Israeli Startup: YouHoo Location Based Social Networking For Friends And Strangers

(photo: pcmag)

An Israeli startup called YouHoo was in the Israeli pavilion at startup alley at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012. They have a new spin on social networking, and in particular,location based or proximity based social networking.

As you’ll see in the video below, YouHoo takes your location and polls the people closest to you. It then turns around and shows them to you on your Android powered smartphone. Your actual friends are in pink, your mutual friends are in blue and strangers are in white.

Founder Ohad Assoulin talked to us for a while about his new social network and how he hopes to turn groups of strangers into groups of friends.

YouHoo would make a great icebreaker for trips to the beach, and other locations where a lot of young people are congregating.

Israel is becoming a hotspot for social networking startups, earlier this week we featured a 15 year old named Tal Hoffman from Israel and his new social network based on interests called  iTimdi.

Take YouHoo for a spin, sign up for their beta below and watch the video:

Linkage:

Sign up for YouHoo’s beta here

More of our TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 coverage here

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Bethlehem PA Startup: Weather Trades Video Interview

Rarely have I found a company that deals with a force that disrupts more lives than any other issue.  Weather.  We’ve all watched the local meteorologist completely drop the ball and get it wrong.  Weather Trades, a spin-off from Weather Trends International, has a product that could change the way you live.  Seriously.

Here in the United States the typical yearly vacation time is an extremely limited two weeks.  We take huge risks when we book our travel for that short period of time.  Have you ever been to an outdoor wedding that ended up inside?  Have you ever wondered if you should keep those winter clothes out for another 6 weeks?  I have been directly or indirectly affected by each of these scenarios. If you could see a weather forecast for the next year – worldwide – with an accuracy of 80% or better how would your life be different?

Imagine you are the largest retailer in the world, and you have to decide to purchase air conditioners from the manufacturers but cannot decide whether or not to buy all of the stock or a third of it. Walmart had to make that decision:

“We bought all of the home center’s uncommitted air circulation orders from the manufacturers and had a great year.  Our sell through was 98% compared to 85% last year based solely on a huge decision we made using your year-ahead summer forecast. A $130,000,000 win in one category.” Gordon Erickson, Senior Vice President Merchandising-Hardlines

Commodities Traders:

WTI is the ONLY company in the world that provides YEAR-AHEAD forecasts that can be integrated into trading models and other business applications. WTI provides a complete suite of products and services for commodity traders, energy traders, and the entire agricultural industry. This includes typical short range-forecasting services along with proprietary year-ahead global forecasts and analytical assessments for grains, sugar, energy, and other weather driven commodity markets across the globe.

Travel Sites: After approaching the more popular travel sites on the internet and being turned down Weather Trades turned their sites on TechCrunch Disrupt to hopefully find developers, startups, and investors who can build upon the unique tools that they’ve created. In all honesty this is the startup that had me most excited.  To see a little more check out the interview by Kyle below.  I will also be reviewing their wt360 Pro app in the coming days.  It’s available in the App Store and Google Play

Find out more about Weather Trades here

Check out more of our TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 coverage here

We’re on a sneaker strapped, nationwide, startup road trip, for more on that (and to support our cause) click here