Sarah Ware And Her DC Startup Markerly Are Making Their Mark INTERVIEW

Sarah Ware is the founder of new social bookmarking platform Markerly. She was working at the DC office of LivingSocial before branching out on her own to found this unique tool, that’s intuitive, fun and useful.

Markerly is a social bookmarking tool that sits in your browser like a bookmarklet for when you need it. When you need it or you want to use it you simply click on the Markerly button, highlight text and then you can save that text for later, save it as a bookmark or share it via Twitter or Facebook with your highlighted text and the entire article so others can see what you highlighted and the context around it.

Ware, a New Jersey native, is getting her name out in the DC tech and startup circles. One of the key points to Markerly is sharing and that shines through in Ware’s own personality, reaching out to other DC area startups and helping where she can and soaking up information when she can.

We got the chance to talk to this rock star founder about Markerly, in the interview below:

Indiana Startup: Volunteer Your Voice, So Easy A Congressman Could Do it VIDEO

An Indiana startup called Volunteer Your Voice has streamlined the phonebank process.

If you’ve ever had to execute a phone bank campaign you’ve probably experienced a long and tedious process. Most phone banks rely on volunteers which makes even finding out who’s helping a task in itself. After you’ve got your volunteers set up you have to set up the phone bank, print surveys and register the volunteers to the phone.

Then the next long step starts, which is training the volunteers on that particular banks mission, survey and goals. And then you wait…

Once the volunteers are done you tear down the phone bank, wait for results,and prepare reports.

Volunteeryourvoice.com has revolutionized this whole process from the top down. The biggest way they’ve changed the phone-bank industry is that you’ll use your own computer and headset and their built in telephony to actual make the calls. This saves the campaign huge amounts of money in overhead and means you can do the surveying from the comfort of your own home. If you have a PC headset and a high speed internet connection you’re ready to go and the quality is great.

If you don’t have a PC headset or a high speed internet connection you have the option of routing calls through your own personal phone, a landline or a cell phone/smartphone will work. The calls will be routed similar to the way Google Voice routes calls. This still insures that you can keep great data on the success of the campaign and that the people administering the campaign can still monitor your calls.

Volunteeryourvoice.com’s web based dashboard provides campaign administers easy access to real time reporting.

We got a chance to interview Jayson Manship the founder of volunteeryourvoice.com in the video interview below. He talks about their new SaaS platform and the industries that they serve. Naturally they are in the political space along with nonprofit surveys and alumni phonebanking for schools on pledge drives.

Check out this cool startup video:

Linkage:

Check out VolunteerYourVoice here

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more startups from our Road Trip

Nibletz could use your help!

Interview With Prague Startup: Pickerio A Community For Sports Picks

Sportspicks.cz is a Czech startup that offers sports picks for sports betting from some of the top betting professionals in Prague and the Czech Republic. The best sports pickers offer their picks in a premium package of 30 picks at a time so that those who bet on sports can get the best handful of picks to place their bets on.

According to their founder Jakub Chovanec, SportsPicks.cz has done pretty well but he wanted to branch out to the rest of the world. Not only that but he wanted the opportunity to crowdsource picks from the best amateur sports pickers as well. That’s why they created Pickerio.com

Pickerio is a social network of sorts for people that enjoy sports betting. As an amateur sports picker you can write blog posts and add your favorite sports picks to share with your followers and the community. As you prove yourself as a sports picker opportunity opens up for you to start selling your sports picks to other sports gamblers.

Chovanec is relying on the experience of sportspicks.cz to pave the way for a more community based site. While online sports betting is technically illegal in the United States, buying sports picks is not. You could equate this to the several traditional publications that exist out there for sports betters and folks who wager on horses use to base their decisions on.

Pickerio’s unique quality is the fact that amateur sports pickers can actually gain traction and start making money on the side by offering up their picks (provided they are panning out).

We got a chance to interview Chovanec about Pickerio in the interview below:

UK Startup: Mapov Has A New Way To Find Hotels, INTERVIEW

Sure sites look HotelTonight and Hotels.com are awesome places to shop for hotels while on the go by price and features. The problem is you have to toggle between their apps and your maps app when trying to plan out your stay. Even with the ability to drill down on the hotels.com app for iPhone and Android, by address, or venue, to get real distance and directions you need your map.

Mapov makes it easier to find hotels, and the best deals on hotels by adding a hotel layer on top of your existing Google Maps. They also harness the power of TripAdvisor for reviews, and multiple sites for the best rates. It’s like Kayak, meets hotels.com, meets priceline meets Google Maps.

We got a chance to talk with the team behind Mapov in the internet below.

Chuck Gordon & Mario Feghali Storage Warriors With Austin Startup SpareFoot

Chuck Gordon (L) Has recently lost the Justin Bieber-esque mop top (photo: forbes.com)

When you think about tech startup and storage nine times out of ten you think about cloud storage, or flash storage, RAM, DDR and any number of things. Well Austin Texas startup SpareFoot is about real storage.

Think Uncle Fred’s Storage on the side of route 40 or Grandma’s Attic storage facility tucked away behind the rest stop. Those storage facilities, the ones featured on Storage Wars, are what SpareFoot is all about.

It’s understandable at this day and age you don’t have time to go up and down the highway trying to find the best deal for your extra things. That’s why SpareFoot allows you to go to one website, figure out where you want to store your stuff, how much stuff you want to store and how long you want to store it for. After you input a little data the magical SpareFoot platform comes to life and serves up suggestions for the best self storage facility and option for you.

Two UCLA implants into Austin; Chuck Gordon and Mario Freghali are the brain power behind this startup that is firmly entrenched in the $22 billion dollar storage industry.

SpareFoot is an alumnus of the Capital Factory accelerator and is funded to the beat of $4.5 million, not too shabby, or as Dave on Storage Wars would say “yuuupppppp”. We got a chance to talk to the SpareFoot team in the interview below.

Romanian Startup PagePeeker Provides An Easy Platform For Screenshots INTERVIEW

As an Apple and Mac user for over 25 years I’ve never really had to go elsewhere to find a screen shot. My fingers just inherently go command+shift+4 anytime I need a screenshot and we tidy them up in photoshop. Apparently though, it’s not as easy for those of you using a Windows based machine. Thank goodness for startups like PagePeeker.

PagePeeker is a Romanian startup that makes screen shots and thumbnails a breeze. They bill themselves as the first commercial provider of full page screenshots. Now in all fairness full page screenshots can be tricky even for a Mac. They also offer a superior two step thumbnail generation. Everyone needs a great place to find thumbnails, just take one look at the train wreck of a slide show that our theme creates.

PagePeeker keeps things quick. In fact they are so quick that they keep a current graph on their website that shows the load time for their site, often times with very little load at all.

Does this mean no ones using the service? Well according to PagePeeker co-founder Sorin Vinatoru, they have plenty of customers and their process is so efficient the load time is often next to nothing. This is important in the fast paced blog and websphere.

We got a chance to interview Vinatoru in the interview below:

London Startup: GreenLight, Not Just Another Social Discovery App INTERVIEW

Everyone could use more friends right? Well now that finding friends has turned to social networks and everyone wants to be the match.com for friends, social discovery has become a common household phrase (at least in startup circles).

Most social discovery platforms use your social graph to determine who you need to meet. For instance, before being acquired by Facebook, Glancee would use your likes and interests on Facebook to match you with likeminded people close by. We quickly realized how faulty this process was.

Case in point, I signed up for Glancee, and used it at SXSW. Now for whatever reason, when Mark Zuckerberg got a new puppy named Beast, I liked him on Facebook. Shortly after that when I attended SXSW this year I was matched up with 30 people who also liked Mark Zuckerberg’s puppy. Maybe we should have started a fan club and had a drinking party or something but really that raw data algorithm is flawed.

Gaz Evans, one of the co-founders of GreenLight, tells us that their social discovery platform is better. They actually ask personality driven questions about each user in order to match them up with other users. They also tap the users social graph so some of their likes are built in, but overall this may be a good alternative to other social discovery platforms.

We got a chance to interview Evans and the team from GreenLight, check the interview out below. You better read it quick though, before the next social discovery platform comes along.

Tired Of Giving Crappy Gifts? Check Out Baltimore Startup: NoBadGift INTERVIEW

Nobody likes a bad gift. Receiving bad gifts can be a very uncomfortable experience. As you’re looking at that sweater that went out of style in 1990 you’ve got to smile and say thank you. Then you’re tasked with having to decide whether to hold onto that sweater for the next time your auntie comes over, return it, regift it or throw it away.

The other problem with gifting is that even though you know darn well what you want for your gifts most people just say they don’t. No one wants to feel like they’re asking for anything.

Enter NoBadGift. As the name suggests, this Baltimore startup insures you give a great gift. Why, because the recipient crowdfunds the gift that they really want from friends and family members. The Mike Washington, one of the co-founders of NoBadGift, came up with the idea for the startup when his father wanted an iPad for Christmas one year. After pooling the money for the iPad from his siblings he had an epiphany “why not do this online”.

We got a chance to talk with the team from NoBadGift in the interview below. They tell us about their gift funding system an Baltimore’s explosive startup scene. Of course being from Baltimore we love reporting about Baltimore startups.

Pennsylvania Startup: Gateskip Brings The Off Line Networking Model Online

Before you jump into this story thinking that Gateskip is just another LinkedIn wannabe, that’s not the case at all. LinkedIn is a great social network for business professionals. It’s also a great place to graduate from your Facebook existence, to just about the rest of your life.

LinkedIn has several non-intrusive ways of encouraging networking among it’s members, but they shy away from meeting new people. In fact when you want to connect with someone it asks you how you know them. If you’re familiar with traditional Chamber of Commerce business after hours, or breakfast before hours models, the purpose of the “networking” element is to meet new people.

That’s where Conshohocken Pennsylvania based Gateskip comes in. Gateskip, along with sole founder Dan Esposito, want to bring certain elements from business after hours, breakfast before hours and BNI events to the web through this new network.

While I’ve personally used LinkedIn to outsource some work and projects to people I had some kind of connection with, the ultimate purpose for LinkedIn is to serve as a social network for professionals. Gateskip is more of a business network. If you’re not sure about the difference, read on to the interview below.

While LinkedIn is connecting you to friends you may have had in high school or relationships you’ve formed through business, Gateskip is about generating leads for new found colleagues and exposing one users services to another user. Alas, it’s about actual networking.

Esposito talks to us in the interview below about Gateskip and Conshohocken which Esposito says is the Silicon Valley of Pennsylvania. It’s also home to startups like the new Scott Thompson led ShopRunner, half.com and OpenDesks just to name a few.

Yes Great Ideas Do Happen In The Shower, Interview With NY Startup Room Hints

If you like nice things, beautiful things, picturesque things but just need a little help with you’re interior design project, no worries there’s an app for that (soon). While there may be a few apps and platforms coming up in the interior design space that doesn’t worry Tiff Wilson and the team behind New York based Room Hints. In fact, they label themselves as weird, extreme and fearless, a combination that can only lead to impeccable style.

Room Hints iPhone app is currently in a private beta and you can sign up here to try it out. The app provides a host of ways to get recommendations on the latest fashions and trends in your homes. You can see what other Room Hints users are doing, you can share your ideas and designs with friends, and the app itself will suggest great design pieces as well.

Room Hints also has professional designers on board that can help you complete that interior design product. Imagine having a teen tiny interior designer at your beck and call on your smartphone. It’s like a private shopper but for interior design.

We got a chance to check in with Tiff as the team prepares for a more grand-scale launch.

Buenos Aires Startup: Citibuddies Wants To Be Your Buddy In Every City INTERVIEW

Citibuddies is a new startup that just relocated from Europe to Latin America, and they’re now happy to call Buenos Aires home. As you may be able to tell from the headline, Citibuddies wants to be your buddy in whatever city youre in.

It’s much like Poynt but a little more social. Citibuddies connects people with places and events in cities. They’re hoping to become the go to app that can tell you what to do, where to go and who to meet. Citibuddies uses a robust algorithm and collects data from your social network so you don’t have to input a bunch of information into your profile. From there it starts it’s magic by finding like minded people, events and places.

While they don’t do a badge system in Citibuddies they do have Citi Champions who are well versed in the local city and can help out the other users. CitiBuddies hope to make it easier for people visiting a city to connect as if they were locals.

We got a chance to interview Darja Gutnick one of Citibuddies founders below.

Meet TellBob He’s A Canadian Startup Rewarding People For Taking Surveys On Their Mobile Device

Getting customer feedback can be tricky. Almost every kind of survey engagement tactic has been tried time and time again. It’s hard to get someone to take a survey for a chance to win $10,000 or even a free meal the next time you visit a restaurant. Companies need this valuable data, and the survey platform that can pull it off is going to win.

That’s where TellBob comes in. This Canadian based startup with a really cool name is all about having customers take surveys on their smartphone and then getting rewarded instantly for participating.

So TellBob isn’t really a guy named Bob in fact it’s two guys Trevor Howie and Dan Renaud. They came up with the idea back in 2007 after visiting a Home Depot and thinking how great it would be if you could get some kind of instant gratification for completing their customer service survey.

With TellBob’s reward program the customer is rewarded instantly and they can save or trade their rewards with their friends and even share the entire experience on Facebook. It’s a win for their survey customers as well. TellBob can give back some great information and even confirm that the person completing the survey was actually at the location.

We got a chance to interview TellBob, well actually Howie, check out that interview below.

Interview With Romanian Startup: MonitorBacklinks

Don’t you just love it when a startup comes up with an idea and the name of the startup directly reflects that idea. Such is the case with Romanian startup MonitorBacklinks. Founder Razvan Girmacea has created MonitorBacklinks to make it easier for any publisher, webmaster, or blogger to monitor their backlinks.

Girmacea’s software checks all of a websites backlinks and then sends a notification when the status of a backlink changes, for example if it disappears, reappears or moves.

When vying for pagerank backlinks play a big part into the SEO of any website.

In the interview below Girmacea talks about MonitorBacklinks and how easy he has made it for the end user. He also sheds some light on the budding entrepreneurship and startup scene in Romania.

Interview With Canadian Startup Hashcaster

Back in June we brought you this story about Canadian startup Hashcaster. Hashcaster provides a curation, and measurement (analytics) platform for event coordinators to manage their social media graph. It really comes in handy when gauging the effect of marketing, press and media efforts on behalf of an event just about any size.

At Social Media Camp in June not only was Hashcaster used by the event organizers but they also received a “Coastie” for “Most Innovative Social Media Product or Technology”.

Event organizers everywhere are counting on social marketing efforts more and more everyday as traditional marketing has fallen to the wayside. Organizers need to be able to capture tweets, likes, and mentions and then aggregate them, and analyze them to make sure the cohesive message is getting across. They also want to know who their top influencers are and what kind of impact any paid social marketing may have had.

All of these things are why Geoff Clendenning and Paul Vet created Hashcaster.

Now social media dashboards are nothing new but this particular use case is. Hashcaster also takes into consideration that the social graph of a particular event is going to swell as the event draws closer. When you’re at a popular event, especially one with a social media focus, tweets, likes and mentions can come in a matter of seconds.

We got a chance to interview Clendenning about Hashcaster, check out the interview below: