Social Media Archives - Page 6 of 9

Austin Startup: Kampfire.co Lets You Play Drinking Games Miles Apart

There’s an interesting new startup in Austin Texas. The startup, called Kampfire.co is hoping to bring together friends, family members and others to socially play drinking games across the internet, enabling both social and video. Of course the startup is only open to those 21 and over.

Co-Founder Joe Wallen told Nibletz.com that this idea came about because friends and family members after college sometimes want to get together for fun, adult socializing. He talked about how you could play beer pong with a buddy who may have been shipped off for the military (off duty of course), or frat brothers who’ve moved away could get together for an evening of fun and games, via the internet.

Now we’re not talking about avatars or animation we’re talking about a real video enabled platform to set up drinking games and play in remote locations.

We told you this was interesting. We spoke to Wallen a little more in-depth about it:

What is Kampfire.com?

The main product will be online gaming/social network, with an online store. This creates not only a forum for sponsors to market their products, but also to market our own line of apparel and merchandise. The targeted consumers are anyone, worldwide, who plays any of the drinking games offered on the website. We will not, however, be confined to cyberspace. The monthly and yearly tournaments can be held live, College vs. College, military branch vs. military branch, and tours are just a few of the other areas that will bring sponsors and new growth. Others are sure to follow once they see the billion dollar industry that we have created.

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Baltimore Startup Parking Panda Launches Service In Washington DC

(photo: Baltimore Sun)

One of the things Cameron and I noticed when we were in Washington DC as part of our nationwide startup road trip, was that their parking meters were equipped for internet payment. That meant we could refill our parking meters while we were meeting with some great startups all over town, and not have to run back to the meter. Convenience had it’s price but we needed to do what we needed to do.

If you don’t want to mess with the high tech innovative meters in DC, or the hassle of finding a space, Baltimore Startup Parking Panda has you covered. Parking Panda works with owners of un-utilized parking spaces. These could be in the form of small lots of the side of buildings, or parking company owned lots that have spaces that aren’t used on a regular basis.

Parking Panda Users can rent spaces using the service and basically pay in advance for a guaranteed spot. This really comes in handy, especially in a city like Washington DC where street parking, even at the meter, can be scarce.

“A city resident myself, I know that finding available parking can be maddening, expensive, and sometimes almost impossible,” said Nick Miller, CEO of Parking Panda. “Parking Panda takes the hassle and expense out of searching for a parking spot. Parking in D.C. will no longer be such a time-consuming, daunting task because people can reserve spots ahead of time and for less money.”

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Chicago Startup: Iconicast’s “Smurks” Puts The Heart In The Machine

How can you share that smile on your face through digital and mobile? How often have you misinterpreted the context of a text message because you didn’t know how the other person was feeling. Does that LOL mean laugh out loud, that’s really funny. Or does that LOL mean laugh out loud you’re really stupid?

Iconicast, a Chicago Startup, co-founder Pat Burns took the stage at DEMO in Santa Clara CA last week and talked about the three stooges movie he just saw. He gave the example of talking with a friend who asked how the movie was. In his presentation he pointed out that if the friend was in front of him the look on his face would tell the complete story.

That’s what smirks is all about. Now when you first look at Smurks, the new app by Iconicast, it may appear to be a 2012 take on the emoticon. However, the gesture based app is an extension of human emotion. Swiping up shows off a happy face, swiping down sad. Left and right offer equally as polarizing emotions via the app. In fact there are many different faces that you can make.

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Chicago’s Lightbank Invests In Santa Monica Startup LifeCrowd

LifeCrowd is a Santa Monica based social startup that helps consumers participate in social events in their city. Lifecrowd users can browse activities ranging from a night full of board games, to rock climbing, band jamming, and wine tasting. They can then invite friends to join in the activities.

They’re different from other sites like Meetup. Meetup lets anyone create groups centered around one focus. LifeCrowd offers all kinds of singular events which strangers can join in on, and in effect be more social. LifeCrowd users create the events but LifeCrowd curates them to make sure only the best events show up.

This $5 million dollar round of financing was led by Chicago’s LightBank and included Bullpen Capital, Baroda Ventures and Prism VentureWorks. As part of the round Lightbank partner Paul Lee will join LifeCrowd’s board of directors. Lightbank is a venture firm formed by Groupon co-founders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell.

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Canadian Startup: Wantser Is the Canadian Version Of Pinterest For Wants

Pinterest has caught on like wild fire. We’ve run several stories about Pinterest and it’s crazy valuations. We’ve heard lately that their active users have gone down however it’s still extremely hot. With Pinterest you can “pin” pictures on the internet. It’s been highly adopted by women who pin everything from the latest fashions, to art projects, home interior decorating ideas and even fashion.

Imagine if you will, pinning the things you want and then having access to the ways to get those things. If you see a fancy new purse on Pinterest instead of pinning it, you “want” it. Well that’s the idea behind Canadian startup Wantster.

CEO Ky Joseph and Chris Edelman a Canadian radio sales executive, started Wantster to do just that. You can simply download the Wantster “want” button to your browser, the same way some do with Pinterest, and when you see something you want, “want it”. With Wantster’s mobile app you can take a picture of something you want for later and put it in your “want” list.

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Columbus OH Startup: Flymuch Launches New VenueSeen Photo Monitoring

Sure most business owners probably have a Google Alert set up for their business. They may also use some kind of clipping/monitoring service and then of course, a smart business owner (startup or not) is using some sort of social media monitoring to see what people are saying and doing about their business. Well now, Columbus OH based startup FlyMuch has launched a new photo monitoring tool for brands.

Did you just have a really great burger from CheeBurger Cheeburger and share it with the world? Did you have a bad experience at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and post a photo of your server? Well whatever it is, business owners, whether they like it or not, are constantly having photos take in their business.

Perhaps there was a great 21st birthday party with a lot of smiling faces at TGIFridays or your 5 year old hit a hole in one at a local miniature golf spot. Businesses want to see it all, the good, the bad, and with VenueSeen, the ugly.

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Is LockerDome St. Louis’ Groupon?

LockerDome is one hot startup coming out of St.Louis. It’s the first ever dedicated sports social network for youth and amateur sports. LockerDome has been likened to the Facebook or LinkedIn for athletes.

LockerDome allows individual sports organizations to develop their own sports networks, and most of the well known sports programs in the country have already joined and have thriving networks. The Dallas Texans, one of the top ranked soccer teams in the country has a LockerDome network, as does the East Coat Pro Showcase, a well known east coast event that’s made up of more than 100 of the 2011 Major League Baseball draft picks.

LockerDome and CEO Gabe Lozano aren’t just making a big name for themselves in the sports world, they’ve already chalked up a lot of funding. In December of 2011 they raised $750,000 in an angel round. Participants in the round include serial entrepreneurs Brian and Carol Matthews, co-founders of Primary Network and CDM Fantasy Sports; Capital Innovators, a St. Louis-based technology accelerator fund; Moosylvania Marketing, a nationally-recognized marketing agency; and Hal Gentry, co-founder of Capital Innovators and GridLogix, among more than a dozen other angel investors.

LockerDome also caught the eye of Square’s co-founder Jim McKelvey who invested and also took a seat on the company’s board of directors. But McKelvey wasn’t easily sold at first. He’s not the kind of investor that looks to pump money into a “flavor of the week” just to catch a big windfall he has three businesses that he’s started and still runs today, including Square which he founded with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

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Exclusive: Italian Startup 20lin.es Prepares To Disrupt Social Collaborative Writing At International Book Fair

A team of 10 relatively young entrepreneurs in Italy have teamed up to create something quite disruptive in the collaborative writing space. The four founders and six collaborators are all between the ages of 24 and 26. Their startup called 20lin.es is set to debut on May 10th during the International Book Fair in Turin.

So how does it work? Writers collaborate with each other in what co-founder Alessandro Biggi calls a 20×6 format. The writers collaborate on what 20lin.es calls a “pill”. A pill is a short story made up of 6 sections with 20 lines each, hence the name 20lin.es.

Biggi took some time to explain to Nibletz how this new innovative collaboration works:

“At any moment, 20lin.es selected users can start a new story by writing a (max) 20lines input that will stay active for 20 days. If other users like such input, they can decide to contribute to the story by writing a second section of max 20lines. More users can then decide to either continue the story by adding a new section or to re-write the previous one. In such a way, every input can be developed in a large/endless number of possibilities. Every story can have max 6 sections while each section can be voted, commented and shared by any user. At the end of the 20 days of activity of the input, there will be a 6-sections story with the highest approval. It has finally became a Pill and it will be digitally published. 20lin.es publications will collect 20 different Pills originated from 20 different inputs or the 20 most liked stories started from the same input. 20lin.es publications will be sold on: iTunes, Amazon and directly on 20lin.es

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NY Startup GiddyUp Launches Social Mobile App For Short Term Planning

GiddyUp Co-Founder Elliott Goldwater asks a very relevant question these days, of the last 10 social apps that you downloaded how many do you still use right now. So I did an inventory. I’ve downloaded 36 apps that fit in the social mobile space. Here are the ones that I still use, at least in some kind of moderation: Hootsuite (all the time), Facebook (all the time), Instagram (quite frequently), Path (moderately), Pinterest (minimally), Sonar (moderately), Glancee (moderately), Trover (a little more than moderately). I’ve dumped countless others including Highlight.

So why bother with another social mobile app. Well as Goldwater points out, Giddy Up is a social mobile app in the truest form. The app allows you to plan and attend events and then communicate through the app using your actual friends regular contact info, novel huh.

Event hosts must sign up for Giddy Up however their friends don’t have to. While Giddy Up has integration with Facebook, and Twitter (with Privacy Controls) the foundation for the event is built upon actual contacts in your contact list. The user creates an RSVPable event.

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3 Fort Lauderdale Entrepreneurs Launch MyNyte A Mobile Nightlife Social Startup

Three young entrepreneurs in Ft. Lauderdale have teamed up to launch an innovative new social mobile startup called MyNyte. The focus is to answer the question “What are you doing tonight” and then team up with your like-minded friends to do the same thing. Essentially, the app helps eliminate the hours of planning, phone tag, text tag, email tag, voicemail tag and any other kind of tag you can play as you plan your evening.

This app is pretty hot, how hot? Well Tyrese for one has been tweeting about it. MyNyte’s co-founder Jimmy Caylor says that Tyrese isn’t the only celebrity that’s checked out the app. A social mobile startup like this could not have picked a better market to introduce itself in as south Florida. We all know that Miami, South Beach and Fort Lauderdale are the hubs for night-time entertainment.

The three guys that founded MyNyte are no strangers to nightlife and the partying scene. Through their own personal experiences and the experiences of their friends they’ve made sure that MyNyte has everything taken care of.

Planning your night- MyNyte helps you scout the perfect places. Whether you’re looking for an upscale night of martinis, cocktails and lounging or you’re looking for the hottest clubs with the best people MyNyte uses your profile to match you up with the action.

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European Startup King.com Beats Out Electronic Arts On Facebook

While we admit we are skeptical on the fact that king.com calls themselves a startup, they do so to that end we will as well. Outside of them being a startup though, this little known game development studio in London has overtaken Electronic Arts in terms of daily app users for their Facebook games.

Admittedly, they aren’t anywhere near eclipsing Facebook giant Zynga but they have their sites set on Zynga. According to this report from the Chicago Tribune, king.com’s game Bubble Witch Saga has more daily active players than Zynga’s smash hit Farmville. Impressive. But not quite the 65 million daily users Zynga has across all of their titles.

King.com’s most recent launch, a game called Candy Crush Saga, has already crossed the half a million daily users threshold. That game just debuted last week.

“Our ultimate ambition is to be the leader in our segment of games for the casual social player, mainly female, social and mobile,” King.com’s Chief Executive and co-founder Riccardo Zacconi said in an interview with Reuters. He continued, “Our target is to reach Zynga.”

Across Facebook and other channels King.com reports that they have 2.5 billion games played per month. Although they started out before Facebook gaming became popular a lot of their game plays comes from Facebook. Zynga has been reportedly looking at options outside of Facebook and King.com says they are looking at other places to host their casual games as well.

King.com lacks in the mobile world and plans to change that this year by introducing their most popular titles to iOS and Android. That’s a space where EA and Zynga have already been successful.

source: ChicagoTribune

Utah High School Teacher Organizes Entrepreneurship/Startup Google+ Hangout With Shark Tank’s Daymond John

Daymond John the entrepreneur and brains behind the worldwide brand FuBu has been speaking to folks about the trials and tribulations of startups and entrepreneurship for years. Since he took his business from the trunk of the car and made it a recognized brand on every street corner in America and around the world John has been passionate about business. It also helps that he has been one of the panelists on ABC’s Shark Tank for all three seasons.

That’s why Utah High School Business teacher Jeff McCauley was resilient in trying to contact John for some kind of entrepreneurship event with his students. Originally McCauley had wanted to Skype with John and his class however that idea took a pivot in the year it took to nail a date down. What ended up happening was nothing short of phenomenal for the over 100 high school kids around the country that attended the hangout on Google’s Google+ Hangout platform.

McCauley is no stranger to Shark Tank either. He admits to showing the program to his students to show real life examples of the lessons that he teaches everyday.

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