If you live in a big metro area or one of those areas like Hampton Roads Virginia that’s like nine cities built into one, than a job search can be painful based on the geography alone. Take Houston for example, a quick internet search revealed hundreds of jobs in Houston, most of the ads without addresses. Hmmm, what is someone to do, especially someone that doesn’t drive.
Never fear, a Houston entrepreneur has set out to solve that problem with a very interesting startup that meshes job searching and Google Maps. The startup, called JobPlotter, does exactly what you’d imagine with the background info we’ve provided, it plots available jobs on a Google Map.
Why didn’t you think of that? That’s easy because Paul Chittenden did. After experiencing the pain of looking for a job and then locating the job prospects on a map, in Houston.
In the interview below the break, Chittenden explains how he came about the idea for JobPlotter and how they are integrating job data into a Google Map. Now, JobPlotter users can find jobs, and then find where the job actually is.
Comments Off on Virginia Startup: SynkMonkey Keep Your Friends, & Your Plans In Sync INTERVIEW0LikeLike 2,011
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 London Startup: StreetPin Takes The Community Bulletin Board Mobile0LikeLike 2,453
By a show of hands who’s old enough to remember the community bulletin board at the grocery store? Sure there are probably some grocery stores that still have them, but they don’t fill up like they used to. Everyone has resorted to some kind of app or some kind of social network.
Well London startup StreetPin is looking to bring the community bulletin board back in a social, mobile sort of way. It’s actually a novel concept. They are of course building it in London and hopefully they will scale up large enough to adopt here in the U.S.
Now we know that Craigslist has a community section but StreetPin is more about short little pin up notes that are looking for reaction, remedy and answers as quick as possible. It’s kind of like a simplified version of both Craigslist and Zaarly all rolled up into one with a sense of urgency and immediacy about it.
We got a chance to talk with StreetPin co-founder and CEO Tim Buick about StreetPin. He gives some great examples of how to use the new service in the interview below the break.
Comments Off on Michigan Startup: What’s Shakin Tells You What’s Shakin By Location0LikeLike 1,771
While we try to manage our hashtags on Twitter every now and then we find that we deviate to make sure the umpteen hundred hashtags for events, startups and the like are all hit to gather the same news. When we’re at an event, conference or convention, those hash tags get worse.
Take the International Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas every January for instance. At this years CES there were people using #CES #CES2012 #CES12 #EurekaPark #CESLasVegas #CESLV and several other variants. What’s Shakin handles that problem.
What’s Shakin is able to manage the social media throughput at an event, or venue by location. Now it’s not about the tag but rather the location the tag was created in, providing people are using geolocation in conjunction with the tags.
Now if you wanted to keep up with the social activity at the One Direction concert you don’t have to track 20 different hash tags, just one location with What’s Shakin.
We got to talk to Chris Hashley (I know great last name for this right?), about What’s Shakin in the interview below the break.
Comments Off on NY Start Up: Moteevate Keeps You Motivated To Get Through Your Plans0LikeLike 1,753
If you’re one of those people with great plans and bad follow through than this New York startup may be for you. Moteevate is a motivational site that helps people going on their goals and plans. This is achieved by offering a huge knowledge base of action plans that use easy and manageable steps for just about anything and everything.
Moteevate offers a ton of action plans on a wide range of topics like the arts, business and money, coaching and motivation, music, health and fitness, pets and many more.
You can also create your own goals and action plans and then recruit your social networks aka Facebook friends and motivate friends, to cheer you on and help you with your progress.
For instance, if you’re looking to lose weight you can set up an action plan for diet and exercise or use one of the suggested action plans via Moteevate. Either way, once you’ve picked your plan your friends can monitor your progress and help you out when you’re having an off day and cheer you on when you’re on target.
Moteevate has already helped users with job hunting, finishing their thesis, running, staying in shape while traveling and even conquering the medicine regiment associated with breast cancer. As they said in the interview below, Moteevate is for just about anything, and everything.
I was combing through over 5,000 emails from the last week and saw a pitch from Po-Motion in Winnipeg Canada. They said “please help it’s hard for us to get coverage out here”. So after I had them send back a one sentence pitch, and they sent back a full pitch, I was like, ok that’s what Po-Motion is all aboat (intentionally spelled wrong).
Po-Motion is affordable,customizable easy to use interactive floor and wall software. It’s like the Nintendo PowerPad on crack, but really without the pad, or the console. You simply connect your web cam and a projector to po-motion’s proprietary software and you’re literally off to the races, the ice rink, the dance hall, or wherever else your imagination takes you. Just check out this video so you understand what I’m talking about.
PO-MOtion is affordable, customizable, easy to use interactive floor and wall display software which responds to physical user activity. PO-MOtion is patent-pending, and includes a family of products to allow the audience to connect with the client’s message on an emotional level. A combination of award winning design, artificial intelligence, gesture controls, and motion tracking are used to make interactive advertising displays, promotional signage, and educational games for clients like Google Tokyo, Air New Zealand, and museums around North America.
PO-MOtion is designed for consumer grade electronics, making it accessible to a much wider market than competitive products. The Motion Maker customization tools, (available now), and contributor features, (launching next month), are free to try and allow a community of software users to create and share interactive floor and wall content through the PO-MOtion online platform.
What are some practical uses?
– Crazy video game
– an amazing version of Twister
– Dj’s bars and clubs will love this technology
– Science centers, museums and exhibitors
– Amazing golf games
– Amazing inter actives at restaurants and retail (check out the rock pond on their website)
and so much more.
Now here’s the best part, Po-Motion makes it easy for people with minimal programming experience to harness the power of their software. It’s also not bajillions of dollars. They have several very affordable plans for creating what you’re going to do with po-motion.
Comments Off on Toronto Startup: Konekt.Me Helping Build Personal Brands INTERVIEW0LikeLike 1,696
You’ve probably been hearing more and more about personal brands lately, and that’s a good thing. Years ago, the contents of your personal brand typically fit on one or two sheets of quality 8 1/2 x 11 paper. If you were really lucky you had that really heavy paper with the lawyer finish. Resumes were about the only personal brand identifiers available. If you were in media that could be complimented by a head shot, with your resume on the back.
Nowadays with the web, photos, movies, and hot graphics your personal brand can tell a lot more of your story. Your personal brand can include your work history, education, likes, recreational activities, heck even pictures of your dogs and your cats. Now, personal brand is all about you.
Sure there are personal branding sites out there like about.me however Toronto startup Konekt.me is hoping to make their mark by offering an even easier to use platform and a method of uploading that will knock our socks off.
Konekt.me is based in Toronto and part of Project Rhino. We got to talk with Neil Martin one of the co-founders of Konekt.me in this interview below the break.
The two Lithuanian co-founders behind startup GigBasket have moved to the United States to launch their job “pinning” platform. GigBasket allows users to save job openings to a users GigBasket account from virtually any site in the world.
If you’re familiar with Pinterest and the “pinning” concept of being able to go to any website and “pin” something which then posts that something to Pinterest, then you will automatically understand how GigBasket does the same thing for jobs.
The platform works in two different ways you can add a job manually that you may have seen online, or you can add the bookmarklet to your browser by simply dragging it to your bookmarks bar and then hit the GigBasket button anytime you see a job you find worthy of applying for.
GigBasket allows you to create your own profile after logging in using your linked in account. GigBasket also pulls through data from your LinkedIn account to make keywords for your job search.
Rounding out the simple, but feature packed site are an interview calendar and a dashboard that shows you what jobs you’re “tracking” and what jobs you’ve “applied to”. It makes it extremely easy to remove a job if you’ve either lost interest or the job has been filled.
We got a chance to speak with Eddy Balcikonis, co-founder and CEO of GigBasket in the interview below. He tells us about the GigBasket platform and why he and his co-founder Eugene, moved to America to launch this very useful startup.
Comments Off on Boston Startup: PingUp, Text Messaging Businesses INTERVIEW0LikeLike 2,816
When Boston startup PingUp, co-founder and CEO Mark Slater was onhold for an ungodly amount of time with his cable company for a two minute conversation a lightbulb went off in his head. He thought to himself, “wouldn’t it be great if I could text the cable company”. That’s where the idea for Pingup came from, as we’ll learn in just a few minutes in our interview below.
Imagine the ability to text in a tee time at your favorite golf course, or text the auto shop to see if your cars done. Now there’s no need for waiting on hold forever or miss-communicating information with a third party in trying to find out basic information.
Imagine if you could text the restaurant to say you’re running five minutes late. Maybe you would want to text your favorite clothing store to see if they have the pants you love in your size.
None of these elements of conversation take more than a minute on the phone, and even less time via text message. While some people I know don’t get the inherent idea about why texting is such a great method of communication for business, it is.
Texting has become such a natural way of life and as millennials pour into the work force a shift will come and texting will continue to trump actually talking on the phone. Sure people rather hear voices for context in some situations but, “do you have the new jordans in a size 12” doesn’t really require much for context.
All of this is why PingUp will most likely do great. Check out our interview with Pingup below the break.
As we get closer and closer to the SEC’s July 4th deadline to come up with rules for crowdfunding startups, we’re likely to see more and more crowdfunding startups emerge. Earlier this month we reported on Ohio crowdfunding startup Fundable who has already opened for business, with a more traditional Kickstarter, Indiegogo model until the crowdfunding rules are announced and brokers are approved.
A New York startup called Return on Change LLC, has also thrown their hit in the crowdfunding arena. They’re now in a private beta and promise to provide a way for investors to connect with game-changing startups.
“The timing could not be better,” said Sang Lee, founder of Return on Change. “We saw the huge potential in crowdfunding, and now, with the signing of the JOBS bill, look forward to connecting investors with ventures that can make a real difference.”
RoC also announced a contest that provides incentives for startups to register. The first 100 startups that meet RoC’s criteria will have the opportunity to win one of three $1,000 funding prizes. The company is seeking startups in the areas of clean energy, biomedical, social ventures and technology.
With all this excitement about crowdfunding we got a chance to speak with Sang Lee, one of the founders of Return On Change. Take a look at the interview below the break.
Comments Off on Vermont Startup: i-ask Mobile App Let’s You Get Feedback Instantly INTERVIEW0LikeLike 1,967
Burlington Vermont startup i-ask is all about asking questions and getting feedback instantly. The concept is the brain child of co-founder Steve Foley who used to take online surveys for fun. He was looking for a way to offer a question and answer format with instant feedback via a mobile app. It was that idea that is the foundation behind i-ask.
Imagine being at the store and not having a buddy with you to decide what to get. Or actually I had this exact experience last month at Best Buy when both the Nikon D3200 and the Nikon D5100 were the exact same price. Luckily I have 100,000 followers on Twitter and could solicit feedback really quickly however if I had i-ask I could just ask and for lack of a better word, crowdsource the answer.
Foley was able to solicit feedback for his startup from comedian and star of the CMT hit show “Mabe In America”, Tom Mabe, who said, ” I spend hours going through sites having to delete unwanted or unrelated comments made on my videos and content, i-ask would be the perfect choice for me to put my material on and I no longer need to worry about the feedback”.
We got a chance to talk with Steve about i-ask, check out the interview after the break Read More…
Comments Off on Chicago Startup: Ox&Pen Loyalty & Reward Network INTERVIEW0LikeLike 1,953
Loyalty and Reward startups are hot right now. One thing that some of the newer entries into the space are learning is that people are tired of accumulating points and rewards at one place, that they can only spend at one place. Philadelphia’s Lokalty, DesMoines startup FreeBee Cards and Kansas’ Front Flip are all loyalty reward networks that allow users to earn points in one place and spend them at another.
Chicago’s Ox&Pen takes that reward philosophy and brings it to the bustling city of Chicago. Ox&Pen isn’t just about checkout reward points though. With the OxandPen app you can earn points by checking into network places, socially sharing network places and of course with purchase rewards.
The app is quite robust and feature packed while keeping the UI graphically rich and easily organized. There is also no printing involved with Ox&Pen, everything happens in-app including redemption.
With Ox&Pen once you accumulate enough in network points the rewards are free and require no additional purchase.
The best part about the network? It’s reserved for local, independent, unique merchants. You won’t find deals or rewards for big box national chains on Ox&Pen, but you will find promotions for Vera, The Fifty/50, Krista K Boutique, Bleeding Heart Bakery, Dog-a-holics, Roots Pizza and more (only in Chicago at this time). And, of course, you can earn loyalty points at these placesand redeem them anywhere in the network.
We got a chance to interview Ox&Pen, check out the interview below the break.
So this is how Friendsignia went down. I got a tweet from Cole Hawkins, co-founder of Friendsignia, the other night. He pointed me to a blog entry written as a parody of Lord of the Rings. Truth be told at 36, I read the Hobbit as a kid but never saw Lord of The Rings, or read the book. If you want to test my geekyness, I’ve never seen or read a Harry Potter book, Twilight or the Hunger Games, and don’t get me started about Doctor Who.
So I knew the blog entry was good, I just didn’t get it. Were they taking on Facebook. Who in their right mind would pitch me taking on Facebook. No. So I forwarded the link to the blog post to one of my other editors and asked her to explain it to me. She said “it’s a social dashboard”. I mean that’s a little better than challenging Facebook but I’ve tried a good 40 to 50 social dashboards to date.
Once I was told that Friendsignia was a social dashboard. I took another look at it, and basically what it does is it narrows down your social feeds to the 150 most relevant people to you. This is based on Dunbar’s number which says that scientifically you can’t keep up with more than 150 relationships. Truth be told I have a hard time remember 25 but ok.
The next piece is that it narrows down your most relevant social contacts, which for a Power User (like myself with 100,000+ Twitter followers, is truly relevant).
Friendsignia is a recent graduate of Memphis’ Seed Hatchery incubator program and they are currently building out of Beta. They are also starting to raise funds. After spending time with the founders they’ve got a great idea for a product.
I tried it late last night and I’m working with the team so that they can handle power users with six figure followings. I will tell you on my personal Facebook account with nearly 1000 friends, it did awesome!
If you’re a web based startup or small business web uptime is crucial. These days if you’re down for even two minutes, it can cause a world of hurt. A customer can go to your website, see its down and then send that information out to the social web.
If you’re launching a startup it can be worse. Launching a startup is one of the most competitive sports in the world. If you’re down, again only for a short time, new users, competitors and the media can stumble upon a down site and never come back.
There are services out there that can cost hundreds of dollars a month. There are also services out there that are free but will send you spam from every SEO business on the planet. In comes Verelo a service that will monitor and protect your website, providing piece of mind.
We got a chance to talk with one of the co-founders of this Toronto startup. Check out the interview after the break.
Kyle
If you live in a big metro area or one of those areas like Hampton Roads Virginia that’s like nine cities built into one, than a job search can be painful based on the geography alone. Take Houston for example, a quick internet search revealed hundreds of jobs in Houston, most of the ads without addresses. Hmmm, what is someone to do, especially someone that doesn’t drive.
