Fliqq Partners With Artists Like Wyclef To Use Their Group Sharing Video Technology [interview][disrupt]

We’ve seen Wyclef get behind some great things. New York startup Fliqq is the latest.

Fliqq is a platform that allows people to “move in groups” around a piece of video content. It spun out of their original concept which was to move people around the internet in a group. Using Fliqq’s technology a group of friends, a class, a group of colleagues in the same industry or even a family could move across the web from site to site at the same time. Think screen sharing in a much better looking wrapper with a lot more features.

Fliqq’s CEO and co-founder Christian Bendixen explained to us that Fliqq had a great idea and people were using it, but what they found was that most people were using it for video. So they decided to make a half pivot and have Fliqq center around media. At the same time they saw the power in taking it to mobile.

While Bendixen admits they haven’t tested Fliqq to the limit, you could easily use it with groups as large as 50,000. This will make this a great service for concert-goers, people watching plays or fans of an artist, like Wyclef who will partner with Fliqq to use their technology.

Bendixen explains in the video that Wyclef’s fans will be able to get on the platform, and he will be able to share whatever media he wants with them, all at the same time. This could prove to be a very valuable tool.

Imagine going to a tech conference like TechCrunch Disrupt or everywhereelse.co and the keynote speakers could instantly share the slide decks, videos and other images with the entire audience. Or, you could go to a huge concert and the artist could share a sneak preview video halfway through the show. This is the foundation of what Fliqq us all about.

We got to talk with Bendixen in the Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2013. Check out the video interview below:

Check out all of our TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2013 coverage here, brought to you by The Factory in Augustine Florida.

DC Sartup DeJed Wants To Be Ebay For Digital Goods [interview][video][disrupt]

Daniel Kim and Bhupinder Singh were at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC’s starutp alley on day one. Their startup DEJED is a new digital goods market place that Kim describes as “ebay for digital goods”.

They are hoping to bring together creators, marketers and buyers in one platform that allows people to find the digital content they need and for creators, and affiliates to get paid.

In an untraditional model the duo are attracting third party people with social clout to help market the digital goods that the creators are selling. This may offer DEJED the biggest competitive edge over competitors. Singh is very excited about this aspect of the business, he told us during an interview that someone with tens of thousands of followers could easily make good money helping to bring buyers to digital goods.

DEJED hopes to become the go to place to buy and sell music, videos, ebooks, apps, plug-ins, code, models, icons, avatars, class notes, games, pictures, animations, how to’s, comics, coupons and any other good that has digital delivery.

On the buyer side DEJED will offer lifetime cloud access for all of the purchased digital goods as an archive to save everything someone buys using the DEJED platform.

Check out our video interview below and for more info visit dejed.com.

Crowdsource Video From An Event With NY Startup Crowdflik [DISRUPT][video]

Crowdsourcing is nothing new, neither is shooting video, however putting it all together in a beautiful format is new and that’s what New York startup Crowdflik is doing.

Crowdflik allows users who are signed in an at a particular event, to upload videos from that event. Then what happens is magical. Crowdflik stitches all the videos together to make one fluid video with lots of different movie clips shot from a variety of users.

Crowdflik users will be able to see all of the videos aggregated and stitched together or browse the variety of videos shot from different users.

We got a chance to interview Crowdflik’s Vice President of marketing Sarah McClutchy check out the video below. For more information sign up for updates at crowdflik.com

We’ve got more from TechCrunch Disrupt 2013, here at nibletz.com

New York Startup PaddleYou Has A Ping Pong Paddle For Your Startup

PaddleYou is a New York based startup that is, you guessed it, in the ping pong paddle business.

As startups grow up and move out of the spare bedroom or the garage they look to make their first office space more “startupy”. Often times you have to do it with a budget. So what does a bootstrapped startup do to give their new office the “startup feel” without breaking the bank on some full sized upright arcade machines, or the latest virtual reality gear?

Well the “rock some tags” of course, and go for the ping pong table.

Over the last 18 months, travelling on our “sneaker strapped road trip” I’ve become actually decent at Ping Pong. I think we’ve seen over a 100 ping pong tables at various startup spaces. It’s funny how HD Tvs and Nintendo Wii’s can sit dormant forever, but find a few developers and designers and when they take a quick work break it’s for a fast game of ping pong.

Well PaddleYou creates custom ping pong paddles. You can put a picture on a paddle or your startups logo. Our “N” will look great on a ping pong paddle.

What’s even greater about PaddleYou is that the startup founded by Table Tennis Nation and ping pong star Marty Reisman, actually pitched at the February New York TechCrunch Pitch off and came in second place. The company has also been nominated for an Edison award and they’ve been Men’s Journal approved.

Table Tennis Nation President Cooper Fallek will be in the hardware alley Wednesday at TechCrunch Disrupt showing off just how cool ping pong paddles can be.

If you’re jonesing for a paddle now, PaddleYou is up and running and you can get your customized paddle for just $29.99 with 10% off by using code tcdisrupt1 at paddleyou.com.

Check out some of our TechCrunch Disrupt coverage from last year, click here.

Ashton Kutcher Set To Return To TechCrunch Disrupt NYC

Coming through the pages of the startupmemphis blog by Commercial Appeal James Dowd I was pleasantly surprised to read that Ashton Kutcher would be returning to the main stage next week at TechCrunch Disrupt.

The annual Disrupt event held in New York City is one of the most talked about startup events on the east coast. Hundreds of startups vie for the opportunity to present in the highly coveted startup alley and even more apply to pitch on the Disrupt Battlefield. Startups lucky enough to be chosen to compete on the battlefield go up against some of the hardest judges that New York and Silicon Valley have to offer.

The battlefield startups are competing for a $50,000 prize but much more importan than the cash is the chance to say that your startup placed in the battlefield competition. For a startup closing a funding round down, that may be the extra push they need to make it over the top.

In the four years that we’ve covered Disrupt NY (once as Nibletz 3 as TDG) we’ve seen great startups on the battlefield stage and a collection of the best fireside chats in the world. Except for Disrupt SF 2011, some of the best have been hosted by Mike Arrington.

Two years ago at Disrupt NYC Ashton Kutcher sat down with Charlie Rose. This was right as he was making the transition to his new role on Two and a Half Men and questions about the show were strictly off limits. Instead Rose and Kutcher discussed his VC firm, which just two years ago, people were still concerned that actors were making a mockery of the venture capital model.

Since then Kutcher has proven himself. Through his A-Grade investments he’s backed startups like 2011 Disrupt battlefield winner GetAround, Sonic Notify, Fab and Tiny Chat. Through his own angel investments Kutcher has backed AirBnB, DuoLingo, Summly and Dwolla.

This year he returns to the main stage to chat about A-Grade’s investment strategy and portfolio. While Two And A Half Men was off limits TechCrunch Editor In Chief Eric Eldon says he may end up talking about his role as Steve Jobs in the biopic film that debuted at Sundance.

Listen Up Here’s How You Could Win A TechCrunch Startup Alley Booth

TechCrunch has just announced the first wave of their 2013 meetups and this year they’re coming with “Pitch Offs” as well.

TechCrunch held a pitch off event in New York City back in February. It was met with huge success. TechCrunch editor John Biggs called the event a “mini Disrupt”. If you’ve ever been to Disrupt in Asia, New York or San Francisco, it’s one of the most highly coveted startup events.

Now TechCrunch has announced meet-ups and pitch offs in Austin, San Diego and Boston.

The first event out of the gate is the Austin meetup on May 30th at the Stage On Sixth where TechCocktail held their pitch-off event during SXSW.

TechCrunch meetups are great. We were able to attend one in North Carolina and one in Atlanta last year. Both had nearly 1000 people through the door which came from every corner of the tech and startup community. There will be a handful of local startups and local startup support organizations, free alcohol and TechCrunch editors and reporters mingling and giving best practices and advice to startups. They even hold office hours.

This year they’re adding the pitch off event as well.

Participants will have 60 seconds to pitch the crowd and the TechCrunch judges. Products must be in private beta or stealth mode and ready to launch at TechCrunch Disrupt SF in September. The top prize at the Austin event is a free TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley booth. Of course the TechCrunch judges will also be vetting startups for the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield stage for their chance at $50,000 and a crown that is almost always synonymous with follow on funding.

So if your startup wants into the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley, prepare to attend the Austin event in May!

More on the Austin meetup and pitch off here.

Did you miss everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, don’t miss the next one.

Memphis Startup: WorkForPie Prepares For TechCrunch Disrupt

If their name means anything at all than Memphis startup WorkForPie should have several walk in freezers worth of pie because they’ve been working really hard… for pie. WorkForPie was a member of the first class at Memphis’ accelerator SeedHatchery. They were also the first startup out of SeedHatchery to raise significant follow on funding.

After graduating from SeedHatchery co-founders Cliff McKinney and Brad Montgomery were able to attract a $300,000 investment round from Solidus in Nashville and a>m ventures.

They’ve been doing a number of things right and have a tireless work ethic. Montgomery and McKinney are also passionate about Memphis and the startup ecosystem brewing there. McKinney and Montgomery are very vocal about what they think matters, especially when you’re growing a startup outside Silicon Valley or New York City.

All of this leads to the reason why they are the first startup from Memphis Tennessee that will appear in Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco next week.

We got a chance to catch up with WorkForPie and talk about TechCrunch Disrupt, brewing startups outside the confines of the valley and product, product, product. Check out our short interview below:

Boston Startup Postwire: Share Private Content In A Highly Visual Way VIDEO INTERVIEW

If you’re a sales person with a few binders worth of clients, a rolodex filled with other clients and vendors and you spend way too much time at a fax machine, Postwire may be for your. Postwire is a new startup application launched by Boston based VisibleGains. The concept behind Postwire is actually very easy, the execution is why it was one of the finalists in this years Disrupt Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012.

Postwire allows business users to set up private, personalized web pages for clients so that forms, orders, and other paper based correspondence can be shared quicker and in a much easier to view way.

Now instead of spending all day at a fax machine, sales people, vendors and other business to business companies can post things to a private post wire page to correspond one to one.

“We developed Postwire with the goal of creating a super simple approach for helping professionals and clients get on the same page — literally,” said Cliff Pollan, co-founder and CEO at VisibleGains. “Sharing just the right information goes a long way toward helping your clients succeed. Now, everyone from small business owners to sales and account teams to physical therapists can easily offer each client a personalized resource page to reference at any time.”

We got to talk with Pollan at TechCrunch disrupt who took us on a little tour of Postwire and plans on taking us on a little tour of the startup scene in Massachusetts as part of our sneaker-strapped nationwide startup road trip.

Check out the video below:

Indian Startup: iLiftoff Provides Easy To Use Testing Platform For Recruiters INTERVIEW VIDEO

Indian startup iLiftoff is an easy to use testing platform for recruiters. iLiftoff has it’s own database of test questions for many fields and industries. Their knowledge base of questions covers everything from financial positions to coding. Recruiters can even add their own questions.

HR recruiters will use iLiftoff for pre-employment screening.

iLiftoff has released their platform with tests covering four sectors; programming, finance, law and logic.iLiftoff than breaks those four sectors down to more refined industries like banking and insurance which would fall under the finance category.

iLiftoff also offers companies the ability to create their own tests. These tests can be for recruitment, advancement or to assess training initiatives.

They’ve taken this approach to testing one step further by creating a platform that will work on PC’s and Mac desktops and laptops and also on both Android and iOS tablets.This means that tests can be administered in the field on a wide variety of topics.

While it’s not a glamorous industry, iLiftoff does seem to be addressing a need for both good testing platforms and for companies to easily make up their own tests without having to outsource or take months for a project test.

Check out our video interview with co-founder Raghav Aggarwal below:

Linkage:

Check out iLiftoff here at their website

Here’s more of nibletz TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 coverage here

Nibletz is on a sneaker-strapped nationwide startup road trip learn more here

Interview London Startup: ColourDNA Discovery Of Things In A New Way

If you’re a starutp pitching “discovery” these days you need to make sure you have something unique, fresh and disruptive. London based startup Colour DNA is one of those startups.

Colour DNA isn’t about the things your friends like, it’s about the things that you like.

Once you sign up for the service you pick a color that matches your personality or your favorite color (it’s colour because it’s the British spelling). From there you use an icon with your colour and a heart symbol to mark all the things that you love. Sounds simple so far right?

Then through their property algorithms, ColourDNA matches your likes with other likes across the network. All of these places, foods, events and things also get their own colour based on the spectrum of colours that everyone who loves them has used.

So now you get matched with the things you love and ColourDNA matches you with the people you have the most matches with. Then, ColourDNA takes the things those people love that you don’t love and matches you to those things as discoverables.

Now ColourDNA has helped you discover things and share your things with others. Pretty simple huh?

There’s a lot more to it then meets the eye. Ben Poynter, Co-Founder and CEO of ColourDNA told TechCrunch in an interview earlier this year:

“We are all about discovery new things to enjoy in life based on your interests.. and a few other factors like your favourite colours. We think the interest graph should be about making it easy to discover new things that you’ll love through personalisation, much like Facebook has made it easier for you to re-connecting with your friends.

“I think Pinterest has done a great job as a beautiful and intuitively designed curation tool. We are less a curation tool, and much more a discovery tool… A key feature for us is that a user doesn’t need to know anyone to get an immediately rewarding experience from their unique actions. We push you personalised recommendations by unlocking how your interest graph overlaps with other users, so that you can discover great new things that you would struggle to elsewhere without having to spend a considerable amount of time endlessly browsing.”

Once you download the app itself you’ll see how all of these different aspects of Colour are relevant in ColourDNA. Check out our video below as well:

Linkage:

Check out ColourDNA at their website here

Here’s more of our coverage of TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012

We’re on a sneaker-strapped, nationwide startup roadtrip, check it out here

Interview With Boston Startup Jaxx, A Social App For Dudes

Jaxx is a mobile social application just for guys they call it “an app for your entourage”. Jaxx stands by the fact that women and men communicate differently. Where women need face to face interaction men prefer shoulder to shoulder.

That’s why the Jaxx app has three key elements. Jaxx allows men to form entourages of friends. Within the entourage they can “throw down” bets on games, “call out” friends to challenges and “roast” each other.

The roasting part was actually pretty funny. It’s a location portion of the social mobile app which allows you to leave a smack talking roast when your “bro” gets close to that area. For instance if you know your bro is going to play tennis you can leave a roast like “Man you hit like a girl” and when he gets to the tennis court he’ll get that message.

Jaxx launched a beta at TechCrunch Disrupt for iPhone and they plan on launching an Android app as well. They were handing out an investor prospectus at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 which said they were expecting major growth in 2013 an d2014 and they were seeking a $500,000 seed round.

At this point in time Jaxx is more of a novelty than anything serious. There are several social networks revolving around sports that men may find a lot more appealing, and a bit more mature. Judge for yourself though, check out the video below:

Linkage:

Check out Jaxxapp here at their website

See more of our TechCrunch Disrupt coverage here

We’re on a sneaker-strapped, nationwide startup roadtrip, more here

We Catch Up With Social Photo Sharing Startup StreamZoo At TechCrunch Disrupt VIDEO INTERVIEW

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 in New York City, our Managing Editor, Cameron Wright caught wind of Phonezoo’s latest startup project StreamZoo. StreamZoo is a multi platform photosharing application for Android and iPhone that has unique elements that make it one of the most popular photo sharing experiences outside of Instagram.

For starters StreamZoo allows users to follow users and streams that are created by hashtags. For example, co-founder Manish Vaidya talks in part three of this interview about how international users in Indonesia and Brazil make streams for their countries which draw more photos from other users in their country.

Wright also talks to Vaidya about the impact that Instagram has had on StreamZoo. Vaidya says that StreamZoo wasn’t really affected by the adoption of Instagram. Users were steadfast in their ways with their photosharing apps. What did happen however, was when Lightbox was acquihired by Facebook and subsequently shutdown StreamZoo found a lot of users migrated to their service. Those users used a stream #lightbox to find each other on StreamZoo.

StreamZoo also offers a badging element reminiscent of GoWalla which was also acquihired by Facebook. StreamZoo has the ability to create badges centered around locations, businesses, fun places to go and events. In fact Vaidya created a special badge unique to just Disrupt.

In Part I of the interview Wright talks with Vaidya about the progress that StreamZoo has made since they met the previous year. They also talk about how the StreamZoo community influences changes in the 8 person Sunnyvale based team. StreamZoo had gone a little notification crazy but quickly reacted to the community adding a more effective way to manage notifications in messages within the UI. Check out part I below:

In Part II of the interview Vaidya talks about the impact of Instagram, Facebook and Lightbox on the StreamZoo application. Check out part II after the break

Interview With A Founder: Philly Startup Snip Snap App

At TechCrunch Disrupt we reported on a very cool startup called Snip Snap App. I was so excited about it that I had the first story up before Ted Mann, the founder, got a chance to get off the Disrupt Battlefield stage. While he may feel that larger media outlet coverage is more relevant, we all know the power of nibletz as the voice of startups everywhere else, that’s why after several editorial meetings about this we decided to post the interview anyway, regardless of the founders view on TechCrunch coverage vs Nibletz coverage it’s a damn good product, and heck some people think I’m a total douche, but still read nibletz everyday.

So what is Snip Snap App, it’s an app that’s already saved me $36 and I’ve only had it on my iPhone 4S since last Wednesday. With Snip Snap App you simply take pictures of your print coupons, within the app and voila the rest is magical.

Snip Snap App takes all the useful coupon information like the barcode, promotional codes, and images and makes them easy for the cashier to see at checkout. Now you don’t have to worry about loading down your pocketbook, or purse, or forgetting the Babies R Us coupons, which is consequently why Mann created the app.

Here's our original picture of MC Hammer talking to Mann that was borrowed without accreditation (photo: nibletz syndicate)

But that’s not all…

When you sign up for Snip Snap App you join a community of likeminded couponers who are also posting coupons on a daily basis. You can use a search function or discover function to find coupons that you’ll use in your community, or in your daily travels.

In fact, you don’t even need to upload a coupon to get the benefit of using everyone else’s coupons.

Now, when you try and redeem the coupon there is the risk that the cashier or store won’t take the coupon but more and more stores are getting used to seeing digital coupons. If you successfully redeemed your coupon than you mark it as such after using it. If you pitched a fit and are waiting for the paddy wagon to come and get you for punching the clerk in the face for not taking your coupon, then you mark it as “unsuccessful” (please don’t really do that).

These success ratings give you a better idea going into the store whether or not you’re going to have success. Bed Bath & Beyond, The Gap, Old Navy and Burger King seem to be quite successful thus far. Snip Snap App also has a new exclusive coupon deal with Aeropastle as well so you can use their coupon at any shopping mall in America.

Snip Snap App is going to be more successful than traditional coupon apps because of the discovery, search and sharing functionality. In some cases those gigantic Bed Bath & Beyond coupons that come in the mail are being shared on Snip Snap App with success. This is a feature the other coupon apps don’t have.

So far Mann has seen over 130,000 device downloads after being featured in the iTunes store and over 50,000 repeat users. Why, because it’s really a must have app. Mann reports to our Managing Editor Cameron Wright, that an Android and iPad app can be expected in the coming months.

Watch this video than download it:

Linkage:

Check out Snip Snap App in the iTunes App Store

See more of our TechCrunch Disrupt Coverage of startups “everywhere else”

We’re on a sneaker-strapped, nationwide, startup roadtrip find out more here

NY Startup: LocalBonus Offers Extremely Simple Loyalty Rewards Program

After this years South By Southwest we quickly predicted that the “social discovery” space would become a thing of the past and that “Loyalty Rewards” would take it’s spot as the startup du jour. Now that loyalty and rewards is filling up faster than you can say Groupon, what’s going to set these startups apart is effect on the merchant and ease of use for the user.

NY startup LcoalBonus has both of those factors in check. LocalBonus is one of the easiest reward programs to set up. You simply add an existing credit card account to your LocalBonus account and you’re ready to earn rewards. In fact you can set up all of your credit cards if you choose.

LocalBonus plans a national rollout. They started out in New York and expanded last month into Seattle, Portland, Sacremento and Denver. LocalBonus founder and CEO Derek Webster told us that there are over 800 merchants in the program already.

More + video after the break
Read More…

Check out all of our TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2013 coverage here, brought to you by The Factory in Augustine Florida.

Check out our video interview below and for more info visit dejed.com.

We’ve got more from TechCrunch Disrupt 2013, here at nibletz.com

Check out some of our TechCrunch Disrupt coverage from last year, click here.

More on TechCrunch Disrupt SF here.

Did you miss everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, don’t miss the next one.