21st0LikeLike 3,220
Over the past weekend both Kyle and I were at startup events, and if you think with all the events so far this month the two of us have been covering is enough you’d be wrong. Later this month I’ll be covering Silicon Beach Fest in Santa Monica California from June 21-23rd. Organizes by Kevin Winston formally of MySpace, and current CEO of Digital LA. Jason Crilly, CEO and Founder of Pagewoo and Efren Toscano. Founder of TechZulu an independent news organization delivering an insightful story of the technology industry by showcasing the very people creating it. Brought together he top Startup Incubators in the Los Angeles area such as Start Engine,io/LA, Idealab, Amplify and others. For this start studded event. When Kevin Winston was questioned about what brought him to creating Silicon Beach Fest, he mentioned to me.
Comments Off on Hollywood Hack A Day, Final Recap0LikeLike 2,208
“It’s like a party, you are afraid that no one will show up”
Rahim Sonawalla mentioned to me about his fears about putting together Hollywood Hack A Day. But boy did they show up. While Kyle was in Memphis for a Launch event this past weekend, I was on the West Coast. More specifically Hollywood California to witness Hollywood Hack Day taking place at io/LA which was nice enough to provide their location to use for the weekend. Put together by Ryan Chisholm, Rahim Sonawalla and Abe Burns, this weekends event expected around around 70 developers, graphic artist, and visionaries to show up. Battling 80 degree crystal clear skies, developers spent all weekend from 0900 on Saturday to 6pm on Sunday putting together not only presentations but working projects as well.
Comments Off on Atlanta Startup: NearbyThis Launched Last Week At Virginia Highland Summerfest0LikeLike 1,887
NearbyThis is exactly what you think it would be, a new “discovery” mobile app for iPhone. Ray Abram CEO of NearbyThis and lead developer Glenn Martin, say that their app is different though because it drills down and geo targets advertising.
“NearbyThis helps consumers see what’s going on around them in real time and save money with daily deals by leveraging social media,” Abram said. “For retailers, NearbyThis offers the power to have two-way conversations with mobile customers. Advertisers, meanwhile, can take advantage of innovative geo-targeted technology by placing ads on users’ phones when they’re nearby places that sell their products.”
“Imagine going to a mall and having all coupons for nearby stores on hand, having the ability to receive realtime communications from the stores, as well as promotions from advertisers selling goods in those stores,” Martin said to the Examiner. “Other advertising models target users by behavior. We do it by proximity, which is more efficient and cost-effective.”
They recently launched NearbyThis at the popular Virginia Highland Summerfest in Atlanta last weekend. It was a great opportunity for them to launch the app in front of tens of thousands of people in an outdoor environment with plenty around to find and discover using NearbyThis.
NearbyThis also aggregates daily deals. We all know about Groupon and Living Social. We also know about the countless emails you can get for daily deals. NearbyThis pulls all that info into their app as well.
We’ve solved the problem with daily deal spam,” Abram said. “You get these emails every day, but you don’t want to unsubscribe because occasionally you find ones you like. We put all deals for nearby places on one page so you can just scroll through the list to see what you like.”
Another key advantage to NearbyThis is that Martin is no stranger to technology, mobile apps and big data. He holds the patents that power the widely popular Kayak.com travel site.
NearbyThis is combining the power of daily deals apps,social networking apps and geo-location or LBS (location based services apps) into one easy to use app and interface.
Comments Off on Day 2 Has Started At Hollywood Hack Day At io/LA0LikeLike 1,673
We are here at Hollywood Hack Day, on a gloomy Sunday in Hollywood California covering what has turned into 70+ programmers from all over So Cal into one place. The idea behind Hollywood Hack Day was to bring Media and Tech together into one. With sponsors like Rovi, ToxBox, Mashery, Rdio, Spotify just to name a few, the programmers here have been coding all throughout the night.
We’ll be covering all the goings on today as well as later tonight and tomorrow have full videos on all the pitches and the winners as the night goes on.
Comments Off on Exclusive: Hands On With Nyko PlayPad Pro0LikeLike 2,012
Nyko, the brand known for its third party controller for consols such as the XBox360, Play Station 3 and Wii is coming to Android with its PlayPad Pro which we got a hands on with at e3. From someone who doesn’t game any more, The PlayPad Pro won me over as a must have accessory to play games on my Android tablet. The controller, looks to be based upon the Xbox360 one pairs to your Android tablet running 3.0 and newer via Bluetooth.
Comments Off on We’ll Be Live At io/LA Covering Hollywood Hack Day0LikeLike 2,949
This weekend, while Kyle will be on the East Coast at another Startup event. I’ll be at a Hackathon on the West Coast covering the Hollywood Hackathon. The event, which has moved to io/LA’s venue near the famed Hollywood and Highland intersection in the middle of Hollywood. Will be filled with those trying to make it into the entertainment field by way of Tech.
Comments Off on Austin Startup MapMyFitness Announces $9 Million Dollar Round0LikeLike 1,739
Austin fitness startup MapMyFitness has received a $9 million dollar round of funding.
SiliconHillsNews is reporting that Austin Ventures and Milestone Venture Partners led the series B round for the fitness app development startup. Competitor Group Inc, and The Running Specialty Group LLC also participated in the round through other business partnerships.
The Austin based startup makes a variety of fitness apps that allow their users to track their progress on their smartphone or other mobile device. They’ve already built up a strong community of over nine million registered users. They are currently adding 25,000 new users per day.
“Austin Ventures’ continuing enthusiasm is a great validation of our success to date. We’re also thrilled to leverage Milestone Venture Partners’ unique expertise on healthcare technology services, and to deepen our business partnerships with Competitor Group and run.com, the e-commerce platform for The Running Specialty Group,” said Richard Jalichandra, chief executive officer of MapMyFITNESS. “This Series B funding allows us to continue innovating and improving our tools for people of all levels to improve their fitness, nutrition and overall health.”
One of MapMyFitness’ strong points is how their apps are resonating within the fitness community. Fitness event producers have used MapMyFitness to track participants progress in races, decathlons and more.
“MapMyFITNESS’ amazing growth of one of the largest audiences of runners, walkers, cyclists and active people has tremendous synergy with what we’re doing at Competitor with events like the Rock N Roll race series,” said Scott Dickey, president and chief executive officer at Competitor Group, Inc.
“The MapMyFITNESS team has created one of the most engaging utilities for fitness enthusiasts, one that complements what we’re trying to do with our new website, run.com,” said Ken Gart, President of The Running Specialty Group.
MapMyFitness is available across multiple platforms. Of course iOS and Android are their leading platforms but it’s also available as a native app for Blackberry, Windows Mobile and iPads.
Comments Off on Massachusetts Startup: iCache Releases Digital Wallet For iPhone0LikeLike 2,390
So far the only true NFC product available to smartphone users is Google Wallet. ISIS, the collaborative effort by AT&T, Verizon Wirless and T-Mobile is slated for a launch sometime this summer. However, Friday, iCache, a Massachusetts based mobile payment startup has released their GeoCard and iCache Geode Wallet.
This $200 accessory is part iPhone case, part card reader, part biometric security system and a whole lot of mobile wallet.
By now we have all realized that bar code scanning on a mobile phone is hit or miss, and anyone who has tried NFC has probably experienced that blank stare from the cashier like you just did the latest human chopping trick from David Copperfield’s arsenal before their very eyes.
Whether Google wants to admit it or not, we are still way ahead of the NFC curve and even further ahead of the NFC revolution.
In the meantime the folks at iCache have figured out safety, security and convenience with the Geode Wallet and GeoCard. The wallet supports all barcode based loyalty and reward cards and all magnetic stripe based credit cards.
For credit cards you simply use the enclosed credit card reader to extract your information to your phone. Then, when you want to use any of your credit cards, you select which one you want to use and it loads that cards info onto your Geode Card which is a rewritable magnetic stripe card. You have one card now, that’s safely and easily stored in the phone case that rewrites your info super quickly and securely onto your Geode Card.
What about safety and security?
The only way you can access the Geode Card on your wallet app is after use inning on using your finger print. Yes, iCache has included a biometric finger print reader. Only after your fingerprint is deleted can you access the wallet and the ability to rite write onto the rewritable card.
As for loyalty cards, they are just as easy. Simply take a picture of every barcode reward and loyalty card you’ve got and it captures the card information. Add a few notes if you would like and you’re ready to roll.
iCache already knows that barcodes are hit or miss on a smartphone or even iPhone screen with retina display, that’s why they’ve included an e-ink display on the back of the case which makes the barcodes as easy to read as on the cards themselves.
Now I know you’re thinking that $199 is a lot for any accessory but now that you really can leave the wallet at home, and it’s super secure, it’s worth every penny. iCache leaves no stone unturned.
Kyle
We are all very aware of how difficult it is to keep plans in sync when it comes to life on the go running through a smartphone. Whether you’re a group of high school students, fraternity brothers or even golfing buddies, keeping your entire group “in sync” can be a challenge.
Nick Tippmann
