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Washington DC Startup: Review Signal Launches More Trusted Review Platform

Washington DC startup Review Signal launched last week after 19 months in the making. Founder Kevin Ohashi has developed a product review platform that can be more trusted than traditional platforms like Yelp or Google reviews. Review Signal analyzes data points across social media to gauge the pulse of what people think about a particular product or service.

While there are hundreds of verticals that Review Signal could be applied to Ohashi has started with web hosting reviews as his first full on demonstration of how the system works.

Review Signal mines the data across social networks, and then separates the “mentions” for a specific product or service into good or bad. As Ohashi tells us in the interview below, if there are 100 tweets about a product with 50 being positive and 50 being negative, the raw review score would naturally be 50%. Now people aren’t forced to read long, sometimes biased long-form reviews.

One of the biggest problems we’ve seen with traditional reviews stems from the reason the average person would write a review anyway. Aside from career reviewers and those types that have to review absolutely everything, the bulk of the rest of reviews on review sites come when a customer is raving about a company, product or service after having a great experience or after they’ve had a bad experience.

You don’t get a lot of “average” everyday folks that take the time to write a review about a run of the mill or average experience.

For example say you went to a decent (not exceptional, just decent) restaurant and had the best chocolate cake ever. You’re much more likely to tweet “had this awesome chocolate cake” with a photo, rather than write a 5 paragraph review on the restaurant itself or, heck, even the chocolate cake.

One of the most fascinating parts about this story is how it came about in the first place. Ohashi actually based Review Signal off the idea he used for his masters thesis.

Check out our interview with Ohashi below. He does a really great job of explaining how the system actually works.

Nashville Startup Jamplify Exhibiting At DEMO Courtesy Of Startup America

As we reported earlier this morning, Startup America revealed the 8 startups that won their contest for a free trip to DEMO in Santa Clara California this week. Four startups are exhibiting in the DEMO Showcase Pavilion. The other four startups are presenting on the main stage.

Nashville Jumpstart Foundry graduate Jamplify was one of the four startup selected for the exhibit space in the DEMO Showcase Pavillion.

Jamplify is a hybrid, promotional, crowdsourcing platform. With Jamplify’s finished product, you get the most logical promotional vehicle for bands, musicians, and bloggers that’s available to date.

Jamplify crowdsources people for promoting the bands that they love. Rather than crowdsourcing for actual capital Jamplify is crowdsourcing for social capital and human capital, and then there’s the payoff.

Jamplify is like the kickstarter for fan based, crowd based musical promotion. As a fan of a band or a promotional ambassador you can agree to promote a band or musician. Based on your social graph and the amount of people that you actually touch with the campaigns short, trackable url you will become eligible for prizes from the band or artist you’re promoting.

Jamplify arrived at Nashville’s Jumpstart Foundry from New York City where the founders worked on Wall Street.

Check out their video pitch from Jumpstart Foundry’s demo day in August below:

Linkage:

Check out Jamplify here

DEMO here

Startup America here

Everywhere Else here

Give Your Photos A Voice With Orlando Startup Picvoice INTERVIEW

Now that I’m in my 30’s it seems that every time I go home to visit my parents I go through photo albums and unless the photo is blatantly obvious, you know like the Magic Kingdom castle is in the background, I have no idea the context for the photo. Mom did a decent job of handwriting notes on the back but that still doesn’t give the photos a real good back story.

Fast forward to the internet age and I’ve got digital photos going back to the mid 90’s. All in all I probably have near 100,000 photos. I’m a big picture taker. The problem is, just like with those traditional photo albums, I have no idea the context on lots of them.

Imagine if the photos talked? Well they can now thanks to Orlando startup PicVoice. Currently PicVoice is a web application that allows you to sign in through Facebook, upload photos and then add up to 30 seconds of audio to accompany the photo. Now your photos can really tell a story.

As we learned in our interview below with Founder and CEO Matt Andrews, they’re working on a mobile app right now. They aren’t alone in this space though. Atlanta startup StoryMark also allows you to add audio to photos. They went the other route and put together a great mobile app first, without a web app. That makes StoryMark great for taking photos and posting them with audio. PicVoice on the other hand is great for people who have thousands of photos that are just waiting for a story.

Check out our interview with Andrews below:

Meet The 8 Startup Winners From Startup America’s DEMO Contest

The fall DEMO conference kicks off in Santa Clara California today. It’s one of the most popular startup events, and longest running startup events in the world. In fact, TechCrunch Disrupt was born just to compete with DEMO.

Unlike “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” presenting at DEMO can be extremely expensive, especially for a bootstrapping startup from “everywhere else”. That’s why Startup America teamed up with their regional partners to run a contest for 8 lucky startups to attend and present at the DEMO conference free of charge.

Four of the startups will show off their companies in the DEMO Showcase Pavillion. The other four will show off on the main stage following in the foot steps of companies that were once startups themselves and have grown into household names, like E*Trade, TiVo and Salesforce.

“We’re incredibly excited to collaborate with DEMO and our regions to send startups to launch at this renowned event,” said Scott Case, CEO, Startup America Partnership. “You only need to look at a list of DEMO alumni to see what a game-changer it is for any startup focused on growth.”

Here are the four startups that are exhibiting in the DEMO Showcase Pavillion:

Jamplifiy- Nashville TN
CEO: Andy Pickens
About-Jamplify believes in the power of existing fans, and that they are a marketing force for anyone seeking a new audience. Jamplify is a promotional platform allowing anyone who has content to leverage their current fan base to get the word out. Promoters are assigned unique links for a Content Creator¹s particular jampaign, and Jamplify tabulates the number of unique people that each Promoter drives to the content.

CoPatient
Region:Oregon
About: CoPatient was created to give patients the knowledge and insight desperately needed to understand medical bills. By using technology, patients have a stronger voice in financing their healthcare.

Charlie Contacts
Founder: Junaid Kalmadi
About: Charlie Contacts let’s you “have them at hello” by arming you with all the need-to-know information about your contacts before any meeting, conference or phone call. This mobile-to-mobile app searches news and social sites and everything in between to provide you with all the details on your upcoming interaction.
Hallway
Founder: Sean McElrath
About: Hallway’s website allows students to post questions on various school subjects which their peers then answer. Students can then rate the most useful questions and answers, which rise to the top of the page. Students can also share notes and collaborate on assignments, and the website has built-in tools such as a personal calendar, class calendar, and assignments tabs. While there are several Q&A sites made specifically for college students (including startup Answer Underground, Hallway is one of the few that targets high school students.

Here are the four startups that will get to present on the DEMO main stage today and tomorrow

EcoLek, LLC
About:EcoLek LLC aims to reconnect people with nature by helping them identify the birds around them. Our Bird Alerts, available now at www.GetBirdeez.com, sends you customized notification emails about birds that have been seen in your area. The Birdeez App will help you identify birds and collect bird sightings, and the Birdeez Social Network let your share those sightings with your friends and to meet other birdwatchers in your area.

eBrevia, LLC
Founder:
Ned Gannon
About:eBrevia is commercializing natural language processing technology developed at a major research university to assist corporate attorneys, in-house counsel, and business executives in performing a variety of tasks more efficiently, accurately, and cost effectively. Using machine-learning techniques, the company¹s software can extract and summarize legal provisions from a wide array of legal documents.

Click With Me Now
Founder:
Mike Behr
About: The company offers a simple screen sharing solution that doesn¹t require extra software and works directly within the browser, allowing users to quickly share their online experience in real time with friends, coworkers, or clients. Click With Me Now received $50,000 in seed funding following its acceptance into the Capital Innovators program earlier this year, and is currently running in closed beta.

RecBob
Founder: John Schnipkoweit
About: RecBob is a Facebook app that manages adult sports teams, making them easy and fun! RecBob sends game reminders, tracks who¹s in and who¹s out on game day and automatically finds subs as needed so rosters are always full.

Of course we wish all eight startups good luck while they’re out there at DEMO. The DEMO conference can be very lucrative for any startup. This isn’t the first time Startup America has been able to help get startups from “everywhere” to major conferences and events. StartupDC held a pitch contest earlier this year for a spot at the highly coveted Capital Connection/TechBuzz event. That winner CONT3NT went on to the finals of the TechBuzz competition.

Linkage:

Find DEMO here

Startup America here

Everywhere Else here

Hong Kong Startup: DataField Lets Your Field Workers Go Paperless

Do you run a business with lots of workers in the field? Are they coming back from collecting data with clipboards full of paper? Well Hong Kong startup DataField is hoping to help change that for you and your company.

DataField is a SaaS startup that helps businesses and enterprise with field workers collect data on forms or surveys quickly, easily and digitally. DataField is the perfect solution for route drivers that collect orders while on their route. It’s also perfect for those workers out there collecting data from customers completing surveys. DataField could also be used for political canvassers that are out door to door trying to get easy questions answered.

No matter how big or small the data sample is, DataField offers a paperless way of collecting that data which then also gives companies the option of getting the data back wirelessly in real time.

DataField solves several pain points which all lead to increased productivity. Say for instance you own a food delivery company. Route drivers could use DataField instead of traditional order sheets. When the delivery person is at the customers home delivering their current food order and taking the next, the minute the new order is complete in the DataField system it can be processed back at the warehouse while the driver is on their way to the next customer.

Traditionally, before systems like this, the warehouse wouldn’t see the order sheets until the end of the day when the route driver returns.

We got a chance to speak with Antoine Dercoche co-founder and CEO of DataField. Check out the interview below.

London Startup FlatClub: AirBnb Meets Couch Surfing Meets LinkedIn For College Students

So what do you get when you take two Israeli guys, move them to London and mash together AirBnb, CouchSurfing and LinkedIn? You get London startup FlatClub.

FlatCub is a network for college students and alumni to find temporary housing situations amongst their friends, friends of friends and trusted acquaintances. FlatClub connects college students from all over with each other to offer spare bedrooms, couches, and even apartments. Say you have a year round lease on an off campus apartment and you’re not going to be at school during the summer, you could use FlatClub to find a trusted renter.

FlatClub utilizes the social web, requires users to be college students, and provides a safe and secure payment system for taking the payments for booking.

The growing startup closed an undisclosed Series-A round back in May from a syndicate of non-traditional VC’s. They are also a product of the London Business School Incubator. But even with the security of a Series-A round and the backing of an incubator like the London Business School co-founder and CEO Nitzan Yudan is far from done the hard, sweat equity type grunt work.

Yudan is planning a US expansion to the top 30 universities and plans to do it with a road show across the country. He’s looking to generate as much buzz as he can. Yudan feels that FlatClub offers a safer more secure way of finding temporary accommodations. By requiring users to be college students or alumni there’s an element of security already in place.

FlatClub also provides an element of real social interaction. Students and alumni renting accommodations will see how they are socially connected to potential renters and vice versa. Also for those students and alumni that are renting rooms, they’ll get the in person interactions that you can’t find with similar services.

We got a chance to interview Yudan. Check out the interview below.

Florida Startup: Seek.ly To Launch Online Speed Dating At DEMO

Online speed dating isn’t a new concept however it’s one that could use some definite improvements. Online dating sites typically bury their users with superfluous messages. They also give off false positives by matching users with people that aren’t interesting or compatible.

Florida startup Seek.ly plans will eliminate those problems and others to make online speed dating more spontaneous the way that it is when you go to an in person speed dating event at a local restaurant, bar or singles meet up.

Profiles be gone!

While at first this may seem like a crazy idea, one way that Seek.ly puts that spontaneity back into online speed dating is by eliminating profile pictures, and questions. To often people eliminate potential dates by profiles. The other down fall is that profiles are often blown up or only show the absolute best a person has to offer (or what they perceive is their best). With Seek.ly there’s no BS around the profile, more time is spent focusing on getting to know the person.

“Seek.ly does not have profile pictures, questionnaires or compatibility testing because we know that at the end of the day those processes just can’t take the place of human interaction. By eliminating these crutches, seek.ly users are more inclined to get to know the person and not the profile. I’m very excited about our public launch and validating these ideas.” said Susie Steiner, Founder of Seek.ly.

Steiner and co-founder Kim Randall will launch Seek.ly today at the fall DEMO conference in Santa Clara California. They’ll have six minutes to wow those in the audience and those watching from home. Online speed dating needs a makeover and Seek.ly is confident they’ll deliver.

“We are ready to take Online dating to the next level and I am very excited that we are launching our video speed dating platform at DEMO Fall 2012,” said Kim Randall, Co- founder of Seek.ly LLC.

Linkage:

Check out Seek.ly here at seek.ly

Check out DEMO here

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Toronto Startup Picatic Launches; Protects Event Organizers By Crowdfunding Tickets

Toronto startup Picatic has an excellent proposition for event organizers,”Never lose money on an event again”. They can guarantee this proposition for event organizers that use their platform for their events.

Picatic’s EventTilt platform is a crowdfunding site to fund events. Users take to the traditional crowdfunding model and essentially purchase tickets early for an event that an organizer has posted to the site. If the event gets enough early tickets from the crowd, those that crowdfunded the event will receive discounted tickets based on their contribution. Should the event not get enough commitments than the user’s card isn’t charged and everyone walks away happy.

With EventTilt event organizers can finally host events without worrying that they won’t sell enough tickets to break-even or make the profit they expected. The platform eliminates all of the financial risks of hosting an event by offering a preset number of early tickets at a discount. Once discounted tickets are sold the event Tilts and tickets go back up to full price — the event is on! For events that don’t Tilt within the time allotted, EventTilt will refund buyers 100% of their ticket price.

Just like other crowdfunding sites Picatic can also offer other incentives to those that purchase their tickets early. Incentives like early admission, VIP access,T-shirts and other swag can be used as incentives to the buyers.

“EventTilt is changing the way we plan and market events. Our goal is simple, create a platform that not only ensures events get the funding they need to be successful but also helps organizers engage with their most loyal supporters.” CEO and Co-Founder Jayesh Parmar said in a statement.

There are a few other crowdfunding startups in the ticketing and event space like GigFunder and Queremos. While many view Picatic as a way to eliminate risk for event organizers, others wonder if it’s worth backing or committing to an event that may or may not happen.

Picatic has raised $200,000 in seed funding and their site is up and running.

Linkage:

Check out Picatic on the web here

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San Diego Startup: The Tip Network Is PayPal For Servers

Although restaurant and hospitality industry technology has improved by leaps and bounds over the years, one area where it still falls short is tipping. That’s where San Diego startup The Tip Network comes in.

With the economy the way it is these days restaurant owners and managers are mice-managing their shift schedules even more than they ever have before. Owners are managers are quick to make cuts to their wait staff the minute they can. This causes a major pain for servers. In a lot of restaurants servers either need to stick around after getting cut or at the end of their shift, come back at closing time or wait until the next day to reconcile their tips and tip out. This can be a major pain point for servers.

The Tip Network offers solutions for problems like that and other problems that plague proprietors of tip based businesses.

Tip Network is a cloud based tip management solution for independent and chain restaurants. We enable managers to easily track, allocate, and distribute tips digitally to their staffs Tip Network. Each staff member has their own unique Tip Network profile that allows them to (1) send money to any account, at any bank (2) send money to anyone in the network, (3) and many other things down the road .

Using the Tip Network, servers take ownership and management of their tips over, instantly. Now, from the comfort of their own home, or device they can tip out to support staff, move tips to their bank accounts even pay back loans to other servers. Like PayPal, with The Tip Network users get their own ID and can move their tips around anywhere in the network.

Founder Greg Crisci has first hand experience as a server and knows the pain that his startup hopes to solve. He’s busy these days looking for integration partners and preparing the implementation of his new tipping alternative. He did take a few minutes to talk to us though. Check out the interview below:

New York Startup: Greatist The Go To Place For Health & Wellness Info INTERVIEW

I’m one of those people that thinks in order to be the best you need to think like you are the best, it’s a motivational mantra that’s driven me since my childhood. Such is the case with Derek Flanzraich and his health and wellness, socially driven info startup Greatist. This New York based startup is a destination site for original, amazingly good health and wellness content. It must be because they’re currently seeing 1.5 million uniques a month, which according to Flanzraich makes Greatist the fastest growing site in the health space.

Whether you’re looking for great healthy recipes, workout tips or even how to get over a hangover, Greatist offers a great variety of wellness and health related content.

While the content on Greatist.com is overflowing, the team at Greatist encourages their users to take it slow, one week at a time. The startups mission is to inspire and inform the world to make at least one healthier decision per week. Whether you want to lose weight, eat better, get stronger, get motivated, relieve stress, or just start working out, greatist.com offers the content you need, in an easy to read format for all of their users.

Flanzraich has been an entrepreneur since his first “lemonade stand” startup dog walking business. All the while friends, family members and new acquaintances would ask him what drove him and one of those main ingredients was health and wellness. That’s why he created Greatist.

We got a chance to talk to Flanzraich. Check out the interview below:

Atlanta Startup LaunchTable Launches Connect, Communicate, Collaborate

Back in May we got a chance to interview Atlanta based entrepreneur Ian Jones about his exciting new startup called LaunchTable. While there are several startups out there competing in the collaboration space, Jones has created LaunchTable to make it easier to not just collaborate but to communicate and connect as well.

Most of the other collaboration startups out there allow users to collaborate based on teams that they already have in place. Take Facebook Founder Dustin Muskovitz’s startup Asana. Asana is a great tool that allows users to collaborate in a way very similar to Google Wave. Of course with Asana you have the team in place already.

When you sign up for a user account at LaunchTable here, you immediately receive recommendations on other people that you should collaborate with. If the automagical recommendations don’t suit your needs you’re welcome to browse the entire community for the right match without limits.

Once you’ve synced up with a new team LaunchTable makes it easy to keep track of your projects. Everything is saved on your groups “Launch Table” to make it easier to continue working and collaborating. You can also send “LaunchMail” to your teammates ask questions and interact in their forums.

LaunchTable also baked in the collaboration platform that allows you to hold virtual meetings within your LaunchTable. As with everything else in LaunchTable your meetings are saved for later as well.

LaunchTable also wants to be a resource to entrepreneurs and startups around the globe. They’ve opened up their “blog” for any LaunchTable user to contribute their own content to the site.

“Launch Table is for anyone working on any project that could use the help of another individual or a multi-person team. We’ve heard from people seeking startup partnerships, business owners looking to converse on best practices, and even teachers wanting to know what works well in other classrooms. Launch Table tears down geographic and social barriers.” Jones told nibletz.com in an interview.

Whether you’re looking for startup co-founders, someone to do a school project with or a team to launch a community initiative, or really anything else that requires collaboration, check out LaunchTable.

Linkage

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Boston Startup: Toursphere Lets You View MOBA’s Bad Art Anywhere

Back in June we brought you the story about Boston startup Toursphere, the virtual tour guide app. This startup lets tour go-ers take waking tours at their own leisure, and at their own pace by putting the tour on a mobile app.

Toursphere’s CEO and Founder Rob Pyles began with setting up tours of Boston using influential Boston locals and celebrities to actually narrate the tours. Dicky Barrett, the front man for the popular Ska band the Mighty Mighty Bosstones is one of the featured tour voices in the Boston tours.

Toursphere also has a way that other municipalities and museums can utilize the TourSphere platform and create their own tours easily. That system has already been implemented in Chicago, Miami, New Orleans and Washington DC as well as other major cities.

Now, instead of just providing a tour for people that have come to a destination, TourSphere has teamed up with the Museum of Bad Art in Boston to bring a virtual tour of the world’s worst art, out of Boston, virtually across the world by way of mobile app. The museum, which has an enormous following, will now be able to let those loyal fans iew the museum from the palm of their own hand. Built on the mobile DIY app platform TourSphere, the Museum of Bad Art’s app gives art enthusiasts everywhere a glimpse into one of the city’s quirkiest attractions from anywhere in the world.

“One of the best things about TourSphere are the unique, out-of-the-way museums and tourist sites that often build apps on our platform,” says TourSphere CEO Robert Pyles. “Our platform enables some smaller and lesser-known museums to create state-of-the-art mobile tour apps that are entertaining and informative and help to engage a wider audience than they otherwise would be able to reach. We give fans in other states and countries a way to check out artwork from all over the world with narration, history and other features you’d normally get on a live tour.”

The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) has three brick and mortar galleries in the Boston area as well as an online gallery. Its app provides short and humorous narrations of each of the pieces of art. MOBA’s TourSphere app provides a glimpse into the world of bad art to its tens of thousands of fans worldwide, many of whom are unable to visit the galleries in person.“We’ve always made use of technology,” says MOBA’s Permanent Acting Interim Executive Director, Louise Reilly Sacco. “TourSphere’s app for MOBA provides a richer experience for visitors to our galleries as well as access from anywhere in the world.”

Toursphere and MOBA will launch the app on October 17th.

Linkage

Fans can get the virtual tour app here

Find out more about Toursphere and MOBA here

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Share Your Docs With QR Codes Using Canadian Startup: TagMyDoc

Canadian startup TagMyDoc has introduced a new way to share documents. With the use of 2D tags (QR Codes), users can now share documents from DropBox,Box and Microsoft Office. The easy to use tagging system can be added to virtually any document including Word, Excel, PDF, Images, PowerPoint, Open Office and more.

TagMyDoc works exactly as you would expect it to. You add the tag to your doc and anyone who has access to the QR Code can scan the code and instantly retrieve a virtual copy of the document on their device.

TagMyDoc is perfect for offices. They can post signs, posters or memos with a group of TagMyDoc QR codes and then employees can download the documents when they scan the code. It’s also great for people trying to link information to others. For example a lost dog poster could now contain the important bullet points on the sign, with the QR code linking to more information.

Their system would also be great for events, conferences and even school assemblies where people could scan a QR code to get more information on a topic from a speaker. The QR codes could easily be added to paper event programs and eliminate extra paper for descriptions, white papers and other supporting documents.

Not only is TagMyDoc an greener way to share documents, it also makes documents social. End users who scan a QR code for a document can also elect to follow the document. Users can make comments on documents and follow the document to see additional comments. This is another great feature that could be utilized in big group settings where if one user had a question about the material in the document they could share that question and then the answer would be shared as well.

TagMyDoc is connecting readers, authors and documents in a whole new way. TagMyDoc is like the social network for documents.

Linkage:

Check out Tagmydoc here at tagmydoc.com

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Manage Your Personal Web With Michigan Startup: backstitch INTERVIEW

Imagine if HootSuite allowed you to go out of the “social sphere” and customize all the content you wanted across the internet. In a nutshell, that’s exactly what Michigan startup backstitch does. And, they do it well.

Husband and wife co-founders Jordan and Stefanie Warzecha describe BackStitch as a clean and consistent user experience for managing your personal web. Your personal web includes your social media feeds, your favorite news and blog sites and even your favorite daily deals sites. Now with backstitch you can take all of that content and instead of having an unorganized hodge podge of browser tabs open, everything comes together in a nice aggregated dashboard.

Moreso than just organizing all of your favorite web content backstitch actually saves the user a lot of time. Typically everyone has an internet routine. Although most people start their web routine on a smartphone or tablet, once you get to your computer for the day the routine picks up. For me I open up Hootsuite, Google Reader, Nibletz.com, about five other blog sites and a ton of email screens. This is all before 8am. With BackStitch a lot of that content is in one easy to find place.

backstitch comes out of the box with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Appdotnet. They also have a variety of popular new sites baked in along with all of the popular daily deals sites. They’ve also thought about people who read blogs and sites outside of what BackStitch offers, and allows users to add any site with an RSS feed (although they should add nibletz.com to the catalog).

We got a chance to talk with Jordan. Check out our interview below: