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Las Vegas Startup: SpoonerSpot Prepares For Global Rollout

A new Las Vegas startup called SpoonerSpot is preparing for a global launch. Their socially charged recommendation platform has been in beta for a while. The develops are putting the finishing touches on the official public release and tidying up their website.

SpoonerSpot is trying to bridge the gap between the physical world and the world. This is achieved by users posting “spots” or places and recommending them on a global map for others to see. Its like a crowd sourced, map based version of Yelp.

SpoonerSpot was born when Las Vegas startup CitySpoon pivoted from a coupon platform along the lines of daily deals, to recommendations. Users, called “spooners” could report their own great or hot deals to the social community. Now the platform is for any kind of “spot” and soon it will encompass the globe.

The company did an extensive beta test which they report gave them lots of feedback:

Feedback from beta users of SpoonerSpot has allowed the site to increase its overall User Experience, continuously creating an even more engaging social networking platform. Beta user demand has given the team insights that has led to a notification system, so users can be updated on recent changes in their SpoonerSpot social network, a more robust layout that brings all of the site’s features to the forefront of the experience, and an easy to use method of finding friends on SpoonerSpot by searching for either user name or first and last name.

CitySpoon was launched in Las Vegas’ thriving startup community last summer and they pan to release the first version of their public product by the end of the week.

Linkage:

For more info on SpoonerSpot visit this site

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Vermont Startup: i-ask Mobile App Let’s You Get Feedback Instantly INTERVIEW

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
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LA Startup: 12 Society Offering Hot Subscription Box Of Celebrity Endorsed Goodies

We’ve all seen so many varieties of the subscription box model. We’ve got birch box for health and beauty, Chicago’s Klutch Club for health and wellness products, England’s Flavor Box for monthly flavors, Houston’s Whimsey Box for craft goodies and countless others.

12 Society is offering something really cool. We don’t want to call it the dudes equivalent to a Birch Box because there are definitely geeky, gadget and fun loving women who will love the stuff they can get from being a 12 society member. The best part about 12 Society though is that you’re getting products that are endorsed by celebrities like Nick Cannon, Nas, Tim Linecum, Michael Strahan, Blake Griffin and Kevin Love.

12 Society offers top notch gadgets, gear and fun. Their website shows off a pair of headphones, remote controlled helicopter and a nice Spalding basketball as some of the things you could get delivered for your $39 subscription, monthly.

12 Society promises between four and six premium products from tech,athletics,fashion and apparel.

Co-Founder Nasir Jones (Hip Hop legend Nas) says on the company’s website:

“I’ve been blessed to lead a lifestyle that allows me to experience the pinnacle of creation and innovation, and I have always wanted a way to share this with the people that I love. That’s why I’m teaming up with some of my favorite athletes, entertainers, musicians and thought-leaders to start 12Society.

Our celebrity style board will give you an inside look into the latest trends in tech, fashion, popular culture and athletics that are impacting and improving our lives. We’ll turn you into a taste-maker and trend-setter by picking out products every month that we love and use, all while giving you a great value on gadgets, gear, apparel, accessories and more! We are award-winners, world champions, entrepreneurs, music legends, dunk masters and sack-artists – and we’re here to hook you up.”

Nas’ co-founder and CEO of 12 Society is Sameer Mehta a 2009 graduate of Carnegie Mellon. Mehta was also the co-founder of Mark Cuban backed Jungle Cents which had raised $1.5 million before selling the assets off to Cuban to found 12 Society.

Linkage:

Check out or sign up for 12 Society here

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more stories from “everywhere else”

Silicon Beach Fest What To Look Forward To On The 21st

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.

Chicago Startup: Ox&Pen Loyalty & Reward Network INTERVIEW

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.

Nashville Startup Populr.Me Could Be A Game Changer

Tennessee has some great startups. We saw a slew of them this past weekend during 48 Hour Launch, you can check out all of that coverage here. Now we move our coverage of startups “everywhere else” east to Nashville.

There’s a startup in Nashville called Populr.me which is bubbling under the radar. Populr.me is a self publishing platform that the company dubs a “Personalized One Page” or pop. They were aiming for a Q1 release, right now they are currently doing a beta sign up on their home page.

From what we can tell Populr.me’s POP platform has a variety of uses. You can use it for your resume and include multimedia. On the other end of that spectrum, companies can use it to build a one page for welcoming new employees, or a flier page for talking about a company event.

The company’s motto is “Richer than email and Faster than a website”. While there are plenty of self publishing platforms, Populr.me seems to offer simplicity and quickness as their top selling points. There isn’t a service out there that allows for this quick, one page publishing. Sure you can set up a Blogger blog or Word Press blog in just a few minutes but you have to fidget with themes, produce content, figure out what plugins you want for multimedia and then you can publish.

The Nashville based startup was founded by CEO Nicholas Holland and the rest of the team includes Jared Scheel (Chief Product Officer) and Daniel Nelson (Chief Technology Officer). A couple of weeks back the company tweeted that someone in their beta test had embedded a Starbucks gift card, pretty neat stuff.

Some folks around the web have compared Populr.me to popular site about.me. I think the concepts are inherently different. About.me is my one online destination site to link all my links in the world. Of course it can include my resume and other things, but it’s not the same. Populr.me is going to allow the user to make a resume page, or maybe a birthday party page, an invitation, all kinds of other easy to use tasks.

Nashville music and technology entrepreneur Mark Montgomery, is an investor in Populr.me because he feels that the service could be “a game changing venture that could boost Nashville’s position on the digital map” that according to Getahn Ward at the Tennessean.

Linkage:

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” check out these stories from “everywhere else” (there’s a lot of Memphis in there right now)

Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors Backs Seattle Startup Tango Card

Seattle startup Tango Card is looking to continue to bring innovation to the gift card and rewards space. They are focused on enterprise customers and incorporate digital goods into gift cards and loyalty programs. Tango Card already powers solutions for Bing Rewarsd, FedEx, Extole and Shutterfly.

Those are just some of the factors by two big announcements the company had last week. First of which was that Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors has participated in a $1.8 million dollar Series A round, alongside Western Technology Investment. Tango Card plans to use those funds to hire more software developers and expand their proprietary software applications.

Tango Card also announced that Westpac GM Technology and Boeing Joint Strike Fighter IT director Randy Fennel is joining the company in an expanded CTO role.

“As a company we’re focused on launching innovative and proprietary software applications in huge and unexplored verticals, execution, and strong brand and partner curation. With Innovation Endeavors and WTI as our first institutional investors we have access to incredible industry thought leaders, mentors and innovators from the Innovation Community. Both investors also bring very deep pockets and long-term focus to Tango Card,” said David Leeds, CEO and Founder of Tango Card. “Additionally, our ability to attract someone with the pedigree, capabilities, and respect that Randy Fennel brings to the company underscores the exciting things we have already done and the mission we are on. Ultimately, this additional capital and the hire of Randy positions us to scale rapidly – a good thing since we have grown 30X already year-over-year,” Leeds concludes.

“We were attracted to Tango Card’s vision of bringing gift cards and digital goods to huge and unexplored areas, and doing this primarily through efficient and scalable software and proprietary applications,” said Dror Berman, Founding Managing Partner at Innovation Endeavors. “We believe we can add significant value as partners and advisors and look forward to working with this exceptionally talented team.” Maurice Werdegar, CEO of WTI stated, “We love David’s track record of success and clear results-based leadership. I’ve known him since his FiberTower days, just before he and his co-founders took that company public, and we see similar opportunities here.”

Tango Card works like no other gift card program out there. A purchaser can buy a Tango Card and give it to the recipient via email. The recipient can then exchange the value of the card for a variety of retailers cards like Amazon, iTunes, Target etc. Or they can elect to donate all or a portion of the cards value to charity.

Not only that but Tango Card makes their card program more social. They call it the “What I got” card, and they allow the recipient to take a picture of what they got with the card and post it for the giver to see via a mobile app available for both Android and iOS.

Tango Card allows more variety for the recipient and a better chance they’ll get what they actually want, no matter what the retailer.

Linkage

Find out more about Tango Card here

Check out the Tango Card app for Android here

Check out the Tango Card app for iPhone here

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Bowie Business Innovation Center Opens For Maryland Startups

Bowie State University has teamed up with the city of Bowie (a Washington DC suburb in Prince George’s County Maryland) to launch the Bowie Business Innovation Center. The center resides on the campus of the University and provides early stage companies with access to low cost office space, mentoring and other essentials needed for launching a startup company.

The Bowie Business Innovation Center received $50,000 in funding from the city of Bowie. They are slated to receive another $50.000 for fiscal 2013 that starts in July. Bowie’s city council is supporting the program because it’s advancing small business in Bowie and hopefully the startup companies in the program will bring more jobs to the area.

There are currently two resident companies and two affiliate companies. According to gazette.net the center, which is housed on the second floor of Bowie State University’s business building, has space for 9 early stage companies.

According to gazette.net:

Clark Training Solutions LLC is owned by a service disabled veteran from Bowie specializing in management and IT training, Smith said, and the second is Magadia Consulting LLC, a home-based, risk-management company owned by a Bowie State University alumna specializing in information assurance. BSS Now, an e-commerce website for military families started by a recent BSU grad, and X-Prop Sports, a minority-owned builder of sports training aids, are the two affiliate companies.

Linkage:
For more information of the Bowie Business Innovation Center visit this site

Source: Gazette.net

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Memphis Startup: Yaddoog Final Pitch At 48 Hour Launch

Yaddoog, Good Day spelled backwards, was one of the best startups at 48 Hour Launch this weekend in Memphis. It was a great event overall with a lot of Memphis’ startup community supporting the entrepreneurs and their ideas all weekend long.

For first time startup founder Harold Strong, it was a weekend to get the idea living in his head out into the open and developed. According to the support team at Emerge Memphis Strong had been working on his pitch for days prior to Friday’s first pitches and the hard work then and over the weekend has paid off.

Problem: The answer to the question “How Was Your Day” is usually bull sh*t. 99% of people answer “fine”

Solution: Yaddoog wants to turn the question on it’s head. They do this with a new photosharing app. I said repeatedly all weekend long to people who asked for my feedback on the event, that it has been a longtime since I heard a good pitch for a photo sharing app, until Friday.

Yaddoog lets the user take a series of up to 24 photos (representative of hours in the day) and then publishes them all onto the Yaddoog website at the set time at the end of the day. The user can also assign two emotions to each picture like, happy, sad, pissed, etc. As Strong said in his presentation and in talks with us throughout the weekend, 24 photos tells a story.

After the event I was talking with David Traxler co-founder of Memphis startup Friendsignia and Eric Matthews CEO and Co-President of Launch YourCity and we all agreed that in addition to telling great stories of someones day Yaddoog would be great for special days like, a baby’s first day, or leading up to a kids first day at school. Weddings was another time that Yaddoog would be awesome.

Showing the roulette wheel of emotions a bride has leading up to the big moment would make a great story for Yaddoog.

Of course it’s not all about happy bappy days either. We’ve all had a college buddy who has had their picture taken and posted to Facebook after a night of drinking, pictures get progressively worse as the night ensues, with the final picture typically being a face full of Sharpie marker. Traxler said, wouldn’t it be great to see that guys day starting with his bowl of cornflakes the previous morning.

Indeed it would.

Traxler’s startup Friendsignia just graduated from the most recent SeedHatchery class last month and was paying his experience forward by mentoring Strong and the other startups all weekend long.

Strong admitted that they have a lot of work to do to get the app to market but he’s going to do it or die trying. Check out his final pitch from Sunday here:

Linkage

Checkout Yaddoog here on Facebook

Here’s more coverage from 48 Hour Launch

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Memphis Startup: HappyPotty Final Pitch At 48 Hour Launch

Lot’s of people came out Sunday night to the final pitch event for LaunchMemphis, SeedHathery and LaunchYourCity’s 48 hour launch event. Graduates of SeedHatchery’s two previous classes were in attendance all weekend long to mentor and support their fellow startups. Also, previous participants in the last 5 48 Hour Launch events were in attendance as well.

Hometown startup hero Sarah Lacy of PandoDaily was absent from the event, despite the fact that she vowed to cover startups everywhere in her inaugural post at the relatively new startup focused Silicon Valley website. Oh Well we’ve got a lot of coverage here from the great event.

HappyPotty was another one of the unique “finalists” selected to develop over the weekend long event.

Problem: Finding a clean bathroom on a road trip

Solution: HappyPotty hopes to be the mobile app of choice to find clean “Happy” bathrooms while traveling by car.

There are a couple of similar sites out there. The biggest one was developed in conjunction with toilet paper giant Charmin, however it has it’s flaws.

HappyPotty ran through some statistics including the fact that there are over half a million potty breaks during road travel per year. That number actually seems a little low.

The app is simple, go to a bathroom and rate it “Happy” or “Crappy” the interface shows two toilet flushers, one colored green, and the other red.

They hope to add more functionality like details on the bathroom from cleanliness, to changing tables, seat covers and more.

For monetization they are looking at traditional mobile app in app ads and geo-located advertising with couponing.

The biggest challenge with an app like this is they have to build enormous, nationwide scale fast. The other challenge is sourcing bathrooms. Surely there are a lot of location based api’s however none that will tell you whether they have a multi-person bathroom or a one person bathroom or if you’ll have to purchase something to even use the bathroom.

They Happy Potty team was able to track down some gas station and rest stop data to start the build out of the app, alongside FourSquare API’s. Check out the pitch video below:

Linkage

Check out Happy Potty here at happypottyapp.com

Here’s more of our 48 Hour Launch coverage

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Memphis Startup: ScrewPulp Final Pitch 48 Hour Launch

ScrewPulp is an idea that hasn’t been tackled in quite this way before. It’s a self publishing website that allows authors to publish their books to the site. So what’s so unique about that?

Problem: More and more authors are turning to self publishing. Just look at 50 Shades of Gray for instance. According to the startups data there were over 200,000 self published books out of over 1.5 million books published with ISBN numbers.

Self published authors have a hard time garnering social network interest, ratings and reviews which can be the lifeline for a self published book.

Solution: ScrewPulp offers an innovative new platform for self publishers that builds the social network interest piece and the ratings and reviews piece as well. After a book is downloaded 100 times they will switch to $.99 for the next 1,000 copies. After that they’ll increase to $1.99 and so on.

The monetization plan is to take 25% of the sales from books that are selling on the site.

Screw Pulp will giveaway the authors first 100 copies in exchange for a social media share and a rating/review. Readers who love reading new books will be able to download one free book at a time. Once they share it across social media and provide a star rating and or review, they’ll be allowed to download their next free book.

As far as rights are concerned, Billings would like to require authors to hold their work on ScrewPulp for a year regardless of whether or not that author gets their book picked up from another publisher.

Founder Richard Billings said in the Q&A that ScrewPulp will start with novel sized books first and then expand to series and even short stories. Billings also said he would like to use the format for indie artists as well and said we could expect a ScrewTapes out at some point as well.

Check out their Sunday pitch video below:

Linkage:

Check out ScrewPulp here at their website

Here’s more of Nibletz’ coverage of 48 Hour Launch in Memphis

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Memphis Startup: LostPetCast Final Pitch at 48 Hour Launch

Sunday night in Memphis brought the final pitches for the four startups that were selected to develop at the weekend long event. LostPetCast was the first startup to the plate.

Idea: A centralized place to report lost pets and found pets

Problem: Losing or finding a pet can take hours of work to get the message out and spread the word. You need to contact local vets, animal shelters, humane societies, put up flyers, and search Craigslist ads.

Solution: LostPetCast allows users to quickly enter information for a lost or found pet. Through LostPetCast the information is automatically shared across multiple channels. It also becomes the one spot to see if your pet has been found by others.

LostPetCast is also offering premium features like an email/fax blast to local vet clinics, adoption services, shelters etc.

The idea is great. There are a couple of competitors in the space however if LostPetCast builds scale quickly they could have an advantage. They want to have several localized sites under the LostPetCast umbrella.

When I wrote about them on Friday I was concerned about the name. In the original pitch the founder said that they were the “amber alert for pets” however they researched that and there is already an amber alert for pets. Now they’re faced with a domain name challenge.

You can find them online at lostpetca.st while it’s a clever name it’s the same challenge that know.es faces it doesn’t roll off the tongue and when spread by word of mouth it will be hard to explain and then remember.

One way to get over that challenge is to have damn good SEO and get to the top of the Google results page for lost pets. That may be a new challenge in itself.

The concept is great. We can’t wait to see the execution. Check out their final pitch video below:

Linkage:

Check out LostPetCast here at their website

See more of our 48 Hour Launch Coverage Here

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Florida Startup: Bellco’s Ion Air Mouse Computer Glove Preparing For Holidays

This is going to be a great holiday season. We are expecting to see new Retina display MacBooks introduced this week at WWDC, there will be a ton more ultra books and of course traditional PC laptops. In anticipation of that, a hot new startup from Central Florida called Bellco, will also see stock piles of their Ion Air Mouse Computer Glove, hopefully fly off the shelf.

Now that smartphone adoption has come to record heights, and tablets are flying off the shelves as well, people are growing more and more accustom to using their fingers for navigation. Sure you can do it on a track pad but it’s not the same familiarity as your tablet or smartphone screen.

I’m sure I’m not the only one that has tried to swipe across the screen of their MacBook Pro. (see you laughed) that’s where the Ion Air Mouse Computer Glove comes in. It’s a glove that fits around your hand snuggly, has a comfortable charging port (via micro usb) and a wireless dongle that attaches to any computer.

Once the glove is on you can use it your hand/finger as your pointing device. Admittedly it’s still not the same as the gestures that you’re used to with your smartphone but it’s effective. The glove also leaves your fingertips free for typing.

Now not only is it an effective peripheral but it’s also effectively priced. While the new startup behind the Ion Air Mouse Computer Glove, Bellco, could probably get away with selling it in the high $100 range, it comes in at just $79.99 making it priced the same as some of the more serious mice available today.

Bellco reports that the glove comes in gray and black and works with Windows, Linux,Mac and Android. Bellco encourages users to try it by setting up your computer via HDMI to a big tv for a “Wow” worth of experience.

Linkage

Itching to know more about it, go to their website here

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Atlanta Startup: NearbyThis Launched Last Week At Virginia Highland Summerfest

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.

Linkage:

Find out more about NearbyThis at their website here

Here’s the iTunes page for NearbyThis

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