Posts tagged as:

startup

Motally is Totally About Mobile Analytics

by julieblaustein on February 8, 2010

By Julie Blaustein

Wednesday, February 3rd  I attended the kickoff of Motally’s moChats. Motally plans to hold a moChat the 1st. Wednesday of every month at their cozy headquarters in SOMA.  MoChats are casual talks designed to share insights about successful mobile development and optimizing mobile sites and apps through analytics. Analytics is what Motally provides, not only for mobile devices on the iPhone, Android and Blackberry platforms but also for the Apple iPad.

Pizza and drinks, including adult beverages, were served while sitting around a projector and chatting about Motally. Many features were discussed including the 2-way communications, user statistics such as unique users, page views, top referrers, top devices etc.  Also discussed was their search tracking feature.  When someone does an internal search on a mobile website, the website publisher can track what happens after the search to determine whether an action took place.  For example, say an individual searches for pizza on a mobile website and then later makes a phone call to place an order.  This is the type of data that is captured by Motally’s analytics and is particularly useful for sites that have strong search functionality. In fact, Yelp,  the local search and review site is one of its customers. Other clients include Fandango, IAC , Portable Zoo, and Verve Wireless.

Connect with Motally on Twitter at and keep up with them and all the excitement at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona February 15-18th or if you are in Barcelona, Motally will be at RIM’s App Planet in Hall 7, booth 7B26. You can also join them at the next Motally moChat on Wednesday, March 3rd.

The Motally Team at the AppShowcase/Buzzworthy Event.

Post to Twitter

{ 0 comments }

fanduel-logoAs a sports fan and casual fantasy sports participant, reading about today’s launch of FanDuel, a new fantasy sports wagering site by the folks over at HubDub, on TechCrunch definitely caught my attention. FanDuel’s approach to the fantasy sports is combining the quick thrill of traditional sports wagering with the unique nature of fantasy sports.

If you’ve ever been in a fantasy sports league you know it’s great when you’re on top but when you’re down, the season can be hellishly long and brutal. Tuning into the fast-paced nature we’ve come accustomed to via our daily social networks, FanDuel looks to solve that problem giving you a chance to put together a new team daily for baseball and weekly in football – the two primary sports FanDuel hosts at the moment.

fanduelOn top of that and to capture the audience looking to make a little money on it, FanDuel lets you wager on each of your games (from $5 to $25). So is it legal? Yes. Current U.S. laws provide for wagering on fantasy sports with the payouts usually coming at the end of a season, FanDuel pays out daily or weekly. The site does offer free games with no prizes beyond short-term office bragging rights.

HubDub’s blog goes on to say, “Players can draft a new team at any time, and pitch it head-to-head against an opponent – a friend, or another FanDuel player – for real money. The player whose team has the most fantasy points at the end of the day’s games wins the cash prize.”

paidContent.org points out stats from the Fantasy Sports Trade Association estimating there are over 27 million fantasy sports players in the U.S., so FanDuel does have a large potential member base to tap into. The company took a great approach not trying to upend the giants in the traditional fantasy sports world like Yahoo!, ESPN or CBS, but with short-term commitments and the ability to make a few dollars on it, I think they have a good shot at grabbing some traction in the market. I have not seen such a unique approach to fantasy sports since the Wall Street Sports/Sandbox days of the late 1990’s.

Post to Twitter

{ 0 comments }

On July 13th the Israeli high-tech community gathered at TWS2009 to to discuss and preview  new trends and technologies from Israel’s hottest Web and Mobile.

As one of the judges, I was chosen to help TWS select the top 10 companies to present at this year’s showcase. From the hundreds of top-notch applicants, it wasn’t an easy process to funnel applicants down to 10. Other judges included, Ron Conway, Rafe Needleman, Andrew Baron, Stowe Boyd, Ayelet Noff, Deborah Schultz, Jeff Pulver, Kfir Pravda, Gil Ben-Artzy, Dave Sifry, among others.

Congratulations to this year’s TWS2009 Top 10:

Shidonni

Shidonni is a web based virtual world for young kids, based on the simple joy of drawing. In Shidonni, kids draw their virtual pets and play with them as they magically ‘come alive’. After creating their pets, children enjoy over 30 different activities and games featuring their own creations and can even share their creation with their friends.

Confidela provides businesses and individuals with hassle-free document control, tracking and protection services to facilitate the sharing of sensitive documents with customers, partners or suppliers. Confidela’s flagship SaaS product, WatchDox, is the easiest way for organizations to send documents securely, and control and track who views, edits, prints or forwards them.

cmyCasa

Cmycasa is a first of its kind “Handshake service” between home owners and furniture retailers. With Cmycasa, users of real estate web sites and “do-it-yourself portals” will be able to visualize in stunning photo-realistic 3D how their new home will look once furnished to their taste.

Cellerium

Cellerium is the maker of MobileCanvas, a mobile application platform that delivers rich, mobile tailored web experiences across leading mobile platforms. Cellerium AppOnce approach resolves device and operating system fragmentation and combines a rich UI experience that rivals client centered applications with the flexibility of web deployment.

ContextIn is a semantic media-buying platform for display-advertising. Using semantic algorithms for automatic extraction of the discussed topics in web pages, ContextIn addresses the display advertising market problems of absence of visibility and control over the media-buying and poor performance, especially over user-generated-content sites. ContextIn offers a new and innovative solution, which proved to show significant increase in the online campaigns returns, using automatic ads targeting, real-time bidding, unique BI data and dynamic ad-creative creation according to the web-site content.

Tweegee is a pioneering destination site designed exclusively for kids. The site empowers children and pre-teens, ages 7 to 12, to express themselves creatively and safely in an innovative and customized online environment. Tweegee integrates social networking, digital content, and interactive tools to offer a complete web platform for kids. Tweegee’s platform has been released with great success in Russia and soon in Turkey and many other countries.

KIDO'Z

KIDO’Z is a web operating environment intended for children between the ages of 3-8yrs. KIDO’Z creates a personal protected Internet space with a collection of special tools that enable the children, for the first time, to carry out everything that adults do on the Internet; but simply and intuitively, and without needing to know how to read or write

CamSpace is a ground breaking computer vision platform that connects the virtual and the real world through motion games, experiences, activities and navigation of application and websites through your browser and using any standard webcam. The platform can detect human gestures and turns everyday products (like cans, bottles, boxes, etc) or objects into exciting computer controllers that can operate new or existing games and applications. The company is active in the advertising space (creating games and experiences based on products), in the educational space and in the social/fun gaming space. (Disclosure: I advised the company in the past).

virtualweb

Virtual Web provides innovative social network marketing solutions. Its SociaLAVA™ platform enables online publishers of any scale to instantly deploy a fully-functional social network as a transparent layer over their existing websites, powered by a unique social network interaction analysis engine™. Publishers can offer users personalized content to keep them on the site for longer visits, enhance conversion rates, monetize their sites through segmented ads, increase site ‘stickiness’ and link a consistently growing number of online communities to their domains using a unique community-clustering mechanism.

Reimage is a fast growing company that offers a web-based service that automates all PC repairs (due to software problems), and makes PC’s run better than new using unique boosting technologies. To date, Reimage has repaired tens of thousands of Windows based computers.

Connect with me on:

Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, or Facebook

Now available (click to purchase):

Post to Twitter

{ 0 comments }

This Thursday, I’m presenting at the SVASE Startup-U in San Francisco. Hosted at DLA Piper’s new offices in San Francisco, we’ll review, “DIY vs. Outsourced PR & Social Media for Startups.”

It’s an important topic, one that will help you navigate the path from startup to success.

Seating is limited, so be sure to reserve your spot now.

Connect with me on:
Twitter
, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, or Facebook

Post to Twitter

{ 0 comments }

words and pictures by Brian Solis

Every month, Dave McClure organizes Startup2Startup, one of the most helpful and valuable events designed to help startups excel through connections, advice, insight, and experience.

This month, S2S featured none other than Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. Hsieh, as you may or may not know, transformed a meager startup into a $1 billion brand phenomenon.

Tony is a gifted individual. He has the ability to captivate and engage people through heartfelt, peer-to-peer interaction. His simple message of spreading happiness and memorable customer service is powerful as it resonates throughout the business sector. His vision of a people-focused, service enterprise will transcend the company from an online shoe wholesaler to a global brand that may one day rival Virgin – a company that serves as inspiration for Tony.

I recently had the opportunity to work with Tony and the Zappos team, along with Stephanie Agresta (my partner in The TechSet) and Steve Rosenbaum of Magnify.net. Our mission was to showcase ecstatic customers who capture and share the happiness that Tony Hsieh and the Zappos team have worked so hard to package in every box. The result, Zappos BoxBreaks, which debuted at SXSW.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story…

Dave McClure

Tony Hsieh shares his company culture

Mazy Kazerooni, uStream

Beth Kanter

Daniel Brusilovsky, TeensInTech

Loic Le Meur of Seesmic

Larry Chiang

Cyan Banister of Zivity shows us her new ring

Christine Lu and Dave McClure go barefoot for SamaritansFeet.com and the Charity SMACKDOWN

Mark Schulze of Quantcast

Frank Gruber

Pascale Diaine

Tony Hsieh and Brian Solis

For more pictures from Startup2Starup, please visit my album on Flickr.

Also, please read Mark Hendrickson’s post on Tony Hsieh’s presentation on “Delivering Happiness.”

Connect with me on:
Twitter
, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, or Facebook

Post to Twitter

{ 2 comments }