startup Archives - Page 73 of 87

London Based Startup: StoryBricks Lets You Create Your Own MMO Stories

I’m sure after reading the headline some of you are thinking making your own MMO story would kick ass, and it does. Thanks to the folks at new startup StoryBricks MMO fans can create their own characters and stories to share with friends in a simple to use, but feature packed interface.

StoryBricks is based in London and California and was founded by serial entrepreneur Rodolfo Rosini, Brian “Psychochild” Green and Buck Wilson. While Rosini is the experienced entrepreneur Green and Wilson are the MMO, gaming and RPG nuts.

As you’ll see form our interview with Rosini and Green the platform has really taken off in just days. 555 stories were created in just 72 hours, and that’s before the team could publish a tutorial on how to harness the power of the unique interface.

Let’s dive right in and find out more about this unique startup.

Tell us, what is storybricks?

Storybricks is a technology that allows users to create their own stories within games without any programming knowledge. It combines an easy-to-use visual editing system and a sophisticated and patent-pending intelligence layer to create a system that gives characters in a video game the illusion of life. We plan to put Storybricks into massively multiplayer online (MMO) games and let users have control over their play experience.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

The team is Rodolfo (a serial tech entrepreneur, 2x VC backed), Brian ‘Psychochild’ Green (an MMO developer that ran the legendary Meridian 59 MMO), Stéphane Bura (a game designer with a background in AI and tabletop RPG) and Buck Wilson (a designer that sold his previous startup and his apps got featured in Apple commercials)

Our advisor board include Don Bluth and Gary Goldman (the legendary Disney animators), Richard Bartle – the inventor or MMOs (back when they were called MUDs) and Chris Avellone (Wasteland 2, Planescape) who is the Chief Creative Officer of Obsidian

Where are you based?

The company is based in the SF Bay Area and we have an office in London

More after the break
Read More…

Seattle: TechCocktail Is Coming To You May 23rd

Next Wednesday as a lot of eyes are on Pier 94 in New York City for TechCrunch Disrupt NYC, the west coast attention will turn to Seattle. Seattle’s startup scene will come alive at the Pink Ultra Lounge.

TechCocktail mixers are known for their excellent networking, casual startup pitches and libations. I mean how could you have a media conglomerate known as TechCocktail without libations.

TechCocktail hasn’t posted the startups yet but we’ll be watching out for that, and you can too just visit this page at TechCocktail.

There’s about two days left in the general ticket sales for $15.00 but then they only go up $5.00. Tech Cocktail is also having an event in Washington DC the next day, so if you’re on the east coast you can head over here for more info on the DC event which will feature Startup America CEO Scott Case and startup evangelist, Georgetown Professor and author, Rohit Bhargava.

TechCocktails recent Baltimore event was a huge success they had 13 startups competing in their startup throw down.

If you’re ready to strut your stuff at TechCocktails Seattle mixer head over here and get registered. If you’re in the other Washington (DC that is) head over here.

Orlando Startup: Doccaster, Proximity Based File Sharing For Convention Go-ers

A new startup in central Florida is looking to disrupt the file sharing space. Rather than going with a cloud based model, like every other startup in the space, Doccaster offers proximity based file sharing. This type of file sharing will be great for conventioneers.

Doccaster is based in Orlando, which reportedly hosts 25 of the top 250 conferences in the United States and ranks behind only Las Vegas and Chicago for hosting conventions. I’ve personally attended many conventions in Orlando, most recently the 2011 CTIA spring show.

With Doccaster you will be able to share files with large groups within a 15 mile radius. The user will be able to search files based on proximity or DoccasterID (user name).

Co-founders Kyle Steele and Himanshu Pagey first launched a location based chat platform in 2010. That startup, called GoTootie, has pivoted into Doccaster.

More and more conventions are going green. Over the past two years the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the producers of the largest trade show in the United States, CES, have made a huge effort to go green, and encourage their exhibitors to go green.

Certainly major exhibitors have the dollars needed to produce thumb drives with their material on them (no company in 2012 would dare give out a CD), but smaller companies at CES or any major trade show don’t necessarily have the money to invest in thousands of thumb drives. Doccaster makes it easy for those companies to sign up for their service and use it as a vehicle to get their literature into convention go-ers hands.

More after the break
Read More…

Providence Startup: JumpOffCampus Connects Students To Off Campus Housing

JumpOffCampus is a Massachusetts startup designed to connect college students and landlords with off campus properties. While it’s a useful service for students, it’s just as useful for landlords who are looking to rent rooms, and apartments to students.

The startup was developed after two friends Mark Abramowicz and Kyle Nichols-Schmolze struggled with finding a good place to live off campus while they were attending Tufts University. There was a lack of resources to find good housing. If you’ve been a college student then you are well aware of the problems with signs on the side of the road and posted on bulletin boards. Come August all the places are rented and everyone forgets to take their signs down.

Out of this need Abramowicz and Nichols-Schmolze became co-founders of JumpOffCampus. Their goal is to solve the off campus housing issue faced by every student in the US.

We got a chance to talk with Abramowicz about JumpOffCampus.

Briefly tell us what JumpOffCampus is.

JumpOffCampus is an online resource for university students, facilitating their off-campus housing search. In addition to a map-based apartment search, we also have added functionality like the ability to share progress with friends and family, as well as a roommate finder, marketplace, and the ability to post and search for sublets.

How did you come up with the idea, are their other founders involved?

The idea for JumpOffCampus was born out of a general frustration with the process of finding an apartment while we were sophomores at Tufts University. We couldn’t believe that there was no resource and so we sought to make one, using our own experiences – and those of our friends – as inspiration.

More after the break
Read More…

“Appreciate” Is Your Personal Android App Store

An Israeli startup called Triapodi has introduced a new kind of Android app store into the Google Play Store. Appreciate is part app discovery app, part aggregator, and also your personal Android app store.

Appreciate has already seen hundreds of thousands of downloads. People are loving the fact that Appreciate can make app recommendations based on the apps you currently have downloaded as well as apps that your friends have downloaded. To achieve this, Appreciate syncs with your Facebook account and other like users across the Appreciate network.

The app, launched in February, has garnered a lot of downloads and a lot of users because of the relevance in their app recommendations. This is due to their “Appreciate Relevance Engine” technology that scores apps on relevance to the user at a number of different levels.

“As we evolved Appreciate as a platform and improved the AI, we were able to make a complete departure from how other marketplace apps delivered recommendations to their users,” said Amir Maor, CEO of Triapodi. “We know our customer. We understand that generic lists of the market’s most popular apps do not meet the needs of the Android community, and we designed our latest version of Appreciate specifically to give our users 100% personalized and relevant app discovery for the first time. It is all about giving our customers exactly what they need.”

The current version of appreciate has these features:

* Connect to Facebook and see what apps your friends discover
* Get personal application recommendations based on what YOU like
* View for every app how well it fits with your personal taste
* Send applications directly to your friends’ device to install

* Get community updates on hot apps people discovered
* Manage your apps
* Gain quick access through app lists
* Share your favorite apps with other users and Facebook friends
* Widget with quick access to daily recommendations

It’s no secret, the despite the fact that Google’s primary business is search, discovery in the Google Play store is like searching for a needle in a haystack. That’s where you’ll come to appreciate, appreciate (see what we did there). Unlike some third party app stores, Appreciate functions within it’s own app and has it’s unique functionality to deliver the best possible app choices from the Google Play Store.

Try it out today.

Download Link at Google Play

Nibletz is the voice of #startups “everywhere else” check out these new stories

We’re on a sneaker strapped nationwide road trip, check it out and support us here

UPDATED – London Startup: Lightbox Acquihired By Facebook

Facebook is obviously using their last days of independence to scoop up whatever companies they want. Of course everyone knows about the $1 billion dollar acquisition of Instagram. Facebook also recently acquired social discovery app Glancee which uses Facebook as it’s backbone and was the closest competition to Highlight at South By Southwest in Austin this year.

Now we’ve learned that Facebook has acquired the seven man team behind Lightbox. ~~Including designer Giles Peyton-Nicoll, the companies creative director and the driving force behind their UI.~~

Giles Peyton Nicoll The Creative Director behind Lightbox, acquired this week by Facebook, has announced plans to launch a new global design consultancy and build a portfolio of brands “as cherished as Coca-Cola, Apple and Nike”.
As the seven-strong Lightbox engineering team prepares for its relocation to the States, Creative Director and Product Designer Giles Peyton-Nicoll is staying in London and is set to launch a new agency. Full Press Release Below

No financial details were announced. The Lightbox team is based in London, so it’s also unclear where they will work out of or if they will all move to Silicon Valley.

Lightbox is a photo sharing app for Android. They debuted last year and had a pod set up at Google IO. The service is very similar, at least in the sharing aspect, to Instagram. In fact, before Instagram arrived on the Android platform Lightbox would send out emails to it’s user base touting it as a better than Instagram and available on Android. They continued with the same marketing message after Instagram launched on Android just days before the Facebook acquisition.

It was widely reported that on the Facebook investor road show, the company was highly criticized on their mobile efforts. Despite pushing out regular updates of the Facebook app some investors seemed worried that more and more users are resorting to the mobile device and that Facebook needs to make sure they own that position the way they do with social media.

It’s also obvious that Facebook is taking photography very seriously. They recently updated their mobile site and mobile apps to enlarge the size of photos on users walls and news feeds. With the acquisitions of both Instagram and Lightbox they must be working on some bad ass mobile photo app to integrate into the social network.

source: VentureBeat

FULL PRESS RELEASE:

LIGHTBOX CREATIVE TO LAUNCH NEW CONSULTANCY

The Creative Director behind Lightbox, acquired this week by Facebook, has announced plans to launch a new global design consultancy and build a portfolio of brands “as cherished as Coca-Cola, Apple and Nike”.
As the seven-strong Lightbox engineering team prepares for its relocation to the States, Creative Director and Product Designer Giles Peyton-Nicoll is staying in London and is set to launch a new agency.
The 41-year-old is a world-leading branding strategist with a wealth of experience in designing and developing global brands. He founded boutique design agency Aspect, which sold to GYRO in 2000. He then took on a Creative Director role at GYRO, helping them achieve global recognition.
After leaving GYRO in 2002 he became a Digital Strategy and Design Consultant working on global brand, advertising and marketing campaigns for some of the best London digital agencies.
With extensive experience in brand guardianship for many of the world’s favourite brands, his true talent lies in creating successful brands from conception – his last two brand identities – Nakama and Lightbox – have become global success stories.
Mr Peyton-Nicoll said: “I wish my Lightbox colleagues all the best. We had a great time developing the product and I am very proud to have played a major part in the development of what is now a globally-recognised digital brand.
“I’m now looking to the future and the exciting prospect of creating similar powerful brands, as cherished as Coca-Cola, Apple and Nike, for my new clients.”

Nibletz is the voice of #startups “everywhere else” check out these new stories

We’re on a sneaker strapped nationwide road trip, check it out and support us here

Austin Startup: Outbox A Drop Box For Your Snail Mail

Outbox co-founder Will Davis realized after moving four times in six years that something needed to be done about the mail. He was tired of losing mail in his moves and having to forward his actual address all the time. That is the foundation behind startup Outbox.

Outbox is essentially a mail intercepting service. Outbox intercepts users mail and then scans their mail and puts it in a digital mailbox. Outbox also forwards packages to a customers home free of charge.

Outbox is great for people like Davis who have moved quite a bit in a shot period of time. It’s also a great idea for frequent travelers. With Outbox you don’t have to worry about missing that important piece of mail or making a return trip to the house just to check the mail. For travelers like myself our home automation system links to my phone so I can keep an eye on the house. Outbox would solve yet another travel related hiccup.

The company hasn’t specified what will happen in the case of checks delivered by US mail. There is a company in San Francisco that allows mailbox renters (like a UPS store) to have their mail digitally delivered. That company can actually electronically deposit checks as well, possibly an option for Outbox.

More after the break
Read More…

California Startup: Smule Releases Hit App Songify To Android

At CES 2011 (last years CES not this years) hip hop producer/artist T-Pain told us personally and on video, that the “I am T-Pain” app would be coming soon to Android. Well for whatever reason that didn’t happen. But, there’s good news from the same startup developer Smule.

In addition to crafting the “I am T-Pain” app for iOS, which makes anyone sound like T-Pain, Smule has released a handful of other, intensely popular, interactive “music” apps, including Songify. If you’re an Android user and you’ve every seen or played with Songify on a friend’s iOS device then you know how addicting creating your own songs with the app can be.

What makes Songify so great? Well we had a chance to talk with Smule ahead of today’s announcement and here’s what they said:

“Songify has reached 9MM users on iOS and over 120MM songs have been created to date. We get multiple requests a day for users asking us to release Songify on Android.

Our “secret sauce” is using sophisticated artificial intelligence technology to make music creation accessible to non-musicians. Anyone can make music with Songify. Just talk into the phone, and Songify turns your speech into melody. We also made the user interface super-simple, so everyone from the ages of 3 to 93 can (and do!) use the app with ease. When you make music creation so easy, it gives people a powerful new mode of self-expression. “

That’s a lot of user created songs.

It’s been no secret that with midi api’s gone from Android since the release of Android 2.0, Android has lacked in the music creation category. Until now, all the cool creative music apps were on iOS only.

Smule released their popular Songify app to the Google Play store this morning. In addition to Songify and I am T-Pain, Smule is the developer of other hit music apps for iOS like Magic Guitar, Ocarina, Glee Karaoke and Magic Piano (which will hit Android next month)

If you can’t wait to try it, grab it here https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smule.songifyin the Google Play Store.

Toledo Startup: Buyvite Launches Group Payment Platform INTERVIEW

Do you have a big family? Have you ever pulled money together from your entire family to buy grandma and grandpa a cruise, a vacation or other gift? Well pulling all the money together, checking off the payments and then writing one big check or paying by credit card can be a huge hassle. Sure these days you can have most of your family Paypal you but there’s still those few that don’t have a Paypal account. This is just one of the scenarios that Toledo OH based startup Buyvite is looking to solve.

Another easy scenario is times when maybe you and a bunch of friends have wanted to pull together money to buy tickets to a concert or a basketball game. One person typically shells out all the money and waits to get paid back. No more of that thanks to Buyvite.

Buyvite members will have the ability to create a Buyvite by inviting friends and family to a group purchase. Once the requested amount is achieved, the group purchase organizer has the ability to trigger a Buyvite Code, that functions like a gift card code, that is worth the requested amount and can be used to make the purchase on any site that integrates the Buyvite API. Group purchase organizers also have the flexibility of sending the collected funds directly to any U.S. bank account for free.

We got a chance to talk to Brandi Wimberly the woman entrepreneur behind Buyvite

Interview after the break
Read More…

Santa Barbara Startup: Talentwire Connect To Mentors Who Do What You Do INTERVIEW

Do you like what you do? Are you looking for like minded people? Do you feel like you could offer someone who does what you do advice? Would you like to learn more about the profession you’re in? These are just some of the questions that will be answered when you join the new talentwire.me platform.

Talentwire is a platform that connects professionals to each other and allows mentorship, sharing and more. Users can share via simply writing about what they do, asking and answering questions and even doing how to videos. Talentwire integrates with Facebook for quick logins.

Once you’re in the Talentwire site at talentwire.me you can select your profession, or “what you do” and then drill down even more. For instance I found a category for news media after clicking through media and arts. There’s categories for every profession under the sun from healthcare to actors, computer coders to fashion, and the platform is still building.

Talentwire founder Sam Sperling has been hard at work promoting his new startup. They debuted at South By Southwest in Austin Texas this past March and then went on to TheNextWeb conference in Amsterdam. At SXSW Sperling was flanked by scouts from other social networks in the professional space like LinkedIn, BraveNewTalent and Dice.

We got a chance to speak with Sperling.

Interview after the break
Read More…

Boston Startup: CoachUp An Online Marketplace For Personal Coaches

A new startup has launched out of Cambridge Massachusetts this week called CoachUp. The premise is simple, in fact it’s surprising that no one had attempted this before. CoachUp connects personal coaches with athletes for any sport.

Co-Founders Jordan Fliegel has been a professional, personal basketball coach for the last five years. In an interview with nibletz.com he told us that before CoachUp personal coaches relied on Craigslist, word of mouth and ads in Ice Cream Shops. Some personal coaches have the advantage of being team coaches at the same time and can offer their services as a personal coach on the side. The same way some teachers tutor.

“For athletes (or the parents of young athletes), it is really hard to find a good private coach in their sport, in their area, at a price they can afford, at a time that works for them. After all, most private coaches don’t have websites. Even if you can find a coach through a referral, it is very hard to compare that coach with others, even harder to verify the accuracy of that coach’s reviews (if they have any), and impossible to know if there may have been a closer, cheaper or better matched option elsewhere.”

The market for personal coaches is more lucrative than some may think. Kids, especially teenagers and high school students often use their sport of choice as a vehicle to get scholarships and go onto higher education. They sometimes rely on the use of a personal coach or athletic trainer to refine their sport and better their skills.

Because a lot of their clientele are parents looking for a coach for their kid Fliegel and co-founder Arian Radmand take vetting coaches very seriously. Right now, while the service is launching in the Boston area, coaches go through a phone interview, and if parents want to run more extensive background checks CoachUp has an affiliate relationship with a background company.

More after the break
Read More…

Washington DC Startup: LightSquared Files For Bankruptcy After Botched 4G/LTE Plan

Many of you know the sad story of Lightsquared, a wireless broadband startup located in the suburbs of Washington DC.

LightSquared was an offshoot startup founded by wireless pioneer Philip Falcone. The company had a firm background in satellite communications under two former names, American Mobile Satellite Corporation and Mobile Satellite Ventures.

It was LightSquared’s intention to take frequencies that had been located near bands used for government and military GPS and use them for next generation 4G/LTE services. They had actually carved out a huge deal to be the 4G/LTE provider for Sprint, the nation’s third largest carrier which also has roots in the same DC suburb of Reston Virginia from their NexTel days.

After months and months of testing and appearance after appearance in front of the FCC the FCC finally ruled in February that “there was no practical way to mitigate potential interference at this time.”

The Sprint deal immediately fell apart after that announcement and a large number of LightSquared employees were laid off.

Well one more nail has been put in the LightSquared coffin as the company filed for bankruptcy protection. LightSquared CEO Marc Montanger told the Washington Post that the company hasn’t given up on it’s plan and the bankruptcy protection was to give them some breathing room.

However, at this time they may not have any large scale customers left. Sprint has resorted back to their own 4G/LTE rollout in conjunction with Clearwire for which they own 50% of. T-Mobile has announced their own 4G/LTE strategy which will be funded through their parent company Deutsche Telekom and some of the nearly $4 billion dollars in break up money and considerations from the failed AT&T/T-Mobile merger last year.

source: Washington Post

Toronto Startup: IppinKa Is A Crowd Buy Store For Beautiful Products

A new startup out of Toronto called IppinKa is recruiting tastemakers and lovers of beautiful products. In the tech world these people are commonly referred to as early adopters. However if you have a keen eye for beautiful things than you should pay attention to what this startup is doing in the crowdbuying space.

IppinKa is also recruiting designers of great products. Are you a sculptor? Have you made a unique home accessory? Are you a contemporary furniture designer? IppinKa is looking for you. They hope to match those tastemakers with designers of fine quality products.

As their website suggests they are starting a movement for functional and well made products.

We got a chance to talk with one of the co-founders of IppinKa before their upcoming launch.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Jerry Chang is a sucker for Japanese products. Educated in Engineering and Product Design, his role model is Dieter Rams.

Fran Rawlings is a social media maven and a world traveller who loves finding great products from different corners of the world.

Alan Soong, with an education in Engineering, is a product designer by day and seasoned online shopper by night.

Where are you located?

We are located in Toronto, Ontario.

Where does the name IppinKa come from?

“Ippin” is the Japanese word for great products. “Ka” means house. We came up with the name after seeing a picture of a house with beautiful products displayed in it.

More after the break
Read More…

Kansas City Startup: PhonyInvoices Founded By Barnett Helzberg Jr

(photo: Kansas City Business Journal)

Kanas City entrepreneur Barnett Helzberg Jr has gone from the diamond industry where he used his keen eye to spot beautiful diamonds and jewelry, to a new startup spotting phony invoices. This time around he doesn’t need to use his fine eye though.

PhonyInvoices is a startup designed for businesses to stop getting scammed out of paying phony invoices. Small businesses and large businesses alike know to well the invoice scam. Fake phone book companies, service companies and even law firms have been known to target businesses with fake invoices. The perpetrators are hoping that the person in accounts receivable doesn’t spot the fake invoice and sends a check the company’s way.

Helzberg formed the startup in February after decades of spotting fake invoices at his family owned and operated jewelry chain, Helzberg Diamonds.

“It obviously makes me a little angry — as hard as it was to make a profit — with businesses being defrauded every day,” Helzberg told the Kansas City Business Journal. “It only took me about 46 years to realize someone needed to be out there fighting this.”

PhonyInvoices tests a company’s internal controls and runs invoices against a database of known invoice scams. PhonyInvoices has already caught several questionable invoices that some of their member companies paid before joining the service.

More after the break
Read More…