Comments Off on Bonfyre: The Official App For Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference0LikeLike 2,623
With everywhereelse.co the startup conference a little over a week away we want to make sure that everyone knows what app to use to keep up with all the action at the biggest startup conference in the U.S., whether you’re at home or at the event.
Bonfyre is the official app for everywhereelse.co the startup conference. Download the app today from the iTunes app store then join the Bonfyre for everywhereelse.co. You’ll be able to keep up with the schedule, panels, speakers, startup village and everything happening in Grind City February 10th-12th.
Bonfyre debuted their most recent version of their app at DEMO in Silicon Valley last fall. They also partnered with the Powder Keg conference in Indianapolis.
Just as they did with PowderKeg, Bonfyre will allow entrepreneurs, startup founders, investors, panelists, and startup support to keep up with all the conference go-ers in the event’s own channel.
Nibletz has been reporting on Bonfyre since last year. They’ve raised $750,000 dollars so far led by the St. Louis Arch Angels and Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square, who sits on Bonfyre’s board. To date, the St. Louis startup has partnered with the NFL’s St. Louis Rams for three games.
Not only that but one lucky person that downloads and registers for Bonfyre for the conference will walk away from Memphis with a brand new iPad Mini (16gb wifi only). It’s that easy.
Comments Off on Boston Startup: BRIGHTdriver Has Mobile Games Even The Driver Can Play0LikeLike 2,960
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.
Comments Off on Mississippi Startup YeHive Share & Attend Events Socially! Launches Today0LikeLike 2,548
Typically when we get an email or pitch that has the words “event” and “app” in the same pitch, we get skeptical. The event space is a crowded space and an extremely hard nut to crack. We were actually referred to YeHive by our lawyer who is one of the leads in the firms emerging technologies practice. In other words he sees a lot of startups. I told our lawyer of my ambivalence about “event startups” but he insisted we check it out.
So Thursday morning we got a walk through of YeHive from the startups co-founder Brad Fuller.
YeHive isn’t about event discovery, it’s about making events more social. YeHive combines photos, videos, comments and a timeline to any event. Users can easily create an impromptu event or participate in an ongoing event. When you log into your YeHive account and then an event on YeHive all of your photos and videos get uploaded to the event. You can comment on other users photos and videos and also comment on the events timeline.
YeHive then archives all of the photos, videos and timeline entries, right now “forever”, Fuller told us. If you’ve set up a YeHive for a wedding, birthday party or even a camping trip you’ll be able to go back and check out the memories. If you participated in a YeHive for a sporting event you’ll be able to replay all the action directly from YeHive anytime you want.
Fuller and his co-founders haven’t cut any corners in building out YeHive. The website is built and functioning and for mobile they are debuting in the Google Play store and the Apple iTunes App Store today, simultaneously insuring just about anyone who wants to try it, can.
We got a chance to interview Fuller, check out the interview below.
Comments Off on Chicago Startup: WalkJogRun Keeps Track When You Walk, Jog Or Run INTERVIEW0LikeLike 1,950
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:
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 3,236
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”.
Comments Off on Interview With Austin Startup: NOOM, Next One’s On Me0LikeLike 2,106
Late last week we brought you the story about Baltimore startup BeerGivr which allows people to buy their friends beer using their mobile phone from a remote location, at participating beers. The concept is easy, if you can’t join your friends at the bar you can still pick up a round or buy the birthday girl/boy a shot or beer. You sign into the app, and let it know how many beers and voila its done. BeerGivr has partnered with bars in their hometown for testing. If you buy a friend a beer and they’re not at a participating bar or restaurant they can have that beer converted into Paypal dollars.
Well an Austin startup has taken a similar concept and expanded it to a wide variety of offerings primarily in the under $10 arena. With NOOM (Next One’s On Me), you can buy a gift for a friend using your mobile phone. Ideas include cupcakes,coffee, beers, lunch etc. You simply send your friend a virtual gift certificate through NOOM and they actually get the gift.
NOOM co-founder Sara Rodell gives us a great use case example in our interview below. Say you just met a great new friend or business colleague, it would be very awkward to shake hands and give them $5 or $10 and say “hey the next coffee is on me”, but with NOOM it’s a gesture appreciated, and used.
Right now NOOM is available in the Apple iTunes store and exclusively for Austin area merchants however they are expanding quickly and plan on bringing Houston on in the very near future. NOOM currently has 20 Austin area merchants participating including bakeries, ice cream shops, coffee shops, restaurants and bars.
Comments Off on German Startup: Honestly.de Says They’re The Easiest Way To Give Feedback INTERVIEW0LikeLike 2,548
Giving feedback should be easy. When you take into consideration that most businesses that want your feedback have already somehow earned your money, than you want the easiest most simplest way to get that feedback. Even when you get $10 off your next meal or a buy one get one free, many of those surveys at the bottom of receipts are never answered.
Once you’ve been on the phone with a customer service department for 30 minutes the last thing you want to do is take some kind of survey. That may seem easy enough to you, but it’s not.
That’s why German startup honestly.de has come up with what they call is, the “easiest way to leave feedback”. Honestly.de promises that within 30 seconds you’ll be able to leave feedback for any service organization, and reach the pertinent people. That’s a pretty lofty goal, with the two hardest parts being building scale and engagement.
We got a chance to talk to Honetsly.de about their new startup. Check out the interview below:
Comments Off on New Orleans EdTech Startup Dash Technologies Releasing Dash For Teachers App Interview0LikeLike 1,673
Three educators in New Orleans have teamed up to form Dash Technologies a new startup focusing on educational apps for teachers. Their first app “Dash For Teachers” will hit the Apple iTunes app store on Wednesday.
Dash4Teachers is almost like a CRM app for teachers to keep tabs on students performance, log that performance and than generate a quick speed dial list so that teachers can make those ever important calls to parents. With the Dash4Teachers app, when the student’s performance is logged the app knows what parameters are set that distinguish parents that need to be called over parents of students who’s performance is up to par.
This is a valuable tool for busy teachers and busy parents. It also increases the communication between teacher and parent for the students benefit.
We had a chance to interview Dash Technologies about their exciting new app. Check out the interview below and look for the app in the iTunes app store tomorrow.
Comments Off on Apple Fixes Issue With App Store That Caused Thousands Of Apps To Crash0LikeLike 2,165
Apple is a company that usually doesn’t have very many issues when it comes to iTunes or the App Store–at least as far as malware and large coding errors are concerned. However, this week has been a tough one for Apple, users, and developers alike as one of Apple’s servers had an issue delivering DRM code to the apps updated or downloaded. This faulty coding caused apps to misbehave and crash upon opening in many cases–nearly thousands in the App Store were affected. While this was just for a very brief period of time, a lot of uneasy customers were afraid their iPhone was either being attacked by malware or completely malfunctioning when it came to third-party apps.
The company issued a fix today however, that took care of most of the issues that we know of, and a few we didn’t. First, Apple fixed all of the apps added to the App Store or updated, and then pushed an update to apps that were affected for users to download. They also took care of the developers as well, by reviewing not just 1-star reviews, but all reviews published about an app that was affected. Ensuring that both users and developers have been taken care of, Apple again shows why they have the reputation of some of the best customer service around. If you have an iDevice that was suffering from any of these crashes or issues, be sure to check the App Store and receive the necessary updates.
Comments Off on Madison Startup: SeatSwapr Facilitates That Airline Seat Swap For You0LikeLike 2,526
Last week, when we stopped in Madison Wisconsin as part of the Nibletz sneaker strapped, nationwide startup road trip we took office hours with 10 hungry entrepreneurs and startup founders. One of those founders was Thomas Mueller who is hoping to take something that happens on lots of airlines, streamline it and execute it through an app.
Seat swapping is nothing new. A lot of people get on an airplane and realize for some reason or another the seat that they picked or have been assigned isn’t going to work out. At that point, if the plane is full, the passenger is stuck. Sometimes when this happens you’ll hear people trading seats or even selling their seats. In fact I’ve done this a number of times. I often select an exit row seat and then someone really tall comes along and wants the seat with the extra leg room. More often than not I’m offered between $20 and $60 to swap seats. (as long as they’re coming from an aisle seat I typically do it. I don’t do window seats, you get out of the plane quicker on the aisle).
Well Mueller is also very familiar with this practice. Every now and then you’ll see seat swap requests on major flights happen on Twitter. Typically the bi-coastal NY/SF or NY/LA flights have the most traffic on Twitter. Tweets will read “I’m on NY/LA Flight XXX and need an aisle seat $50”.
Interestingly enough the flight attendants don’t seem to care as long as you don’t delay them starting their safety instructions, and of course don’t interrupt the flow of other passengers getting to their seats.
Well Mueller realizes that websites like seatguru and seatexpert already know which seats are the best. Other sites like tripit know what flight your on and of course all the airlines offer viewable maps online of the inside of the plane so you can see where your seat is.
When you put all this information together and then tie it in with a mobile app you have the opportunity to create a seat swapping app.
Now it’s not as easy as it sounds and Mueller is ready to face the challenge. Of course with any mobile app the first thing a founder wants to do is build scale. Mueller has to build tremendous scale because for the app to work, two people need to be on the same flight. In addition as Mueller told us “If a plane is half full there’s no market for us”.
That doesn’t seem to be a problem though because since 9/11 airlines have reduced their number of flights and have tried to fill every plane to capacity. The load factor right now is 83% full while some of the more popular flights like New York to San Francisco are 98% full. Those are the flights where people would really benefit from an app like SeatSwapr.
Mueller is hoping to partner with some of the other travel sites to implement his technology.
Comments Off on Seattle Startup: iHear Network Is Like Your Own Personal News Radio Station INTERVIEW0LikeLike 2,053
A Seattle startup is revolutionizing the way you consume news. The startup is called iHear Network and their first product takes your news, tweets and other information and reads them aloud for you. It’s a text-to-speech app that focuses on the news, information and social items you want to hear.
Their first app launched ahead of SXSW 2011 and was designed to read tweets aloud to you. The Seattle based startup, founded by Matt Fitzsimmons, Matthew Markus and Geoff Simons has gone beyond Twitter to news and information.
We got a chance to talk with iHear Network CEO Paul Simons. Check out the interview below the break.
Comments Off on Toronto Startup: Angel Tracking Gives Parents A Piece Of Mind INTERVIEW0LikeLike 1,660
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:
Comments Off on Auburn Alabama Startup: GolfJoust The Perfect FREE Father’s Day Gift0LikeLike 1,957
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.
Kyle
With everywhereelse.co the startup conference a little over a week away we want to make sure that everyone knows what app to use to keep up with all the action at the biggest startup conference in the U.S., whether you’re at home or at the event.
Startropica
Elijah Ketchum
